szihn - that’s a nice description and a great way to make an add-on rack. I have to admit that my Trailex modifications took days but I enjoyed the project.
Around here we commonly call that part the ball mount or the shackle mount. I have seen it called the drawbar also. I think most of the companies that make them call them a ball mount and then add in the offset. That is on cars and trucks.
When it come to tractors the drawbar is the piece you would use if the device being attached was a straight pull and not something adapted for a 3 point hitch the draw bar is just a bar with holes in it that takes hitch pins.
If you talk to the Amish the draw bars runs from the buggy carriage to the horse harness similar to the handle on a kids little red wagon that piece is the drawbar.
It is at least around here fairly common to call a single bar running to the ball coupler an extended drawbar and also the combination of the coupler and bar together a tongue.
The A-Frame being the point of connection to the trailer if the A-Frame extends all the way to the ball coupler then I hear people calling just the coupler the tongue.
I’m sure it changes around the country also.
When I extended the tongue on my kayak trailer (3" tubing) I simply used a Fulton folding tongue adapter, so it served two purposes and didn’t require welding.
1 Like
I made a frame that I bolt on to a bed trailer. The idea is to remove the frame when I want to cart things like rideon mowers etc. I installed some J racks on the top bars today. I added two extra bolts per rack that go through the plate and the timber crosspieces. Our two main craft go on the top crossbar and the other two go underneath when required.
I wish my trailer had a longer towbar so that I didn’t have front back balance issues, Sometimes you just have to work with what is on hand. The furthest I need to take the trailer is only 8km away and the local speed limit for the journey is either 60 or 80kmh.
Bed trailer with bolt on rack with new J racks
Detail showing extra bolts
Loaded up with no help from the dog.
2 Likes
Well done. I like trailers a lot.
How often do you trailer people do maintainance to your bearing? I have a 11 year old(bought 2 yrs. ago) Malone trailer. Bought new tires for it and only use it locally, but I’m thinking about traveling some with it. I haven’t gone more than 60 mi. each way and feel the hubs and they’re always cool to the touch.
If you don’t back the hubs under water, as when launching a boat, I think checking to make sure the hubs stay cool after several miles at highway speeds is enough. But in case of a flat, I do carry a spare tire, correct-size lug wrench and some home made attachments to jack up the trailer using the car’s jack. You might want to try loosening the lug nuts on the trailer. I found that a kayak trailer is so light that there’s not enough friction with the ground to get the lug nuts loose. The wheel just spins on the ground. It helps if I’m not alone, and my “lovely assistant” sits on the trailer to add some weight.
To quiet safety chains you could just slip them into a piece of hose. Various materials and diameters of hose are readily available online. Threading a length of heavy line through the chain links might work also.
To loosen lug nuts without the wheel spinning, if you do not have solid wheels, run a chain or heavy line through the hole on the wheel and around the framing on the trailer.
1 Like
Never thought about the lug nuts…both good ideas…
For solid disks, you may be able run a ratchet strap around the outside of the tire, tighten the strap down (it will crush an airless tire) and then tie the strap off to the frame. It may be better for your marriage than having wife sit on trailer.
I spec’ed my trailer with Bearing Buddies, which let me easily add a few pumps of grease. Because none of my paddling venues are close, the trailer gets driven a fair number of miles every season. I never even drive it down the boat ramp, just park the truck and carry kayak and paddle to the water. Therefore, the hubs don’t get immersed. They do get rained and snowed on, being parked outdoors.
The trailer has had 13 years of use, with only about 4 of them sitting little used (because I could cart the kayak to the beach from home). It also carried kayaks for the move from CO to WA and back to CO a few years later.
It really should get a full overhaul now. Ever since my husband curb-checked one trailer wheel HARD early on, that side has tended to leak grease. Didn’t do it before then. That’s why I always check hub temps after arriving at the launch, and why I add grease every couple of months in season. The hubs have never overheated, thanks to this frequent checking and topping up. But it’s time to find a place that will competently clean and repack the hubs, replacing the old seals. I’ve fixed electrical wire breaks etc as necessary all along, but all the wiring and related hardware should be replaced also, just due to age/use and outdoor storage.
Note that the key word here is competently. I don’t trust the local shops. Will need to drive the trailer a fair distance away to a boat trailer shop that doesn’t consider a lightweight kayak trailer something to be careless with.
HA, yeah, when I replaced the original wheels with a new set, my husband had to sit on the trailer to keep wheels from spinning, even on the concrete driveway.
I check the hubs for heat throughout the year. I jack them up in the spring to physically check for play in the bearings, then grease them. I do a visual inspection of the entire trailer at that time. The couple of hours it takes is still way less than having a bearing seize up on the highway.
The original topic of this thread is “Utility Trailers w modifications for carrying Kayaks”, but if you do the opposite and modify a kayak trailer to become a utility trailer, as I did with my Trailex, you also have to keep in mind that kayak trailers may be very lightly sprung. My Trailex is the SUT350-S, which has the heavier tongue than their 250 series trailers, but they still list the load capacity at just 350 lbs. The stuff I added to make my trailer into an enclosed utility trailer weighs 140 lbs, giving me a net load capacity of just 210 lbs. And, even being careful not to exceed that, I broke a spring a couple of summers ago.
I was very lucky, 300 miles from home, but it broke just as I was leaving a motel in PA. I was able to pull into the back of a Sam’s Club parking lot and temporarily prop up the frame with things I had in the car (some wood and some straps) to make the trailer carefully towable. And, there was a spring shop (Wilkes-Barre Spring) just a couple of miles away that took really good care of me. This was during Covid with all of the supply chain problems but they found a set of springs the right length that were delivered the next morning. The springs were 4-leaf and far too stiff, but they removed all but the single main leaf and got me going that afternoon. My springs are now stiffer than the original ones, but still softer than typical utility trailer springs.
That’s a long lead-in to another thing to add to a trailer emergency kit. I already had a wood block that acted as a yoke to let me use my car jack to raise the trailer by the axle (the yellow block in the photo). I have added the gray wood block in the photo, which can prop the trailer frame up on the axle, essentially replacing a broken spring with a solid connection. A cam strap would go around the axle, frame and block to hold everything together. I couldn’t drive far with it, but it should allow me limp to the next exit if I ever break another spring. You can also see the two spare tires that I carry. These stuff all goes in a space below the load floor on my car, but above the car’s spare tire.
Started as a boat trailer rather than a utility trailer, and its modified to haul canoes, but what the heck. its a trailer modified from original purpose to haul paddle craft. It’ll carry a kayak if necessary.
Does it hold up without any cross bracing?
Yes, do an overhaul a couple of times a year. I had Bearing Buddies on my sailboat trailer. I found out the hard way that they only lube the outer bearings.
The trailer I have also had inner bearings.
Yep it is solid!. The longitudinal section has bracing in each joint.
1 Like
I have a utility 5x8 trailer with a Dexter axle, It has a
grease nipple that’s supposed to add grease to the inside hub pushing it to the outside. You’re supposed to keep pumping grease through it till the grease comes out clean. Anyone else have something like that?
I have the opposite issue with the homebuilt kayak trailer I bought used from the guy who made it. Great that it has an extended tongue and 4 pairs of adjustable padded cradles on the crossbars so I can haul my 15’ to 19’ sea kayaks, and it is very sturdy.
But it is oversprung since he used the frame of a utility trailer for it. When I carry a couple of light boats on it (all my boats are under 55 pounds) it bounces around annoyingly. I have considered making some sort of lead-weighted ballasts to hang on it.
I had originally planned to build a wooden platform to mount on the frame (which is a welded 4’ x 6’ rectangle of square tubing) to use for hauling other loads, but ended up getting a used 5’ x 8’ stake side trailer for that use, since I now have a large enough property to store them.
This is the welded steel home-built kayak hauler (now lives on concrete in a large clean garage – this was the gravel alley where it used to live, behind my old house with no garage or driveway.):
1 Like