Professional trailer designer

7k gross trailer is not a lot of weight for a regular 3/4 ton pick-up truck. Just have a frame mounted hitch. For added convenience, use a pintle hitch instead ofa ball hitch. I tow a 10k trailer regularly hauling a forklift, with a 3/4 ton pick-up, it works just fine if I drive conservatively. i

You're right for short distances and drive conservatively.

Now think 40K miles over ten years. Sometimes sleepy, sometimes wife behind wheel, sometimes icy. Now a jerk cuts you off and you're going

75 to keep up with traffic.

Driving a large load is years of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror.

Karl

I'd suggest just going to an auction or three...they sell pretty routinely around here anyway...

Do not go 75 keeping up with traffic, and 90% of those problems never appear. The jerks do not cut you off, you get plenty of time to brake gently, and save wear and tear on your transmission.

I could not care less about "keeping up with traffic" when I tow anything of significance.

A lot of problems, like icy roads, etc, are very significantly reduced if you go slow and keep good distance from vehicles in front of you.

i

7K is significant, but not excessive for a modern 3/4 to pickup. A stabilizer hitch will cure a lot of problems if setup properly for the trailer. I've towed that much with a modern half ton and a stabilizer hitch. I found a yard stick leaned against the rear bumper to help me set my level really helped make the process easier.

As Iggy said, towing at 65 instead of 75 will cure more. In California you have to slow down to 55 when towing. (Yuck!). That makes for some long days to go buy equipment. I've passed on some good deals in Ca for that reason alone. That, and I always feel like I have to watch over my shoulder for gesta... er I mean over enthusiastic law enforcement for some infraction I never heard of in any other state.

"Ignoramus32197" wrote in message news:J7GdndT_KtWoDmbPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

I sometimes find a truck that holds speed up hills and pull in well behind it, leaving room for others to cross and exit. No one tailgates or cuts close in front even in heavy, irritable Boston-area rush hour traffic.

...

I must be on the wrong newgroup. I want to build my own. This used to be the place to go ask such questions.

Thanks for the ebay leads. You're better at computer searches than I am (One of my many weaknesses)

This one shows a huge oversize gooseneckboat hauler

I'm told ones are made for very large cigarette boats but I'm after one a fair bit smaller and lighter.

Karl

Greetings Karl, I can't help with the engineering part but in my state (WA) it is much easier to license a modified trailer than one that is home built. Here we are required to have all the receipts for all the materials, tires, painting, etc. This of course is done to help prevent the theft of trailers. If you just modify the trailer the state doesn't care. As long as it is safe of course. But there is nobody checking your welds or anything. If your state is the same then maybe it would be easier to find a trailer that can be modified to what you want and then you can make it just the way you want it. Then there won't be the licensing hassles. I have gone this route making a small boat trailer for my 12 foot aluminum rowboat. The trailer was pretty much a basket case but it was licensed here and had a good axle, tires, springs, and bearings. I just pretty much made the new frame and bolted the running gear to it. For me it was the cheapest, fastest way to go. Cheers, Eric

That's because commercial companies is where the money is (and big fines).

i

That's not how they do it here or in Russia:

This was in the USA! Those roads are too ggood for Russia, this is how they really look like in inclement weather

Oops, I stepped back one vid too far. This is Russia.

but not the one I thought. Oh, well.

"Hey, let's take a drive in this wet cement, guys!" Um, why don't they pave some of those roads, Ig?

Karl, I don't know any professional trailer designers, but there are a number of trailer builder outfits. Perhaps one of them might design what you want for a fee.

I hauled our boat back and forth between Texas and Michigan (~1500 miles) several times. Buy the best tires you can get, keep up with the tire inflation, and make sure the trailer is level so the load is equalized on each axle.

After doing that a few times, replacing tires up and down the interstates, I found a place to store the boat near where I needed it. We didn't use it much in Michigan. Open shallow draft bay boats are a little drafty in Michigan. If you use your boat at both ends, I guess it makes sense to move it. I don't think most trailer tires, including radials, are really built for all day driving, though. So if you do this, I hope you get some really good over the road tires.

Good luck.

Pete Keillor

Too much land, not enough money.

The problem is that a gooseneck trailer wants a different distribution of weight than a tag-along. You want more weight on the neck. So he'd not only have to put a gooseneck on it, but he'd have to move the axles back.

And -- I don't know by how much!

AFAIK, when it comes to gooseneck trailers and good stability, more weight on the hitch is better. Consider a semi truck & trailer as the "ultimate gooseneck" and you'll see what I mean.

So maybe the approach to take is to design the thing so that it puts about half of your truck's rated load on the hitch, with the rest of the weight going on the tires. The tires _will_ be further back with such a setup than with a tag-along.

I drove a 3/4 ton pickup with a gooseneck trailer for my dad for several years in the summers, going to car shows. For a while we were pulling out of the parking lot with 20,000 combined GVW -- I think that when I was driving it we were at 14,000 or something like that. The combination pretty much handled like the trailer wasn't there, except for the getting up to speed and going up the hills parts.

Yep, people that haven't experienced a gooseneck don't realize the HUGE difference in stability. ESPECIALLY with panic braking.

Karl

90% of those drivers could have maintained/recovered steering control if they kept their foot off the brake.

Absolutely. Most were steering wildly, too.