Thread: Intro & Motorcycle trailer

Greeting to one and all, I'm a newbie to the forum but not to life, also I'm a mechanic by trade but have been out of the business for over quarter of a century due to a back injury which has slowed me down (a lot) but hasn't stopped me yet.

I have read this trailer forum from cover to cover and have picked up a great number of valuable tips along the way, but I'm now preparing to build a motorcycle trailer and wanted to bounce a few ideas around to see what others think. The goal I'm aiming for is a bike trailer which can handle the usual 3 motorbikes BUT alternatively be used to carry a chook-chaser as well as both of my kid's quad bikes.

After a lot of measuring and thinking (as well as me tiring of drawing and reworking hand-drawn plans in the past), this time I decided I needed the help of some type of CAD package which didn't need a degree to understand, or use, AND wasn't too expensive. The mention of Sketchup had me intrigued but I admit I was very hesitant to try it out, I finally installed Sketchup and after watching the intro videos, decided to dive in head first, much to my amazement in under 24 hours I was able to put my cerebrally stored plans onto a medium that others can see and critique.

The following pictures are two designs I have come up with, with both having a bed 3100mm long and 1370mm wide, with outriggers at the front and rear which make the width 1800mm wide (mudguards and other side fixtures have not come into the equation yet). The drawbar, side rails, front and rear cross-members are 75mm x 50mm x 3mm RHS and the inner cross-members are 50mm x 50mm x 2.5mm SHS... now where the difference lies is within the number of cross-members.

Attachment 204350 Attachment 204351

As you can see, one design has three cross-members, these are spaced at 712.5mm apart, this is the lighter of the two designs. The other design has four cross-members with spacings of 560mm apart, now while this would be heavier, the idea behind this design is to have a hydraulic motorcycle lift built into the floor. My question is: "Do you think the design with 4 cross-members would be too heavy?"

I'm currently leaning towards the four cross-member design, if I go this route, I don't have a final design for the motorcycle lift so I am open to suggestions regarding the design of this.

Cheers,
Glenn