Trailer Designs and my latest whacky design

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

We are in complete agreement  with regard trailers. Single axle, as light as possible. 

Once you live with tilting trailers though you will not like them, the deck cannot add  to the strength but dramatically adds to the weight.  Plus they are longer in order to get approach angle shallow enough to deal with lowered cars.  

The idea of separating tow vehicle from trailer and then unloading it is disaster in the waiting. The world is full of hills and valleys. What’s going to stop the trailer from rolling away once disconnected? 

Brake_L8 said:

Am I the only one who thinks a sub-$2k EconoTrailer with properly-functioning safety gear and axles that aren't falling off is the best solution? 

I like them except for the weight, but yes - probably perfectly adequate for most users.  

914Driver said:

I remember that from the 2004 Challenge, impressive.

Surpised you remember- you were pretty much buried in your BatVan.  

In reply to frenchyd : Sorry, I have to answer you in segments due to time restrictions.   You can achieve what you want and your rejection of the established way of doing things is how you will succeed.  

However you have to forget welded steel tubing.  Too heavy for not enough rigidity.  Your choices are elsewhere.  First how good are you at scrounging?  Are you anyplace near a  major metro area?  Willing to go there?  By any chance are you within traveling distance of a Boeing factory?  

Are you willing to work with composites? Fiberglass/ plywood? If so you can build yourself an amazingly light, strong , quiet trailer. Ramps will be stored in the trailer out of your way when not in use.  Pop out, slide over, drop in place.  Then rock and they will slide back into storage out of your way.  

It will be cheap but not free.  How expensive will be determined by your ability to scrounge.  

In reply to frenchyd :

LOL. I'm pretty sure dumpster diving at your local Boeing facility for trailer materials is discouraged if not impossible.

Sooooo where do you live, because I don’t want to be on the roads around a guy towing a trailer with no lights who has had an axle fall out a couple times and talks about it like it’s no big deal

frenchyd said:

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

The idea of separating tow vehicle from trailer and then unloading it is disaster in the waiting. The world is full of hills and valleys. What’s going to stop the trailer from rolling away once disconnected? 

Separating the trailer from tow vehicle before loading or unloading is a recipe for disaster with snowmobiles, I can’t see it working any better with cars. 

In reply to 2002maniac :

Actually most Boeing facilities have surplus/ expired materials available.   I have a friend who regularly picks up honeycomb decking. ( except he’s near Seattle).

I always liked one thing about uhaul trailers. The fender on the driver's  side is on a pivot so you can tilt it away from the load. This allows it to be tall enough to clear the tyres under full load, but still allow access to the car or truck being towed. Rather brilliant for a simple idea

Here is my trailer detached and the front sitting on the ground.  Looking at that,  'we don't need no stinkin ramps'.

I've loaded two cars on my trailer recently (from the back, not front) with it disconnected from my truck, it works.  

With electric brakes powered by a 12v battery on the trailer,  there should be no issue with it moving. 

When loading from the front you should never make the front lift up, otherwise you have negative tongue weight.

The question is how much more of a hassle would it be vs loading from the back.   Car must be strapped on, that takes time no matter what kind of trailer.

I definitely use the trailer for all kind of stuff, it has concrete residue all over now..

I just dragged home a hood for my Corvette I got at the picknpull for $60 today.  Amazing a C4 vette at the picknpull, this is the second one I've seen.

The 'tiny' wheels I am planning to use are actually 8 inch wheels, here is a pic of it against the trailer, it would not raise it up all that much if under it compared to where it is now,

which is pretty low.  Here is a link to the wheels, 

The 'dually' idea would NOT be like normal dually which are two wheels bolted together, each wheel will have its own hub and bearings, so four of them.

A couple thoughts:

If you load it from the front, you'll have to take the winch off because otherwise it won't fit.  Winches are good.  Having a winch on your trailer practically guarantees that you'll never blow the transmission up on the race car.  Taking it off practically guarantees the opposite. :)

Also, if you load it from the front, how are you planning on lifting the front of the trailer back up high enough to hitch it on the truck again?  Floor jack?

If loading from the front, the normal hitch is too high, I would use a pintle hitch, where there is just a round loop on the trailer

And obviously the winch does no good in the front, it would be moved to the back of the trailer, and the swing jack would have to go.

To raise and lower the front, I'd probably rig up a wireless electric scissor jack maybe a foot or so behind the hitch,  as they take up very little vertical space when not expanded.

In reply to nimblemotorsports:

I know you've stated lightness, but I figured you'd want some ideas/inspiration: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikzm_4Adz3U

Would LOVE to have that Raceking trailer simply because it's a multi-use product, but what WOULD make it the ultimate multi-use product is a removable tongue, providing lift capabilities in a typical garage! 

In reply to 2GRX7 :

Airbagged Trailers looks REALLY nice. But at that price you ould buy a truck and an enclosed trailer. 

https://www.airbaggedtrailers.com/trailers/ultimate/

Are there drawings of how the Aussie "drop" trailer works ?

I see it has a hydrolic pump , I wonder if there is a simple way to do it mechanically which would be lighter.

This style trailer is used by companies moving safes and heavy machines ,

Thanks for your ideas

In reply to californiamilleghia :

If you look at it operate, it appears to me that they have the axle mounts on a rotating assembly that is tied between the two sides.  Whether they are stub axles or an entire axle is hard to see- but I would harbor a guess that they are stub axles that are mounted on the rotating structure.  The ram is a pretty simple solution to a problem that has to lift 3500lb- which is the key problem with making it lighter.  And by that, I'm not sure you can find a lighter mechanism that can lift that much weight that far.  Even with what it is- it's using a lever for mechanical advantage.  

And one still needs to find some pretty bulky shear pins to lock it up.

Compare that with making a simple swing axle with a shock to mount to the trailer- which is the airbag system  That one may be easier to fabricate- although both designs also have to factor in the realtionship with the tounge- you have to lift the entire structure when it's balanced on the two axles.

2GRX7 said:

In reply to nimblemotorsports:

I know you've stated lightness, but I figured you'd want some ideas/inspiration: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikzm_4Adz3U

Would LOVE to have that Raceking trailer simply because it's a multi-use product, but what WOULD make it the ultimate multi-use product is a removable tongue, providing lift capabilities in a typical garage! 

 

If you stare at that thing long enough, it's a very simple design.  First, the stub axle is mounted to a very simple, one bold, swing axle.  And the top of that has an air bag, and a shock absorber.  Both of which are solidly mounted to the trailer.  Very simple design.  One really cool thing that I like about it is that even with a pretty robust wheel travel, the trailer can be pretty low to the ground under normal use.  That would make a nice to pull small trailer even nicer to pull.

Given it's simplicity, I can't really see why it costs so much to make and sell.  It's a pretty basic deck design with a cool axle design- but super exotic.

Food for thought

The airbag trailers look like a failure waiting to happen.  cheaper? not even close.  better? no.  faster? maybe

All these fancy trailers the mechanisms are not published.

I had the same idea 20 years ago and thought through ways to rotate the axle, many ways to do it, most don't care too  much about weight, 

that is why the RaceKing is the most interesting because that IS what they care about.

But this style won't work if the wheels are UNDER the trailer, and that is where I'm going with my new design so doors can be opened when on the trailer.

Having a flat top has advantages, here is my trailer where I hauled a 3000lb roll of turf, and to unload it, I just rolled it off the side..btw, those are my ramps on it, I use them like that to load heavy stuff on the open part.

The backwards trailer though I think is genius,  everyone has done car trailers wrong all this time.   

The back of the trailer does not have to be flat anymore, so the lights can be mounted there, and not stick out the sides and get smashed up.

The Pintle hitch looks good too, nothing more frustrating than getting a std ball hitch coupler hooked up, whereas the pintle loop just clips in.

The other trailer design idea is to have wireless lights.  Given a battery on the trailer, no need to have wires connecting the truck to the trailer,

the truck just sends signals out and the trailer will respond and turn on/off the lights itself.  With low-power LEDS and lithium batteries this is more practical than before

So disconnect/reconnect is even simpler.

I  engineered wireless lights on my MG to save weight on wires, just one power wire is used.  Yeah, going extreme to save 3 lbs right?  yep.

nimblemotorsports said:

I  engineered wireless lights on my MG to save weight on wires, just one power wire is used.  Yeah, going extreme to save 3 lbs , right?  yep.

Can you write up a post on how to do this , 

Will it transmit all the way to the back of a trailer ?

And would it work with magnetic lights ?

Thanks

In reply to californiamilleghia :

Wireless tow lights are fairly common.

https://zips.com/parts-detail/towmate-sun-light-wireless-tow-light-y-tm22y

As for reinventing trailers there’s a reason trailers generally load from the rear. I’ve done some work with detachable construction trailers and they’re  a bit of a pain in the ass as opposed to loading from the rear.  I can’t see a cheap version with a bumper pull hitch being easily.  You will still need ramps to compensate for the dead space the length of the tongue and a pretty strong but compact jack to get back up.  It seems like it would be simpler to have some wood to back the rear wheels of the tow vehicle onto to lower the rear of the trailer.

Just an observation:

The small trailer tires are only rated for 1,078 lbs, and wheels are only rated for 910 lbs. Even with 4 of them you’re only going to be able to get a max capacity of about 4,300 lbs if you put 15% of the trailer weight on the tongue. 

..you have to forget welded steel tubing.  Too heavy for not enough rigidity. 

Why not? I do have a bunch of 1.5 in .120 wall tubing, and some 7/8 .049 tubing, and was thinking of making some trusses with them, basically two pairs to run the tire tracks such that the wheels fit inside of the pair,

the track/deck connected to the top of the trusses.

You know, kinda like a dragster chassis..  or arial atom..

But that is a lot of tubing notching, i think going with rectangular tube for the trusses would be a lot easier.   

I wanted to build this trailer out of fiberglass, making tubing using filament winding, but I see no time in the near future to build my filament winding machine.

In reply to nimblemotorsports :

Neither of those chassis you showed are particularly rigid, nor torsionally stiff.

But then again, neither are trailers. And that works to their advantage, mostly. Think of a trailer chassis as a really big spring that regulates the trailer suspension.

Beaming stiffness is most important in a trailer. You get that with depth of chassis members...rail height.