Trailer modification?

I recently bought an 05' deck over bumper pull 7k trailer. It is 19'x 8' with 16' flat and a 3' dovetail. The tongue is 5' long.

I knew buying it the trailer needed work, I'm replacing the wood, wheel bearings, and tires. Thanks to Goforth Tires! Best deal I found anywhere by a large margin!

Now to the problem I have is the axles are really far back! I loaded my tractor on it and had to back it on and have it as far back as possible to pull it behind my truck! Now granted I don't really have a truck big enough to pull this combo but my truck will pull it and I'm not wanting to go far just up around my house to do odd tractor work (side jobs)!

The current axle placement looks to be the same as a gooseneck? The measurements currently are:

5' tongue to deck 9'3" to the front spring hanger 11'8" center pivot 14'3" rear spring hanger 19'4" to the back of the trailer.
That equals 16'8" from tongue to center spring pivot and 7' 6" from there back?

From the research I've done on the net it seems that you want around 10% of the total weight on the tongue.

To get 10% which would be 160# unloaded I would need to move the center pivot to 14'3.5". That would be moving the axles 2'4.5" forward?
That seems like a lot? Just looking from the side of the trailer moving the wheels that far forward?

I think I am going to go 18" forward that should be 12.5% making the unloaded tongue weight 200#

Anything I'm missing or thinking about wrong please let me know!

*Side note that may make a difference? The trailer has ramps that told down from the back and I plan to mount a spare and a small box on the tongue.

Re:

Typically tag trailers use a 60/40 axle location and gooseneck use 70/30 split.

If your truck doesn't like alot of tongue weight, I would error on the side of caution (axle farther forward) knowing that overloading the tongue is easy, esp with a implement on the tractor.

There's an easy way to determine tongue weight with a bathroom scale if that's any help. I won't bother typing it if it's not of any use to you. Lotsa words for a phone.

Re: Re: Trailer modification?

Beerj said:

There's an easy way to determine tongue weight with a bathroom scale if that's any help. I won't bother typing it if it's not of any use to you. Lotsa words for a phone.

Click to expand...

Authenticity and level of masculinity can also be determined through the use of a bathroom scale......

Beerj said:

There's an easy way to determine tongue weight with a bathroom scale if that's any help. I won't bother typing it if it's not of any use to you. Lotsa words for a phone.

Click to expand...

Yea I saw where people were doing that! Thanks
Completely understand I typed all that on my phone!

Also another option which would be more work and material cost is converting to a gooseneck !

Well decided to go ahead and move the axles, went forward 16.5" I've got 10'4" of deck in front of the center pivot and 9'8" behind! So hopefully it will pull good and not be so tongue heavy anymore!

A bumper pull trailer can be a death machine if too much of the loaded weight is behind the axles. I have seen them track down the highway just fine until a a bump is hit and the trailer is all over the road. I think that is why some trailer manufacturers mount the axles so far back.

Not having enough tongue weight is very dangerous ASK ME HOW I KNOW!LOL :****: not a pleasant ride at all I understand you wanting to cut down on tongue weight but just be careful how you load it after you change the factory setup they did it that way for a reason!

Sawzall said:

A bumper pull trailer can be a death machine if too much of the loaded weight is behind the axles. I have seen them track down the highway just fine until a a bump is hit and the trailer is all over the road. I think that is why some trailer manufacturers mount the axles so far back.

Click to expand...

Well how I came up with the measurement is wanting 10% of the trailers weight on the tongue so half the total length of the deck plus 19" so hope that should be 11.08' but since the dove tail won't really be loaded other than a box blade or bush hog so most of the weight will be over the axles and forward of them!

Well finally got the trailer done enough to load the tractor back on it!

For the record it pulls great ran down the road and back no sway or fish tailing.

Ended up moving axles forward 16.5"

New wood diamond plate over the tires for clearing a little larger more common tire size.

All new wood, bearings, leaf bushings, tires!