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Cooler Bay Modification

1899 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  brasscap, 
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I have a Salmon River Frame that fits a big Willy 2 with inside tube dimensions around 45" between. The cooler bay was built with the diagonal tubes from the top bar to the lower foot bar at only about 35" or so. I talked to the guys at Cambridge Welding and they said cut the diagonal tubes out to make room for the biggest cooler possible and just put holes through the foot bar and the longitudinal frame member to keep the foot bar from rotating. Thinking I'll just use a 1/4" safety pin with wire clasp to keep the foot bar from rotating (see attached). Any advice on this or other ways people have modified to fit the biggest possible cooler? Thanks

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oarframe
Are you sure the new cooler would fit the existing space front to back? Mine was sized for an old landfill 100qt cooler and when I wanted a better one I had to downsize the cooler to get it to fit in the frame. it wasn't the tube to tube length of the cooler that limited me, but the front to back width. I have often wondered how they make the cooler bay for big coolers and have suspected they leave those diagonal bars off.
Good luck and post some pics when you're done.
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oarframe
What about replacing the cooler/footbar rectangular section with 2 pieces of pipe similar to the ones between the siderail sections? You would loose the footbar hoop but it's pretty useless anyway imho.
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ebh0619 said:
I have a Salmon River Frame that fits a big Willy 2 with inside tube dimensions around 45" between. The cooler bay was built with the diagonal tubes from the top bar to the lower foot bar at only about 35" or so. I talked to the guys at Cambridge Welding and they said cut the diagonal tubes out to make room for the biggest cooler possible and just put holes through the foot bar and the longitudinal frame member to keep the foot bar from rotating. Thinking I'll just use a 1/4" safety pin with wire clasp to keep the foot bar from rotating (see attached). Any advice on this or other ways people have modified to fit the biggest possible cooler? Thanks
Click to expand...
I know of 2 rafters that have done this exact mod without any hiccups. One I know for sure is at least 10 years running.
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