Tire trailers....specifically the Harbor Freight kind. Learn me. Show me yours!

andrave wrote: you won't want to set up the trailer with spares on the front unless you always carry spares. especially with a short trailer with no trailer brakes, you need to keep some tongue weight on it or it will want to sway, usually in the most inopportune moment (high speed lane change, panic braking, etc). Personally I hate those tiny ass trailers. I hate backing them up, I hate not being able to see them behind me, and I hate how tippy they get when you stack E36 M3 up on them. To me you could make the same trailer, only better, with a decent width axle and a tongue with triangular bracing that is another foot longer, makes backing up a good bit easier. I just hate seeing people buy these cheap ass harbor freight trailers only to realize that its crap, and then buy steel to reinforce them, rewire them so the lights don't corrode and flicker, buy new tires when the cheap ass ones on there fall apart after a year, etc. When you can buy a decent full width 3500 lb trailer axle with brakes for under $200 and go from there with good stuff, the kind of stuff you will end up wanting or needing to upgrade to in the first place. And you will find a full width trailer is so much more useful and holds all your stuff without having to pack it up to the extent that everything is hard to get to. Thats my 2 cents.

I have a 5x8 utility trailer. It way bigger than what I would want to lug around to rallycross events behind an e30 that has a 2000lb tow capacity.

I wouldn't get this little HF trailer to tow with a truck, but as a tire hauler for a sportscar it fills the bill.

I saw someone towing a motorcycle on one of those once. The tongue flex every time they hit an expansion joint was frightening. Maybe 4-5". minimum. Thats gonna result in fatigue failure eventually.

andrave wrote: I saw someone towing a motorcycle on one of those once. The tongue flex every time they hit an expansion joint was frightening. Maybe 4-5". minimum. Thats gonna result in fatigue failure eventually.

I guess you're talking to the guy who was asking about a motorcycle....and I definitely wouldn't do that on this trailer, personally....too close to the max weight rating, even with a sportbike.

But tires and gear weigh at best 1/2 as much as a typical sportbike....I've read maybe 100 peoples posts here and elsewhere about hauling tires and gear on HF mini-trailers, and I've yet to find anyone who had any kind of issues other than tire blowouts or wheel bearings, which can happen on even the highest-end trailers...

It's fine if people use it for the limited things it can be used for. For bigger jobs, a bigger trailer is needed.

I bought a used ones maybe 10 years ago. I haul wheels on it, but lately I stuck one of those clamshell cartop haulers on it and made it or camp trailer. It's great. Ten year old tires are surprisingly in good shape as well, though could use some balancing. I usually load it so its almost balanced. The Miata pulls it fine and it has nearly no affect on mileage. The only thing it has required is paint as the powder coat faded away. But I guess that wasn't even necessary.

Joey

irish44j wrote:

andrave wrote: I saw someone towing a motorcycle on one of those once. The tongue flex every time they hit an expansion joint was frightening. Maybe 4-5". minimum. Thats gonna result in fatigue failure eventually.

I guess you're talking to the guy who was asking about a motorcycle....and I definitely wouldn't do that on this trailer, personally....too close to the max weight rating, even with a sportbike. But tires and gear weigh at best 1/2 as much as a typical sportbike....I've read maybe 100 peoples posts here and elsewhere about hauling tires and gear on HF mini-trailers, and I've yet to find anyone who had any kind of issues other than tire blowouts or wheel bearings, which can happen on even the highest-end trailers... It's fine if people use it for the limited things it can be used for. For bigger jobs, a bigger trailer is needed.

Looking at the 40.5 x 48 trailer with 12" tires.... Weight capacity is 1090 lbs. My Fz1 weighs in at 509lbs wet. (wikipedia)

Triangle the front of the trailer and mount a chock up there. I feel it should work....

I may bite on that trailer if it gets stupid cheap

EDIT: like this. HF used to sell these...

Thread back from the dead!

Purchasing a small trailer has moved up on the priority list for us. Which bodes well for me because I wanted one anyway.

Any new ideas or lessons learned to share?

Nah.

I even bought one for myself!

The short version is, when I built mine, I painted it first because painted bolts is so gauche. Bought a 100-pack of 3/8" washers because I could not bring myself to assemble the thing without washers. Heat shrink butt connectors for the wiring because wire nuts don't belong anywhere near wheeled vehicles. Front mounted tires, Contico box on the rear because it was sturdy and only $65 at Tractor Supply.

Have maybe 1500-2000mi on the trailer, is rock stable under all conditions, even on roads rough enough that it is off the ground as much as on (saves on tire wear ) and at superlegal speeds. Have towed behind a Miata, an RX-7, and a front drive Volvo, with up to eight tires on the thing. Oddly enough the big Volvo is the one where it's most noticeable.

Even though it says max speed 55 they do fine at 90+.

Yah, on the way to Lake Odessa last month I did a good long stretch at... um... 71mph!

This thread reminds me to check the wheel bearings out of paranoia.

In reply to Knurled:

Thank you for your link- I guess I missed that the first time around. Exactly what I was looking for.

In reply to paranoid_android74:

A couple weeks ago I would have sold you mine for cheap. Then I was reminded how useful it is...

Mine is still good. And I routinely tow at over 80 with it. Get the bigger wheel version, not the one with the little tiny ones.

I also seam-welded the whole thing which really added stiffness to the frame vs. just the bolts.

In reply to EvanB:

I haven't seen any used ones for sale. But maybe this is a case where buying new makes more sense.

In reply to irish44j:

I was already planning to use your idea of seam welding the trailer! Was also thinking of mounting a battery as well, but we shall see.

We got one a couple of years ago for $200 used- which was nice since the registration crap was all taken care of already. If you want to haul motorcycles (or something else that needs to roll on) with it, you can get the deck lower by mounting the axle on top of the leaf springs and making adapters to move the fenders up accordingly.

I have to list mine for sale....

You can fit 2 pit boxes on the top. Carrying (4) 315's makes for a large width area too.

The 12" wheels will do 120ish for short bursts. Sometimes, you get to the racetrack and forget its there....

I've had my 4x8 HF trailer for almost five years now. It's hauled a yard of dirt, lawn tractors, who knows how much brush, three sections of 3x8 dock, and lots of other stuff. Now using it to go back and forth to the lake once a month or so, a 120 mile highway trip each way. Thinking that with the extra highway miles, half of them at night with sleeping kids in the car, replacing the bearings might be a good idea to prevent a roadside stop. Any recommendations for upgrading the bearings? I've never done anything with trailer bearings other than building this trailer and greasing the boat trailer bearings.

In reply to PeterAK:

You can get the bearings at northern tool, amazon, etc. I think I just got new hubs too to be safe.

One thing if you can get it to work. They offer a 5x4.5 hub to replace the 4bolt that these come with. If you had some spare wheels laying around I had a bunch of Ford stuff you could strap those on and it would effectively lower the rotational speeds and increase bearing life. I ended up not doing it, since I didnt use the trailer THAT often and needed to get bearings for it then. So it stayed 4 lug.

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I'm something like the fourth or fifth owner of this little lovely. Paid $100 for it and done exactly nothing to it.

While I haven't taken it over 80mph, I have it on good authority that it has seen north of 125. I probably aught to take a look at the bearings......

Oh, and I took this picture yesterday at a rest area. The sign pointed me to "trucks and cars with trailers". I blend right in.

Final iteration for mine. I added the wood sides to keep a chair and some small miscellany in the trailer. I added brake lights / turn signals to the upper part of the wood body to defend against SUV's. The spare is located under the body. The boxes on the sides were made to hold coolers. Sold it when I sold the car, wish I still had one, but have no place to store it.

For a little more money: Northern Tool Aluminum Trailer

In reply to car39:

That is a sharp trailer!

I've seen some used jet ski trailers made of aluminum, and gave them some thought as well.

The only trouble I have with aluminum is the only way I can make pieces of it stick together is with nuts and bolts and such.

Whereas with steel I have a welder that I can usually get E36 M3 to stick together with.

As Chris alluded to above this trailer will fill many varied duties, so it won't be purpose built just for tire and tool transport.

In reply to paranoid_android74:

The panel at the back was a small tray that dropped down. It was a good place to put tools, gloves etc. in a parking lot.

I specifically put my Contico box on the trailer right-justified so that I would have a small "stick crap here" shelf on the left side.

I made it the left side, so in case I forgot there is stuff there, I have a slightly higher chance of seeing it before getting in the car and driving off.

Having the trailer is SOOOOOO much nicer than packing everything in the car. Even if it all FITS in the car, that is all that much more packing and unpacking that needs to be done, both on-site and at home. Really, all one NEEDS is a jack, impact gun, torque wrench, some boards for under the jack, and the tires... but the tendency is to take spare doodads with you, and that all would need to be unpacked/repacked on site. And then if your competition car is also your go-to-work car, you either unpack it all when you get home or you drive a car full of crap all week.

With the trailer you just throw the junk you used back in the trailer, hitch it up, and go. And then when you get home, you unhitch it and forget about it until next time you need it, at which point you just hitch it up and go again.

Probably should check those wheel bearings, paranoia factor.

Here's mine before I got a truck and started towing the enclosed kart trailer. It would do 85 (gotta love Texas toll roads) all day long and even behind the Fiat, I barely knew it was there. I just tack welded mine and built a sort of shelf/frame thing for it out of 1/2" square tubing and angle iron and bolted it on. It's hard to see in the picture, but the line on the side was actually a 18" wide shelf that I used to hold tires or a pop up tent. Worked great and acted as a fender.
While I like having a 6x12 enclosed now, I miss that little trailer.
Ended up selling it to another guy who got a flat. Left it on the side of the road to go buy a spare and it was stolen. I would also recommend the slightly bigger wheels for it. I ended up just picking up two at WalMart. It didn't make it tow any better, but made me feel better about the high speeds. To keep the hubs greased, I bought grease nipples and drilled and installed them on mine. Much easier to deal with.

-Rob

In reply to PeterAK:

Name brand bearings and seals, SKF, Timken, NTN, etc. Airspace in the hub and cap should be ~1/2 full of grease.