Looking at a Lowboy that's self contained with a motor I'm wanting to run off a wet kit already on the truck would this be a simple fix or pretty costly. Reason I want to run off the wet kit is we already have them on the trucks, and I don't want to have to worry abt keeping another motor running.
I would think its more a matter of taking the engine and reservoir and maybe change some plumbing on the trailer to hook up to the fittings off the wet kit. I doubt it will cost you much more then a few fittings and some couplers.
Just as movindirt said.... just some plumbing and some fittings. Some trailers are set up so you can either run the self contained engine or run it off your wet line. Basically just by turning a couple of valves you can switch from one to the other.
Just a thought, you haven't said if you have high or low pressure wet kits, single line or dual acting, but you might need some sort of bypass in the trailer hydraulics if your trucks have the directional valve on your trailers, or it might be needed on the truck to supply the trailer with a steady supply of oil. I have checked into it a little for my RGN. It's not real complicated, but it's not necessarily just tee into the trailer and go, either. Truck Shop might have more insight than this, or maybe somebody else.
One advantage to a self contained unit is that you don't have to worry about cross contamination of fluids. If one truck gets contaminated for any reason it easily gets into other trucks systems. Of course this can happen with swapping dump trailers also. The self contained units with the Honda motors on them seem to generally run trouble free. One option might be to put the T'ees and valves in giving you the option to connect to the truck system if the trailer motor fails. It is a nice option when you don't need a wet truck to connect.
I agree with Shimmy, depends on the purpose of the original wet kit A few years back I set up a truck that already had a lowboy wet kit to run an end dump too. The lowboy kit had a high pressure, low volume pump on the 6 hole PTO opening and I put a high volume pump on the 8 hole PTO opening. Then the truck could run both. I have also seen a high volume low pressure hydraulic motor run a low volume high pressure pump on a lowboy so the owner could run his dump pump.
Thanks for the replies guy, all our trucks are set up with double line wet kits with pumps so we can run both a end dump and detach. Reason I'm thinking wet kit trailer would be better, is bc it wouldn't get used that often and I'm afraid every time I needed it motor wouldn't start. The trailer I'm looking at is a late 70s Talbert non ground bearing, drop side detach tandem axle with a 3rd pin on. It would be used to haul a farm hoe and farm dozer around is probably all it would do.
No reason you can't have the best of both worlds, probably all you need to do is put some quick disconnects on the pressure and return lines from the control valve, you could leave the engine and pump in place, never know might come in handy.