ideal trailer for automobiles - Page 2

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

As long as I'm dreaming, here is what I'd have with a big dualie pulling it.

Heck yeah i will be having one soon enough cant wait.
I think i am getting a flat 2 car hauler though to pull behind my 3/4 truck

I have a couple of Carson trailers, one 18 footer steel deck that used to be open center til I had a buddy fill it in, and a 16 foot wood deck carson. both are not super heavy duty with their 3500 lb dual axles but I do have another trailer that I'm parting out with 5k axles that I'll probably put under the 18 footer. As far as winches go I've gotten my money's worth out of the 8K lb Smittybilt winches and I'm currently trying out the 9K Harbor Freight Badlands winch. You can get the smittybilts on Amazon with free shipping for $300 and if you get a magazine coupon the harbor freight winches are the same price. both winches have 5.5 hp motors so they're definitely not underpowered like Champion winches are.

I don't know where everyone goes for straps ,winches, snatch blocks, ect but awdirect.com is where I go for anything that I have to get for towing, vehicle tie equipment. They also have bolt on D-Rings.

yeah but i dotn have a big enough truck to haul that trailer fully loaded lol.

Thats why i need a 2 car hauler lol

FOCKER CLEAR YOUR PM INBOX and send me a PM!

Thanks
Eric

got it cleared and sent you a pm

Hey Blue. WB. Was wondering the other day where you've been.

This is a bit unconventional but I like a car dolly with an old school axle cradle for the back wheel (if needed),it is light,easy to maneuver, and car dolly's need no tags in many states. I bring my large HF floor jack and a "milk can" jack stand. I jack up the junk car on one side put the "can" behind the front wheel,then the other side up,then easy slide in with the car dolly (I don't even have ramps on the dolly). Same for the rear if it can't roll, I use chain and boomers to attach the cradle in the rear,straps in the front unless the wheels are missing,then more chains. Then I can use the car as a "trailer" and stuff it with little items. Weight hurts mileage. I got my dolly for $350 and the cradle for $50. I also use an ex-camper (60's vintage) 18' trailer I tore down and planked for $200. I like the $$ in the pocket rather than equipment or gas tank!

Idaho, kind of a long story but wound up taking a full time (60 hrs/week) job as a supervisor for a landscaping company I have worked for before.... The car junking industry got ran into the ground here, too many goons paying too much for them, now there's virtually no junk cars and no one willing to sell them for anything less than the actual value of the car after complete processing. So screw 'em all... I'm still getting some here and there but it's slim pickings. As the landscaping work is slowing down I am trying to find a new edge on the car junking business, some outlet that has somehow been overlooked and untapped. Not quite working yet but I'm trying hard!

As for the original topic, coming from someone whose primary scrapping source is junk cars, I wound up buying a 22' tilt deck trailer and outfitted it with a 10,000 lb winch, powered by two truck batteries. The trailer batteries can be plugged into the truck if/when they get low on the job, 2 gauge power cable to the back of the truck provides plenty of power to run the winch even without the trailer batteries, but I would need to leave the truck running to do so. So I usually use the trailer batteries and put trickle charger on them overnight when needed. The trailer has two 3500# axles and the front 4' of deck is stationary, the tilt platform is 18' and gravity tilts. I'd get a little more use from it if it was hydraulic tilt 14k lb trailer, which they sell for hauling heavy equipment on (skidsteers, forklifts, etc). But this one was a lot cheaper than those. I don't think i've ever gotten more use out of or made more money with any other single item in my life than this trailer. It's been freaking awesome. Its unbelievable what you can load on this with ease that would be a major pain to try to load on a normal trailer with ramps. And no ramps is freaking awesome!!! No heavy ramps to lug around and try to line up. Just pull two pins and drop the deck, winch it on and pin the deck down. Its awesome. I'd love to have a deck over gooseneck for larger jobs (grain trucks farm equipment etc) they make those in tilt deck too, hydraulic tilt That'd be awesome but I couldn't get rid of this trailer even if I had a tilt gooseneck. There's so many places that I can put this trailer. Yes I know goosenecks turn tighter. But you also have to have more room to swing wider to turn them. They both have pros and cons and I don't honestly think they are completely interchangable. Me and almost all of my friends refer to this trailer as the poor man's rollback.

If you're wanting the ultimate trailer to haul cars on, a tilt deck is your answer. Wrecked cars, cars missing wheels/tires/axles/suspension/etc. are NO PROBLEM!!! As well as many other large items you may come across that would require heavy equipment to load on a standard car trailer... We've winched on corn and grain heads from combines, I hauled a small forklift on it once.... I've overloaded it a few times and luckily no damage but I'm coming across many loads I need something wider and heavier duty for so I'd like to add a gooseneck to the fleet.

I too thought I could get a lot of good use from a dolly, til I found out that in my state it's illegal to transport a car on a dolly that doesn't have plates and insurance. Basically if the tires are touching the ground it must be plated and insured. And I had HORRIBLE luck with the set of magnetic lights I bought... Perhaps you get what you pay for with those..... Anyway, my lights blew off just as I drove past a sheriff one night in the next county over, and I got my whole rig impounded for the lights and the car not having plates/insurance... so I sold the dolly.... even if i had plates on it, that wouldn't make hauling junk cars on it legal in Indiana... So scratch that idea... Pisses me off because when I'm at the yard I almost everytime see a junker dragging a car in on a dolly... So check your laws before using a dolly. Or gamble the risk. Your call just warning you.

Bigblue,

I'm assuming that on a gavity tilt trailor as you winch the auto onto the bed it reaches a pivot point---is this correct? How much cost difference would there be in a hydraulic tilt? I like the idea of being able to winch larger pieces of farm equipment onto the trailer as I see this being an area that I could take advantage of.

Metal jacket that is correct! I have loaded 3 combine harvesting heads onto it, one yesterday and another today. The biggest drawback on my trailer is the weight capacity and the fenders causing a width restriction on the load. Sometimes you have to get creative loading things usually can make it work. One like mine goes for around $4k. A hydraulic 14k one probably double that.

Thanks for the state to state heads up on dolly's, I have never been ask for any info. on a dolled(sp? is that right??) car and I have had a safety check by the staties once. My insurance Co. says the dolly and or trailer are extension of the car and thus covered, that is in Colorado to the best of my knowledge. Back to trailers..I am not a wood deck fan, but I did have good luck with a local mill making me 2" by 6" by 18' cottonwood lumber that I decked my 18' with. That is some strong wood but you have to put it down the day you get it from the mill, cost me 100$. I like a 18' to 20' trailer a bit on the high side so that you have a 8' wide deck, great for farm junk.

A top deck eliminates the fenders being in the way but also means the loading angle is significantly steeper so the advantage is a little less dramatic I guess you could say. Also it takes more winching power to load a vehicle on it than a standard trailer with ramps, because it's pulling uphill the whole way instead of only pulling one axle uphill at a time. Like normal
Car trailer half of car going up ramps while other end is on flat ground, then front is on level trailer deck while back end goes up ramps. Much less drag that way. Just something to keep in mind. The 10k winch is really freaking stout. I've lugged it but usually only when trailer batteries get low. I don't think I'd get anything smaller though. Smaller winch ends up getting overworked and that will result in early death. A heavy duty snatch block is a must. I don't need it for adding pulling capacity but mostly use it to change the pulling angle when you can't get trailer lined up straight with load. I had to use it to thread the combine heads in a small maze around a couple of trees and will also need to use it to get the combine out of the edge of the woods.

Area67- I would have assumed that steel deck would be worlds better, mine has wood deck (figured can replace with steel if wood didnt work out) but the wood has held up awesome honestly, impressed me how well things slide on it and I don't have to repaint it every month to fight rust. But steel is probably a little better. Just hafta defend the wood :-)

No doubt top deck is a rough fight with a disabled car, I have 8' ft. galvanized "c" channel rams and a tough Amish style come along,plus a nice stash of 2" by 4" scrap to help decrease angles. Luckily yard equipment unloads!! Wood decks are cheaper to repair when the damage comes, steel decks get beat up over time and are $$ to repair.

Bigblue

I guess a naive question but where does the winch mount on a tilt trailer so that it is not working against itself. The winches on the non tilt trailers with dovetails are mounted to frame and have a strait pull.

Also a couple of questions and just playing devil's advocate. I had one trailer rep to mention that he had sold some of these to farmers and that if something of significant weight were pulled off the trailer with out unpinning the cam lock it would bend the frame and create and expensive fix. I said I guess it would be like changing from gas driven to diesel and filling the diesel with gas---you just do it once.

Also is there a hydraulic cylinder or anything that cushions the blow of the trailer dropping once the pivot point is reached. Got to be something to cushion the shock I would think.

Also did you use this trailer for general scrap as well. It would take a heck of a load to fill that puppy up. I have some other questions on locating farm scrap but I will ask under a different heading.

metaljacket,
I'm uploading some pictures as we speak and these will help explain some things and help give a demonstration of the trailer operation a little....
On the first question- I bought my trailer used, the previous owner used it to tow in customer's broke down cars so he could repair them. He experimented with winch mounting a little, he first tried mounting it to the tilt platform of the deck, at the front of the tilt platform. From what I understand from him and what I could envision, is that the pulling angle worked fine but being a gravity tilt deck, the weight of the winch threw off the balance of the deck and so he came up with the idea to build a frame at the front of the trailer frame, that sort of resembles a headache rack on a flatbed truck, only is built out of stout channel iron and triangulated (braced) with another piece of channel down to the front of the A frame, near the ball coupler. This is where he found worked well, and is where I have my winch mounted. Once the deck tilts down, it tends to put a somewhat upward pull on the car, which it still pulls the car forward well but if winching on a nice vehicle to tow and not scrap it can cause the cable or chains to dig into the bumper of the car so you have to be careful of that.

Second question- Yes i could see that being a problem. They make tilt deck trailers with either channel beams (like mine, generally used for the 7k lb. car hauler styles) and in box tube construction (usually for 14k lb equipment trailers). I would recommend a 14k box tube equipment trailer if money isn't a big determining factor, or if you can find a good deal on one. Of course that style is almost always only available with hydraulic deck tilt, which is a good thing for the most part (more potential maintenance and repairs but more stronger and versatile). I always unpin the deck before I unload anything. Sometimes we roll cars off and let them snatch the car after we unload it, or sometimes they drag the car off with forklift or sometimes they lift straight up on the car to unload it. If they can get a good bite on it and lift straight up, I will not unpin it. If there is any possible way anything might go off the back of the trailer, I unpin it so no damage will happen on accident.

Third question- My trailer does not have any cushion mechanism. If your loading at a moderate speed, it does not come crashing down at all. Using the winch the speed is plenty safe and no problem. Driving them on usually requires using one foot on brake and one on gas to control a slow speed to prevent the deck slamming down. It has been slammed rather hard a few times un-intentionally and with no consequences. Many tilt trailers do have some sort of cushion device, whether it be a hydraulic cylinder or a shock absorber or just some simple rubber pads. I don't see them as being necessary but could be nice to have as well.

Fourth question- Yes I use it for general scrap. It has stake pocket style tie downs, which would allow you to build stake sides for it to hold more if you'd like. Filling it up is no problem for me, I guess its all in what you're doing. I don't take in small loads really, a small load for me is usually at least $150 if not $200. I try not to put too much weight on the tail of the trailer when it's pinned down, since it's just a channel frame I don't want to bend it. The channel isn't "weak" but its just not meant for a lot of tail weight since it hangs out about 9' past the pivot point there isn't really quite enough beef back there to support a LOT of weight. For general scrap it would be fine. Don't get me wrong I do put tail weight on it, I just use care and judgement.

I'm going to make a separate post in this forum to show some various things, and will post the pics and vids there. They are not of hauling cars (similar method) so I won't pollute this thread.

Thanks
Eric