homemade dual axel trailer

[dts1449]

I made a small wagon for a garden tractor many years ago out of an old riding lawn mower frame and the rear trans-axle. The bed was about three by four foot made from half inch treated plywood. It was nothing to look at but it did work better than carrying things by hand. I would caution you about how much the trans-axle can carry, I overloaded mine once and the housing broke in two. I really didn't put that much weight in the wagon. Lucky I had a buddy that ran a small engine shop that had a scrap housing so I was able to repair it. I just watched how much I put in it from then on, took two trips with it instead of trying to move stuff all at once. DTS

 

[BearKiller]

Plain old riding-mower wheels and axles do not lend themselves to use for much else.

The wheels sleeve over the axle-stubs and are held on by some means of a key, such as an E-clip, Cotter-pin, whatever.

There are no bearings involved in the wheel/axle connection.

Also, due to neglect and people being stingy with the anti-sieze, once a mower wheel has been on there for a few months, it will be siezed up and rust-welded solid, and nearly impossible to get off.

Far better on the cheap is to get the spindles/bearings/hubs/tires/wheels off any old el-cheapo car/truck and just flat-weld the spindles to the trailer frame.

If the car is front-wheel-drive, use the rear spindles; if it is rear-wheel-drive, use the front spindles.

Also, swipe the other wheels/tires and the spare while you are there; it is much better to grab the extras now, than to comb the junk-yards later.

If you want a seperate axle set-up, the rear axle from a Datsun, Ranger, LUV, etc. can be used in it's entirety, springs/hangers too, if you so desire.

 

[radioman]

iplayfarmer- your trailer thread is what I am thinking of, except lower sides and lower ride. I haven't thought about using the whole mower frame as part of the trailer and turn it into a wagon. Right now with your ideas I am still tossing them around in my head trying to decide what I really want. I might as well take one mower apart and see if inspiration hits with your ideas tumbling in my head. Keep the ideaw coming.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Plain old riding-mower wheels and axles do not lend themselves to use for much else.

The wheels sleeve over the axle-stubs and are held on by some means of a key, such as an E-clip, Cotter-pin, whatever.

There are no bearings involved in the wheel/axle connection.

Also, due to neglect and people being stingy with the anti-sieze, once a mower wheel has been on there for a few months, it will be siezed up and rust-welded solid, and nearly impossible to get off.

In my experience, all you have said is absolutely correct. That's why you just use the whole axle. There are already bolt holes in place. They are stronger that anything else you'll find on a garden cart. It is so easy.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

iplayfarmer- your trailer thread is what I am thinking of, except lower sides and lower ride. I haven't thought about using the whole mower frame as part of the trailer and turn it into a wagon. Right now with your ideas I am still tossing them around in my head trying to decide what I really want. I might as well take one mower apart and see if inspiration hits with your ideas tumbling in my head. Keep the ideaw coming.

Take at least one mower apart. That's when the idea to use the whole axle hit me. I was trying to get the wheels off to use with different axles. When I got them off and saw the mounting holes and felt how easily they turned I felt silly for not thinking of it before. I'm sure you'll get some other good ideas as you're working it over. Keep us posted on your progress. The help I got from the forum here on my build was priceless.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Radioman,

Any progress on your plans?

 

[radioman]

iplayfarmer- I am still debating between your advice and my preferred way to take apart the axels. The reason I am debating it is I prefer to have the axels as close to 4 ft wide as possible for stablity. The ones I have are more close to 38 inches I think. The other issue is getting enough angle iron cheap. The only thing I have is the small bed frame ones. I think Ill have to visit the local scrap yard and see if they can let me poke around for something. 5 years ago, I saw a old wave runner trailer and I really wished I grabbed that one to modify!
Anyway , I have been thinking on how am I gonna attach the first axle that closest to the tongue. I have envisioning that due to how well my father old dump cart is made, the cart body was attached to a triangle metal directly to the axels. This allowed for a higher dump and ease. I was figuring if I had a decent sized I beam for tongue and the rear axle connected the way I was thinking. This presents a problem with the front axle- either connect it to tongue axel solidly or use equalizer trailer parts. If front axel is solid and I go over a dip, the weight would be all on the rear. Keep in mind, It doesnt have to dump, but it would be nice If the feature wass there so in the future if the funds is right, I'll add hydralics for it with minimal modifications.

 

[aczlan]

iplayfarmer- I am still debating between your advice and my preferred way to take apart the axels. The reason I am debating it is I prefer to have the axels as close to 4 ft wide as possible for stablity. The ones I have are more close to 38 inches I think. The other issue is getting enough angle iron cheap. The only thing I have is the small bed frame ones. I think Ill have to visit the local scrap yard and see if they can let me poke around for something. 5 years ago, I saw a old wave runner trailer and I really wished I grabbed that one to modify!

Try J&J Auto they often have a trailer or two kicking around out back in the yard.
They also have (had?) a decent selection of Volvos in the yard (if you are into them).

Aaron Z

 

[BearKiller]

Radioman,

Why not make the two axles into a "walking tandem" ??

Make two triangles; each bottom corner of a triangle gets connected to an axle, one triangle on left, one on right; the top corners of the triangles connect to the frame of the trailer and must pivot.

Regardless of terrain, with a walking tandem, all wheels remain in contact with the ground.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

iplayfarmer- I am still debating between your advice and my preferred way to take apart the axels. The reason I am debating it is I prefer to have the axels as close to 4 ft wide as possible for stablity. The ones I have are more close to 38 inches I think.

My experience has been spot on with what BearKiller said...

...due to neglect and people being stingy with the anti-sieze, once a mower wheel has been on there for a few months, it will be siezed up and rust-welded solid, and nearly impossible to get off.

Your mileage may vary, but I predict you'll have a very hard time getting the wheels apart from the axles. If you decide to go wider, my advice would be to scrounge a trailer to modify or poach rear hubs off of a front wheel drive car. GM hubs are nice because they come off flat on the back lend themselves well to DIY projects such as this.

As for attaching your axles, you might consider putting the two axles on a walking beam with a pivot in the middle of the beam. I attached a sketch of the setup. The blue rods are the axles. The red rod is connected to a single pivot point on each side of the trailer frame. Then the axles can flex and adjust to the terrain, etc. You'll have to work around it when you're adjusting your dump angle, but that's entirely possible.

For nearly all trailers, the optimum setup is for the midpoint of the wheels to be 60% back from the front of the trailer. For a two axle, 10' trailer this means putting the midpoint between the two wheels 6' from the front of the trailer.