Vintage Rice Trailer Help

[Jmaloney1982]

Good Evening All,

I have just bought a little project and wondered if you could assist me. I believe this to be a 1960's Rice Hunt Box Trailer. I am going to be converting this (Hopefully) to a little mobile coffee business. I cant find much info about these trailers online and cant seem to post a picture, i don't have it yet as its being delivered on Thursday, below is the link from where i purchased it.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/265703608160

Are these classed as a Brake trailer? I can see it has brakes from the pictures, but not sure if this is just a handbrake type setup for when stationary?

Any idea of the weight of the trailer? I have read that if it weighs less than 750KG once complete it would need brakes, again this may be totally incorrect!

I can only apologise if this a silly questions as i am new to this and would like to learn as i go.

I cant imagine that spares for this will be available anymore, so that might be tricky!

 

[July dreamer]

Hi,

This might be a Rice Farmers Hunt trailer. I had one from new in the late 1970's/early 80's. The Farmers Hunt didn't have the front unload whereas the Rice Beaufort did, so the Farmers Hunt was lighter but I'm sure it must have been more than 750KG as my current single horse Ifor Williams trailer is more than that. From vague memory you had to put a pin in somewhere on the drawbar to stop the brakes coming on when you wanted to reverse.

Good luck with your search, I see quite a few trailers converted to coffee bars now.

 

[Tiddlypom]

I would think from looking at it that it is an original style Rice Eventer trailer. The Farmers Hunt had a more rounded front. I had a similar Eventer, I got it secondhand in the early 80s but it will have been a 1970s build. As the poster above says, it was braked but it did not have auto reverse, so you had to manually put a pin in to reverse, and then remove the pin afterwards. Maybe yours is a bit newer and it could have autoreverse, which has been standard for many years now.

They are lightweight trailers, much lighter than the Farmer's Hunt. I recall just over 600kg unladen? They were designed to take two lightweight horses.

You will need the brakes to work to be legal to tow it even when empty, as the gross vehicle weight is over 750kg.

https://www.sbtrailers.co.uk/trailer-information/braked-unbraked-trailers-difference/

Gross Vehicle Weight Is defined as:

“This is specified by the manufacturer and it means the maximum weight the vehicle or trailer is allowed to be when fully loaded. It is the unladen weight of a vehicle plus the maximum permitted payload. Also known as Maximum Permissible Mass, item F1 on the V5C.”

 

[Rowreach]

It's a Rice Farmers Hunt and yes it's a braked trailer. I did one up in 1990, it was hard to get the parts then but not impossible. But if you're doing it as a coffee wagon then basic joinery and metal working will be what you need, and the listing says all parts including brakes are included, so it shouldn't be difficult to refit them.

They were a great box for towing and have horses a much better ride than most modern ones.

 

[I'm Dun]

Trailer Tek can usually help you with parts. They are quite often things that need a bit of tweaking to work, but they can usually sort something for you

 

[Tiddlypom]

I still think it is an Eventer, not a Farmers Hunt, though a front on pic would clear that up. The Farmers Hunt had a more rounded front profile. This is my old Eventer - it looks identical to the one posted by the OP. It has the same hoops and side ventilation thingeys, plus it had a roll down rear cover above the ramp like OP's.

Stuck in traffic on the M5 in c1985 . Oh look, a broken down Rover on the hard shoulder! Ours made it ok.



The pic below is a Farmers Hunt. Farmers Hunts were a heavier, sturdier and frankly better trailer than the Eventer.

 

[holeymoley]

Love that photo, that's amazing.

 

[Birker2020]

http://www.horsetrailersales.co.uk/RiceIndex.asp RICE TRAILERS
http://www.horsetrailersales.co.uk/RichardsonIndex.asp RICHARDSON TRAILERS

here we go, does that help?

The chap that runs this is really helpful, I've since forgotten his name. After an in depth conversation about my trailer we came to the conclusion mine was a Bayhill and not a RR after all.

 

[Rowreach]

Somewhere there’s an old thread about a place that has parts as well, although they didn’t have the bits I needed for a Richardson a couple of years ago.

 

[Rowreach]

I still think it is an Eventer, not a Farmers Hunt, though a front on pic would clear that up. The Farmers Hunt had a more rounded front profile. This is my old Eventer - it looks identical to the one posted by the OP. It has the same hoops and side ventilation thingeys, plus it had a roll down rear cover above the ramp like OP's.

Stuck in traffic on the M5 in c1985 . Oh look, a broken down Rover on the hard shoulder! Ours made it ok.

View attachment 93933

The pic below is a Farmers Hunt. Farmers Hunts were a heavier, sturdier and frankly better trailer than the Eventer.


View attachment 93934

Actually you might be right ? I didn’t have my glasses on earlier.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

I still think it is an Eventer, not a Farmers Hunt, though a front on pic would clear that up. The Farmers Hunt had a more rounded front profile. This is my old Eventer - it looks identical to the one posted by the OP.

I used to have a Farmers Hunt, best trailer I have ever had. So roomy and towed brilliantly. We towed ours with a Rover V8 3500 automatic, same body shape as yours. Had to sell the Farmers Hunt when we downgraded car and then got the Eventer which was also a cracking trailer and towed beautifully but a heck of a lot lighter. Mine was in a very sorry state by the time I got rid of it and went to be converted to a food van I believe. Current Rice looks like the Eventer but not quite the same measurements so no idea what model it is.

 

[Errin Paddywack]

Seeing the picture of the old Farmers Hunt has made me feel really nostalgic, still remember being so thrilled when we bought it, first proper trailer we had and we had such fun with it went all over. We could get 40 bales of hay in it, only 27 in the Eventer.

 

[Birker2020]

Seeing the picture of the old Farmers Hunt has made me feel really nostalgic, still remember being so thrilled when we bought it, first proper trailer we had and we had such fun with it went all over. We could get 40 bales of hay in it, only 27 in the Eventer.

Those were the days. The amount of stuff I've carried in my trailer helping shift furniture, hay and straw, shavings, boxes of stuff for charity! I love my trailer, its has huge sentimental value. I don't think I'd sell it in a hurry. But I know similar is going for around 2-3K now. The worlds gone mad!

 

[Birker2020]

Somewhere there’s an old thread about a place that has parts as well, although they didn’t have the bits I needed for a Richardson a couple of years ago.

Warwickshire Trailers maybe?
Suspension and other parts like that were best got from Avonride as they didn't have any mark up.

 

[Tiddlypom]

I used to have a Farmers Hunt, best trailer I have ever had. So roomy and towed brilliantly. We towed ours with a Rover V8 3500 automatic, same body shape as yours.

Cracking good trailers, weren't they? Our Rover in the pic was a 2200 TC manual, rear wheel drive and a really good tow car. My parents had a 3500 V8 automatic, a lovely car when it behaved but it also spent rather a lot of time overheated on the hard shoulder...

Mind you, it saved my brother's life when he fell asleep at the wheel in the middle of the night (he was then a junior hospital doctor working insane hours) and he came off the motorway down the embankment. The ahead-of-its-time passenger protection cage shunted the engine in underneath the cabin, not into the cabin. He was able to get out unaided by climbing out of the front passenger door. The police told him that a chap had done the same in a Ford Granada the week before and been killed. Bro told them that he must have fallen asleep at the wheel, but they had already checked his driving licence and seen that he was a doctor, and they said 'We didn't hear that, sir'.

Different times.