offroad utility trailer......

ok i have a 5x8 utility trailer that i has been sitting around for some while and i figured i could make use of it. i have some extra 36 inch mudders and a set of blocks to sit it up a bit. my plan is to mount my generator,welder,extra parts(bearing,axle shafts,etc...) and make a small platform to conceal my stuff(anti-theft)and to use the platform to put mount tent to when staying over night.......one of my biggest questions is what kind of problems would i run into with a trailer on the trails AND can my 3.0 ranger even pull the extra weight up the mountain???? the mountain i ride up is "fairly" trailer friendly ....or so i think. i always see some big ass f250 pulling a car trailer or a fairly large landscaping trailer without any problems but then again i have NO WHERE near the power of a diesel f250,lol.

Well assuming that your truck would handle pulling a trailer set-up over what ever terrain your are referring to I don't think you'd have too many problems. The biggest I see is the actual attachment to the truck. A standard ball and hitch wouldn't work unless the trail is pretty much flat and level, if you got too much of a difference in angles between the truck and trailer it would just pop loose. Having a hitch pop off the ball is bad enough on a road (been there, done that) wouldn't want to imagine it on the trail. I'd suggest using a pintle hoot set-up at minimum, it too has limitation on range of movement but at least it's not likely to pop loose from the truck.

How well your 3.0 pulls depends heavily on gearing and tire size. As well as final trailer weight.

Generally the offroad style hitches are like these:

(in no particular order)

Gearing...
Regear depending on tire size.
For 33's with a 3.0 and trailer... You'd probably want 4.88's.
Idk what size tires you have.

Going by your sig it's soon to be 38.5's and 5.13's
Idk...

All I can say is try it!!

The max coupler hitch is the one to have. It's not cheap but it works awesome. Idk what videos are posted above me since I'm on an iPhone and I think he might have posted them wrong? Idk..

4.0B2 said:

Gearing...
Regear depending on tire size.
For 33's with a 3.0 and trailer... You'd probably want 4.88's.
Idk what size tires you have.

Going by your sig it's soon to be 38.5's and 5.13's
Idk...

All I can say is try it!!

The max coupler hitch is the one to have. It's not cheap but it works awesome. Idk what videos are posted above me since I'm on an iPhone and I think he might have posted them wrong? Idk..

Click to expand...

The Max coupler has been know to bend in certain off-camber situations while backing up. Look into it on Expeditionportal.com. Its not common, but it can happen.

Why wouldn't a pintle hook work? It rotates 360° while allowing for vertical and horizontal movement. During my years playing soldier I never saw a trailer come off a pintle hook. Granted we didn't do things like this, still in theory it should work fine.

Sent from the road while ignoring traffic

snoranger said:

The Max coupler has been know to bend in certain off-camber situations while backing up. Look into it on Expeditionportal.com. Its not common, but it can happen.

Click to expand...

All I speak of is what I see.. Lol. I know 4 guys in my local club that have them and love them.

I'm sure anything will break... I'm sure people have had issues with them. I know of 4 guys that wont use anything else

4.0B2 said:

...Idk what videos are posted above me since I'm on an iPhone and I think he might have posted them wrong? Idk..

Click to expand...

I used the Youtube link button when you make the post, but I guess it doesn't work anymore.

here are the raw links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpOCn3s3o7M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXuzcBtWQWE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0W38mHYQHg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQ4CKoK7a8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3UGRV0dZ0c

4.0B2 said:

All I speak of is what I see.. Lol. I know 4 guys in my local club that have them and love them.

I'm sure anything will break... I'm sure people have had issues with them. I know of 4 guys that wont use anything else

Click to expand...

I will use it too, whenever I get around to building my expo trailer. Its a nice design, it takes a very specific set of circumstances to bend it. That wouldnt stop me from using it though.

Captain Ledd said:

I used the Youtube link button when you make the post, but I guess it doesn't work anymore.

here are the raw links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpOCn3s3o7M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXuzcBtWQWE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0W38mHYQHg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNQ4CKoK7a8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3UGRV0dZ0c

Click to expand...

put what is behind the = in the URL in youtube brackets.
like this [youtube ]mpOCn3s3o7M[ /youtube] with no spaces, so you get this...

I keep deleting the "" things but it puts them back in. *edit: Oh I see what's going on. I just need the number/letter ID string. Fixed.

kryptonitecb said:

Why wouldn't a pintle hook work? It rotates 360° while allowing for vertical and horizontal movement. During my years playing soldier I never saw a trailer come off a pintle hook. Granted we didn't do things like this, still in theory it should work fine.

Sent from the road while ignoring traffic

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I do. I've had 2 hitch ball pluck themselves out of the socket (one at a gas station and one leaving a friends yard) so I went to the pintle on everything since then. I towed howitzers so my experience is with lunettes and pintles as well.

I was in the seabee's so it was all light plants, and water buffaloes. A light plant would weigh roughly the same as an offroad trailer. And I imagine pintle hooks would be cheaper than some specialty trailer hitch.

Sent from the road while ignoring traffic

kryptonitecb said:

Why wouldn't a pintle hook work? It rotates 360° while allowing for vertical and horizontal movement. During my years playing soldier I never saw a trailer come off a pintle hook. Granted we didn't do things like this, still in theory it should work fine.

Sent from the road while ignoring traffic

Click to expand...

That's my thoughts. Never been a soldier, but I work on a base and can say they are plenty strong enough for anything you throw at them. I know it's a heavier duty that you would put on your truck but I seen them used to pull F-15s and C-130s I think I've even seen them used on C-17s. The might even use them on C-5s, not sure about that one though can't remember ever actually seeing one being towed. One day it's there, the nest it's gone, of course they only get moved about once a year and are on the other end of the flight line.

I've also seen them get put to a lot of abuse by farmers, and if anyone can be tough on a trailer it's a farmer. Seems to me that the only reason people don't like to use them is cause of the play in it, but if it's mostly used off road don't see where that's be much of an issue.

Most people dont like them because of the clanking noises from the play. If everything is sized right and not worn out, there is little play and the noise is kept to a minimum. Its defiantly not a strength issue.