Thinking of building a trailer

G. Mann

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If you haul cars or trucks with that frame, you will have issues. Camper frames are made light and don't have thick enough beams to carry the weight, plus, the axles are not heavy enough.

The trailer beams are 4 inches across the face and likely 14 gage at best. Camper trailers are made light to tow easy and save cost in production.
Same for axles.

You want more beam width in cross section and the cross beams need to be closer together, or the truck you are hauling will drop through the floor of the trailer. A good haul trailer needs heavy rated axles, and 8 lug, 16 inch wheels, with load range rated 10 ply tires. My experience is, 5 lug wheels and 15 inch tires are not rated to haul the weight.
 

Shawn MacAnanny

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I highly suggest going with a power tilt trailer. If you can make the trailer you can make it hydraulically tilt. I use mine for everything. I picked up an 8x12 shed for $300 the other day. Backed right up to it and winched it on by myself. My wife took a video of me taking it off which could have been done without the skid loader if i'd removed the spacer blocks i stuck under the beams. I used it for picking up all sorts of things, with a 9k winch you can drag skid loaders up it that wont roll.

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Shawn MacAnanny

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And if you're gonna go with wood i would use 5/16 self threading bolts. I just put a new deck on mine with 2x10s and bolted every cross member with two 5/16 Self tapping bolts. Took me 7 hours to strip the old deck and put the new one on by myself. I drilled almost 200 holes and only went through 3 bits. The last trailer i did with 1/4" and when when the wood dried it popped a couple, a couple more popped when loading a 9k forklift. I havent had any issues with the 5/16" ones and they are cheap.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/151874901284?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

http://www.ebay.com/itm/171989450085?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
 

rustygold

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I like them bolts I never thought about a hydraulic tilt that would be cool. Wouldn't have to have a dovetail could do it like a roll back style.

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austin92

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I work for Great Dane building semi trailers and we have mountains of those screws lol


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towcat

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i'm surprised noone mentioned wood deck with a metal overlay. being in the towing business, I frequently get unwanted junk trailers. owning a shop full of equipment and little money to buy brand new trailers, I will either rebuild a trailer or strip it down for the metal. I recently rebuilt a utility trailer that had an unusually heavy frame. It had cross members at roughly 14", so I doubled the number or crossmembers and decked it with 2"x12" pressure treated wood. I had a couple of steel flatbeds that were kinked from wrecks, so I cut of the top skin of the flatbed and did a overlay over the pressure treated. Two things are achieved. one, the load spread with the wood is excellent over the added crossmembers and two, the steel overlay cuts down on the sun exposure and weathering of the wood. Besides, the unpredictability of what goes on the trailer makes for a good excuse not to care what we throw onto it. the steel doesn't get washboarded and the wood doesn't get broken up or messed up with oil, diesel, battery acid or whatever other chemicals that is bleeding out of a vehicle or load. 8 lug axles are mandatory additions too, one less spare wheel in inventory and one less tire size to order too. 23585R16 is bought by 24 count at my place. :O
 

SebastIDIan

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Now that you mention tires, stay away from anything smaller than 16 inch or ST tires. Tried them all they're all a blowout waiting to happen. Go with 235/85R16 as towcat said. LT 10 ply radials load range e for peace of mind.
 

franklin2

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Found this $400 has trailer brakes. its 21'6" by 8'. 25' total
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That would be hard to beat and you would have a huge headstart on everything. While that old camper frame may be a little lighter than you would have built your trailer, you have to know the limitations of your truck, that camper frame would most likely haul anything you can pull with your truck safely.

You can haul a lot more with that gooseneck. Are you going to haul for hire or just for your personal use? The cops around here are starting to stop pickups with large goosneck trailers. In Va now you are required to have a class A commercial license for any combination truck trailer that is over 26,000. It's very easy to get over that number, most duallys have a gvwr of 14,000 and most gooseneck trailers are way over 12,000. It's not the same class A commercial that you need to drive a 18 wheeler, it's some low octane version of a class A.

But if you are not for hire they can't do anything to you.
 

rustygold

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Personal use but the truck can only pull safely 18500 pounds. So I'm under the 26000 pounds.

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towcat

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I highly suggest going with a power tilt trailer. If you can make the trailer you can make it hydraulically tilt. I use mine for everything. I picked up an 8x12 shed for $300 the other day. Backed right up to it and winched it on by myself. My wife took a video of me taking it off which could have been done without the skid loader if i'd removed the spacer blocks i stuck under the beams. I used it for picking up all sorts of things, with a 9k winch you can drag skid loaders up it that wont roll.

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i can do that too! but no bobcat to assist me :(

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franklin2

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Personal use but the truck can only pull safely 18500 pounds. So I'm under the 26000 pounds.

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Around here that doesn't matter. It's the combination GVWR that matters. You have to add the truck in with it. If your truck can safely pull 18500, and the GVWR of the truck is over 7500, then around here they can get you if you are hauling for hire.

Where I work we had to park a rig we had, everyone has a class B license. We have a Ford flatbed dually which has a 13 or 14k sticker, and a nice trailer we bought that is 25k. No one has the class A to use it now.
 

SebastIDIan

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Cops cracking down on "unlicensed operators" pulling trailers around here in NY as well. Got stopped at 3am coming from florida along with a bunch of other goosenecks. I'm under 26k gcvw so I was let go, anyone with a dually truck or trailer and no cdl class A was given a ticket and pulled off the road.
 

rustygold

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Here's DOT law for class A

Any combination of vehicles with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds. Careers that require a Class A CDL include but are not limited to.

most I'm going to be combined weight GVRW is 18500.

Last truck I pulled over the weight limit of the truck big mistake. Got a ticket for over weight(for the truck I was driving. They called it unsafe load.) and blown head gasket. I was in a 98 4x4 ranger with a 3.0l pulling a 2500 pound car hauler with a 97 z71 extended cab long bed. Total on that was around 7200 to 7500 pounds.

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