Trailer Restoration Vintage 1957 Treg South Australia

Vintage 1957 Treg Trailer Restoration

Treg are a South Australian Trailer Company – started by Gordon Joseph Tregoning, ex-Navy where he learnt many of his skills. He began the Treg Trailer factory in 1946. They were and are synonymous for excellent strong quality. After 75 years of trading, they ceased manufacturing trailers around 2021 and now just sell their poly couplings and parts.
I knew I had found a beauty, used well, but barely looked after, in a farm’s paddock for livestock near Port Pirie South Australia.
7 Cross struts, and a rusted-out floor – it had good bones to not renovate – but restore.
As the photos show, I worked on stripping it down and then angle grinded the floor out (took several days) there were so many welds, that floor had hung in even when most of the sides were rusted away. Chris go the last one out and helped me to lift the floor out…. It was heavy.
The wheels were a different story – there were two but no spare, so when getting new tyres on them I found they were Rover wheels. Bush telegraph told me who to ring – up in the hills, beside/with an antique dolls store! So drove up into the hills and found they had one left! Spare wheel now I was safe to cross the Nullarbor.
Next, had to cover the load as I wanted to carry additional Gerry cans of fuel to cross. I laugh now as the price of fuel may get to $2.50 p/L – sounded shocking at the time, but the trailer saved me over $250 by carrying my own to use in the middle at the most expensive place. (its now over $3.80L there!)
The trailer had a unique feature – both ends had a tail gate. So for security sake, I inserted bolts into the front and had chris touch weld them closed.
Over the fence I spied an old rusted away trailer, not worth fixing, but with a grand metal roof! I ventured over and struck a deal with the old guy living there - $200.
So then it was just a matter of sanding back the surface rust, having a couple of spots cut out and welded in the framework, and then – as is my mantra – always prime well, with etch anti rust metal prime. Then use enamel White Knight Hammer beaten Blue Metal finish paint and the same in the white. For the lid to reflect the sun and keep it cool. The black metal basket on the roof was for my push bike, but found it better for some firewood. The bike got too dusty and made the lid too heavy to lift.
The lid was hinged with two very large hinges, and added two gas struts, which I and professionally situated at the caravan yard close by when I got new chains welded on and a new jockey wheel.
The end result is not bad for a Vintage Treg. I even hand painted white over the embossed
TREG NAME AND NUMBERS ON THE TAIL GATE. Thanks to Belinda and Chris for allowing me to stay and do all the work on this for 4 weeks. Even swapped out the fridge in the bus at the same time.
Thanks for watching, hope this encourages or helps someone out there – Subscribe and leave your comments below. Cheers and Happy trails to you all. Jen

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