Fallon
Super Member
I have a 16' 14k lbs steel tilting deck trailer & love it. Picked it up at an auction for $1,700. The deck is a bit short but it has a really long tongue that I can drop the loader onto to compensate.
The pivot for the deck is center between the axles. It makes balancing tour load trivial. Drive forward until the deck pivots forward (no additional tongue weight) then inch forward about 4" or so & you have a perfect 10-15% tongue weight.
In the front (and rear) the deck is only moving a foot or so. Nothing spooky at all as long as you are going slow. Trailer is pretty low to the ground, so no offroading with it, but between that low clearance & the tilting deck its never steeper than about a wheelchair ramp.
I'll never own a non-tilting deck trailer for hauling my tractor. I don't think I'd even bother putting on a hydraulic cylinder to tilt or cushion it if you gave me one for free. Drive slow & there is no need for a shock absorber & the deck tilts properly on its own.
I currently turned it into a stakeside for hauling manure. Even with a few tons of manure in the front I can trivially climb the tractor in with that manure preventing it from tilting back. There is usually a manure ramp making that moot, but trivially easy to just drive in as the back of the ramps are less than a foot off the ground. A dump trailer would be nice, but this was $150 in parts on my existing trailer. Just moving some aged manure from neighbors in tractor roading range.
If I ever upgrade trailers its going to be to a 22-24' tilting deck. Probably not much longer than my current one, but with a fixed deck where that long neck is now. Not sure if I'd give up my steel deck for the maintenance on a wood one though.
The pivot for the deck is center between the axles. It makes balancing tour load trivial. Drive forward until the deck pivots forward (no additional tongue weight) then inch forward about 4" or so & you have a perfect 10-15% tongue weight.
In the front (and rear) the deck is only moving a foot or so. Nothing spooky at all as long as you are going slow. Trailer is pretty low to the ground, so no offroading with it, but between that low clearance & the tilting deck its never steeper than about a wheelchair ramp.
I'll never own a non-tilting deck trailer for hauling my tractor. I don't think I'd even bother putting on a hydraulic cylinder to tilt or cushion it if you gave me one for free. Drive slow & there is no need for a shock absorber & the deck tilts properly on its own.
I currently turned it into a stakeside for hauling manure. Even with a few tons of manure in the front I can trivially climb the tractor in with that manure preventing it from tilting back. There is usually a manure ramp making that moot, but trivially easy to just drive in as the back of the ramps are less than a foot off the ground. A dump trailer would be nice, but this was $150 in parts on my existing trailer. Just moving some aged manure from neighbors in tractor roading range.
If I ever upgrade trailers its going to be to a 22-24' tilting deck. Probably not much longer than my current one, but with a fixed deck where that long neck is now. Not sure if I'd give up my steel deck for the maintenance on a wood one though.
