Anyone built a trailer?
We base camp and take way too much gear! But, I would like to use a boat trailer and convert it to an enclosed box trailer for gear with a rack on top for 4 canoes. Tires on the trailer I am looking at are 12", the trailer is aprox. 16' which I think I will shorten to about 14'. Any sugestions from someone who has done something along these lines?

I've seen it done using a old boat trailer.  A box for all the gear is bolted to the frame and a rack for the canoes is installed on the front and back of the box.  It works well.

I built a box once to use on a friend's boat trailer which was modified to add canoe racks.

I attached to box with bolts to the wooden boat supports/rails/whatever-you-call-'ems on the trailer.  3 bolts on each rail.

The box was 1/2" plywood, top-opening on each side.  I just measured the space it needed to fit in, figured out the proper height to contain the packs in the box, got some steel 90 degree braces, hinges, and hasps, plus a can of the cheapest outdoor latex paint I could find.  It was cheap and easy.  The only thing I wish I'd done differently was used 3/4" plywood. 

The box lasted for several trips before I gave it away to a friend.  Not sure if it's still in use or not, but I figured after 2 trips I'd gotten my money and effort's worth out of it and anything past that was bonus.

Pickup box trailer with racking welded on. Used with two canoes - never tried four, but I suppose that you could "stack" the racking.

kennedy63 wrote on Apr 13^th, 2006 at 3:08am:


I recently sold the Pick-Up Truck and am missing the obvious, though my current needs called for a CRV... so this was the direction I went.

I'm looking to purchase some type of trailer that can double up for several uses such as the idea in the quote above.  I can't see a Canoe Rack only application as this would not be as diverse as I'd like, though I'd like something that can tote 3 - 4 canoe / kayaks when called for.  

Does anyone have any preferences or ideas not listed previously in this thread?  I'd like to have a quality product in the end without going overboard cost wise.

Any photos you may be able to share would be appreciated.

I'd probably prefer to buy over build, though if building is kept simple or to assembly its an option.

TIA

k

Thanks OS!

I'll have to sit down and do some thnking and research... now that it is imaginable winter may end.

k

Hi one_paddle_short. You can attach one pic to each post buy using the 'attach' field when you post. Just navigate to the file on your hard drive... If you preview you'll need to re-attach it.

If it's too big or something, feel to e-mail it to me by clicking on the Email link in this post. I'll post it for you.

I looked around and we're not much in the habit of taking photos of the trailer.  But I found one that shows most of it.  I can place six kayaks, or four kayaks and two canoes. The cross braces have four bolts on each side that remove the whole rack.  I scribed the kayak rests for each boat and used pool noodles for padding.  The plastic boats spend most of the summer on the trailer with no problems.

If you look closely you'll see the two eyes of the deer that was sneaking through our campsite (the reason my wife snapped the photo in the first place).
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This is what we used for a HEAVILY outfitted 8 man trip. Removed john-boat from trailer and bolted this to the bunk boards, and used turnbuckles to  trailer frame eye-bolts.

My buddy and I are converting a 4X6 utility trailer into a canoe trailer this weekend.  We plan to build a box that slides in and out of the existing trailer (adds versatility).  We will build support racks up from the box to hold two canoes. 

QUESTION: my friend thinks the canoes, when loaded on the trailer, should not be higher than the roof of the truck we use to tow with.  I think he said Cliff Jacobson wrote about this in a canoe trailer he described in one of his books.

My thinking: if canoes can get tied to the top of trucks, who cares if they are a bit higher than the roof of the vehicle when strapped to a canoe trailer?  Surely the "drafting" effect can be that bad? 

Thoughts?  Other considerations?   I want this built before our QP trip June 1!!

prouboy

If the canoes are higher...I say it will work fine (but I flunked engineering)....I say it will be important to have enough distance between thje bow and aft racks.  Too short and the canoes could buckle.  Quit abit of torque on them when cinching down in strong winds.

Agree with keeping them level to bow-down.

Tongue distance is the main reason I like the boat trailer retrofit. A friend and I both built the boxes for a trip. He had 8 guys and myself 6 that year. (we stayed on different lakes in the BW, but traveled the highways together to and from MN) He put his on a utility trailer with the bows pulled back from the front so as to clear the tow vehicle, which left a looonnng turning radius after the trailer axle. Mine had the drawback of the box being farther from the tow vehicle, which we thought caught more wind but allowed the canoes to be centered lengthwise with no dangling parts .
Flip a coin --- pros and cons of any setup.

Be careful choosing a trailer. If the suspension is too stiff for the load, (six canoes are more bulk than weight) it will beat the heck out of your boats and gear.

Woodsy, great idea on the replacement trailer tongue.  I have a tilting utility trailer that works fine also but I only carry one canoe in the center so it doesn't hit the tow vehicle.  My 4 12' kayaks are not a problem but I am building 3 17' Pygmy kayaks so a foot longer tongue would work perfectly.

All --  Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.  

After a day of work with my very talented friend, here's our new canoe trailer, made from my 32-year old utility trailer.  All that's left to do is a some paint, eye-bolts, extended tongue, and rewiring.  I hope to be ready for our June QP trip out of Atikokan!  

prouboy

Hey prouboy nice looking trailer. Make sure you check the bearings on that 32 year old trailer. Hate to see thousands of dollars worth of canoe equipment go up in smoke. It can happen.

Bought a Dodge Pickup Bed Trailer!  Scored Big Time :exclamation

80 Bucks!  I about fell over... of course in need of some minor repairs. a left blinker light, a new set of tires and rims that I'm picking up from the junkyard.  Need to bolt on the old heavy duty currently loose bumper.  Put in a few extra bolts to secure the bed to the frame, and grease up the rear end.  I think I'll be into it just under $200 before tax and license.  Will be great for hauling wood and stuff as well, as needed.

Needs paint, Ugly, Rusty, Old... who cares!

k

Whoo.... Hooo  

Building a canoe trailer doesn't have to be very complicated.

Get a jet ski trailer that holds 2 Jet skis.  Remove the winches.  Now your canoe will rest on the bunks like the jet skis did.  Load the heavy gear in both canoes.  Make a rack to support the other two and attach it to the center of the trailer.  Load the remaining gear in the other canoes.

If you need additional room for gear, weld metal mesh on the floor of the trailer.  Load the gear and bungee cord it down.

You can find one of there trailers, used, at any marine dealer.

This set up works well and really doen't require much modification.

 Assuming the Bearings are 32 years old, I think I'd replace them with a new set, and add the Bearing Buddy or similar system.
 Even if your lubing the bearings on a regular basis, that's a long time on the same set of bearings? Bearing failure is often sudden and depending on how well they were packed, they can suffer wear that you won't realize until it's too late
 A few bucks spend now, will give you peace of mind for the rest of the old trailers re-birth.
 Losing a wheel and suffering a rollover with a couple of canoes or more plus other gear, your looking at thousands of dollars in damages/losses.
 New bearings/grease system will seem like a bargain then.

 AT one time, Cabelas AUTO/TRUCK catalog offered a clip on LED strobe running light to replace the red flag on extended loads at night.
Might be a good investment IF your hauling canoes at night with a smaller vehicle/trailer.
 G01, I worked with commercial trailers for a dozen or so years in the building trades. Besides the bearing issue, it was amazing how many times people lost a wheel due to "tight" lug nuts coming off
 Culprit was usually the person who mounted the wheel, NOT crisscrossing the lug pattern as they tightened the lug nuts.
 If you go in a circular motion, you risk the wheel not being tighten flush with the drum. AFTER X amount of miles you get a wobble and eventually lose a wheel, or break off the lug bolts

Ugly Trailer Update.

Bed now bolted to frame to aid the weld.  One wheel and tire purchased, still in need of a second.  Might replace both tires after first season...it all depends.  Still in need of blinker, etc.

She's ugly, guaranteed.... but she makes me happy!

k

Question/advice for those that have built their own, or have some structural experience.

I have a friend that is a welder, has access to lots of welding gear, and can get whatever materials I need.  He just needs me to tell him what to build.  My question is about how to build the racks to support four canoes, two on top of two.

The base for this is a homemade utility trailer that I just bought and plan to convert to a combo utility-canoe trailer.  All of the framing is 2 inch square steel tubing, all welded.  On top of the base frame are side rails about 30” off the deck, connected to the frame with three posts.  3/16 aluminum decking and side walls.  5 foot tongue that can be extended to 8 feet.  It is built incredibly solid.  The guy who built it is a retired bridge inspector that started his career in welding.

I think the best option for the bottom canoe rack would be 6.5’ long crossbars welded to 6-12” posts that connect to the trailer’s side rails via bolts – so that they are removable.

My question is about the support needed for the upper rack – is a single centered "I" support per crossbar, perhaps with steel plates cut at 45 degree angles from the vertical to horizontal bars for stability – enough structurally?  Or will I need two vertical supports in the middle, separated by 6-12” (or other distance).  If I can get by with a single vertical support, then I won't have to extend the width of the lower crossbars - but I want this thing to be solid.

This will haul primarily Royalex/plastic boats at 60-70 lbs each.

marlin55388 wrote on Apr 14^th, 2009 at 1:59pm:


 Last 13 years until the Auto industry downturn, I worked as a cable builder.
Crimping/soldering were done on a daily basis. The cables I built were for industrial applications, and water/oil corrosion was always a major consideration. I've used the crimp/shrink connectors both for my personal use as well as at work, and while they have there use, IMHO, I wouldn't use them anyplace that wasn't easily assessable. Trailer wiring, or any vehicle that has the wiring under the frame or in hard to reach places is going to eventually have shorts or broken wires, often at the point of crimp. Vibration/heat/ moisture can and will take there toll.
 IF I was wiring a trailer for myself, this is what I would do. Get some CLEAR heat shrink tubing ( Radio Shack) or the Internet. SOLDER the wires together, slipping a piece of tubing on before you solder. After the solder cools, take some Dielectric grease, and smear on solder connection. Then shrink the clear tubing over the connection, you want about a 3/4" of a inch on the wiring jacket either side.
 The grease will keep out any moisture, The solder is stronger than a crimp, and in the event of a "break", you can see it thru the clear shrink tubing.  Takes longer, but will last longer as well. You don't have to do every connection this way, but the ones that are underneath the trailer or hard to reach are worth the effort. I also like solder on connectors, with clear shrink tubing over the crimped type with the colored plastic.
 A little trick, you can lightly crimp a connector, removing the colored plastic before hand. slide your shrink tubing on before crimping the connector. Lightly crimp, then SOLDER the connector instead of a full crimp. Smear with the grease (lightly), and then shrink the tubing so it cover like the colored plastic. Better connection, plus the clear lets you see any problem.  Often times on a crimp connector, even though it "feels" like its on solid, wires get broken and corroded and you end up spending time and effort tracing the problem. Anyone who has ever spent hours only to find the trailer ground wire was the culprit, even though it appeared solid, knows what I'm taking about. The double ground wire is a great idea. ALONG  with that, make sure the spot you bolt your ground to is clean, and again you can apply the Dielectric grease to contact spot for a better ground. Nothing worse than trying to sort out a wiring problem on your trailer, flat on your back, while the traffic cop is writing you a ticket for defective equipment

Portager-Think about a square gusset plates-diamond when welded on. Then on that gusset plate welding a short section of U channel-open end up-on the gusset plate-with holes drilled thought it to accept bolts that would fasten a section of tubing of the appropriate size for the brace between the two upper rack halfs might work. More than one bolt is going to be better due to the racking action....you made also want to consider using locking nuts for peace of mind...or lock washers at a minimum. It would be relativing easy to tear down for storage. And an alternative to square tubing is rectangular tubing for the horizontals, stronger too depending on the orientation...welding a chain link or hooks on the underside of tubing works good too, for the tie downs....Spray on bed liner has been a good performer on the custom ladder rack on the truck (and I have also seen it using by a trailer makers rather than paint and some folks are using it on the rockers and fender flares of their trucks-or powder coating-or if a forever system is desired make it out of stainless steel-which is stick weldable. Yeah I know stainless is of a higher cost....but think about this...no paint and it is forever-made the investment in rail boxes for the work truck after having carbon steel....the carbon steel had a second coat of paint and they perforated in four years....HOLY BOXES....the stainless in now 5 years old and looks brand new and does not crack like Al...aluminum. The milk truck now has 170,000 plus miles on it and is driven year round. Be warned that stainless is a little harder to work with due to it's cutting (and drilling) characteristics and it does cost more but it is forever! After having experience with it it is a no brainer for me...and heck you will the canoe trailer to that special person! or at least the rack!

Couple more trailer ideas:

Another way to waterproof connections is to use a hot melt glue gun. Squirt melted glue into the shrink tubing first, then heat it and as it shrinks the hot melt glue will ooze out of both ends.

After all of that trailer wiring and rewiring is done make sure that you seal every opening in the channel or tubing where you ran the wire or else you will prbably be doing it over again in a year. Why? Mice, they love to crawl into trailer frames and chew wiring all winter. Come spring your lights will do all sorts of weird things when the insulation is gone from the wires.

Came across this link in "Canoe and Kayak" Mag this month.  What I liked about this trailer was the size, the ability to drive at high speeds, the ability to utilize the draft of your vehical to increase gas milage. the ease of storage, etc.  Check it out for yourself if interested.  As for me I'm sticking with my ugly trailer for now... but maybe someday...

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k

Tongue distance is the main reason I like the boat trailer retrofit. A friend and I both built the boxes for a trip. He had 8 guys and myself 6 that year. (we stayed on different lakes in the BW, but traveled the highways together to and from MN) He put his on a utility trailer with the bows pulled back from the front so as to clear the tow vehicle, which left a looonnng turning radius after the trailer axle. Mine had the drawback of the box being farther from the tow vehicle, which we thought caught more wind but allowed the canoes to be centered lengthwise with no dangling parts Roll Eyes.  
Flip a coin --- pros and cons of any setup.

Prouboy,

That is one nice set up. How did it work for you on your trip?

Do the full size tires give a nicer ride on the highway and off the pavement also?

Just thought I'd show off my canoe trailer....

Well all I can say is it looks just about perfect to me. This may well be one of my favorite gear threads this year, many great ideas.  

We were planning to use a roof top carrier to try and fit 3 in my cherokee, but I was looking into some different options last spring.

Wow Mustang.
Thats on of the nicer homemade trailers I've seen.

That's a thing of beauty, WS!! Well done.

Well lesseee.... most of it was done by-guess-and-by-golly.  But I started with dimensions from another trailer that I had seen and went from there.

The trailer is a 5' x 8' tilt-bed utility trailer.  I made sure to get one with a welded tube-steel frame instead of the typical angle-iron frames.  It cost a couple hundred bucks more, but is quite a bit stronger.

The cross trees are 60" long and spaced so that there is a clear 16" between the top of one rung and the bottom of the next.  At first this looked a bit too close, but I checked several canoes and found it has room to spare.  The first cross-tree member is ~18" from the bed of the trailer.  That gives plenty of room for ice chests, packs, paddles, food barrels, PFDs, etc.  The uprights are 6" apart on the inside edge (7.25" OC).

The uprights and cross trees are both 1.25x1.265x1/8" square tube steel.  I'm an engineer so I just *had* to calculate the stresses.  Turns out I could have used much lighter stuff and it would have been fine.  But none of the standard publications I used when designing it listed the properties for anything smaller.  I ordered the steel pre-cut, and when I went to pick it up I found out that they had 1"x1" tube steel too... would have lightened things up quite a bit!

Anyhow... the tongue is 2" x 2" x 1/8" tube steel.  I would have liked to used something a little deeper (2 x 3), but that would have messed up the connection point where the tongue crosses under the forward most frame member.  A removable pin there is what keeps the bed from tilting.  Any how... by adding that front diagonal brace, it's all rigid and good.

The uprights sit in 1.5 x 1.5 x 1/8" tube steel sockets welded to the frame, and all the connections are pinned with clevis pins with "hairpin" keepers.  Makes it easy to take apart and reconfigure.  I put another wiring connection harness at the point that the tongue connects to the frame (the pivot point).  That way I can swap out the long canoe-trailer tongue for the stock tongue.

Even though the Scoutmaster insisted that he would never need to haul more than 6 canoes on the trailer, I hedged my bet.  The top of the uprights extend far enough that I can plop another "add-on" cross member onto it in the future.  They typically take two groups into the BWCA on separate permits and separate routes... 2 x 4 = 8.  Gonna need another cross tree some day!

All hardware was from the local Fleet Farm store.  It's great being able to buy tractor parts just down the street 

WS

pghportager,

At the risk of being too prescriptive, I learned a few lessons:

1) Weld up the cross trees first.  Then slip the "sockets" on the uprights (use some tape to hold them in place), clamp the whole thing to the trailer frame, and tack the sockets to the frame.  Remove the cross trees to finish up welding the sockets to the frame.

2) No matter how careful you have been, the cross trees won't just slip into the sockets.  The heat distortion won't let 'em.  So take a scrap off-cut, put some light cutting oil on it, and then dust it with course lapping dust (if you have course lapping compound that should work fine).  Work the piece of scrap up and down in the sockets until it runs free.  You'll probably need a hammer and a couple of hours to get it really cleaned up.

3)  Use an angle grinder with a sanding disk to really clean up the lower part of the uprights to bright metal.  Then put some grease on 'em and see how they fit.  My guess is it will still need some wiggling... mine did!

I took a few photos of details and can provide them, but this board probably isn't the right place (they're half a meg each).   Send me a PM with your e-mail address and I can provide anything else you think may be helpful.

WS