wagon slip tongue

[kydick]

anyone out there ever make a wagon slip tongue?

 

[ArlyA]

By "slip" do you mean an adjustable length tongue?? If that's the case, I have.

 

[kydick]

thats what i am talking about. seems like new ones about 250 to 300 dollars. more than i would like to spend. could probably get a hole running gear off a used wagon for that much. pretty handy with a torch and welder. think i could build 1 with odds and ends laying around my shop. any details would be welcomed. thanks

 

[ArlyA]

I'm not sure if this will help but here is photos of an adjusted length tongue we built for a UTV trailer. This setup worked very well for us. With one wench (or two) we could adjust it in 60 seconds. Of course yours need to be heavier duty. For $250, you might be better off to buy it.

 

[Xfaxman]

I have never seen a wagon with a slip tongue.

What is the reason for it?

 

[kydick]

looks good. thinking of using my square tongue. getting a round pipe and bore a 1 inch hole in it. cutting a hole in 2 pieces of flat piece of steel for the pipe to slide through and welding it inside of my wagon tongue. have to weld a piece of steel on the end of the pipe so it will not pull through. make a hitch for the other end. bore a 1 inch hole in my square tongue. mount a bracket over top of the hole so i can put a pin and a spring that will hold the pin in the hole when i back up. seem like it should work?

 

[kydick]

unlatch the lever and pull the tongue out a foot or 2 and when you back up to the wagon you just have to get in the right neighborhood just push or pull the tongue to the draw bar and put in the hitch pin. back up untill the tongue latches and you are ready to roll. sometimes i would miss about a inch and instead of getting back in the tractor i would try to move my wagon that much. with a load of hay or corn that puts a lot of pressure on my knees. they just not as strong as they used to be.

 

[Xfaxman]

OK, very handy. :thumbsup:

 

[ishiboo]

OK, very handy. :thumbsup:

Yeah, hooking up to an adjustable tongue is WAAAAAAY nicer than anything else. I had two gears and I sold one and unfortunately the nicer adjustable tongue went first, sucks having to hoo up the regular tongue but the adjustable are a snap.

I'm curious about this thread too, would like to see a good simple solution. Would love to make my remaining wagon an adjustable.

 

[Renze]

I put a tree branch under the tongue and back up right to it. Ive even used wagons at a contractor that had a 1/2" pipe as foldable tongue stand.

Truck trailers have springs on the tongue that hold it on drawbar height. With threaded rod adjustment its allways close enough.

 

[tim5]

here's my extendable wagon tongue build for my round bale wagon. I used it all summer in 2016 pulling loads up to 12,000 lbs. Works great & simplifies hooking up to the tractor! The outside tube is 2". Found the tubing pieces at the local scrap metal resale yard. The rest of the metal was from my scrap metal pile. I welded the outside tube to the original wagon tongue.

 

[kydick]

what kind of spring did you use to hold the latch down?

 

[oosik]

I built a farm wagon - Horst running gear - it has a slip tongue. Great for attaching to the tractor drawbar when you don't want to fiddle around, all day, with perfect line-ups. Especially after you have loaded the wagon with rock or timber and can't budge it an inch come ++++ or high water.

View attachment 501875 You can see the locking lever on the top of the hitch near the end.

 

[tim5]

I don't have a spring. strictly gravity. I have not had any problems with it staying latched.

 

[handirifle]

I built one many years back, but it was not infinitely adjustable as some. It was fixed positions. Mine was for a homemade camping trailer.

Here is a pic of it extended

And retracted.

This is why I made it adjustable.

I have since sold both, but this was built back in 2005.

Mine used std 2" insert tubing and receiver tubing, just like on a car.

 

[kthompson]

Not a trailer tongue but this Saturday had to hook to disk left in field for blow line. Was wondering about rehooking by my self in soft and backed up as close as I could with no help, pulled the draw bar pin and pulled it out an inch or so needed to pin the disk. Then I wondered now how do I line up that much tighter draw bar pin to tractor? Thought maybe I can move very slowly and the draw pin will drop in place...well it did and was latched when I stopped. I moved very slowly and realize when the disk first moved stopped and backed us a tiny bit and it moved back.

The pin for the draw bar has a strong taper on the end and is weighted so it lines up and fell into place very easy. The design of the latch locked the pin in by the dropping of the pin. I had wondered why such a latch design for my Kubota's used a pin and hair pin to lock its draw bar. Who ever at John Deere came up with this seeming odd design sure got a thank you from me Saturday.

You may need to weld a bushing to give it enough length to keep a pin lined up vertically but you should be able to taper a pin, place in the top and with trailer hooked slowly move in or out with tractor and the pin drop. You may have to wiggle it some for there is a lot more distance with no guidance in your tongue than a JD draw bar.