Your towing rigs and trailers

Gale Hawkins · Aug 5, 2018

I am still trying to decide. I like longer and heavier but at some point if the trailer is really heavy the TV can be fully loaded by just the trailer with the tractor still sitting on the parking lot.

Tomorrow I was leading towards one with ramps but first thing in the morning I am going to look at a 18 tilt with 4 feet up front fixed bed.

I can see dogging down the tilt part varies from price range to price range.

Any experience with tilt equipment trailers? Ramps do make me nervous but so does hitting the tilting point in each direction.

Bowhunter1527 · Aug 6, 2018

Bc I may use mine in the rain or snow a tilt was not something I wanted. My father in jaw had one and it was slick to get up.

Navvet · Aug 6, 2018

I have a tilt bed (16k 20' +4' fixed) and yes, it can get a little slick in bad weather. But some of my needs will not allow me to use ramps so the tilt bed with the straight rear edge works better for me.

I bought my trailer with the thought of it being the last trailer I would ever buy, so I needed it to handle anything I need to haul. I have a John Deere AMT 626 (5 wheels) and a CanAm Spyder (3 wheels) so a trailer with ramps just won't work.

"Hitting the tilt point" is not a big issue with a better trailer, most have a dampening system so the tilting is slow and soft.

BigBlue1 · Aug 6, 2018

A tilt bed trailer seems like it would have one limitation that might be a big deal for some folks... Hard to load more than one drive-on type thing on a trailer like that. For instance, if you wanted to load a zero turn mower and then your CUT behind it. I'm sure they offer some good benefits but, as with anything, they aren't perfect for everyone.

Rob

DavesTractor · Aug 6, 2018

BigBlue1 said:
A tilt bed trailer seems like it would have one limitation that might be a big deal for some folks... Hard to load more than one drive-on type thing on a trailer like that. For instance, if you wanted to load a zero turn mower and then your CUT behind it. I'm sure they offer some good benefits but, as with anything, they aren't perfect for everyone.

Rob

Most can be locked in the tilt up position. Still a pain to load two things as you have said, but if it is a rare occurrence there are some workarounds. Way easier with ramps though.

We use no ramp trailers in our small delivery fleet anymore. We have three trailers for deliveries. A hydraulic dove on our 25,900 GVWR 32' gooseneck which is a FMax212 Diamond C. Then a 48HDT I beam frame tilt Diamond C rated at 9900 lb, and another 48HDT rated at 14,900 lb, both are low profile. Both 48HDT are 6' fixed deck and 16' tilt, 22' total deck.

DavesTractor · Aug 6, 2018

BMan2005 said:
But, I believe you can get an upgraded GN hitch rated for 30,000 lbs & twin 15k lbs axles which gives you a GVWR of 30k. That would leave you 21,500 of capacity on this specific trailer.

I was looking at a 15k axles 30K goose for our heavy delivery trailer. Did you know on a trailer with a GVWR of over 26,000 you have to pay a 12% FET? The trailer itself is a few thousand more than a 25,900 trailer, then add in the 12% and it was a show stopper for me.

We pull it with a 2015 dually Dodge 3500. These are very capable trucks doing what medium duties did a few years back. But I am a little uncomfortable running them right at max on a regular basis. That is probably just me, since I see hot shot guys pulling heavily loaded 40' GN all the time.

By the time we load the 25,900 trailer near max on the trailer axles (24k) and load the truck rear axles near max and get what we can on the truck front axle, all loaded up we can get very close to 40,000 lb. gross combined and be legal on all axles. In a perfectly balanced max load I think we are at 39,750 gross combined and tagged for 40k, but that is an awful lot of weight for a pickup. We have hydraulic disc brakes on the trailer and it stops well, but on any sort of regular basis I like to self limit our gross combined to the low 30's. 15k on the deck puts us at about 32k combined and it feels good there.

Gale Hawkins · Aug 13, 2018

This is the 2008 22' with 18' tilt bump pull trailer with two 7K axles that we picked up last Monday in Goreville IL that will be Ford Blue in the next 12 months. This was our first trip with the recent 205K mile 2010 Ford F150 with the 5.4 engine and six speed automatic rated to tow up to 11.2K per Ford due to the Max Tow set up at we picked up recently. I just got it back from the body shop for the rust, side wipe and cracked up windshield that it came. I am getting excited about the truck the more I learn about it and its condition. The tractor is the daughter's 1966 Ford 3000 with the 711 Ford one arm loader so we now plan to do the antique tractor show in Paducah KY next month.

I love the No Ramps feature and it handles well. The back up camera in the F150 sure makes a one man hook up go faster. The hitch is going to be white soon so it shows up well in poor lighting.

View attachment Ford 150 3000 22' tilt.jpg