help getting shed on trailer

[akjw7]

I have a 10x7 shed (sounds light, but it's actually an ice fishing house so is built a little more completely and filled with crap...er...I mean fishing stuff!)

Anyhow, I need a more controlled loading method than winching it up onto the tilt deck trailer and the whole thing crashing down once it hits the tipover point.


Would be very easy to just jack it up and crib it, but I need to be able to back the trailer underneath so the jacks have to be a couple feet outboard.

That leads me to a temporary cross beam front and rear say 10' wide to go under the 7' width of the shed. End up with the shed supported by a jack (or cribbing) at each side of both front and rear cross beams. Still fairly easy (how stout does this cross beam need to be? 4x4? 6x6? Steel?)


Now comes the part where I have to be difficult. I want to be able to remove the cross beams, preferably easily! Two reasons for wanting to remove the cross beams. The trailer has a 3 or 4" side board lip (could just block underneath as the shed is lowered onto the trailer to clear that but I'd rather not have the extra height). Also don't want the trailer/load any wider than the 8' trailer already is.


I had the idea that maybe I could bore a hole in the 4x4 skid on each side, slide a 10' stick of sched 40 pipe (2") through (one pipe through each skid towards the front and another through each skid towards the rear) and use that as my jack points and the shed is airborne, back the trailer under, lower the shed, slide the pipes out and strap things down.

I'm no engineer (clearly!) anyone have a guess if sched 40 is too weak for that kind of load? (~1,000lb load - 10' stick of pipe jacked at each end with the load roughly 1' in from each end with an 8' span in between...the load isn't a microscopic point at each location either as it's the 3.5" of 4x4 skid on each side that would be resting on the pipe.

Lastly and most importantly - what better way is there to do this that I haven't thought to look at?

 

[hosspuller]

Sound like you just need a way to control the tilt-bed trailer at tip-over point. I would install a jack of some sort to hold the bed tilted up. Winch your shed up till the tip-over point is reached. Lower the bed with the jack... Then winch the shed fully forward. That way, The jack does not have to hold the full weight of the shed. Just enough to tip it down.

 

[pmsmechanic]

My buddy has a small ice fishing shack and he just winches it up into the back of his truck all the time. He had a friend make a roller that keeps the weight off the tail gate and helps the winch pull the shack on. A 2500 lb quad winch is lots to pull the shack up and on with. Tip over is very easy and to get it off he just pulls by hand until the shack is snug against the cable and then uses the cable to drop it gently on the ice. If you can fasten a roller onto the rear of your trailer you could easily do the same thing.

 

[akjw7]

Thanks, but I have a few other reasons for not wanting the winch idea anymore. (truck has a camper in it for one and might be getting sold, four wheeler is on it's last legs and not reliable, and the trailer and the shed have both had some damage from this method)

Really looking for a way to jack it up so that I can have more flexibility.

 

[hslogger]

I can understand that your tilt trailer doesn't have a cylinder for controlled slow lowering of the deck.
I have a tilt that has no cylinder and, yes, some stuff does come down a bit too hard.

What I have done sometimes is NOT use the tilt. Instead I use a couple ramps and hook a comelong or block and tackle to an upright at the front of my trailer that holds my spare. I had it built and it is HD so I can use it as a pull point.

Maybe you could see using a couple ramps, And five or six pieces of plumbing pipe about eight feet wide. You can roll that shed right up there, using the pipe rollers, and when you spit one out the back, take it and put it up front, and so on. That should get you up there in a pretty easy-go way. Movers of heavy equipment use rollers all the time. It goes slow and easy and you can maintain all the control you want

 

[MESSMAKER]

I think rollers might be the answer.

 

[PacersDad]

Like HSLogger said. I used 4" pvc pipe with thickest wall from home depot. Use 4-5.

 

[akjw7]

Still bent on trying to do it without winching.

I think I'm going to try to jack it up at all four corners using the pipe or a beam underneath the skids. Get it cribbed up and just slide the trailer under. This doesn't rely on having a four wheeler in the back of a pick up and is a lot less stress on the trailer and the shack.

We'll keep the winch option as a backup plan if this experiment fails...I'll let you know!

 

[newbury]

Whatever you do we need a video!

 

[akjw7]

No video, but it would have been entertaining! Ended up dropping it a couple different times before I gave up and winched it up - just couldn't control the jacks sliding out on the wet ice.

The concept worked fine - no problem at all jacking or supporting the shack with the 2" schedule 40 pipe - worked just as great as I hoped it would. Drilling the 2.5" hole through 4x4 skids was the toughest part (should have brought generator and corded drill).

I couldn't keep the handy man jacks stable on the ice, the slightest off center pressure sent them skidding out and dropping the shack. Also needed more cribbing material than I brought (I brought enough to get jack stands to the right height, but not enough to fully block up the shack itself for stability while jacking). If I had some big lag screws I could have anchored the jacks to the ice and I think it would have worked smoothly. Having four jacks would have made it easier too, but not critical.

Basic idea did what I want it to, if I can get the jacks stable enough to do the lift. I may look at some trailer tongue jacks that I could weld wide bases on (like short version of slide-in-camper jacks).

this also just reinforces that what I really want to do is build a custom trailer with drop down axle then just build a new fish house permanently on the trailer so all I have to do is go out and crank up the axles and drive away...but my kids think they need three meals a day so that probably won't happen anytime soon.