Look to buy a new trailer....

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Frankie

Frankie

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A friend suggested an aluminum sliding deck for my swingers (oil pan clearance issue). I'm not familiar with them and was wondering if anyone here could give me some feed back on them.
Thanks guys.
 
i don't know about the aluminum ones but i did use a steel one for a year or so. it was a "texas rollback". it goes like this, park where you want, take straps off hotrod, pull pin in tongue, pull pin on each side between wheels, pull foward slowly until the frame of the trailer stops moving, hotrod tips up like on a giant ramp, get in and back hotrod off, done deal. to load hotrod just do everything in reverse and don't forget to put pins back in to tow.
with your low oil pan or a hotrod that sets really low they are the cats butt. the one i used the drivers side fender came off to enable you to get the hotrods door open which was a nice feature tohav efor alow sitting hotrod.
 
Oil pan depth should not be an issue with any trailer. My last pan was 3" off the ground and I never had an issue going up on the ramps to my flat bed steel trailer. The aluminum trailers are nice - but quite expensive compared to steel (2X). Obviously they don't rust, look good and they are significantly lighter. I bought a new 18' flat bed steel trailer with dove tail and ramps a couple years ago for around $2600 OTD. The same trailer in aluminum was close to $6K. I just couldn't justify the extra cost
 
IT certainly doesn't sit any lower than my headers, and I don't have a problem with a conventional 18' steel trailer with a dovetail. You could probably buy an enclosed for what that aluminum deal is going to cost.
 
Thanks for the comments, guys.
My oil pan scrubs the tail of the trailer at the top of the ramps. It's a flat trailer (no dovetail), and that's probably the issue. This morning I a couple of pieces of 2x12 lumber, and placed them on the trailer bed at the top of the ramps. so that the front tires would continue up onto the lumber directly from the ramp. That raised the front of the car about 1 1/2", and that was enough to allow the oil pan to clear the tail of the trailer by more than an inch.

I'm thinking if raising the ball on the truck hitch about 2 " by simply removing the ball from the receiver mount and flipping it over. That might change the angle of the trailer enough to clear the oil pan (raising the nose of the trailer lowers the tail, thereby changing the ramp angle. I'll try that later today.


If I have to change trailers, I'm leaning strongly toward another steel trailer. I prefer a fully decked trailer, but the open bottoms do have their advantages. I'm really interested in that "Texas rollback".

...and the pricing on aluminum is eye opening.

Thanks again for the input.
 
Burntorange70 said:
A longer ramp would help too. Trailer hite+ramp length=ramp angle.
Click to expand...

I thought about longer ramps a while back. The only issue with increasing the ramp length is that it will require a deeper ramp pocket under the trailer, and the V frame under the trailer would have to be notched to allow the ramp to pass through it between the V frame and the bed. I believe it would take too much out of the V frame. But, longer ramps would be a good solution.

I did flip the ball carrier on the hitch over, and I picked up about 2 1/2 inches of height at the tongue. that plus the little bit of spring compression as the car reaches the top of the ramps just clears the pan. It's a temporary solution for now, but... I think I see one of those roll backs in my future. lol

I'm probably going to look at trailers that can take one of my long bed pick up, too. So that if I ever have a need to transport on of them, I can.
Last time I had to do that I had to bring one back from Albuquerque, N.M. that was about a 1700 mile ride dragging a trailer that only allowed about 2" of bed behind the contact patch of the rear tires, and everything beyond that was hanging off the back of the trailer so much, that the police made me put flags on the rear bumper. That was a pretty hairy two days, and I don't want to deal with that, again.

I have an opportunity to fix both issues, and, unless my wife beats me up about it, I think I'm going to do it.

I think it's OK for a grown man to own two trailers, lol.


btw, have you guys looked at some of those vids in the link that yellowdartdave posted? some are pretty sic. lol

Thanks for the help, guys.
 
I recently bought an aluminum Texas Rollback trailer. Best thing since sliced bread:hello2:
 
On the loading aspect I bring a block of wood and use the tongue jack to raise the front of the trailer until I can load any car, just a thought.
 
My oil pan has less then 3" clearance on it. Best thing I found was when I use regular trailer I take set of car ramps with me. I just back the rear tires of truck onto ramps to help angle of ramps. Also with car on trailer you want trailer to set level. So if your hitch has trailer setting nose low might need to get different hitch


Troy
 
On the loading aspect I bring a block of wood and use the tongue jack to raise the front of the trailer until I can load any car, just a thought.
Ditto
 
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z4THb7R9OM&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3z4THb7R9OM&feature=related[/ame]
 
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