My attempt at making a off-road trailer.

looknlearn · May 5, 2011

Rio_Grande said:
I look forward to seeing it loaded. The toung concerns me and I think your balance needs to be a bit forward. Typical on a road trailer is 60/40. at that I can pick up the toung of my woods trailer when it is loaded with wood and move it around (if I dont pile it heavy in the front) I figure I can lift 100lbs easy enough. Not sure what tractor u have but 200 lb of toung weight is just getting warmed up.

To each his own while I may not agree with the design tour craftsmanship looks good.

Thanks for that ratio, :thumbsup: I was trying to remember what it was and couldn't remember where I had seen it.

Does the design of the tongue look questionable or the size. I am gonna weld that orange 2" box tubing on where I have it setting and if I find more I'll continue it back to the axle.

My tractor is kinda small for this trailer (Link to pic) but if I get a bigger tractor the trailer won't break.

Milton Burro · May 5, 2011

looknlearn said:
I figured since it was a low speed trailer it wasn't crucial so since I didn't have some I did without. Do you think it will be fine?

Off road, behind a tractor, low speed, yeah. I couldn't tell if it had torsion bar or not. Nice project.

looknlearn · May 5, 2011

LD1 said:
Looks good so far.

The way it appears though, the trailer is going to be built MUCH heavier than either the axle or the tractor will handle:thumbsup:

Yes, I often get carried away with how beefy to make something. You can see I started smaller (the tongue and the axle) and got heavier as I went. I did add a lot of strength to the axle with a large piece of angle iron so the bearings is what would give out first.

And you dont need a suspension for a off-road trailer for behind a tractor.

Here are a few pics of our wood hauling trailers. 10-15 years of abuse of hauling 3/4+ cord of wood and no problems yet. They do have truck axles though, and large tires to help them float/roll when conditions are less than desirable. No tilt though:confused2:

Nice trailers. I don't normally get around to painting my work but I am really hoping and planning to paint this one.

looknlearn · May 5, 2011

Thanks guys for the comments and recommendations:thumbsup:

I didn't get anything done on it today. It finally warmed up and quit raining so there is more work to do outside.

Rio_Grande · May 5, 2011

it will be ok as long as u dont overload it

looknlearn · May 8, 2011

Got a little work done on it yesterday and today. Here are some more pictures.

When I get some more 2 inch box tubing I am gonna cut the small box tubing back about a foot from the end of the larger and weld the 2 inch on the bottom out a little further and either use a pin hitch or a ball hitch on the end.

Does the hinge look alright. That is a 5/8 bolt and 1x2 inch steel.

The upper weld looks terrible cause I am bad at out-of-position welding. I can't keep it from drooping and almost dripping.

Does the welding look alright. I am self taught and have been welding for about a year or two. I haven't had anything fall apart yet although I am lucky cause in the beginning I didn't have any concept of penetration. Now I try to get max penetration without burn though. Sure is fun to stick metal together.:thumbsup:

Comments? Suggestions?

mrcaptainbob · May 8, 2011

Shame on you if you DON'T over load it!!

>

looknlearn · May 9, 2011

Got some more done today.

I set some boards on that we had sitting around and it looks like it will work great. 13 2x6x8 with no cutting. I left clearance so I can put larger wheels on in the future.

This next one shows the angle iron I am putting around the edge.

I drilled and tapped for grease zerks on the hinges and gave it a few pumps.

It's coming along nicely.

looknlearn · May 10, 2011

I am waiting for money to get the floor boards and material for the sides so there may be a short wait for it to get finished. Maybe if I can find some paint I could give you-all something to look at in the meantime.

Today I used it. Threw some scraps of particle board on for the bed and picked rocks. Works great. I didn't get any pictures but I know there is one pic that my sister took where you can see it in the background empty. I could probably post that one up tomorrow.