Trailer Design

Post by **disneyd** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 12:56 pm

This weekend I'm building a new trailer to haul the locost on... its been a pain to get the locost up onto my other trailer, and with a 10,000 pound capacity I think its a little overkill for a 1250 pound car.

Anyway, I wanted to get any ideas from you guys on what you'd do if you built a custom trailer... I don't want to finish it and then say, doh!, wish I had done it that way.

Here's what I have so far:

3500 Pound Axle with electric brakes and 15" wheels/tires

I'm using LED lighting so I won't have to be replacing bulbs

I have a large, locking aluminum storage box to be attached to the trailer to store all my AutoX stuff in.

The trailer bed will tilt so I can drive the car up onto it (no ramps!). I will make sure that a) it will stay tilted down when the bed is unlatched (it would be hard to drive up on otherwise!) and b) The rear wheels are on the trailer before there's enough weight on the front to tilt the bed forward... so it won't tilt before the car's on there and hit the underside of the car.

I know I need to make the tongue long enough so I can cut sharply without hitting the bumper of my truck with the trailer.

An experienced trailer builder is helping me, so hopefully I won't build something too dangerous

I need about 300 to 400 pounds of tongue weight when the trailer is loaded, right? I guess I would still need to be sure I have positive tongue weight even when its not loaded....

Any other suggestions? I can post some drawings if anyone is interested.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:05 pm

Well I was going to link you to this guys post (http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=480977). He build his own trailer, but his pics are down now. I'd try emailing him and see what snags/ideas he came across.

Also found this link has several articles about building a trailer, it may give you a few ideas. http://www.circletrack.com/searchresult ... ar+trailer

A few people on HT.com have designed and/or built their own trailers.

MARKP · Post by **MARKP** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:00 pm

3300-400 lbs of tongue weight sounds about right to me. I always thought it would be neat to incorporate a canopy with a trailer so you could use it for shelter when the car isn't on it.

Another good thing to have is a winch but I don't know if you could do that with a tilt-platform trailer.

Post by **disneyd** » Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:38 pm

Here's a link to some drawings I made... you'll have to have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to look at it:

http://rx7.voodoobox.net/images/trailer.pdf

Thanks for the info so far guys... those were good links Steven.