Jeep Trailer Build

[RAT]

Aren't you done yet? Jeez...

[HookandLadder]

So its been awhile since I posted up anything, but I have been waiting for parts to arrive.

I got wheels and tires. Will be running a 15x10 wheel with a 33x 10.5 BFG tire (Sorry Nick, I will return your wheels I didn't use soon)

The axle arrived to today. Pretty beefy with a 3" tube with 3500lbs hubs and electric brakes. Bolt patter 5x4.5. Hub face to Hub face is 55" and total length at 60" long.

The leaf springs arrived weeks ago and come from a CJ-3 and are a 10 leaf pack.

I did some chassis weighing with out the springs and found the frame to be about 230lbs give or take. I plan on positioning the axle to give the tongue about 12% of the trailer weight.

[HookandLadder]

Continuing on with slow progress....

I tack welded on the pirtches on the axle, attached the springs and got my hangers welded on the frame. The toughest part was determining the axle location...which I played with several times. I also had to settle on a spring under set up for the axle. By using 33" tires I found the trailer chassis to be way to high (30"+ measured to the bottom of the frame) when doing spring over. I want this to be trailer to be function for trail use and around town. at 30"+, that would put the tongue too high for my other vehicles. 24" seemed to be the perfect middle ground. So ground to frame bottom is 24". If I need more height/clearance later, I'll run 35" tires. Unfortunately running spring under will now mean I can't locate the spare tire mount directly above the axle. At full, or near full collapse of the springs I feel I will hit the spare. So I think I will move the spare tire forward toward the tongue. For my spare, I am looking at a 1960's ear Dodge truck wheel. The tire is a 16 x6 with 5 on 4.5. I found a web site that will sell the old military tires in a bias ply of 7.5 x 16 in a 32" diameter. I am still investigating this possible option.

[daniel_buck]

Looks like those springs are gonna be able to hold alot of weight!

[MyBrokenJeep]

Nice work Ryan! looks great!

[RAT]

Ryan,
you have a job at Ahole Fab anytime you want... Lookin good.

[HookandLadder]

I am still sorting out my spare tire setup. But in the mean time I did some work on the tongue of the trailer.

[clcoyle]

good looking build there...

[Dezertdog]

Trailer is lookin real good! Nice work. Is there a link for placing orders? LOL always wanted to do that myself.. can't wait to see the finished product.

[HookandLadder]

Over the last few weeks I have been slowly chugging along. I re-evaluated my spring under set up and found there to be several issues with clearing the spare tire when mounted above the axle. So I had to flip the axle to a spring over which now gives me clearance for a spare. I also had to trim down my spring hangers to lower the overall height of the frame...which is sitting around 30". Looking back I should have gotten 31" tires to keep the height down.

The cross member above the axle is for the spare to mount up to. I purchase an old Toyota spare tire chain winch and mounted to the underside of the crossmember.


Looking for a narrow spare tire to tuck inside the frame rails, I found wheel that was 16x4 with 5x4.5 bolt pattern. Performance plus tires in Long Beach found me a new military tire that was 700x16 bias ply for the spare.



The crossmember needed some notching to allow the tire really suck up away from the axle, I cut about 1 1/2" from the 2" channel. This gives me about 5" of spring compression before hitting the spare. I plan on putting a rubber stop I found on an old Ford Explorer to limit the springs to 4"




I had to get creative with the chain winch raising linkage. Found some inexpensive 3/8" drive universals and extensions. Pretty fun welding tools together! So now to raise/lower the spare, all I need is a 3/8 drive ratchet.





Next on the list is make shock mounts and install lighting.

I am planning on using 16 gauge metal for the tub. Anyone have recommendations for gauge thickness. I plan on bead rolling the tub bottom and front panel of the tub for stiffness.

[alittleoff]

That tire holder worked out perfect Ryan.

Steve

[RAT]

Hurry up and finish. I need to borrow that bad boy

[HookandLadder]

Over the last few weeks I managed to make cut outs for the recessed brake lights, fab some shock mounts and install the shock.

[USMC 0369]

[COLOR="#800000"]Very nice work Ryan. Looks like it's gonna be a great trailer.[/COLOR]

[daniel_buck]

How are you going to run the electric brakes? Have them on a switch to act like a parking brake? or can you somehow link them to your pedal somehow? Are electric brakes variable? or are they on off type brakes?