Thread: Trailer for long loads.

That's a superb bit of work. I'll bet you're gonna discover a whole bunch of friends you never realised you had

I'll bet you're gonna discover a whole bunch of friends you never realised you had

+1

Originally Posted by Yonnee

Centre spring hanger should be at 8'8" (2640mm), and the rest of the hangers placed accordingly.

How did you come up with this figure?
Congratulations on your very informative post.

Welcome R W, good to have you on board.

The calculation is an industry standard that's used by most trailer manufacturers for most trailers. It's by no means the be all and end all as certain trailer configurations require the axle placement to be adjusted accordingly to get them to tow well. (Horse floats and boat trailers for example.)

Generally, the rule of thumb is the axle or axle group is placed 1/2" to the rear of centre for every foot of body of trailer, excluding the drawbar. So, the case with this trailer, with a 16' body, the centre hanger being the middle of the axle group for a tandem, is placed 8" rearward of centre, or 8'8" from the front cross rail.

However, once you go over 8.077M (26.5') in trailer length, your axle group can be no further forward than 3.7M from the rear cross rail.

Thanks for your reply, That is a good one to remember, in fact I've written it down next to one I read
on a US forum, they worked on a 60/40 basis. (Length of trailer excluding drawbar).
Your method seems to work out around 54/46 and is very easy to calculate.

Richard

Only just seen this thread. Really nice trailer. Interestingly I had the same challenge a few years back and built a trailer to haul some demolition materials I had acquired. It was timber up to 5m long, but I wanted it able to carry 6m at a push.

I had a long drawbar and allowed for up to 1m overhang at the rear. The trailer body is 3.6m long. I purposely left it without a floor initially, which produced an outcry at the inspection. The authorised inspector screamed,

"It's got no floor."

I had to explain that I made it to secure lengths of timber with chains and dogs, which I wanted to loop around the chassis rails. He was alright with that.

Subsequently I made few alterations. I put an additional second set of springs under the axle as I had seriously misjudged the first springs. I now have removable frontgate and tailgate and a removeable plywood floor so I can transport other materials too. I also moved the spare wheel ahead of the rear axle for better weight distribution when empty.

Lastly, I think you mentioned one of your proposed materials was corrugated iron. Quite a difficult commodity to tie down. Not if you sandwich it between two battens (75 x 38, 100 x 50 or similar) Bolts or even better suitable threaded rod clamp the boards jsut outside the sheets and across the width of the iron. One set of boards at the front of the trailer and one at the back will probably suffice but more can be used if you wish.

This gives something that you can really tie down on and prevent from moving forward as you like me do not have a headboard. If the iron is new the bolts won't have to be very long, but second hand iron tends not to sit snugly and depending on quantities you may need 200mm rods or longer. This is where the threaded rod is more versatile.

Anyhow, congratulations on the trailer. It is a superb job.

Regards
Paul

Thanks Paul, It might have been easier to put a solid floor in it, cause now I have to explain to all and sundry why it hasn't! Yes, I too have used the batten method of tying down corry and also large flat cement sheets. It also prevents damage to the edges of the sheet. My other trailer has many holes in the floor where I have past the threaded rod through the batten and then the floor. The only thing I've ever lost off a trailer is a red tail flag! This trailer will make loading and securing super easy now.
Cheers.

Richard

Looks like we are of one accord here..

Regards
Paul

You don't see to many photo's of home built trailers after we start using them, so here is a few of my 'trailer for long loads' project doing what I designed and built it for! With thanks to this forums contributors.

Looks very smart. Purpose built. Like it. Thanks for posting the pix. Some brief specs on dimensions, wheels etc would be good too.

Regards
Paul