Those welds interrupted someone's coffee break.
The surprises I used to enjoy so much don't seem as impressive as they once were, but they keep coming in the gate, job security in action.
Is that an original fish plate at the driver's side tongue bend?

 

No, it had no fish plate at the bends. This side was broke completely in two. The owner had scabbed a 2"x6" piece of 1/8" onto it over the break to pull it to us. Supposedly it broke the first time he hauled his tractor on it. I don't know how big the tractor is, but the new brush hog for the tractor was sitting on the trailer when he dropped it off, and it's a 5' brush hog I think. So I can't imagine the tractor being bigger than a 8n or 9n ford. Nowhere near what they advertise this trailer being rated for.

 

At this point, we have ground out the cracks, welded uphill with 7018, ground smooth and fishplated with 1/2" plate about 12" both ways from bend/cracks. We'd like to plate the inside also, but the crossmember there kind of makes that difficult. My opinion, the frame/tongue should have been made out of heavier channel to start with. When the trailer is tilted, the force on this part of the frame is a lot. Another design flaw I see, is when the trailer is tilted, the front tires are lifted completely off the ground. This isn't just a car hauler trailer, it's advertised for hauling tractors also.

As far as the leverage problem with the cylinder, what we've come up with so far is a piece of heavy square tubing, as a crossmember right in front of the smaller channel crossmember, behind the cylinder, with a square tubing stiff leg from it to the cylinder mounting plate. Does anyone see a better idea?

This trailer has been used so little, the deckplate doesn't even have the paint rubbed off of it anywhere. I don't know what was paid for this trailer, but one dealer I found that sells them, starts at about $6300.00 up to $7,000 for this trailer depending on length (18'-24')

I think designed and built right, this would be a great trailer... BUT I think the main frame should have the axles mounted to it, where all the tires would stay on the ground when tilted. I also think the frame should be constructed out of heavier channel. It is 6" channel, but very thin (for a trailer frame of this size). The tilt cylinder should have had more thought put into the mounting. The torque put on the crossmember by the cylinder is way too much.

I've not worked on smaller trailers like this much, my trailer experience has been on 35 and 50 ton lowboys, and 40' oilfield floats. I've never even owned a small trailer,except a single axle tilt we built to haul the lawnmower, so never really paid much attention to how they're constructed. After looking this one over, it's kind of scary thinking what people are pulling down the highway... This is considered to be a "premium" trailer, and it's not built that well at all I don't think.

 

its amazing what passes off for a 14K tilt trailer. Makes me want to out out and hug my Walton.

 

I asked recently about these type of trailer, where the front tires lift complete off the ground. This thread goes to show that my concerns were warranted. though it would appear for the wrong reasons.

Is there no room for a cross member aft of the lower cylinder mounting cross member? I'm thinking if there is one behind you could and a cross brace (tubing) from the bottom of the cylinder mount back to the new brace. essentially transferring the force from the cylinder mount back to the next cross member.

 

That's exactly what's being done now. A new cross member directly in front of the smaller cross member behind the cylinder. 4"x4"x3/8" square tubing. Then another piece of it running from it to the cylinder mount. I really don't know any other way to "fix" what is there without basically starting over on the cylinder mounting. The manufacturers idea was to brace the cross member the cylinder is mounted to with the angle iron in front of it. It just pulled weld and all out of their cross member. It looks to be built heavy, but the 6" channel that the tongue is made out of MIGHT be 3/16" thick.

I worked on it a little while today, and I noticed something else that I don't much care for about it. I'm not really familiar with these tilt trailers, but I would think it should have some sort of mechanical lock, be it a latch or at least a pin system, to lock the trailer in the "transport" position. The cylinder is a 2 way cylinder, where it will either tilt the bed, or pull it back down to travel position. But if someone were to haul something that was tail end heavy, a hydraulic failure of some kind, or even the cylinder bleeding off could let it tilt going down the road. Doesn't sound like a good idea to me...

 

I was offered a Big T** tilt gooseneck about a year ago. 20' long and in good shape. He couldn't get his price for it which seemed real reasonable at $2500. I didn't have the cash to spend at the time so I passed. Maybe I got lucky?

I'm older and ramps really are hard for me, so I'd figured go to a tilt... any ideas on brand or design which is good vs this thing? Like everything I just watch and wait for a good deal, a good deal would not be a poorly built trailer My tractor is 2800# and some car trailers dont seem up to it.

 

I love my walton. I have had 18K on it and it never batted an eye.

 

I just looked at a 14,000 pound Walton online, and it looks like a much better design. I really don't like the way this one tilts and lifts the front tires off the ground.

 

The main problem is that your cylinder is in a bind. Ok, not actually a true bind, but a bind none the less. It has to exert a huge amount of force forward before it overcomes the angle and starts to straighten out to actually do a lift.

If you have the room on the frame, and can sacrifice some ground clearance, I'd move the cylinder forward, and down a bit.

If you don't have room etc. , try going above the deck Move the cylincer forward a bit, and then put the upper pin actually above the deck if possible. House it in a little dog house sorta. It would be centered, and on the forward part of the deck, so shouldn't interfere with any wheeled thingy you might load on the trailer. The higher the doghouse the less you'd have to depend on that stupid lower eye tab they've done, it's nothing but a lever trying to twist the "tube". Closer you get to the center of a tube, the stronger it is as far as resisting twist.

You have to straighten the cylinder motion or continue to tear up the trailer every time you activate the hydraulics.

 

Like this....................

Move the tube forward if necessary, raise the lower pin, and fabricate a new pin point above the deck of the trailer, enclose it.

Sorta like the enclosed ram housing on a dump truck bed.

 

Kind of on Sam's thinking but flip the cylinder and make it push toward the back instead of the front. The more of an angle the cylinder can start pushing from the easier it will lift. If nothing else can you install a scisors hoist in place of the single cylinder.

A tilt trailer I had expirence with of this style the cylinder was more of a cushion intended to just hold the bed up and control the drop rate to keep it from slamming down. It was not intended to tilt the trailer while loaded. Rolling the load on and off controlled the tilt. The owner may not be operating the trailer right.

Dan

 

You're also having a moment on the frame channel.

The channel can be reinforced by adding more beef to the lower flange. You get the most bang for your buck by reinforcing the flange in tension as opposed to the flange in compression.

Case on point.............. Sure y'all have seen this thing.

The flange was reinforced on the tension side, and the 3" channel carries more than it was designed to carry as an unmodified structural shape.

The reinforcement

Load test

It's in the background of most of my "shop" pics, and it's loaded pretty heavy. Granted it's a static load, but the same applies to live loads.

 

That mount for the ram sucks and i would go with a hinge type scissor that would mount the ram horizontally and the rear mount for the ram would be another heavy cross member and the mount for bottom of the hinge would be another cross member then you would box it on either side of the mounts tying both together

it would be stronger and more compact