Tilt bed "car hauler" for CT?

[Snowman9000]

I have a JD 755 with FEL and BH. I believe I calculated it at 4500 lbs. I also use it without the BH and with brush mower or box blade. I will double check the weights but for this discussion, assume they are right.

I currently have a beater 16' 7K trailer that works okay to haul the tractor locally, which is all I do with the tractor anyway. I pull it with a Duramax 2500, so no problems as far as towing. The trailer needs some money spent on it, so it's not a bad time to move on. I'd like to get a better trailer, with a more versatile ramp situation than I have, in case I need to move my garden tractor, golf cart, whatever. Also, loading with my BH requires some dicking around to keep the bottom of the BH from dragging as the tractor gets onto the ramps. It can be backed onto the trailer but whatever.

I've been looking on the web at 18' 7K "car hauler" trailers with tilt beds. Typically there is a 2' fixed bed section in front, then a 16' tilt portion. There seem to be two varieties. One is a gravity tilt. Having used snowmobile trailers that do that, I know when the tipping point is reached, it will slam down. That might be hairy.

The other kind uses a hand-pumped hydraulic cylinder, like a bottle jack but a cylinder instead.

Anyone have experience with these tilt trailers?

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I don't have experience with the tilt trailers you mentioned, but I love tilt trailers. My personal preference are the trailers where the full bed tilts (no fixed section). A Hand pump jack seems cumbersome, but the price is probably right. Some of the tilts I've seen on the dealer's lot have a hydraulic cylinder that's not attached to anything. It acts as a dampener to keep the bed from crashing down when it reaches the tipping point.

In my dream world, I'd have a 16' full tilt deck with a powered hydraulic tilt.

 

[yankeerider]

Like Iplayfarmer wrote, the 14k tilt trailer I used was gravity powered, but damped so that movement up and down was slow and gentle.

 

[not2old]

I have a 20' all tilt deck 14,000lb. car trailer. I had them install a hydraulic cylinder to soften the drop but the weight of it screwed up the tilt. It now takes more than my weight to tilt it. I'm guessing about 250 to 300lbs. would do it. It is difficult to bleed the system and it rests about 3 to 4 inches above the ground. I can cure all the problems by installing a hydraulic power pack to allow power up and down. This isn't necessary for my tractor but would make life easier for my cars and trucks and will get done when I get around to it. I plan to put quick couplers on the hydraulics to be able to use it elsewhere. Any specific questions???

 

[William Greene]

here's 2 pic's of my tilt car hauler it has 2- 6,000 lb axles.registered for 9,000 lbs.it will haul 3/4 ton pick-up real nice.car's are a pain,gotta climb out window.it's also got hydraulic winch to pull things up on the deck

 

[George2615]

I have a tilt bed made by HHTrailer.com
8.5 x 20'. I bought the MX (manually jack to tilt) but shortly after converted it to 12V electric / hydraulic. The manual took too long to jack it up. Each pump only moved the cylinder about a 1/4" to 3/8". The elect / hyd. I added tilts up in about 10 sec. I bought new in late 2005 (its an 06).
Well satisfied with the trailer but not happy that I have to scrape and repaint every couple of years. That's not the trailer fault, its because I live in the snow belt of upstate NY and haul it in winter so it sees a lot of road salt. On mine the entire bed tilts.
Pics MX1 and MX4 are pics from the Mfg. website. The other is the box I added that contains my electric hydraulic unit and winch.
The gravity tilt trailer you mention uses a shock absorber type cylinder that allows it to tilt up or down slowly.

 

[TheTrailerGuy]

I have a tilt bed made by HHTrailer.com
8.5 x 20'. I bought the MX (manually jack to tilt) but shortly after converted it to 12V electric / hydraulic. The manual took too long to jack it up. Each pump only moved the cylinder about a 1/4" to 3/8". The elect / hyd. I added tilts up in about 10 sec. I bought new in late 2005 (its an 06).
Well satisfied with the trailer but not happy that I have to scrape and repaint every couple of years. That's not the trailer fault, its because I live in the snow belt of upstate NY and haul it in winter so it sees a lot of road salt. On mine the entire bed tilts.
Pics MX1 and MX4 are pics from the Mfg. website. The other is the box I added that contains my electric hydraulic unit and winch.
The gravity tilt trailer you mention uses a shock absorber type cylinder that allows it to tilt up or down slowly.

..............

 

[intranserv]

Hi, My name is Jack, I'm from Edmonton Alberta, Canada. I bought the same trailer you did a couple of years ago & this hand pump jack is getting to me, it works, but is exhaustingly slow, especially with my skid steer, wanting to convert it to powerpack without too much expense. I'm a welder & have reasonably good mechanical knowledge. Can the conversion be done using the existing hyd. cylinder? I realize I would need to use a one-way hydropack, which I think would suffice? My thoughts were to use the hand pump oriffice for the pressure/return line. What are your thoughts?

 

[George2615]

Hi, My name is Jack, I'm from Edmonton Alberta, Canada. I bought the same trailer you did a couple of years ago & this hand pump jack is getting to me, it works, but is exhaustingly slow, especially with my skid steer, wanting to convert it to powerpack without too much expense. I'm a welder & have reasonably good mechanical knowledge. Can the conversion be done using the existing hyd. cylinder? I realize I would need to use a one-way hydropack, which I think would suffice? My thoughts were to use the hand pump oriffice for the pressure/return line. What are your thoughts?

Hi Jack and welcome to the group. You may be able to use the existing cylinder, not sure though. I bought my cylinder from Northern tool. The 12V powerpack is a power up and gravity down unit which I bought with hoses from Graingers. My total cost for the pump, hoses, and cylinder was about $600. I did my own fab work and mounted everything including a winch inside a diamond plate box I bought from Tractor supply for about $160. The box is mounted to a 1/4" thick steel frame system I built from scrap steel and welded to the trailer. The factory power tilt option was about $1600 more so I saved over $800 doing it myself.

 

[not2old]

I've yet to install the power pack I bought for my trailer at Princess Auto for about $400.00. This will get hooked up to the double acting cylinder that is presently used as a shock absorber. If anyone doesn't want to spend this much money, I've seen several tilt deck trailers use a floor service jack under the front of the deck. They seemed to pump up OK and should be able to lift any vehicle on the deck as some of the weight will be behind the pivot point.