Trailer Project

[mid life crisis]

hi all

i mentioned somewhere on here a while back i was going to build a trailer for my dirt circuit race car

so now its completed i took some happy snap's along the way

first desion was actually what requirments were needed and how big did i want it .

1 had to have electric brakes

2 had to have 4 inch drop axles so the trailer was lower to the ground

3 trailer had to tilt for easier loading and off loading

4 ramps had to be fitted to back of trailer so no crawling on ya hands and knees sliding ramps back in esp when it was dark and muddy .

5 led lights all around

6 did not want full floor just runners down each side for wheels to sit on & had to be alloy

7 mag wheels just cause i had some lol.

8 trailer bed had to be 4800mm long x 1980mm wide inside measurement so trailer would be on maxium size for total width.

ok that sounds easy ey lol well i had a partner in crime who happens to be a mechanicel engineer so his job was to draw it all up and well make sure it works lol .

he put together a list of materials required for the job not only that but had the correct measurement of every piece .so i emailed a list of all the cut size bits to the local steel supplier and got him to quote the materials .

the price he come back with was cheaper than i had worked out so we gave him the go ahead . next day a truck rolled up with a pile of metal all different sizes lenghs diameters i just looked at the pile and thought what the f........ ah well i was pretty good with a mechano set as a kid how hard can it be lol.

scaled picture in one hand and tape measure in the other work started lol first job lay out the main chassis and make it square

by now my mate had come around and made life a bit easier put a few pieces together a few tack welds and started measuring cnr to cnr now i thought 3 or 4 mm out of squere was good enough but the look of horror on my mates face tells me maybe rough enough is not good enough his idea of squere is less than 1 mm so away we went adding more n bits tackibf them in remeasure with string lines tape measures and set squeres this was like maths class comming back to haunt me lol.time for another pic

we had by this stage had the axles in place measuring several times to make sure ever thing would be aligned straight and true .

next come more cross bracing and smaller supports for under the wheel runners . next we started on the draw bar this was another mm x mm experince lol we made the pivots so the trailer could tilt useing 25mm bright bar for the pins and a bush machined to fit the bush was welded in each side of the drawbar so brackets could be welded off the trailer frame and conected to the draw bar sorry no pics of that .

once we had the draw bar connected to the frame we went around welding everything up and flipping the frame over to do the underside also took to opertunity to undercoat the frame while it was off the ground kill rust undercoat was paint of chioce .

once lowered and back on jackstands we got stuck into making the side rails and mount the mudgaurds and make the rear pull down ramps .

just before that tho we hooked it up to my old wagon and towed it out to the street to test the tilt side of things we discovered it tilted too good and in a later fix we resolved that problem

so back into the shed where all the other bits and pieces slowly went together the pile of steel was getting smaller and smaller and my smile was getting bigger and bigger lol once we started mounting the floor it started to look like a trailer .

moving right along come the fun bits like mounting lights and hiding the wiring and wiring up the electric brakes give the old girl it's final coat of paint in this case it was killrust hammertone charcol grey gave it a good 3 or 4 coats just kept going till the paint ran out lol.

trailer past inspection and now has 12 months rego with everything i wanted on it just waiting on some jerry can holders to add to it and my spare tyre to get mounted onto the other mag it's all done .

i could not have build this without my good mate travis so kudo's mate much apreciated :-) ah now we get to do it all again in a month or two as travis needs one for his race car ..this explains my absence for here for quite a while hope you enjoyed the read and pics

cheers dean

[BOZ22N]

Looks great Dean.

[TiTAN]

how much tilt did you end up with?

how are you tilting it?

i have seen a trailers setup with a large bottle jack mounted between the A frame and the bed or if you wanted it all electric you could use a linear actuator but to be rated to safely lift that weight its going to cost a bit.

[mid life crisis]

• the front of the trailer lifts about 14 inches there are drop down legs at the back of the trailer to limit the amount of tilt .
  
• you just drive the car on slowly and the trailer tilts very gently and as you drive forward slowly the trailer slowly drops back down into position . no jacks no actuators just good ols mechanical leverage works a treat , as long as you just drive on slow and reverse back slow .ive built quite a few this way with no problems .
  

cheers dean

[JZP]

Hey, great project. I am in the process of planning my trailer for the track car. I've got a large tandem that just ain't what I want.

So, maybe you can help out with a couple of questions:

1) How long is the deck from the pivot point? Does the whole car wheel base roll on to the trailer before it reaches the pivot point (so it doesn't tip prematurely)?

2) What do the mini-ramps do?

3) You mentioned you used drop axles? are they different to conventional axles? If they are different - do you have pics?

4) Is it possible to get a picture of the whole trailer setup side on (tipped)

5) Are the leaf springs individually mounted (not load sharing)

Thanks - in advance!

[mid life crisis]

will take some pics and measurments in the next day or so for you but i can awnswer a couple of your questions now

the drop axles instead of just been striaght the stbs are mounted 4 inches higher so the deck of the trailer sits lower to the ground .it uses just plain slipper type springs for n other reason to save a bit of cost plus never had a problem with them in the past.

the ramps pull down and when the car drives up on the ramps it pulls the front of the trailer up into the air .

depending on the car been loaded depends on if the whole car gets on the bed b4 it tilts down or not ....when driving the car up onto the tray and you feel the pivot point start to drop just inch the car forward and it drops really gently .

ive made quite a few of these over the yrs and never had any probs with them the oldest one would be 15 yrs now and still going strong. .

i will measure the bits you want tomorrow for you cheers dean

[JZP]

will take some pics and measurments in the next day or so for you but i can awnswer a couple of your questions now

the drop axles instead of just been striaght the stbs are mounted 4 inches higher so the deck of the trailer sits lower to the ground .it uses just plain slipper type springs for n other reason to save a bit of cost plus never had a problem with them in the past.

the ramps pull down and when the car drives up on the ramps it pulls the front of the trailer up into the air .

depending on the car been loaded depends on if the whole car gets on the bed b4 it tilts down or not ....when driving the car up onto the tray and you feel the pivot point start to drop just inch the car forward and it drops really gently .

ive made quite a few of these over the yrs and never had any probs with them the oldest one would be 15 yrs now and still going strong. .

i will measure the bits you want tomorrow for you cheers dean

That'd be fantastic.

do you have specs of the trailer bed and how it pivots off the drawbar?

[mid life crisis]

the trailer bed is made from 75 x 50 mm x 3mm thick rhs as are the main 2 runners down the centre the smaller cross braces are also 50 x75x 3 mm , the smaller diagonal braces are only 20 x 2.5 mm. the pivots are 25 mm agriculture pins cut down to size and a bush turned up for them to sit it they are welded into the draw bar/

the draw bar is 75 X 50 X 4 mm thick. the alloy floor is 2 2400mm X 1200mm x 3mm sheets cut long ways down the centre to become the runners for the floor . will try and take some pics now its out of the shed and do some close ups of the pivot points for you .

cheers dean

[mid life crisis]

couple more pics out side the shed

[JZP]

Fantastic thanks for posting up the pictures

[mid life crisis]

used the trailer for the first time on the weekend tows like a treat at 100 ks no sway no rettles or squeks i checked a few times to make sure it was still there lol.

and to top it off the friver of the race car we was towing scored 2 wins and 3 seconds out of 5 races some of those from rear of field good day all round