How to Add Plywood Decking to the Harbor Freight Utility Trailer (2024)

The decking consists of one sheet of plywood cut in half. The first issue we had to deal with were these bolt heads on each corner of the frame. Since they stuck up above the frame, we needed to drill into the backside of the plywood to create a recessed area for these bolt heads to fit into in order for the plywood to lay flat.

The second issue involved the hinges. Due to the placement of the hinges, the plywood would not slide underneath. To solve this, we cut a small notch for the plywood to fit.

The notch was cut with a battery powered DeWalt multitool.

Steph's first trip under the trailer was to mark the placement of the bolts.

Using a 3/8in drill bit, Steph drilled all the holes for the bolts.

Here I'm cleaning up the holes with a Dremel rotary tool and cylinder shaped grinding accessory. On the first decking side, I only sanded and didn't clean out the holes. Using the rotary tool really was a better choice.

This is the galvanized hardware we used to secure the plywood to the trailer frame.

We used 3/8" carriage bolts, lock washers, and hex nuts.

This was one of the tweaks we ultimately made to the decking. After living with the decking for a few weeks, Steph decided the bolt heads on the topside needed to be recessed. So she took the decking off and used a Forstner bit to drill holes to recess the bolt heads. This Rockler drill press accessory insured they were all the same depth and perfectly straight.

The next tweak was to stain both sides with this leftover Olympic Elite stain. We used this stain on Steph's outdoor furniture and been very pleased with it so we thought it would be a good choice to help protect the wood decking.

This Ryobi battery powered ratching wrench was a game changer! Steph saw it advertised and the next day we went to Home Depot and bought it. She was able to secure the second half of the deck in less than half the time of the first.

This tool made quick work of fastening all those carriage bolts!

Oh, and we also went back to Harbor Freight and picked up this blue creeper. It made it so much easier for Steph to get under and work on the trailer plus there are recessed area to put hardware as it is taken off so you don't lose any!

We decided to add a rail to the back of the trailer which we are doing here. Well, Steph is working on the trailer, I'm bagging up a bunch of old tennis balls for Alice, the next door neighbors' Doberman.

The back rail is a simple design, two 4' 2x6 boards are attached to two 2x4s which then fit into brackets on the back of the frame.

The rail is secured into place with two bolts. The rail is painted in leftover outdoor house paint.

Here's a birdseye view of the topside recessed bolts and how the plywood now fits around the hinge.

And, of course, we had to give the trailer a cute name which is an homage to the greyhounds!

In the Home Depot parking lot picking up our first load of lumber!