Trailer Brainstorming (and it's tow vehicle) revisited
 

I remain someone with needs to drive alot and tow fairly heavy if I end up involved with farm/ranch land. Part of a side business involves parting out cars/pickups and at other times moving heavy stuff for side income. So i'm trying to design up the best system to do this job.

My problem is that even if I have the land (solo or with a group) I still have to live in the city between the (still have yet to start) college and (existing) dayjob issues. The trailer has to be with me in town (because that's where I will always leave from, and return to - no time to run 300 miles to the weekend farm retreat twice) and fit within a standard double garage. (which i'm currently planning to be stored on it's side, lifted up with the help of a winch then secured somehow, because I can only use "my half" of the garage for tow vehicle plus the trailer)

The tow vehicle will mostly tow - it won't come out much when not towing. (separate daily driver to keep miles off it) I've become less obsessed with truck aerodynamics and more concerned about trailer aerodynamics since that's going to be the bigger drag problem. Because I wont have any one fixed load i'm trying to think of more of a 'system' to aero-ize whatever load I pick up before I hit the road. Perhaps heavy tarps (too heavy for buffeting and ripping) combined with some kind of light framing system to shape the aero of the load?

What i'd like to use for the all-uses trailer is a car hauler. Not because it will only haul cars, but because I also have to haul cars and everything else (equipment trailers) puts the weight higher up or aren't wide enough. But car haulers seem to be able to double duty as generic trailers just fine.

Safety is coming before MPG - after past explorations, i've decided the tow vehicle will be a 3/4 ton or 1 ton truck, and anything north of 12k load will have to be handled by a different vehicle than mine. (possibly obtained later and parked on the farm as that's a much rarer load)

Pretty sure it's going to be a diesel - the constantly loaded state and the way diesel seems to get better SFC under load convince me.


SOOOOOOOOOOO.... what is there to brainstorm? :)

Biggest first problem is coming up with a trailer that fits inside the garage (on it's side!) yet is large enough to let me haul everything I have to. What I would like to do is to have a "three piece" trailer that's say 16 feet long but which lets me add on some kind of extenders to the frame front and rear if I have a longer load than that. I'd rather spend extra time bolting extenders to the frame to have the capability than not have the capability I mean. 16 feet is long enough for the wheelbase of any vehicle I can think of hauling to have all four tires on that center frame - even if the front/rear vehicle overhang will overhang the trailer. (which if I use the extenders becomes irrelevant anyway) But I wanted the extenders to let me stretch things to about 22-24 feet. (3-4 feet each)

One brainstorm I was wondering is if I could change the width of the axle between two options. The maximum 102" width for stability when hauling vehicles (less common) and something narrower for normal use (and because 102" is too tall if on it's side to flip up in my garage, but the axle could be stored separately in the garage) - maybe having separate suspension mounting points or something/two locations to put it to if I can't use the same suspension position for both axles. The front/rear extender idea might apply to the sides also - I was thinking six feet wide was plenty wide for a normal use trailer anyways (with a normal garage door being 6ft 6in, flipping it up wont bang the rails) so this makes a center section which is 6ft wide 16ft long - which can be extended to 8ft wide 22-24ft long when bolting extensions to all sides. Giving extra space for hauling construction sheet goods and bulky stuff in a lower aero stack than otherwise.

Last part i'm still not sure how best to aerodynamically 'merge' truck to the trailer incl in a way that can change with taller loads. Open to ideas. Starting to get the idea that it may not have to touch as long as the gap is small enough though - possibly even some hard piece that changes orientation with the trailer angle to not interfere with turns or retracts at lower speed?


===
PS - And so I return in 2016. :-P And I realize with depression i've been on the board 4 years, have attempted to start (early) research projects in a number of directions, and been unexpectedly stymied and pushed back due to unplanned RL problems.

Just mentioning in case someone else says "hey aren't you the guy who was going to..." - yes I was. I just haven't had a chance to get started yet because I can't build anything in an urban environment without a garage to park it in. :(

For what it's worth i've learned things that wont work and why, revised plans, and was hopefully saved some dead ends in the process.

I wouldn't want to store a car hauler on its side. Mine weighs about 1500 lbs and it's a light one. What about parking the truck on the trailer in the garage?

Why do you want to put the vehicles in the garage?

Because that is what normal people do with their vehicles.

Simon

Was also thinking parking the truck on the trailer but I doubt the garage is high enough. How about backing trailer in and raising it straight up using hoists, than back the truck in.

Depending on depth of the garage, back the trailer in, and lift the tongue to the ceiling? Maybe raise the wheels 2-3' with ramps then lift the tongue.

Well if you want to move cars then you get a car hauling trailer.
Problem with cars is they are kind of heavy and they are a moving point that starts at the back of the trailer then rolls forward on to it.

You are likely not going to put a car trailer in the garage on its side like one of those throw away northern tool trailers. A decent cheap and small car hauler trailer weighs around 1,500 to 1,600 pounds.
I am not saying it cant be done just that you are going to spend more on this tilting system then you are on the trailer its self.
I don't think you are going to be able to bolt extensions on to make it longer. Again a car hauler is not a trailer that comes in a box that can be bolted together. Besides it sounding like a really bad idea over all, when you register the trailer they are going to require a length and width, if you change the length then that's not the trailer you registered. Now you have invalid registration and the trailer is confiscated.
Anything with a deck over 6 feet wide is going to have to be a deck over axle trailer so the deck is going to be high off the ground.

I already built a do all deck over tandem axle trailer. It weighs about 2,000lb empty, the deck space is just under the legal limit at just over 8 feet wide on the deck, 101'' wide over all and just over 18 feet long. The deck and supporting structure is made to handle crazy point loads and it will carry loads of volume. It has two 3,600 pound axles on it now because that's what I had on hand when I built it. I built the trailer to eventually have 5,400 pound brake axles.

Well if the tilting system is the biggest problem I consider myself ahead. I would have assumed the variable length/width and axle swapping would be the issue.


Front bumper winches easily move thousands of pounds. I wanted to put up some solid metal framing on one side of the garage and attach the winch to the top. Once on it's side it shouldn't be too hard to keep it there I assume. Obviously with a car hauler weighing up to 4000lbs in steel it better be stout - was going to model it up in a CAD program to get an idea of the stresses and suggested steel strength for different pieces to be.


Where I currently live has a double garage - can park two inside and two outside. Except roommate gets half. I assume anywhere else i'm going will be a similar arrangement/triples aren't seen in my financial bracket.

My daily driver/beater parks outside. The tow vehicle parks indoors/want to keep that a bit nicer as I plan to have it for a long time/trucks hold value better if properly taken care of. If I can get the trailer on it's side it only takes as much width as it is tall, which is barely over the height of the tires really on a low slung car hauler.

I'd think a frame with 4x4 inch mild steel segments bolted and crossbraced should be enough strength? What I also had in mind was when it's time to winch up the trailer I might fold out legs into the garage for extra support - think metal casters on the bottom of an L-shape/triangle support to roll it out then placing it down with a support. The one in the back of garage I just back the trailer up into the garage to, the one in the front... i'm not sure yet. But the 4000lbs of trailer weight while being hoisted should just go down the hypotenuse of the triangle to the caster/floor support. (I wouldn't want a ton on each caster! The support be at least a foot square or more to spread it out)

I wasn't planning on having the weight hang off the side of a garage not made for it/it should work freestanding and i'd test it outside first. If it works freestanding I assume it should work the same in the garage. Once vertical just having some kind of locking pins keeping it in place.



The trailer would have to be a custom construction I already know this. I wanted the center section to be 'solid' the only bolt on is for the extensions, which I keep as small as feasible. Having seen variable length trailers on the roads elsewhere on hotshotters I don't see why that should be such an issue? Besides which the 'trailer' isn't longer with my design, it just has parts that bolt on to extend. In a way like the difference between letting 12 foot timbers hang out your back tailgate, vs having a modified longer than average tailgate bolted on your pickup - the pickup is still what it was before you bolted on an accessory piece. I mean it's possible i'll have to talk to the state first about legality, it's just i've seen a few trailers like this already on the road up in the oilfields. One simply had instead of two long ladder pieces, was like an extending ladder with four long pieces that meshed - and huge bolts either held it at 24 feet, 32 feet, or 40 feet with removable deck sections past 24 feet. I don't know who built it. I shoulda gotten a picture and that was genuinely variable length. I saw another that could haul either 20 foot or 40 foot containers with again ladder segments that intermeshed.

Deck over dropped axle like on every other car hauler is fine - the fenders seem to be the tallest part.

When you read trailer laws first thing you will notice is a lot of stuff that is allowed on big rig trailers is not allowed on small passenger vehicle trailers.
Large commercial trailers can get permitted to allow almost anything that isn't normally legal.
Then depending on where you live the trailer has to pass a safety inspection by people with a high school education who ae just going to fail anything they don't understand or falls out side of normal.

Can the garage even be used to hoist a trailer off the ground?

This scares me. Lots of potential for someone to get really hurt. A 4000 pound trailer, on rollers, on its side, is a lot of potentially unstable mass to be playing with. Good luck.