The Road Ranger. 1997 SEMI

[Rick W]

Step Trailer Update:

The Road Ranger and step trailer are motoring down the road great. But I noticed the framework for the trailer “pin” is scraping the truck bed, on the inside corners where the “fifth wheel“ assembly is, when I’m making turns. When I first built the trailer, that fabrication was hitting the back fenders on a sharp turn, and I had redone it all before I went up for nationals this year. I measured it 1000 times, and before I finally welded it, I went in the church parking lot across the street and drove it every which away and in circles and turns. Everything cleared. But I can see the scuff marks, and of course that scares me, I don’t want to bind it and break something.

I haven’t gotten much done with all the hurricane Rugrat refugees in the house, but I took a couple of them across the street, and I did everything to that truck I could think of, measuring everything, and I think I figured it out.

I don’t have the classic pin in the plate fifth wheel. It’s an upside down ball trailer hitch, so the trailer can tilt side side. I knew that, and I thought I had still left plenty of clearance for anything that would happen on the road. And it looks like I was right.

First, the bed of the truck tilts up a little bit towards the back. That was by design a little bit, so when I have a load, it will level out. The only place it’s scraping is on that last 2 inches, on top of the light assemblies. That’s 1/8 inch aluminum on top of some fairly thin 2 x 2 tubing. The pin pivot point isn’t centered between the two axles, it’s actually just a few inches in front of the back axle, which was also by design, so the truck would “pull” that axle and the trailer, not “carry” either one.

Since the city widened the road and put in a slightly elevated sidewalk at the end of my driveway (that’s now a steeper incline), there’s a pretty pronounced hump. That sidewalk/hump is right under the rear wheels when I turn left or right out of the driveway.

Apparently, when I pull out and I’m turning, the truck will tilt as much as 6-7 inches from one side to the other, which doesn’t happen on the road. At the same time, the back wheels of the trailer are still sitting square on the driveway. That one location/turn is apparently where I’m getting interference.

There’s only a scrape on top of the light assembly on the left. When I turn left, I have to cross the lane on my side of the road, so it doesn’t tilt as much as if I turn right. On the right, the pin assembly has actually caught on the inside corner of that part of the bed, and actually bent the 2x2 tubing, crushed it, about a half inch. I figured out that happens because it’s a much tighter turn to the right creating a bigger slant on that hump..

The frame and fenders are all attached solid to the truck frame, it’s only the axle that floats underneath it. When I did my twist and turn test across the street, I also realized that in tight turns that rear axle will move left or right about an inch to either side. No big deal because it tracks going down the road, but that has the effect of moving the pinpoint to the left or right, which affects the clearances in a tight turn.

With all that, I would have to make some pretty substantial changes to the 2 x 2 frame I installed on top of the truck frame in the back. The other solution was just to use a longer offset hitch for my pin, which just raises the assembly up a couple inches. That’s easy to try and remove if it doesn’t work. So, that’s what I did, I swapped out the 4 inch offset for a 6 inch offset.

One of the other reasons I redid that whole pin assembly before nationals, was because the trailer was not square left to right with the back of the truck (just top step deck). It also slopes up a little bit towards the front with that same idea that when there was a load on it, it would all level out. I haven’t seen it on level ground since I swapped the hitch, but I’m concerned it might slope up too much now.

I can fix that by correcting another oversight. On the rear of the trailer when I put my axle mounts on the frame, I put all three the same on each side. With the double axle and the equalizer, the one in the center should actually be longer so it hangs lower. Now, the springs can hit the bottom of the frame when I go over a speed bump or something like that, they’re not totally free on that equalizer at its limits.

So my plan is the next time I hook it up, which will be Saturday, I’ll measure it all out again, and then replace those middle spring/equalizer mounts with longer ones that will level the trailer front to back where I want it. That will bring the tail end up a couple inches, but I can live with that.

I now have all my brake parts to do the brakes on those two back axles, so I’ll just do it at the same time, but not right now.

Two points in presenting all this.

First, I would want everybody to have the most up-to-date information and findings if they’re going to try to do something like this, buttt….

Second, I’ll reiterate my disclaimer again that I don’t advise anybody to do this, certainly not the trial and error way I put it together, it’s all a toy for me, and I make no representation about the road worthiness or load handling capability, especially if someone put a serious load on such a thing. I have a unique combination of engineering experience, hands-on, mechanical and fabrication experience, experience with trucks and trailers, etc. that makes me feel comfortable with what I’ve done. But in this posting, there is certainly not a design for others to duplicate.

But it is a blast!

 

[Rick W]

I forgot to put in the picture of the special equipment I used when I was measuring everything, as well as a couple pictures of the damage.

On the right, that’s an every day pair of dollar store needle nose. You can’t have enough of them. Spread out across your workshop.

The red bar and pointer device is a premium SW&CH hitch level and alignment tool sourced from the SOM. (scrap wood and coat hanger from the shed of miracles). A scrap piece of a 2 x 2 pressure-treated stake, and scrap pressure treated 1 x 2 painted red from a different trailer project. The 1x2 was measured, centered, and notched to sit level across the bed, with the 2 x 2 at a perfect 90° angle to sit in the tightly in the coupler at deck level, fasted with a couple of scrap screws from my scrap screw bowl. I did use a good sheet rock screw for the pivot point.

I actually switched to a full-size coat hanger and cut it up and straightened it with a loop on the end because the white one in the picture was a drop scrap from a coat hanger partially used from who knows what, that was about a half inch too short.

It seems silly, and I presented silly, but A lot of getting the job right is the right tools even if they’re not commercially available. Of course I use pressure-treated for durability so it will last between the tractor trailer projects..

 

[sgtsandman]

The only thing I can say is, when you blaze a new trail, there is going to be bumps and scrapes along the way.

 

[Rick W]

I went to the driveshaft shop today. They got the two piece driveshaft installed properly to eliminate a vibration.

I was surprised that they just jacked up the truck and got underneath it to pull the driveshaft, no floor lift. When they did it, they put the jack underneath the rear differential, which is on the front rear axle.

These pictures from the sides show how much up and down motion I have on that back axle on the four link set up. You can see here how far the back axle can drop down if the front axle goes over a curb, and I already know that when the back axle goes over a curb, the tire can rise up to scuff the inside of the fender, about 8 inches, and I never lose traction on the front axle. Just a reminder, the four fenders are mounted directly to the truck frame, and the back axle actually pulls behind the truck on a four link set up that allows free up-and-down motion. I control bounce when it is not loaded with the same rear shocks I have on my Lincoln town cars.

 

[Blmpkn]

I went to the driveshaft shop today. They got the two piece driveshaft installed properly to eliminate a vibration.

I was surprised that they just jacked up the truck and got underneath it to pull the driveshaft, no floor lift. When they did it, they put the jack underneath the rear differential, which is on the front rear axle.

These pictures from the sides show how much up and down motion I have on that back axle on the four link set up. You can see here how far the back axle can drop down if the front axle goes over a curb, and I already know that when the back axle goes over a curb, the tire can rise up to scuff the inside of the fender, about 8 inches, and I never lose traction on the front axle. Just a reminder, the four fenders are mounted directly to the truck frame, and the back axle actually pulls behind the truck on a four link set up that allows free up-and-down motion. I control bounce when it is not loaded with the same rear shocks I have on my Lincoln town cars.

View attachment 128043View attachment 128044

Now that we know how much articulation that monster has we all fully expect you to put 35s on it and take er to Moab..

 

[Curious Hound]

Now that we know how much articulation that monster has we all fully expect you to put 35s on it and take er to Moab..

We need a bigger laugh emoji.

 

[Rick W]

Technical afterthought on the design. On a real fifth wheel stand axle, the fifth wheel is centered between the two rear axles, maybe with a little bit of forward and backward adjustment to balance weight on those two axles.

On the Road Ranger, my “5th wheel” is actually mounted on the top of the four link system, just a little bit in front of the rear axle. So all the weight is primarily on that axle and the two trailer axles,

 

[Rick W]

I really haven’t done much with the Road Ranger since last summer, mostly for health reasons. Carlisle Ford Nationals are in a couple weeks, almost 1000 miles for me one way, so the last week or so I’ve been going all around the truck and seeing what I need to address or upgrade. I’m hoping to avoid an all night affair like the last two times I drove up. Here’s the list so far.

Priority “have to” items:

I had a tiny antifreeze leak that I couldn’t find for the last six months. The new brunette is about 45 minutes away, over an hour during rush-hour, and now that the temperature has warmed up, I looked under the hood when I got there, and I found the leak. A pinhole on a heater hose. That’s already fixed.

I measured all the geometry I could think of when I fabricated the fifth wheel, and then the trailer tongue, but in use, when I first went up north, part of the trailer tongue assembly could still scratch the top of the back fenders of the truck. I redid that tongue assembly when I got back two years ago, but now I have a scuff right above the tail lights on either side of the fifth wheel opening. I’ve modified a few things, it barely touches now when I go over some kind of hump on an angle, but I think I’m going to use the cut off wheel and just trim about a quarter inch off the tongue brackets where they contact the Aluminum light housings. I’ve got a couple of options to modify the light housings if that doesn’t solve it. Remember the “light housings” are really the corners of a cross bed toolbox that I cut out and flipped over.

The next priority is the spare tire on the truck (235/75/15 ), and one of the two spare tires for the trailer (185/65/14). Slow leaks. The truck spare is obviously placed high and very exposed. The one I have looks like it’s brand new, except it’s got some cracks in the side. So it’s got to go, but I want a good looking tired because of its location. I have two in the tire pile I will dig out, but if they’re not good enough and pretty enough, I’m going to go salvage one somewhere.

I have the spare trailer tires on OEM Ranger spare tire carriers that I mounted sideways on each side of the trailer up by the front legs. One has a slow leak. I’m either going to figure it out and seal it for good, or just swap it with one of the six or seven replacements I already have for other projects planned.

“Want to” items.

I’d like the CB to be working much better. The two pretty antennas I first put on interfered with each other, too close together, so I added a third one in the middle on a separate cable to the back of the radio. After doing some homework, it appears that I could disconnect one of the duel antennas and just work off one of them. So I took the third antenna off, disconnected the passenger side antenna, and tried the CB on the driver side only.

It gets out, and I can receive, but not like it’s supposed to. At this point, I suspect it may be the radio itself. It’s a 90’s vintage period-correct cobra 29 LTD. I have two other cobra 29 LTD radios, so I’m going to bench test them in the garage, but basically swap them and try them for a week and see if any one performs much better than another. I also have a 148 SSB, but I would have to modify the mount since it’s about a half inch wider, and then I have a pile of small CBs, but I really want the look of that 29 LTD in the truck. I don’t know if I’ll have time before nationals, but if none of them are working properly, I may send a couple out for repair, or I know I can buy a brand new one for about $115 when they have them on sale.

I have everything I need to install trailer brakes on the two trailer axles, and to install brakes on the tag axle on the truck. Rolling it all around in my head for the last couple/three years, I’ve realized I probably have a better than average jackknife possibility. When I removed the bed from the truck, that took a lot of weight off the drive axle, and the way I have the tag axle, it is not supporting the truck at all. Without having brakes on the trailer, to drag it back behind the truck, if I went into a turn and hit the brakes hard, the trailer would probably push me in a jackknife in a heartbeat. I don’t think it’s a serious issue if I don’t have the trailer loaded, if I just drive carefully. It is one of my top priorities, just probably won’t be done before Carlisle. Personally, I think brakes are just a crutch

I’ve never been able to get my low intensity strobes working properly on the trailer. I have them all the way down both sides and across the back. I’m suspecting I may just have too many lights, that the controller might be too lightweight, without the power to run them all. If time allows, I am going to rewire them (they are very accessible), and if that doesn’t work, I have to find a more heavy duty driver. probably won’t get done before National’s.