Professors 7x14 Toy Hauler

[hankaye]

professorkx, Howdy;

Not to sure about carpet in the kitchen ... things spill, others splatter grease (ie. bacon), but that's y'all's choice.
What else ya got that's got some weight to it, tool box, spare tire, what did ya do for the bed? Have you loaded
everything in it including groceries to see what is truly going on with the Weight & Balance equation?
It's always a head scratcher ...

hank

[professorkx]

professorkx, Howdy;

Not to sure about carpet in the kitchen ... things spill, others splatter grease (ie. bacon), but that's y'all's choice.
What else ya got that's got some weight to it, tool box, spare tire, what did ya do for the bed? Have you loaded
everything in it including groceries to see what is truly going on with the Weight & Balance equation?
It's always a head scratcher ...

hank

On the carpet, cost was all of $18 and took about 40 minutes to cut and fit, so I expect we will be replacing the carpet every few years. Just used 1/4" T50 staples on the edges under the baseboards, so no glue. Super simple to replace.

A little more information on trailer and tongue weight. I have an axle scale very close that is only manned by highway patrol periodically to spot check truck weights. There is a window in the little building beside the scale, so I decided to sit the tongue on the scale and start moving things around. When I was finished, I was able to get well under 400 pounds tongue weight by moving the Optima Blue Top to the rear of the trailer and loading the Triumph in the trailer. So, looks like I will be relocating that heavy battery behind the axles, and the bike goes with us on every trip with the trailer, so that one is easy.

We don't have a lot of storage in the cabinets, and paper/plastic will be used as much as possible. Cloths will take some room, and I am sure the fridge will be loaded with food. However, I can offset the additional tongue weight for towing by simply putting my two water jugs by the back door along with the 2000 watt generator, spare tire and 5 gallon can of gas. That should more than offset the food in the cupboard and fridge, and might even be too much offset. Once we stop, I will put the water jug under the sink and insert the pickup tube. The scale will be the first stop on the first few trips until we fine tune loading for proper tongue weight.

The final trailer weight without food and water (with Triumph loaded) was 2920 pounds, well below my 3500 pound goal. I doubt we will be hauling 500 pounds of food and water (water will be in two 4 gallon jugs, so 64 pounds), but even if we do, we will still have a few pounds to spare before we get to 3500 pounds.

Before we parked the trailer, we towed took a little trip to test everything, up/down hills and on flat at speeds up to 70 mph, and the trailer was rock solid, even with wind gusts. We have owned travel trailers up to 32 feet long, and have been back and forth across the country 8 times (and hundreds of camp trips less than 1000 miles from the house), so we are used to dragging a trailer around. I was concerned that the tongue weight would lighten the front of the tow rig enough to make the steering a little weird, but even at 480 pounds tongue weight (more than I will run), the Jeep was rock solid. The hitch is a class III hitch, so need to get the tongue weight to 350 pounds by moving things to the rear for traveling. Shouldn't be a big problem, just take a few trip to understand the proper load distribution...

[lrrowe]

You are fortunate to be able to move things around in order to balance out the load. I am trying to plan for that flexibility.

[professorkx]

You are fortunate to be able to move things around in order to balance out the load. I am trying to plan for that flexibility.

My backup plan will be to carry two extra 5 gallon water jugs and place at the rear door during towing. My testing last weekend revealed a one-to-one relationship for weight at the rear door to tongue weight. Since water weighs about 8 pounds a gallon, I can get 80 pounds of tongue weight offset with two 5 gallon jugs. Since the trailer weight came in below 3000 pounds without food and drinking water, I have room to add another 80 pounds of water ballast and still be under my tow vehicle limit of 3500 pounds.

Quite frankly, I had not planned for this potential problem, so I am embarrassed for this failure. The only reason I am posting my failure in this area is in hopes that others will be able to learn from my failure to plan...which almost never happens.

As you noted, I am fortunate to be able to easily address...

[hankaye]

professorkx, Howdy;

Don't think you've had a failure ... only bumped into a learning curve that you'll
probably have flattened out with a minimum of head scratchin' ... a failure is when
ya stop lookin' for the solution.

hank

[Padilen]

I'm trying to keep mine at -3500. I tow with a Jeep too. At first I thought you most have an aftermarket hitch. Because your Jeep is bigger badder than my Liberty and it has a 500/5000 hitch. I was just going to suggest a MOPAR hitch. Then I checked the MOPAR 350/3500!

[professorkx]

I'm trying to keep mine at -3500. I tow with a Jeep too. At first I thought you most have an aftermarket hitch. Because your Jeep is bigger badder than my Liberty and it has a 500/5000 hitch. I was just going to suggest a MOPAR hitch. Then I checked the MOPAR 350/3500!

Quite frankly, I don't understand the low hitch rating and tow rating, as the 2014 Rubicon X has 285hp and 260 ft lbs of torque. Add the 6 speed and 4.21 gears and the jeep doesn't struggle at all pulling 3500 pounds. In addition, the stock hitch is essentially part of the frame of the jeep, read bull strong, so the 350 rating makes me think this rating is designed to go with the tow limit, not the actual limit of the hitch. I suspect the low tow weight rating of my jeep is because of the height of the jeep and straight axles front and rear.

As for my total weight, I was thrilled to come in under 3500 pounds with a 500 pound bike in place and all the normal camping gear. I think building my cabinets in place had a lot to do with this success, so a a little more complicated build than just buying cabinets from Home Depot. First camping trip next weekend!!

[Rainier70]

Congratulations on getting the the "camping point" in your build. I don't say getting done because most of us generally modify and tweek for awhile.

Good luck and have fun on the upcoming trip.

[Padilen]

Straight axles should be stronger than any others. I have a 2 lift which doesn't effect the tow capacity. But I'd not tow 5000. Glad you got yours down in weight and useable.
Since your's is useable come help me build mine.

[professorkx]

Final weigh in on the tongue yesterday and I learned something about weighing tongue weight on a tandem axle trailer.

Originally, I was towing the trailer to the axle scale along the highway, placing the tongue over the scale with all axles off the scale, and lowering the jack to lift off the ball to get the tongue weight. This is WRONG!! While I have owned a lot of trailers, I have never weighed tongue weight, as I was towing with big rigs with big capacity, so this was a learning process.

Correct method is to lower the jack to remove the trailer from the vehicle, move the vehicle forward a few inches, and lower the tongue to the normal ride height. With this method, I noticed that as I raised the height of the tongue, the tongue weight would increase...A LOT. I was able to increase the weight by 160 pounds and still had room left on the jack to go higher. At the normal ride height of the tongue, the tongue weight was right in line with the hitch rating.

I surmised that by raising the tongue above ride height, weight was transferring from the front axle weight to the tongue. I would have to pencil out the geometry to be sure, but no reason, as the empirical evidence illustrated the difference in tongue weight by just raising the tongue, so don't really care about the root cause.

It's important to note that this is probably not the same for a single axle trailer, so only applies to multiple axles. However, it still doesn't hurt to use the correct tongue ride height when weighing tongue weight to ensure your weights are accurate.

Took the trailer on a drive with a nice strong side wind, and everything was rock solid. I will still have to use my 12 gallons of water ballast at the rear door until I build the folding bed in the rear of the trailer, but now all is right with the tongue weight. In fact, the battery, which I was planning to relocate, can live in the tongue box and not cause a weight problem.

Another lesson learned and passed along.

Pictures of first trip next week...

[professorkx]

Straight axles should be stronger than any others. I have a 2 lift which doesn't effect the tow capacity. But I'd not tow 5000. Glad you got yours down in weight and useable.

Since your's is useable come help me build mine.

The issue here is that with a straight axle, vehicle height increases. You are correct, Dana 44 axles front and rear are more than up to the task of towing 3500 pounds, and the new Jeep motor doesn't run out of power like the original 185 HP motor in the JK.

If you were close, I would happily assist in a build, as I get a lot of enjoyment out of fabrication, which no doubt shows in various posts.

[Padilen]

But you have a very mobile room to bring with, so distance shouldn't be an issue.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1427049594.367837.jpg (204.67 KiB) Viewed 2277 times

This is off that pick-up camper I'm scrapping. Back when straight axles and low horse power was the norm. Better than the 60's thou. I was trying to think of a truck with that much capacity. It's more than a 1-ton.
For me I'm more concerned with short wheel base to tow than what I can pull, and of course stopping it. My short is anything shorter than a full size pick-up standard cab and 8' bed. I'm going back to a pick-up someday- being disabled and medical expenses it might be a long time. My KK has been good, but since I got rid of my utility trailer it's not been what I need.

[aztrooper]

I think getting the proper tongue weight is like weighing an airplane to get a proper center of gravity. When I built my airplane, and in fact for weighing all airplanes, you have to get it in a level flight position before weighing the three tire locations. The same would apply to getting the tongue weight. It has to be sitting in the towed position for the reasons you stated. Good job.

[wanabxtrm]

I echo your general findings from my research and recent weigh, though I was weighing my cars to see the changes not the trailer side directly. Depending on your axle suspension configuration, it should stay relatively unchanged within the normal range of 'level'. Going outside of this will definitely impact it, as will the difference between the hitch ball and your jack depending on their distance to each other and your trailers cg.

[professorkx]

First camping trip in the new conversion was canceled due to weather, so I had four days and no plans. Instead of wasting the time, I decided to design and build a folding bed. Here was my build criteria:

1. Keep the cabinet depth as narrow as possible to retain interior room when the bed was not in use.
2. Use an air mattress, mattress cover, real sheets and blankets, and everything had to fit in the cabinet when the bed was folded against the wall.
3. Bed needed to be normal height when folded down, as this would provide storage under the bed at night.
4. The bed would fold down from side-to-side at the rear of the trailer, again, to maintain interior room when the bed was down.

Quite frankly, this was difficult to design, as I couldn't find many ideas on the internet. I finally decided to build the bed like I would build a free standing cabinet. In addition, after measuring, I found I needed about 5 inches to fold everything into the cabinet, so add another inch for the platform base made out of 3/4 plywood, which meant around 6 inches cabinet depth.

First up, make the basic frame:



After painting the frame and attaching to the wall, it was time to move to the platform. I had already spliced a 10 inch section onto a 4x8 sheet of 3/4 plywood using a router to make a tongue and groove, so I was ready to make the first cut. The main bed platform would start 18 inches up from the floor and extend to the ceiling. This meant that I would need to hinge a short piece on the end to extend to the opposite wall where I would mount a support for the end of the bed platform. I would also be using 4 legs to support the main platform section.

Finally, I would carpet both sides, the outside to match the walls, and the inside to provide a soft surface for the air mattress. Here is the bed in the down position without a mattress:





Next, the end of the bed folded up:



Finally, the entire bed folded into the wall:





I crawled all over the platform installing carpet and hinges, and the platform is plenty strong. Tomorrow, I will build the door for the small cabinet below the bed, as this will make a perfect spot for weapon storage while traveling.

So, there it is, my rendition of a folding bed that doesn't take up much room when folded against the wall. We will put the bedding in place tomorrow, as well as the web belts that will hold the bedding onto the platform when in the up position, so more pictures tomorrow.