Trailering

[Toby]

Being new to trailering I'm still a bit wary about loading and securing my car. I've got a very lightweight single axle trailer with shortish ramps and am a bit wary of the trailer seesawing when loading the car on. Is a small amount of this inevitable?, if I were to load the trailer attached to the car would I end up putting too much strain on the towbar. Also would two straps on the front wheels and a securing strap at the back in the centre be enough in other peoples experience.

 

Thanks in advance

 

[Miraz]

It will make things a lot easier if you attach the trailer to the car before you attempt to load the car onto it. You can equip your trailer with rear loading stands in order to allow stand-alone loading, but I would be wary of using these on a single axle trailer. It is very important to have the trailer balanced properly - as a rule of thumb, you should drive forward on the trailer until you start to feel the front of the trailer dip slightly.

 

If you have short ramps then you might find it helpful to put a brick (or other suitable object) under the ends of the loading ramps - this will reduce the risk of grounding the exhaust on the back of the trailer.

 

Ideally use wheel straps on all four corners - if this is not possible then put the wheel straps on the back wheels, and use the single strap preferably in conjunction with the winch cable to secure the front of the car - if you do have to stop very suddenly the rear straps will be under a lot of load.

 

Miraz

[tony isherwood]

I would suggest that you hitch up, with some weight taken by the tow hitch , some by the jockey wheel when loading.

 

When loaded, unhitch, roll the car forward enough (say a 9 inches to a foot)check the nose weight of the hitch (Bathroom scales / length of wood trailer set level or to the height of the towball) to make sure that it is set to the recommended nose weight for the car tow bracket. This varies from car to car / bracket to bracket. This can vary from 50 KG to 150 KG depending upon the vehicle.

 

Failure not do this can cause all sorts of legal problems if Mr Plodd investigates, Your own safety and others if an "OH Sh*t" occurance takes place when you are driving. !

 

Make sure that the load on the trailer is secure, as any movement will affect negate all the work that you have done above. (and the car may fall off the trailer, which is not a good thing)

 

 

 

 

[Toby]

Really useful info - many thanks.

[Graham Perry]

Toby, having done this many times, always do it with the trailer attached to the car, BUT you must put something under the rear of the trailer as well because when you drive the seven up the ramps it will try to lift the back of the towcar off the ground via the seesaw action mentioned earlier. If you have a light towcar the backwheels could leave the ground (been there done that, it was a Cavalier and I was loading a small tractor) then of course the handbrake on the towcar no longer works and things suddenly get very hairy. A large block of wood should be sufficient or even a car jack positioned under the rear of the trailer.

As said earlier, with a single axle trailer, positioning is the most important thing for safe travel.