Thread: tilt car trailer build

cheers for that . not sure that will work in my application tho with 4 inch drop axle's unless i measure from where the top of the stub axle to where the chassis would be if that makes sense.

i measure the gap on a friends car trailer today and his is 60 mm from the top of the tyre to the gaurd and he reckons its never hit in 10 yrs so i might go with 70mm to be safe unless anyone else can help before i start mounting them tomorrow .

actually might go to the local servo and measure one of there hire trailers and see what that is .

once again cheers all for your help and guidence in this project

dean

Are you gonna have some means of controlling the rate of tilt? As in some way of stopping it from slamming down on the drawbar.

Have seen a small trailer used to transport a golf buggy with what looks like a shocker mounted between the drawbar and "box" section.

It'd still work with drop axles. If there is say 70mm clearence between the top of the axel and bottom of the frame (assuming the axel is above the spring) then just mount the guards 71mm above the wheels. That is just how I would do it, I like to know I have the clearence just incase.

ive been thinking about slowing down the rate the trailer comes down with some short shocks a lot of the tilt trailers i see at the track the drivers just drive the car on slowly and once past the balance point they just kind of hang there till the car is just inched forward and they come down pretty gentle .
ive been watching a few use this metheod and they dont seem too slam but on the other hand ive seen guys just drive straight up and they come down pretty hard i think i will go down to u pull it wreckers and measure up some shocks out of different cars i cant see a problem in mounting them esp at this stage of building .

keep the advice and hints comming i appreaciate them all

cheers dean

you coulld use a coil spring from a small car suspension just to stop the banging down on the draw bar but not strong enough to get rebound

ah good idea i have a collection of springs from various speedway cars must be a heap of them in the other shed will check that out .

cheers dean

hi all
well another productive day out in the shed managed to make the side rails and mudgaurd mounts all tacked in place will fully weld tomorrow . excuse the mess in the shed i really have made a mess in there since starting this build will be a big clean up /sort out / when it's finished .

some pics from today
cheers dean

For perfect clearance, Rat has it right. The axle can't move upward any further than the chassis, however, I've yet to see a spring flatten out that far without some sort of major failure.

That bar going over the top of the guards... does it have enough clearance for the door to open on the car being towed? With any 4" drop axle, the challenge has been to comprimise between trailer tyre to guard clearance, and bottom of lowered race car door to guard height.

hi yonee
i measured up the mrs vz commy and the door will clear the bar by about 25 mm so i think it should be ok for most cars and i reckon i could roll the car forward enough to open the door if needed .
but the trailer is mainly for the race car and thats a climb out the window job anyway .it dosent show it in the pics but i managed to get 70 mm from the top of the tyre to the gaurd and going by other trailers ive had in the past i reckon that will be ok when i put the trailer behind my tow car we drove my mates race car onto it when was checking the tilt and to be honest i dont think the springs hardly moved at all 7 leaf not sure on rating supplied by sa trailers and chassis told them what we where using trailer for thats what they come up with .
just on another point the standed wheel studs that come with the axles i think are 7/16 by the look of them they look pretty flimsy do you think i should drill them out and use 1/2 studs off a ford falcon ?

i can mill out and redo the taper in the commy mags im using too suit .
cheers dean

Never seen 7/16" wheel studs fail due to weight in all my years in the industry.

However, for your own peace of mind, the 1/2" studs used in the trailer industry have the same knurl diameter, so replacing them is as easy as knocking out the old, and inserting the new. The commodores run a 12mm metric stud, so the taper size would also not be a problem to leave as is.

ah cheers for that didnt know the knurl diameter is the same i will keep that bit of info in mind for other applications .may well leave this alone if it's not going to be a issue

cheers dean

after not been able to do much due too a torn rota cuff muscle in my shoulder ive fig ourt what the heck it only takes one arm to spray paint and use a block and tackle so i lifted the chassis up on its side and undecoated the bottom of the trailer . then painted it with a grey hammertone paint .

let it all down and then did most of the top of the chassis exept the bits i missed but anyway awaiting for a friend to come around on the weekend so we can put the axles back in and start final assembly . need to weld the mudgaurds on wire it up at last and bolt the floor in place and who hooooo all done im really hoping to have it finished this weekend depending on how sore my shoulder gets or the weekend after .....and just to top off a good week my myrs was in a 4 car pile up while sitting at the lights lucky the towbar took all the damage car is still straight behind bumper the crash shop reckons so only a new bumper and towbar .
but the mrs copped a far sort of a whiplash very sore shoulder blades lower back and neck at least a couple of weeks off work dr reckons there goes my peace and quite for a while lol ...just joking sweetheart just jok......ouch what was that for ..

hi all
ive been given a electric brake controller i gather its a fairly old one but it works ok it come from a mates old man who was trading in his car and gave me the cotroller cause he knew i was looking for one he used to tow a small van behind a magna .
the contoller is a tekonsha sentinel model number 7451 it come with all the wiring loom ans fuse boxes and feed back on these cant seem to find a real lot on the net review wide on them.

cheers dean

whoo hoooo
trailer is finished at last has been inspected and passed with flying colours now has its vin plate and rego plate im a happy chappy as there is a race meeting next sunday and will be towing a mates car up there on it .
the guy at the inspection place reckons it's one of the best home built trailers he has seen in a long time .
i really want to thank people here who gave me advice and some helpfull tips and hints along the way kudo's to you all

so just a brief summary
tandem trailer inside tray size 4.8 mt long 1980 mm wide has 45 mm axles with a 4 inch drop built in them . front axle has al-ko electric brakes lazy rear axle .

2 runners for the car to sit on 3mm alloy checker plate middle of trailer open .
trailer tilts when car is driven on it and lowers when you go past the balance point . i had thought about putting shockies on to slow the desant down but to be honest it dosent slam down at all if you drive up nice and steady .

led lights all the way round .ramps fitted to the rear just pull down when you use them no crawling on ya hands and knees sliding ramps in and out .
4 commadore mags + same rim as spare and 4 new tyres .

chassis made from 75 x50 x3mm rhs and drawbar 75 x 50 x4 mm rhs .
it tows like a dream hooked it up to my old el wagon and put the mrs vz commy on it tied it down and took it for a spin just playing with the brake controller setting it up OMG i will never use any other sort of brakes again no thumping when ya brake or pull up the whole just pulls up and stops great im over the moon

it took my mate and myself about 5 weekends all up some days were only half days some days we put in 8 or so hrs .i got a quote from a trailer builder here in adelaide to build a trailer exactly as mine is described his price come to just over 10 grand with second hand tryes and just a mild steel floor this one cost me a total of $ 2875 .00 on the road .
i was lucky with some stuff like the alloy floor i got that as the same price a mild steel floor cost .i got trade price on the axles and springs so that save me a couple of hundred bucks .
throw in the price of a roll of mig wire and a bottle of gas + electricty it would owe me about 3 grand .
i rung up shannons insurence to add it too our cars policy they agreed valued it at eight and a half grand and it only added 17 bucks a month onto my monthly bill from them

im still having troubles with my torn rota cuff muscles in my shoulder and will be able to give it a rest for a couple of weeks now but not too long as we ordered the steel today to build the 2nd trailer identical to this one for my mate who helped me build this one .plus a couple of guys at the track who have seen this one in the build have expressed interest in getting trailers built as well .
will post pics tomorrow as digi cam batteries went flat so will take pics tomorrow . sorry for the long post but im pretty happy atm lol.
cheers dean

some pics while it was in the shed will post some later with a race car showing the tilt working