trailer builders, how much longer should I make my tongue? (1 Viewer)

After reading a few posts and after putting a tire carrier on my little harbor freight monster, I need to lengthen my tongue. The trailer is 6.5 feet long from the tip of the tongue to the rear. Right now the tongue is 2’ from the front of the deck and I just don’t have the room for movement that I would like. (tire and gas tanks can hit the cruiser when at angles or turning sharply). I am thinking about extending the tongue 2’ by replacing the original with some longer square stock. For those that know more about building trailers, how much longer should the tongue be? I know it is forward heavy right now, but I am going to put a 20 gallon water tank in the rear to balance it out. So how long should the tongue be?

Here are some pics right now.

Since you are pretty much starting from scratch again, make the tongue adjustable. Weld a 12 to 18 inch section of 2 inch receiver to the existing tongue structure. Weld your lunette ring to a 2 inch hitch bar and drill the two parts so that you can slide them in or out as needed for the load and terrain.

A couple of 1/2 inch bolts with self locking nuts is adequate to hold the bar in position.

Attach the safety chains to the sliding bar, not the trailer. You will have to extend the lighting harness and loop the excess cable when the bar is retracted.

This setup lets you remove the tongue for storage, since I believe you indicated that garage space is an issue.



Ya that trailer is _seriously_ tongue heavy. I don't see how you can balance it with anything in back, since the weight will more or less be right over the axle. You would have to extend the platform back a couple of feet at least - was that what you had in mind?

Water ballast is fine, until you use it all up at the campsite and then have to tow an imbalanced trailer back home with no ballast. It's better to design in some permanent ballast, like a big house battery or generator. With the trailer you have now, I don't see a satisfactory solution.

Where are your fenders? Those little rain hats don't qualify. Even if the local DOT lets you get away with open tires, you should, for the sake of cars following you on the highway, put on some real fenders and mudflaps. If I were behind your trailer when it flipped a rock into my windshield, I would be _seriously_ ticked off. In WA the fenders/ mudflaps are "supposed to" extend to the axle centerline or below - it isn't enforced in any way but it is a good rule of thumb.

I'm not trying to be a hard @ass - but you should be aware that those dinky fenderettes will get you into trouble one day. My trailer doesn't throw rocks.....:



John Davies
Spokane WA

For an offroad trailer the ideal draw bar length would be long enough to allow the trailer to sit at a near 90 degree's to the cruiser, and not touch the cruiser. So basically, and someone correct me if I am wrong, you want to take the distance from the center of the rear bumper/crossmember and allow the drawbar to just sneak past the outside edge of the rig.

This will help the trailer tow better too, not to mention back up.

Rezarf <><

I was able ot get a straight answer from the DMV about fenders, I do not need them. Any trialer under 1500 lbs does not require them but I do plan on putting something on there at some point. Yes it is nose heavy, but it iwll get extended in the rear a bit more and a generator will be ni the rear and all of the camping gear will bein the back. the frotn will be for clothes and light stuff. I do have to work out the balance thing though.

John Davies, what kind of a hitch is that?

Brian in Oregon said:

John Davies, what kind of a hitch is that?

Click to expand...

It says Treg in his build thread-

https://forum.ih8mud.com/showthread.php?t=101683


The links in there don't work, but this one does-

http://www.tregtrailers.com.au/

OK I have to rethink how I am going to do my kitchen since after some thought, I am going to cut off the tire mount and move it to the rear to balance out everything. (that is whre my slide out kitcen was going to go.

I am in a small town and having trouble findig some 72" 1/8, 2X2 square stock to make a longer tongue. What would be the problam with getting a 4' section and welding it onto the top of the existing toungue and using some grade 8 bolts to fortify the welds.

My only concern would be that I would get flex in the now tongure. I would have about 2' of exisitng tongue to weld on top of.

Ideas?

I have used these guys with great success. They will only ship 60" sections though, and they will cut everything just perfect for your application.


http://www.allmetalsinc.com

Rezarf <><

Thanks guys, I am just around 4.5' past the body. That gives me about 6" inches of clearance past the cruiser body so I can be turned and at an angle and the gas tanks don't hit anything. I'll post picks up tonight in the origional trailer post.