axle distance on a trailer?

maplehillfrm · Jun 17, 2008

hello all, I think this is in the correct forum, I am currently rebuilding atrailer, it was like 20 feet, I only needed a 12 - 14 foot trailer, it had a bent piece in the front so I cut it out and am now welding the tongue on the rear,, which puts the axle way back from where it is supposed to be, I am never going to put more tan my mower or my rhino on it so tongue weight shouldnt be a problem,,

but what would the correct location be for it in case it is wagging the dog when I test drive it,, the bed is about 14'.. overall is approx 16'.. I may cut it down to 12' bed, but not sure at this time,,figure on it being 16' total, thanks pat

MrJimi · Jun 17, 2008

60/40 is a good axle placement

Tig · Jun 17, 2008

With 60% of the trailer bed in front of the axle.

mwb · Jun 17, 2008

with your axle so far back you won't get any wag, just a really heavy tongue load. Might be fairly inexpensive to get new weld on brackets (spring) and abandon the old ones.

Shmudda · Jun 17, 2008

mwb said:
with your axle so far back you won't get any wag, just a really heavy tongue load. Might be fairly inexpensive to get new weld on brackets (spring) and abandon the old ones.

Trust me....if you have to much tongue weight you will get the wag! You should have no more then 10% tongue weight for the total load consisting of trailer and what you are hauling. Basically, if your trailer with a load is 3000 lbs, then you should have about 300# MAX of tongue weight.

Craig

tommu56 · Jun 17, 2008

I measured a bunch of "engineered" ones to figure the dimention they were between 50 to 60 % in front of axel (depended on ramps/tail gate and the flat beads were shorter and ramped ones were longer
I built 4 home made ones so far and I used 53% in front of the axe excluding the tung.

tommu

Bird · Jun 17, 2008

Shmudda said:
Trust me....if you have to much tongue weight you will get the wag! You should have no more then 10% tongue weight for the total load consisting of trailer and what you are hauling. Basically, if your trailer with a load is 3000 lbs, then you should have about 300# MAX of tongue weight.

Craig

Craig, of course, it is possible to have too much tongue weight, but 10% should be the minimum rather than the maximum. Ideally, 10% to 15% tongue weight.

Jimbrown · Jun 17, 2008

I will bet you are not further back than this and i guarantee this thing pull great.
http://horsetrailerworld.com/sunselect/inventory/details.asp?ID=143823

maplehillfrm · Jun 18, 2008

here is what I have so far , I welded the tongue on and I measured the axle from the back of the trailer to the center point of the axle it was 3 1/2'

I am thinking approx 5 1/2' to the center point of the axle where I will relocate axle,, the bed is 13 feet,, and the overall lenght tongue to rear is 16'

[sound right??]

I picked up the axle relocating shacles and pins today, but it is raining so maybe tommorow I will do more. thanks pat

aczlan · Jun 18, 2008

maplehillfrm said:
I am thinking approx 5 1/2' to the center point of the axle where I will relocate axle,, the bed is 13 feet,, and the overall lenght tongue to rear is 16' [sound right??]

looks right to me, 5.5' would leave you with about a 1/3-2/3 slpit in the overall length of the trailer, I dont think you want to be any farther forward than that.

Aaron Z

MrJimi · Jun 18, 2008

I'm gonna get bashed over this. !!
But maplehillfrm, if you put your axle in the middle of THAT bed, the tongue weight will balance your trailer just fine IF you load it correctly with the 60/40% rule and 60% being in the front.

Shmudda · Jun 18, 2008

Bird said:
Craig, of course, it is possible to have too much tongue weight, but 10% should be the minimum rather than the maximum. Ideally, 10% to 15% tongue weight.

Bird,

I know we are splitting hairs here but you must remember that any Class 3 hitch is only rated for 500# max tongue weight. Anything after that they recommend a weight distributing hitch assembly. With that being the case if you would have that same 3000# trailer with 15% of the load that would equate to 450# of tongue, thats to much in my opinion, and you are only 50# shy of the max tongue that a class 3 hitch is supposed to carry.

Just some food for thought!

Craig

neucam · Jun 18, 2008

My 2 cents. According to my calculations if you wanted to place the axle 1/3 of the way from the rear then that would be 4.3 ft based on a 13ft bed. If you wanted to move the axle don't go too far. That 60/40 rule has to do with load distribution, not axle placement. I had a home made trailer similar to yours and with similar axle placement, I hauled a car similar to a small tractor with it. I just adjusted the load front to back so I had about 10% of the total trailer and load weight on the hitch. It was stable at speed. In fact if the axles were farther forward it would have been unstable. Looking at some heavy duty 16ft trailers , they also have axles located toward the rear of the trailer. Keeping your axle were it is or moving it slightly would be OK.

neucam · Jun 18, 2008

Looking at this trailer again is seems to be more a utility trailer than a hauler, so the axles should be moved forward. the 5 1/2 foot plan would be close to ideal.

RedDirt · Jun 18, 2008

MrJimi said:
I'm gonna get bashed over this. !!
But maplehillfrm, if you put your axle in the middle of THAT bed, the tongue weight will balance your trailer just fine IF you load it correctly with the 60/40% rule and 60% being in the front.

I totally agree with MrJimi. I have a 5x8 box trailer with axles dead center. It is a joy to move around the yard unhitched. You can lift either end with barley more than a finger. When the bed's level you CAN hold it up with a finger! It's the weight distribution of the load that counts. I put 10%-15% total load weight on the ball hitch and travel at highway speeds no problem.

maplehillfrm · Jun 19, 2008

neucam said:
Looking at this trailer again is seems to be more a utility trailer than a hauler, so the axles should be moved forward. the 5 1/2 foot plan would be close to ideal.

Yes this is only going to be a utility type trailer, to haul a ride on mower, maybe my rhino type UTV,,, it will never have heavy load on her,, tops what maybe 1500 lbs??

when I need real hauling I will be hooking to my gooseneck, but man does that look funny with my ford gt95 48" cut mower on it, 25'bed,,

. this is my simplicity in the front, even that may be to wide for this trailer [60"cut], but take the 4 wheeler and trailer off and you see what I am trying to get around,

I figured this would be easier on gas and will haul the mower or light loads easy enough, where the axle is now the tongue feels heavy, so I feel the need to move it a bit,, I only want to move it once though,, [unlike most of my projects--- multiple trys to get it right haha,,]] I appreciate all teh help,pat

MJPetersen · Jun 19, 2008

I have a small utility trailer that I bought new from the factory and the wheel centers about 4 inches behind dead center of the loading deck. I would say on yours that You could put the wheel center from about the center of the deck to 6 inches behind center. That should give you the balance that would be appropriate. Positioning the load is more important on a single axle than with 2 or more.

Mike

fiddler kelly · Jun 22, 2008

I have a factory made trailor ,tadem axle that I use to haul my kubota b23 tractor which has a back hoe and FEL. When I first took the trailor and tractor for a run I had the tractor loaded on front ways and when I got on the highway doing about 40 ml/hr I started to loose control of my truck.

I ended up having to place my tractor on the trailor backwards and now it rides perfect ,no swaying at all. The problem when I sized it up was that the back end of the tractor and the BH were centered over the trailor wheels and behind them causing the hitch end to be too light.

My point I am trying to make is even after you placed your axle as some other people are recommending make sure you have the heavier part of your equipment in front of the trailor wheels so that keeps enough of load on your tounge area.

skidsteer.ca · Jun 23, 2008

I'm gonna get bashed over this too, but I would say it is irrellavent where you place your axle so long as at least 10% of the trailers gvw is on the hitch.
You can go on up from there in tongue load, so long as you don't exceed the weight carrying capacity of your vehicle and or hitch. If you place your axle dead center you will have to load the trailer heavy to the front. It really depends on how your load can be placed on the deck. All things consider though generally the axle should be 10 to 20 percent behind center. or 65/45 to 60/40
Ken

RobJ · Jun 23, 2008

neucam said:
That 60/40 rule has to do with load distribution, not axle placement.

Maybe it's just a quincedence. When I built my last 2 trailers, single and tandom, I walked around the yard and measured all that were close to what I was building. The axle was always 40% from the rear(not including the tongue). On the tandom, the center link (center of the 2 axles) was 40% from the rear. I don't know exactly why or where this calculatoin came up. Didn't care because I figured someone else a lot smarter than I did all the math.

My very first trailer I put it about 50/50. I made an ultra light weight trailer for a 200# dirt bike being pulled by a Toyota Tercel. These days i would just buy one of those HF fold up trailers for a few hundred.

But if you know what is going to be on the trailer all the time they make them different. Like my jon boat trailer and the axle being near the back of the frame.

Rob