Double Axle trailer

[Jeff]

After hundreds of thousands af kilometres towing single axle trailers I have bought a double axle trailer. I wasn't after one but it came up at a bargain price and I had to jump.

The trailer has four 10" Mini wheels and weighs 620 kg empty, I have not loaded it up yet, but with my previous trailer loaded weight was about 900-1100 kg.

When driving it home it made a lot of banging sounds and shook at the ball, so my question is, is ball height more critical with double axle trailers? And is this the problem?

Are there any rules loading them? I thought they would be less critical with weight distribution than single axle trailers, but would like to know peoples thoughts and experiences.

Jeff

:rocket:

[Slunnie]

Ball height is pretty important if the suspension isn't load sharing as it'll load up one of the axles a fair bit. We've blown tyres and broken axles on tandem axle trailers without load sharing suspenion due to incorrect ball heights for the trailer.

[Blknight.aus]

non load sharing ones need a lot of attention to load distribution ball height and some other bits an pieces. and yes if the ball height is wrong and its non load sharing they can bang around a bit due to one axle "bouncing"

If its got over run brakes fitted you'll probabley find that its the overrun coupling a bit out of adjustment/slopping, easy to check and generally nothing to panic about.

I usualy lock out my overruns if im running my tandem empty and that seems to help. If you have a reece tpye reciever hitch tandems also seem to rattle them a bit more and some cardboard wedged into the hitch will at least temporarily stop this.

[easo]

My haymen/recce hitch has a bolt that screws in on an angle to prevent the banging.

Also with loading I focus my load more towards the front axle.

Cheers Easo.

[Redback]

Toss the ball setup and put an offroad hitch on, this will stop most of the banging, but getting to height and weight over the hitch is very important for stability, the ideal weight over the hitch is 10% of the weight of the trailer laden or unladen.

Baz.

[Tusker]

You can adjust the towball load a bit with tyre pressures, experiment with front & rear. You can cut down any sway by pumping up the rears too.

Check those tyre temps every stop with the palm of your hand, you'll soon figure out which axle is under/overloaded.

I'm intrigued at the specs - mine is 550 kg empty, thats heavy enough. Wouldn't have thought Mini tyres would have a big enough load rating, all depends what it was designed for I suppose.

Regards
Max P

[BigJon]

My tandem trailer is about 400kg empty. Cable operated discs on the front axle. Maximum weight of 2000kg. Ford stud pattern rims. To get it to sit level behind the Rangie I underslung the axles.

[Jeff]

.

I'm intrigued at the specs - mine is 550 kg empty, thats heavy enough. Wouldn't have thought Mini tyres would have a big enough load rating, all depends what it was designed for I suppose.

Regards
Max P

Max,

The Mini tyres should be ok but I will be using 10" light truck tyres, lots of boat trailers have them.

The frame is quite solid as it was designed to carry a race sidecar, spares, wets, tools etc. It also has a stove, water tank and cupboards built in so that would bump the weight up. I spoke to a Mini wrecker today and he has a car trailer that he tows a race car on and has no problem with 10" car tyres, Holden hubs and studs in a Mini pattern.


Regards,

Jeff

:rocket:

[Redback]

I'm curious, are you Jeff Rowe, you can PM me if you don't want your name up here.

I'm in Northern Districts MCC

Baz.

[Tusker]

Max,

The Mini tyres should be ok but I will be using 10" light truck tyres, lots of boat trailers have them.

The frame is quite solid as it was designed to carry a race sidecar, spares, wets, tools etc. It also has a stove, water tank and cupboards built in so that would bump the weight up. I spoke to a Mini wrecker today and he has a car trailer that he tows a race car on and has no problem with 10" car tyres, Holden hubs and studs in a Mini pattern.
:rocket:

Fair enuff. Mine's a 2000 kg capacity, or more to the point, its got 1 ton axles. I bought mine for an MGA race car, @ 880 kgs. Did Sydney-Perth-Sydney in 1995 with it, the Disco 200tdi I had at the time was flat out at 80 kph with a headwind.. We seemed to get a headwind both ways...

Anyway, the tyres do run quite hot. Keep an eye on them.

Regards
Max P