Small Engine Tach/Speed/Clearance- Subaru Robin EX21 7HP

I like the jack shaft idea . Gives you a LOT of latitude for gearing . Will you really need to alter the height if that axle sprocket is smaller ? I'm getting the ATV I got from a neighbor ready for firewood harvesting duty . It's no bigger than the JD 317 yard tractor and it's much more nimble . I've got the racks front and rear plus a receiver hitch so I can take my big trailer close then use the little one to ferry the rounds out of the woods .

AS a biker I am sure you already know this but be careful when towing the "big trailer" with a light vehicle like that, It can go bad very easily and twice as quickly. I have towed more than I should with both ATVs and with my ElectraGlide. It is an adventure.

This will be short distance on dirt road - just across the creek . The big trailer is a 5x8 utility , don't know what max weight is - I actually towed a pretty big load of firewood on it with the JD . Did just fine until the hill got a bit too steep and it spun out . I don't anticipate that problem with the 4 wheeler since it's heavier and 4 wheel drive . If I have any doubt I can ride it home and return with either the tractor or the SUV .

I recall hauling a heavy welded angle bread rack (probably made in somebody's shop) on my similar trailer behind the FLHT once. A little sway was eliminated by shifting weight forward, but then braking was insanely slow. I did it because all my trucks were out on jobs, and the neighborhood ugly cop was complaining about me doing work at my house.

I was breaking that bread rack down for the angle iron, and using it to make brick ballasted roof mount satellite dish stands. I probably made

Put brakes on anything that excedes 50% of the tow vehicle's weight

That may be a good rule of thumb for a highway application . But I'm talking about dragging a load of firewood a few hundred yards down a dirt road to my driveway and the splitter next to it . Top speed MIGHT be around 10 MPH ...

That may be a good rule of thumb for a highway application . But I'm talking about dragging a load of firewood a few hundred yards down a dirt road to my driveway and the splitter next to it . Top speed MIGHT be around 10 MPH ...

-- Snag

---------------------------- I pushed that rule with a 600# Sears garden tractor and 450# empty weight trailer for firewood, and had to be careful to avoid the steeper slopes that had kept the area from being developed. Even empty the tractor could bounce and lose steering and braking going downhill, fortunately tested on a short slope. Increasing tongue weight to improve 2WD traction reduced steering traction, especially uphill.

I mounted the ATV winch on the back so the loaded trailer could be uncoupled to drive the tractor past obstacles and chain it to a tree to winch the trailer through, this was more controllable than winching both forward while trying to coordinate two speeds and dodge rocks.

Been there done that. In order to save money in college I rented a vacant lot with trailer hookups. Then I hauled in an old trailer. It was right at that dividing line between travel trailer and mobile home. Really a small mobile home. Hooked up to the receiver hitch on my 76 F150 it was pretty sketchy. I towed it at 35 mph for 70 miles ont he freeway. At a little over 36 mph it couldn't be steered. You could make suggestions, but steering wasn't really an option.

Just so you know a stabilizer hitch would have cured the problem, but I didn't have one. I had to scrounge and borrow a draw bar with a 2-5/16 ball to tow it at all. I have used stabilizer hitches a few times since, but none of my current trailers are tongue heavy enough to need one on my 3/4 ton trucks. On a 1/2 ton, sure, but not on a modern 3/4.

I think you're talking about what I know as an equalizer hitch . Got one for our 25 foot camping trailer , as well as a friction type anti-sway device .

Yeah, equalizer hitch is probably the correct term. I have a couple, but I'm not sure I still have all the parts. LOL.

If it's relatively flat, OK, but that load of wood behind an ATV coming out of some of the woodlots I know would put the ATV, trailer, and wood ALL into the drink or over the edge even at 10 KPH unless the ground was firm and dry. Had some close calls with the old Cockshutt

I'll bet stopping that rig even at 35MPH involved some" talking to the man upstairs" too - - -

Pretty much level ground except a short stretch approaching the intersection where our road splits off . Maybe a hundred feet of 8%-10% grade . But that's only coming from the west side of the creek , everything on the east side is going to be using the yard trailer to haul out of the woods to the road where I'll have the "big" trailer parked . It's more efficient to haul small trailer loads to a bigger trailer to bring it back to the wood lot to be split and stacked if the area being harvested is more than a hundred yards away .

Pretty much level ground except a short stretch approaching the intersection where our road splits off . Maybe a hundred feet of 8%-10% grade . But that's only coming from the west side of the creek , everything on the east side is going to be using the yard trailer to haul out of the woods to the road where I'll have the "big" trailer parked . It's more efficient to haul small trailer loads to a bigger trailer to bring it back to the wood lot to be split and stacked if the area being harvested is more than a hundred yards away . Snag

--------------------------- I try to add some value each time I have to move the firewood, for instance splitting large wet rounds at least in half before stacking them to dry, to make them easier to lift. Laying the splitter beam end on the ground lets me roll on rounds too heavy to lift without strain, with a small split piece as the ramp. I don't split them to final stove size (the palm of my hand) until they go next to the house so they aren't as tempting to steal.

After they dry they rarely touch the ground. I tow the splitter wheels up onto car ramps and lower a camper jack under the beam. A heavily built table goes behind the beam, a tub to catch bark and slivers under it. Without bending down I can move wood from the trailer to the beam and the split-off piece into a wheelbarrow while the rest lands on the table.

Between uses the splitter stores on the table and shares the same valuable covered ground space as my shop crane. Here all roof structures need to be built strong enough for the winter snow + ice load. The trick is also making them crude enough to lack tax value, so many are framed with carefully joined rough logs resting on flat rocks and walled with pallets behind hanging HF camo tarps that blend with the small pines. The corrugated steel roofing is quite flexible crosswise and conforms to roof beam logs roughly planed "straight" on top with a chainsaw.

I split straight from the trailer . Rounds too heavy to lift I move with a pivoting jib crane that's mounted on the front left corner of the big trailer . I've considered getting a splitter that will go vertical but it wouldn't really save me any labor . Split wood gets stacked on some salvaged steel roof panels and covered top only with a tarp . I've got more steel for a roof , but the tarp works and I'm lazy so ... Snag

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After you described the jib crane I tried it, but my 3' x 8' box trailer is too unstable, I can roll it onto its side by hand to fix a tire.

My stove is a Jotul 118 clone, efficient but fussy and the wood needs to be very dry, two years is barely enough. I tried many cheap coverings that all leaked before settling on purchased corrugated steel on a frame. The heavy snow load makes a big difference.

When I didn't have enough straight logs and recycled construction scrap for the roof frame it's full length 2x6's that can be reused elsewhere. The end beams are 2x8 PT that extends past the roofing on the low side instead of being cut short. The corrugated sheets are screwed down only at one edge, bolted together at the outer corners, and tied down under warped cull PT, so they can be hammered straight over 1.5" pipe if damaged and reused elsewhere later.

The only bare pile that worked well has cribbed column sides topped with entirely smooth bark-free half rounds carefully stacked into a peaked roof, covered with many layers of tarps, mostly old pool covers. It was so slow and demanding to assemble that I changed to the table-like sheds with slightly sloped flat roofs that could be quickly filled with wood in any rough condition or left empty.

I don't recall it being a big deal, but that was a long time ago.

I've had a few adventures. Once I spent a long weekend hanging out with a female friend and I had a dead battery on my bike. (A VT500C) Didn't stop us from going places and doing things. She push started me every time, and I just circled back to pick her up.

I once took that truck down a brush choked trail as fast as I dared around multiple blind turns in the dark just to scare my passenger, and when I broke out into the open she just asked, "Okay, did I pass."

Another time we spent a holiday down on the beach at El Golfo (Golfo De Sta Claire). Our "beach buggy" was a 1984 GL1200 with a sidecar with stock highway tires. It was terrible, but there was almost always somebody with a truck and a strap to pull us out. I found if I could catch just that right stretch between the surf and dry sand we could run for miles as long as I didn't hit any sinks. A few times I pushed while my wife road, but mostly we went where we wanted.

I once spent the better part of a day backing that truck out of sugar sand 4 feet at a time with a piece of plywood borrowed from what was likely an illegal artifact site, because even with all 4 flat it still wouldn't stay on top. (That piece of plywood was up on some saw horse covered in pottery shards.) At least I didn't have to walk. I had an ATV in the truck that I unloaded to go "borrow" that piece of plywood.

I ran my trap lines the first year with a Plymouth Volare station wagon. Shackled up the rear, and put an impact on the front torsion bars to get some more ground clearance. One day after a rain down in the river valley there was a thin layer of water over top of a mud flat. I had no idea where the road/trail was, but the law said I had to check my traps everyday. With the tires nearly flat it would stay on top and keep going once I got it going, but turning the wheel did almost nothing. I could nudge it a little, so I steered towards the breaks in the brush lines (where the trail was known to be) by nudging it towards the random bush here and there. When I'd hit the bush I'd jerk the wheel hard in the direction I wanted to go, and then look for the next bush.

Another time out quail hunting right after a rain I came upon a fancy jacked up 4x4 stopped in the road. I went around him in my station wagon the same way. Took me between 1/4 & 1/2 mile to get back on the road.

I haven't always made the best choices, but as a result I can drive okay.

Stopping an overloaded truck with a floating front end on asphalt with all known stopping points probably doesn't even break my top 50 shetchiest driving skills. Driving it did at first, but not stopping.

If I have to snake a log out of the woods these days I just mount my neighbor's gin pole attachment to the Yanmar . If the log is too heavy to drag out with the ATV ... I got both of these machines in the last few months and I'm still exploring their capabilities . Tell me more about your folding sawbucks ... there are times I'd rather cut logs to stove length after dragging them out of the woods .

They were dunnage, brown coarse grained tropical wood a Home Depot clerk was taking to the dumpster. I joined four pairs of 2x4's (4 cm x 9 cm?) into pivoting X's with lag screws and connected their lower ends with plywood scrap and 1x4s at the top edge. Chains between the lower ends limit opening. I widened the upper opening by beveling the ends with the chainsaw. They are

I haven't risked a crane scale by taking it with the logging gear to weigh firewood logs. I'd guess the sawbucks have supported at least half a ton each.

The other part of the rig is a tripod and lever chain hoist to lift the log, somewhat toward the stump end of the center of gravity. With experience I can be within a few inches the first try. The nearly balanced top end can then be picked up and swung onto a sawbuck and the hoist lowered to put the log on the other one.

Where I put the big end sawbuck depends on conditions, the hoist will hold up the log but the saw can set it swinging, supporting the big end steadies it.

I cut from the stump end so the lighter end can be slid further onto a sawbuck when I reach it. The goals are saving my back and not dulling the chain on rocks and gravel.

For safe and efficient stacking the 48" way on pallets I mark the log (and trim branches) every 15-16" with a folding saw and may adjust the sawbuck X positions to avoid the marks. Pieces cut long can wear through a storage shed's side wall tarp.

This picks a log up far enough to throw a safer chain sling under it. The points may need to be hammered in after removing the hoist slack.

I ran my old mini (Morris 850 Mk 1) down a road allowance in the spring past about 4 stuck jeeps and 4X4s. I don't know how I got through but I just didn't slow down. It had all of about 6 inches of ground clearance and the tires were only about 4.5 or 5" wide.. It didn't hurt that it only weighed about 1275 lbs. I took that thing through a lot of places it had no business going through. The '67 204 Peugot took me through alot of places that should have required a Land Rover in Africa too - - -