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Lengthening trailer

patooyee

patooyee

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I have a 22' heavy duty bumper pull trailer right now. Its a great trailer and buying a 30' or so gooseneck this heavy duty would be close to $10k. I'm considering lengthening it and converting it to a gooseneck myself. Anyone got any pointers beyind the 70/30 rule? Based on this rule I should be able to get in the 30-35' neighborhood without having to move my axles.
 
My bumper pull was 16' with a 4ft dove tail. I added in a 10ft section, and built a new deck over the frame rails. At the time I had never hear the 70/30 rule of where to place the axles. The place where I bought the steel told me that I should take the trailers overall length (30ft) and add one inch for every foot of trailer (30 inches) from the centerline of the trailer to the centerline of the front axle on the trailer. I double up on rigs all the time, and I have severely overloaded it, and it has always pulled great. The axle is also far enough forward that tongue weight is kept in check, and its easy to maneuver in tight places. I'm planning to redo the trailer in the spring to upgrade the axles, redo the dove tail, and maybe even lower the height of the trailer some



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Axle placement with a bumper pull is supposedly 60/40, so different than goose, but I'm finding that there are drastic variances. In the pdf I posted above its 60/40 for both trailers even thought they are goosenecks.
 
al1tonyota said:
Have you seen my thread? I just moved my axles forward on a 19' bumper pull! 10% rule
Click to expand...

No, link me please? What's the 10% rule?
 
Read the thread, thanks.

If I am understanding you correct you are building so that 10% of UNLOADED weight is on the tongue? Is that a bumper-pull specific rule or does it apply to goosenecks also? I would think goose vs bumper would be very different. Plus, what's unloaded weight matter? I would think loaded would matter more in the long-run and even then it depends on how you load it?
 
patooyee said:
Read the thread, thanks.

If I am understanding you correct you are building so that 10% of UNLOADED weight is on the tongue? Is that a bumper-pull specific rule or does it apply to goosenecks also? I would think goose vs bumper would be very different. Plus, what's unloaded weight matter? I would think loaded would matter more in the long-run and even then it depends on how you load it?
Click to expand...
From everything I read if you have 10% on the tongue unloaded when you load the trailer it will keep the "right" amount of tongue weight as long as the trailer is loaded correctly? From seeing some gooseneck stuff while looking it seems most shoot for 70/30? Which was how my bumper pull was setup!
 
I will definitely be watching this thread, I've been thinking of doing the same thing to mine. I don't want to spend a lot of money to lengthen it and/or gooseneck it and then fond out it pulls like crap. I don't have a title for my trailer or else I would probably sell it and just buy a gooseneck.
 
We did this to JImmys a few years back...we didnt move the axles, just added about 8 feet to the front and then goosenecked it...why more room? rzr?
 
Yes, Dad bought a 4-seat Ranger. Ashley can put the daughter in it in a car seat and has fun driving it around following me in the buggy. Both now have to fit on a trailer or else two trucks are required and I just don't feel super safe with her towing the Ranger long distances. She just doesn't have a towing mind set, has never really towed anything before. Just the truck alone is kind of big for her comfort range.

I'm not going to move the axles. If I have to do that its cheaper time-wise to just sell and buy new. I'll add what length I can leaving the axles where they are and that should be plenty.
 
I would like to add 10-15' but really I'll just do whatever is determined to be the "correct" amount according to the myriad of random-ass rules I see thrown around on the internet about axle placement. I've seen 60/40, 70/30, 10%, 1"/10', and one other even more complex spreadsheet that goes through some really complex calculations. And then I see actual trailers that purportedly tow great that followed all or none of those rules. So I'm starting to think that its all just a bunch of internet know-it-alls quoting red-neck rules of thumbs. I still have access to my old 30' goose and it pulled like a dream. I'm just going to go measure it and copy it I think. I tried to buy it back but the current owner loves it too much. :)
 
I've been thinking about lengthening one of my smaller trailers and permanantly mounting my peterbuilt sleeper on the front. The one I'm thinking about is 16' long right now. My ranger is 14' I was thinking about adding about 4 feet to the front. I could always use some pointers for keeping structural integrity.
 
bbone said:
We did this to JImmys a few years back...we didnt move the axles, just added about 8 feet to the front and then goosenecked it...why more room? rzr?
Click to expand...
How much $ do you think he spent in steel? I'd be interested in paying someone to do the work.
My trailer is 20' bumper pull with a 2 foot dovetail. I can fit two jeeps on it, but after 55-60mph it sways all over the place. I tried moving jeeps around, front/back, front/front, etc. and could never get it to stop swaying. I thought about trying the sway bar set ups but those are pretty expensive and I'm not sure it would solve my problem. I'd like to add 4-8' and make it a gooseneck so I'd have plenty of room and the advantage of how well most gooseneck pull.
 
Just to add some more info, I got some dimensions on my old trailer that I liked so much. Total deck length was 32', axles were 22'4 from the front of the deck. That means that trailer was built using the 70/30 rule.
 
patooyee said:
I still have access to my old 30' goose and it pulled like a dream. I'm just going to go measure it and copy it I think. I tried to buy it back but the current owner loves it too much. :)
Click to expand...
Kind of what I did when I built my bumper pull. I went to tractor supply and pulled measurements off one of their 16 footers and scaled to fit my needs. Theirs were 60/40.
 

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