Trailers - Towing your mopar?

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Riddler

Riddler

Project EH-Body
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Recently was given a 16' dovetail car hauler in need of some TLC. Started by changing the rims/tires to trailer spec and ones that hold air. I've just started to replace the fenders as there about 60lbs each and made heavy C channel. I now have aluminum fenders and I'm making the driver's side removable.

I'm going to be adding brakes to one set of the tandem axles but first have to figure out which axle to add the brakes to.

I also have some D rings to weld/bolt on but can't decide where? Can they be bolted on through the diamond plate steel?

Anyone else have picture and such of their trailers to share?

Riddler
 
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Here's the trailer I was given.

Next is the old fender vs the new.

Last is a pic of the tire holder removed as it was rotten. Wouldn't hold any weight.

Riddler

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I would say to make sure your D-Ring mounts go through a frame x-member and maybe some reinforcement.

Consider mounting some E-Track down the length either side or in two sections front and rear, and using bonnets to lash down over the tires.

Brakes on both axles or least one is a very good idea! What are you planning to haul it behind?

Nice work on the fenders!
 
Check your D-rings. Are they recessed types in holders? If so, many do not hold all that much force. Either the retainers/holders are weak, or the rings are not welded into solid rings; either part can give.

In a wreck of if you veer off-surface to avoid a wreck, those rings need to be SOLID. I have towed a rally car on a 16' trailer for 10's of kmiles and just weld 1/2" solid round bar bent into rings or u-shapes and directly weld them to the trailer frame.

It looks like you will have 3000+ lbs on there, so the anchors need to be strong.
 
The D rings I have are 11,000lbs ones I need to weld on. I could get the bolt on type but then I'm stuck putting them over the frame somewhere. If you look at the last picture on the left side you can see the gold D rings I have. They can be bolted down or welded. I'm going to weld those on. For now I'm installing 4 rings, 2 front and 2 rear. I already know I want to weld on some more. I was looking at the E track and can get it locally for a reasonable price, just didn't know how to install it. Do I weld it down to the metal deck? Bolt it on? @1969383S what do you mean by bonnets?

As of right now I have a v8 Canyon but don't plan on towing with that. I'm going to be stepping into a new Ram or Sierra shortly. Maybe next spring.

Riddler
 
One thing that concerns me ---and I cant see enough of it--is the tongue construction. Does the tongue END at the front header? That doesn't look like it's anywhere near strong enough.
 
67Dart273 said:
One thing that concerns me ---and I cant see enough of it--is the tongue construction. Does the tongue END at the front header? That doesn't look like it's anywhere near strong enough.
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Totally agree. That tongue does not look all that strong. Everything ends at the front crossmember of the trailer. Between the overall design of the members and the little bit of welding I can see it does not appear as if the trailer was professionally constructed. Which means there's no telling how much weight it will actually hold or tow safely. I wouldn't tow my car on it.
 
Generally the three parts of the tongue extend below the header And are welded to the length ways part of the frame. You are depending solely on the strength of the single sidewall of the tubing. Add two pieces at least to the bottom side of the angled parts,tieing them into deck frame. Could likely get away with a couple 1/2" plates to beef it up.
My frame and tongue are basically one piece,with the header welded between them.
 
67Dart273 said:
One thing that concerns me ---and I cant see enough of it--is the tongue construction. Does the tongue END at the front header? That doesn't look like it's anywhere near strong enough.
Click to expand...

Did not even look at that till you posted. Now that I see it I am not sure I would want my car on it. Maybe the mower. It can be fixed though.
 
I see what you mean and I was concerned as well. However this trailer has had some weight in it as it had a backhoe parked on the deck when I went to get it.

But I've also thought of adding some gussets like the center bar has. Should help with load.

Riddler

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I started to add attachment points to the frame. Here's the first on the rear. Plan is to have 2 front and 2 back. Maybe more?

Driver's fender is welded on and I made it removable.

Still have quite a bit more to do. I want to add brakes to one of these 3500lb Dexter axles. They already have the backing plates.

Riddler

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So this one hot day we loaded a dead cavalier (black) onto my trailer to haul for scrap. My buddy was trapped! 5 minutes to grab a jack and raise car to open door. He didnt like that at all.
I lowered my fenders after that. No problem since. Was going to go removeable, but i have a couple ?? Friends that borrow it from time to time. Idiot proof. Very important.
 
OP, did you weld the D closed under the strap? They will tend to open with force if you don't. Sorry, those hold down straps are weak and the weld is incomplete.

I'd use these only in 4 pairs (8 total) and with bonnet straps over the tires, as commented. IMHO, they are only good for general hold-downs and restraints. I would not use these to tie chains to, and then around the car's axle or frame, because, despite the supposed 11,000 lb rating (truly less if they are from Harbor Freight), you can easily exceed that on a pair of rings in the back if you have a collision while towing. My chains that wrap around the rally cars' rear axle/suspension to (try to) restrain the car in a forward collision wrap around the trailer frame.

BTW the tubing to the hitch from the frame on our 16' closed work trailer is like 4" tall and 2" wide! So the comments on the tongue seem on target. If you are just going local at low speeds, then your chances of never having an issue go way down.
 
Tooljunkie said:
So this one hot day we loaded a dead cavalier (black) onto my trailer to haul for scrap. My buddy was trapped! 5 minutes to grab a jack and raise car to open door. He didnt like that at all.
I lowered my fenders after that. No problem since. Was going to go removeable, but i have a couple ?? Friends that borrow it from time to time. Idiot proof. Very important.
Click to expand...

This does concern me. So I might not lend this out very much. We'll see as I think I'll have about $1000 into the entire thing when I'm done.

Riddler
 
nm9stheham said:
OP, did you weld the D closed under the strap? They will tend to open with force if you don't. Sorry, those hold down straps are weak and the weld is incomplete.

I'd use these only in 4 pairs (8 total) and with bonnet straps over the tires, as commented. IMHO, they are only good for general hold-downs and restraints. I would not use these to tie chains to, and then around the car's axle or frame, because, despite the supposed 11,000 lb rating (truly less if they are from Harbor Freight), you can easily exceed that on a pair of rings in the back if you have a collision while towing. My chains that wrap around the rally cars' rear axle/suspension to (try to) restrain the car in a forward collision wrap around the trailer frame.

BTW the tubing to the hitch from the frame on our 16' closed work trailer is like 4" tall and 2" wide! So the comments on the tongue seem on target. If you are just going local at low speeds, then your chances of never having an issue go way down.
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Your the first person to say that these tie down's are weak. Where else should I weld? The clamp over is welded around the edge and also inside the bolt hole. Could probable pick up the entire trailer with this one attachment point. I can wrap around the frame in the rear as I'm keeping the center section open. I've been debating on making a mounting system for the ramps there though.

I see no issue with the tubing used from the hitch to the bulkhead. However I do see that it was welded to the bulkhead and not under it for weight support. I do believe that welding some gussets to the top of the outside bars to the bulk head will help with weight.

This trailer was build in 1981 and things have improved since then... But I'm making due with what I have. I have no intention of towing my Duster with it unless I break it.

Riddler
 
Box in the ends of the tubes, will give the bulkhead some extra strength. Actually, if you wrapped the outside corners, in a gusset fashion it would toughen it up considerably.
 
Tooljunkie said:
Box in the ends of the tubes, will give the bulkhead some extra strength. Actually, if you wrapped the outside corners, in a gusset fashion it would toughen it up considerably.
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Boxing in the open ends looks to be super easy. So I'll just do it. Plus is keeps crap out of there. I'm thinking of adding inner gussets on the outside tubes as well as an upper gusset to the top of the bulkhead. That should increase the strength a ton.

I also don't want to add a **** ton more weight as it's all steel and heavy now. I saved 100lbs with the aluminum fenders.

Riddler
 
Riddler said:
Your the first person to say that these tie down's are weak. Where else should I weld? The clamp over is welded around the edge and also inside the bolt hole. Could probable pick up the entire trailer with this one attachment point. I can wrap around the frame in the rear as I'm keeping the center section open.
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This is all because because I am looking at this in a different way. After towing a race car many 10's of kmiles to Canada and all over the eastern and central US, I think in terms of what happens if I wreck or someone pulls out in from of me, not just what will hold the car on in normal use. I would not like that car coming through the back window....

So you could pick up a 4000 lbs trailer with one ring....so what? In an impact, the G's will make your car weigh 15000-30000 for a fraction of a second. If it is held back by just 2 rings, you can see how they will fail. As I indicated, OK for holding the car on, but not adequate for a wreck. That is why I suggest a direct tie to the frame with chains on the rear of the car. All those webs hold-downs and D-rings have a very real limit in a wreck. But I realize that folks sometimes don't worry about this factor so much as I do.

Riddler said:
I see no issue with the tubing used from the hitch to the bulkhead. However I do see that it was welded to the bulkhead and not under it for weight support. I do believe that welding some gussets to the top of the outside bars to the bulk head will help with weight.
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If you look at the tongue area from an engineering viewpoint, you'll see that about 80-90% of the tongue weight is supported through the center tube; the side diagonals are small and oriented with the wide dimension flat so they will not take any significant vertical tongue load; they only stabilize the tongue sideways. So about 80-90% of the tongue load is going to go through the center tube alone; that is just the way the layout you have works. So vertical gussets on the side tubes won't add much.

Again, you have to look at the dynamic situation if you hit a big bump, and the tongue load increases 5 or 10 fold for a moment. If the center tube is thick walled, then it may be fine. If thin walled, it just may buckle; we don't know the wall thickness of that center tube. And I was just giving you a comparison for a modern trailer with two 6"x 2" boxes oriented vertically, one on each side.

Budgets are understood... when young, I got a similar light trailer.... Jesus, it had no springs, a single axle solidly welded to the frame, and danged 3 bolt Renault wheels with no brakes!!! LOL It towed two cars total with me worrying the whole way before I scrounged and put in 2 5000# axles and beefed up the tongue area....
 
nm9stheham said:
This is all because because I am looking at this in a different way. After towing a race car many 10's of kmiles to Canada and all over the eastern and central US, I think in terms of what happens if I wreck or someone pulls out in from of me, not just what will hold the car on in normal use. I would not like that car coming through the back window....

So you could pick up a 4000 lbs trailer with one ring....so what? In an impact, the G's will make your car weigh 15000-30000 for a fraction of a second. If it is held back by just 2 rings, you can see how they will fail. As I indicated, OK for holding the car on, but not adequate for a wreck. That is why I suggest a direct tie to the frame with chains on the rear of the car. All those webs hold-downs and D-rings have a very real limit in a wreck. But I realize that folks sometimes don't worry about this factor so much as I do.

If you look at the tongue area from an engineering viewpoint, you'll see that about 80-90% of the tongue weight is supported through the center tube; the side diagonals are small and oriented with the wide dimension flat so they will not take any significant vertical tongue load; they only stabilize the tongue sideways. So about 80-90% of the tongue load is going to go through the center tube alone; that is just the way the layout you have works. So vertical gussets on the side tubes won't add much.

Again, you have to look at the dynamic situation if you hit a big bump, and the tongue load increases 5 or 10 fold for a moment. If the center tube is thick walled, then it may be fine. If thin walled, it just may buckle; we don't know the wall thickness of that center tube. And I was just giving you a comparison for a modern trailer with two 6"x 2" boxes oriented vertically, one on each side.

Budgets are understood... when young, I got a similar light trailer.... Jesus, it had no springs, a single axle solidly welded to the frame, and danged 3 bolt Renault wheels with no brakes!!! LOL It towed two cars total with me worrying the whole way before I scrounged and put in 2 5000# axles and beefed up the tongue area....
Click to expand...

Oh I totally understand where your coming from and such. I thought about installing E track down the ramps but not sure how to install. Bolts? Screws? Weld? I can still tie the car down to the frame in the front and rear.

As for the front tongue area, I understand what your saying but how do I fix it and make it stronger? I'm planning to do the gussets on the ends to help with flex but what can I do to the center beam? It already has gussets to the bulk head. Do I weld a 2x4 tube to the bottom about 12" and then that to the bulk head as well to help increase the strength?

Thanks

Riddler
 
The suggestion is that the center tongue tube be extended to the next cross beam back would help. Try to find a square tube of the same dimensions as the present center tube and with 1/8" to 3/16" wall thickness. And a round tube with OD the same as the square tube width will work even better, but it just takes some gussets to connect it to the main tube.

Weld it solidly on the underside of the present center tube from just behind the hitch to reach to the first cross beam and attach it to that beam with some 1/4" gussets; these gussets will have to reach down to connect them. Keep an eye on that first cross beam for distortion as you use the trailer, and beef that up if needed, as some of the tongue load will now go there.

If your D-rings are strong, then they will work in pairs to hold down the car in place over the tires in normal operation. Or the E track is a flexible way to do the same. But I personally would depend on neither to restrain the car well in a wreck.

We use 2 tie chains to the rear axle of the car to restrain it from flying forward in an incident and AND to hold it in place, and IMHO should be separate and tied around the rear trailer frame. We use chain hooks to adjust length and to get them close to taut, and then pull the car forward with 2 come-a-longs to make these chains taut. Very heavy straps in the rear may do the same. If you do it this way, then you can just eliminate the D-rings or E-tracks; the setup holds the car solidly on the trailer. You have to watch for brake lines on the rear axles, etc., when you wrap anything around the axle.
 
And just one more thought if you add a 2nd, extended center tube under the existing one: I think I would use 1/8" wall tubing, and certainly no heavier than the existing center tube wall thickness. You want the 2 tubes to share the load, so neither should be too much bigger than the other.

FWIW, we just passed a long distance hauler loaded with classic cars on the interstate.... I noticed that all tie downs were chains, and direct to the deck or frame.... no wheel straps or D-hooks, etc.
 
I went to a friends place who runs a laser cutter. He's making me a bunch of gussets to use. I have to head to the metal shop and see if they have an 8' long piece of 2.5" x 2.5" x 3/8" square tube as that's what's on there. The current center bar could be thicker than 3/8" though.

The next cross beam from the bulk head I don't think is at the same level as the bulkhead. Can I add a piece of metal, thinking 1.5" so that the bar doesn't have to be bent to reach the cross frame?

Riddler
 
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