So we got a trailer....a few quick questions..

We (me and one of the guys I race with) finally got a trailer with only a week left before we have to haul the car to VIR for Chump 12-hour. It's a Gator-made 16' lowboy with a wood deck (so I can sell my smaller utility trailer). It's a 2010 with good tires, brakes, breakaway kit, and a gearbox (not pictured). Anyhow, with this my one issue is tiedown points. Right now it just has the stake pockets, but no D-rings or any other way to tiedown.

So today when we got it home I picked up 4 big 10,000lb D-rings from a trailer place. These are bolt-on (since my welder is acting up). I bolted them on in positions that I think will be good for a direct pull on crossed towstraps from the e30. Right now they're bolted with grade-8 3/8" bolts and washers though the VERY thick side rails. I think we'll also weld them once we're sure that's where we want them.

I also want to put some kind of ring on the front and back so we can run additional safety chains.

Anyhow, any ideas and/or thoughts on these D-rings. The placement is about 1 foot from the back of the trailer, and about 1 foot from the front of the bed. What about strapping to the front "bar" area? It's pretty substantial.

just test-bolted, not tightened...

In towing, and I'm no expert, what you want is a lot holding the car back. You aren't going to accelerate enough to throw the thing off the back, but a sudden stop can be a problem where you don't want the thing in the back of the truck.

I would personally trust your box things welded to the frame and mostly in shear more than your 3/8" bolts mostly in tension.

As I look at it, the front bar is made for tying stuff down to. Especially at the base where the uprights attach to the frame.

"They say" not to put the car in gear. Just set the parking brake with it in neutral.

get straps with flat hooks so you can hook directly to the trailer frame c channel or the stake pockets.

they work wonderful and i've never had a load come loose or shift with them, and i've done some long distance car hauling.

I agree with the good doctor. You want to keep the car from lunging forwards. With that much weight, you are not going to be seeing that much in acceleration forces.. but de-acceleration can be substantial and sudden. I know in my commercial driving days, I broke 2 three inch ratchet straps holding back 5,000 pounds of staging during a panic stop. I literally just sheered them as the truck came to a screeching tyre melting stop because somebody cut me off (on purpose I might add) so never ever discount how much momentum you will be fighting.

Also.. I might be interested in your utility trailer depending on condition and price.

That trailer has a goofy axle spacing you may want to load the car on backwards and towards the rear of the trailer to keep from having too much tongue weight. (unless you are towing with a dualy where tongue weight is not a concern)

mad_machine wrote: I agree with the good doctor. You want to keep the car from lunging forwards. With that much weight, you are not going to be seeing that much in acceleration forces.. but de-acceleration can be substantial and sudden. I know in my commercial driving days, I broke 2 three inch ratchet straps holding back 5,000 pounds of staging during a panic stop. I literally just sheered them as the truck came to a screeching tyre melting stop because somebody cut me off (on purpose I might add) so never ever discount how much momentum you will be fighting. Also.. I might be interested in your utility trailer depending on condition and price.

utility trailer is a 4x7 Carry-On. Condition is good, with nearly-new tires and a brand-new spare. Lights all work. A bit dirty but that's all. I'm looking to get about $650 for it (which is a bit lower than what that size usually lists for on CL locally, from what I can tell). Here's a pic:

bentwrench wrote: That trailer has a goofy axle spacing you may want to load the car on backwards and towards the rear of the trailer to keep from having too much tongue weight. (unless you are towing with a dualy where tongue weight is not a concern)

you know, when I see it in photos (before I bought it) I had the same thought. Measurements of the front axle hub is 9' to the front of the bed and 7' to the rear of the bed, so it's not as offset as it looks. I think part of it is that there's no dovetail (which is usually an extra 2' on the back of most car trailers) that gives it that look. It does have ramp stowage at the back (and they're pretty heavy), and we're towing an e30 so we'll have the car pretty much centered on the front trailer wheel. IDK, we'll play with the car position. Don't really want to have the car backwards on the trailer since it has no rear glass and we don't really want the windshield blowing out from the inside. Worst case I'll counterweight the car with tires in the trunk or something.

photo: here's a random trailer with a 16-foot bed and 2' dovetail. Take the dovetail off and you get about the same proportions as what we have.

Here was us towing the same car on an open trailer last year, with a 4Runner. Didn't have any tongue weight problems and the Sequoia we're using now has a higher rating than the 4Runner did. Guess we'll see once we get the car on there.

Dr. Hess wrote: In towing, and I'm no expert, what you want is a lot holding the car back. You aren't going to accelerate enough to throw the thing off the back, but a sudden stop can be a problem where you don't want the thing in the back of the truck. I would personally trust your box things welded to the frame and mostly in shear more than your 3/8" bolts mostly in tension. As I look at it, the front bar is made for tying stuff down to. Especially at the base where the uprights attach to the frame. "They say" not to put the car in gear. Just set the parking brake with it in neutral.

my main concern with using the stake pockets is the depth of them and the risk of chafing of the straps. I'll have to test my hooks on them, or get some chain extenders if I do that.

Shear strength of a 3/8 grade 8 bolt is about 10000lbs, a bit less if the threaded area is in shear, two of them is more than adequete for a 10k D ring.

That's what I thought as well. The shear area on the bolts I'm using is solid shoulder. I will also have a chain going from the rear of the car to the rear of the trailer as well, in addition to the two straps.

Here's another related question: I have a variety of dropdown and flat hitches for various vehicles. I've noticed that the Toyota's STOCK hitch has a larger hole than the other (aftermarket) ones I have. Even my 2 5/16" ball doesn't "fill" the hole. What's the story with this? Is it unsafe to use this, or will the ball stay in place once torqued down. Just happened to notice this while putting some stuff away. I don't actually ever use this receiver.

Balls come in various shank sizes, you need a different ball for that mount. There are little spacer sleeves available, but I strongly recommend against them.

That front pipe is definitely what I would tie to in the front, and in the back i would have a pair of D-rings mounted inboard of the ramps.

yeah, that's what I figured on the shank size. I must have lost the spacer at some point. No worries, not using that one anyhow, just had it sitting around and was wondering.

Mounting D-rings inboard is tough since it's a wood deck and the rear lip has a "ledge" for the ramp to hang on, so it's hard to attach anything to it. I can mount them outboard no problem. Or I could wrap a chain around to underneath to the main c-channel, and then attach the straps to that...

The shank size of the ball also affects GVW rating for the ball.

I would strongly recommend that you use chains with chain hooks for tying down the car. We actually set up chains for each car we had. Cutting the chains to the correct length. Once you get this set up it is MUCH better then straps. Also I have towed a lot of cars over the years and straps break. I have broken them while towing. I have never broken a chain. I will use straps as a secondary strap incase a chain fails but never as a primary means to strap a car down.

Ohya get a winch and attach it to something strong up in the front. We welded a piece of steel across the front of the trailer and mounted the winch there. Best thing we ever did. Makes getting dead cars on the trailer a 1 man job. Adding an electric one is even better.

Always wondered this. Would a utility trailer (like the one above) work to put a car such as my CVCC on it?

Dean, I'm entirely in favor of that. My main problem right now time, since we're leaving in 5 days and the racecar is 50 miles away from the trailer, so I can't easily measure. This will definitely be in the plans for after this race.

Also the issue of having an e30, we'll have to use axle straps either on the rear subframe or on the wheels, since there are no rear attachment points on the chassis that I would trust. So even with a chain, the main point of failure is those straps one way or the other (since we're not wrapping chains around the wheels or subframe).

Would love a winch, but not in the budget right now. Nice thing about being at a race is there are always a dozen guys there who can help push the car up. And this being a lowboy trailer, it should be pretty easy push.

qdseeker wrote: Always wondered this. Would a utility trailer (like the one above) work to put a car such as my CVCC on it?

what, the little one? I doubt the GVW is high enough on that one. I wouldn't put my GT6 on it (even if it fit, which it doesn't), and it only weighs 1800ish lbs....That trailer is fine for a half-ton of mulch, but that's about it.

irish44j wrote: what, the little one? I doubt the GVW is high enough on that one. I wouldn't put my GT6 on it (even if it fit, which it doesn't), and it only weighs 1800ish lbs....That trailer is fine for a half-ton of mulch, but that's about it.

Yes I was referring to the littler one. And my car weighs the same as yours so that answers my curiosity, thank you.

I haven't looked at an E30 specifically but most German cars have the same type of jack points as my Opels: a tube in the chassis that a jack gets stuck in to. On most of mine it's a 7/8" ID tube, and a long pin from any tractor place is a great fit.

Weld a tab to the handle end of a couple of those pins and they can be connected to each other with a chain under the car so they can't come out. If those tabs happen to have another couple of holes in them then straps can go from the pins to the front and back on each side of the car to strap it down without having to crawl underneath.

I always strap the body tight enough to keep it from bouncing around and then add a big chain to each end just in case. If you have the slots in the chassis us T or R hooks for the chain, otherwise the big J hooks are hard to beat for ease of hookup.

I agree with chains and a winch. If you look at any rollback, that is what they use. A winch up front and chains in the back

I've tried chains in the past and find it difficult to get both chains tight,you really need to have the car EXACTLY in the same location side to side in order for that to work otherwise one chain is really tight and taking all the load and the other nothing.A few good bumps and the rear might move over making both chains loose.I prefer good ratchet straps because of this,a safety chain afterwards is not a bad idea.

I've used trailers with the anchor points to the sides like that and never thought that it was the best idea,if a strap/chain did break then the single left could allow enough lateral movement to come off the side of the trailer.I use anchors closer to the center of the trailer,if one did fail the pull is still nearly straight back the arc the rear of the car could take is minimal.

On my E30 there's welded on hook loactions front in rear,in the rear they are in the wheel well.

This is one way to get and keep chains tightened. My tie down points are always within the width of the car.

I towed for several years with a similar trailer.

Just used the stake pockets and straps. No problems.

After I located the car to get the tongue weight where I wanted it. I bolted a couple of blocks to the deck as stops for the front wheels.

Oh, make sure your door will clear the fender or modify it.

oldopelguy wrote: I haven't looked at an E30 specifically but most German cars have the same type of jack points as my Opels: a tube in the chassis that a jack gets stuck in to. On most of mine it's a 7/8" ID tube, and a long pin from any tractor place is a great fit. Weld a tab to the handle end of a couple of those pins and they can be connected to each other with a chain under the car so they can't come out. If those tabs happen to have another couple of holes in them then straps can go from the pins to the front and back on each side of the car to strap it down without having to crawl underneath. I always strap the body tight enough to keep it from bouncing around and then add a big chain to each end just in case. If you have the slots in the chassis us T or R hooks for the chain, otherwise the big J hooks are hard to beat for ease of hookup.

unfortunately, that's not how e30 jack points are. There are slots for T-hooks in the rear frame, but they are widely said to be very weak, especially on a 25-year-old car, and shouldn't be used. Front isn't an issue as this is an early car and the factory tow hooks are very hearty. It's the rear end that's a pain.