For some time I have used a small trailer I modified to carry the car, (see the header).
It's fine but doesn't have any room to carry spares, which have to go inside the car. Also, with it not having brakes and my Grand Vitara being a 3-door the towing limit is not even the full 750kgs that un-braked trailers are limited to.
The 3 door GV has an un-braked limit of 550 Kgs. The car + the trailer (without the spare mounted) is 540ks so I am legally close to the limit and that means I have to carry the spare wheels and trailer spare wheel and ramps in the GV. Plus tools, car spares and clothing, boots etc.
I bought a caravan chassis last May intending to convert it for the car and have just done this. It's an Alko chassis with brakes. That means the GV can tow up to 1500kgs, although the trailer is plated for 1000Kgs.
I added some cross members to stiffen it up and decided to add a steel frame to the top of the chassis to make it stiffer and cut down on the sway that the back part of the chassis suffers without the caravan floor bolted in place. This would have boards on it to make a flat-bed trailer, making it more flexible (in respect to carrying things, not flopping about).
You are not supposed to weld to the Alko chassis according to Alko as they have designed everything to depend on the frame to supply the strength. Welding may weaken it. The steel has a high manganese content and isn't easy to weld anyway. So I planned to bolt the steel frame to the chassis in the same places the wooden caravan floor had been attached.
This was the plan for the frame.
And this is it completed
I used scaffolding boards to deck it. They are heavy, but cheap and very strong.
I fitted lights and ramps as well as the props from my other trailer. The mudguards are new.
The position of the car was worked out earlier, before I cut the planks, and includes allowance for the wheels and spares at the front of the trailer. I will build a box there for those bits in time. The noseweight worked out at 65kgs which is ideal.
I took the finished trailer loaded with the car to the weighbridge in Kendal and it registered a total weight of 780 kgs. I weighed the car on it's own which weighed 420 kgs so the trailer weighs 360 kgs.
That is ideal as the complete loaded trailer will be 200 kgs under it's maximum and 700 kgs under the tow car's maximum weight.
This shot shows the tread plate for the wheels. The front wheel guides. The tie-down hooks and the front marker lights.
Old and new trailers.
It was time for a trial.
The Yuletide event was on 8th December at Wreay, a couple of miles South of Carlisle.
I went up the M6 for ease and found the trailer towed really well. The older one gets a bit nervous over 55mph, which is probably due to it having a much shorter wheelbase.
We had a mixed day as usual. Some good runs and some silly mistakes. There was a rather odd problem which cost a few points.More of which later.
The site is only 3 miles from Ian's home so it's a late start for him. Me, I was loading up in the pitch dark.
It's like an amphitheatre, and is mainly grass with some dead bracken. After a week of rainy weather the grass gets quite slippery. The first runs up the 6 hills were not too bad with good grip so low revs and careful control of the throttle and brakes are what should work. By the second runs the grass has been squashed and the sap combined with the wet ground mean you're starting to have to use more power.
One particular hill was mainly downhill to begin with, then a traverses across a slippery slope. You have to negotiate the poles (yellow to right, blue to left) without hitting them. They are never in line of course. As the car wants to slip downhill you have to aim uphill and hope that you've got it just right and will pass between the poles at each gate.
Then the course turned directly downhill for short and very steep section before turning sharp left through another gate. The ground was so slippery that it was nearly impossible to go slowly. Applying the brakes starts the car slewing and if you can manage to get it to slew the right way it sets you through next the gate.
That is what's happening in these few shots.
It's fine but doesn't have any room to carry spares, which have to go inside the car. Also, with it not having brakes and my Grand Vitara being a 3-door the towing limit is not even the full 750kgs that un-braked trailers are limited to.
The 3 door GV has an un-braked limit of 550 Kgs. The car + the trailer (without the spare mounted) is 540ks so I am legally close to the limit and that means I have to carry the spare wheels and trailer spare wheel and ramps in the GV. Plus tools, car spares and clothing, boots etc.
I bought a caravan chassis last May intending to convert it for the car and have just done this. It's an Alko chassis with brakes. That means the GV can tow up to 1500kgs, although the trailer is plated for 1000Kgs.
I added some cross members to stiffen it up and decided to add a steel frame to the top of the chassis to make it stiffer and cut down on the sway that the back part of the chassis suffers without the caravan floor bolted in place. This would have boards on it to make a flat-bed trailer, making it more flexible (in respect to carrying things, not flopping about).
You are not supposed to weld to the Alko chassis according to Alko as they have designed everything to depend on the frame to supply the strength. Welding may weaken it. The steel has a high manganese content and isn't easy to weld anyway. So I planned to bolt the steel frame to the chassis in the same places the wooden caravan floor had been attached.
This was the plan for the frame.
And this is it completed
I used scaffolding boards to deck it. They are heavy, but cheap and very strong.
I fitted lights and ramps as well as the props from my other trailer. The mudguards are new.
The position of the car was worked out earlier, before I cut the planks, and includes allowance for the wheels and spares at the front of the trailer. I will build a box there for those bits in time. The noseweight worked out at 65kgs which is ideal.
I took the finished trailer loaded with the car to the weighbridge in Kendal and it registered a total weight of 780 kgs. I weighed the car on it's own which weighed 420 kgs so the trailer weighs 360 kgs.
That is ideal as the complete loaded trailer will be 200 kgs under it's maximum and 700 kgs under the tow car's maximum weight.
This shot shows the tread plate for the wheels. The front wheel guides. The tie-down hooks and the front marker lights.
Old and new trailers.
It was time for a trial.
The Yuletide event was on 8th December at Wreay, a couple of miles South of Carlisle.
I went up the M6 for ease and found the trailer towed really well. The older one gets a bit nervous over 55mph, which is probably due to it having a much shorter wheelbase.
We had a mixed day as usual. Some good runs and some silly mistakes. There was a rather odd problem which cost a few points.More of which later.
The site is only 3 miles from Ian's home so it's a late start for him. Me, I was loading up in the pitch dark.
It's like an amphitheatre, and is mainly grass with some dead bracken. After a week of rainy weather the grass gets quite slippery. The first runs up the 6 hills were not too bad with good grip so low revs and careful control of the throttle and brakes are what should work. By the second runs the grass has been squashed and the sap combined with the wet ground mean you're starting to have to use more power.
One particular hill was mainly downhill to begin with, then a traverses across a slippery slope. You have to negotiate the poles (yellow to right, blue to left) without hitting them. They are never in line of course. As the car wants to slip downhill you have to aim uphill and hope that you've got it just right and will pass between the poles at each gate.
Then the course turned directly downhill for short and very steep section before turning sharp left through another gate. The ground was so slippery that it was nearly impossible to go slowly. Applying the brakes starts the car slewing and if you can manage to get it to slew the right way it sets you through next the gate.
That is what's happening in these few shots.
I need to turn
around the yellow pole on the right in this shot
Before trying to turn left
Through the gate.
The problem seemed to be that I couldn't get the traction up the next short, steep climb, which was a bugger as the next few gates weren't so bad. So we stuck at this point on each attempt.
Turning downhill through the gate
The other side of the amphitheatre is
more in the tree line and the ground gets very muddy as there isn't as much
grass. It becomes so slippery that the start of the Hill gets too slippery to stop at. So the marshal allows you to slither down to the start gate and just
keep going. Again traverses across the incline make it very tippy-toe. A bit of a blast is needed to get to the first real turn which is usually an uphill,
around a tree.
This has caused us big problems in the past but yesterday we had more
success. This has a slight edge to it as we concentrate more on getting past
the first couple of difficult sections and just watch experts doing the later
parts of the hills. This caught me out a couple of times when we reached parts
we hadn't expected to reach. In one instance I'd seen experts having trouble
with a right hand bend over a ridge and then turning left.
When we got there it wasn't as bad as I thought and my plan was wrong, I clipped the blue pole, which ends your run. I'd thought I would need to turn much more sharply than I needed to and was set up wrongly when I got there. I've said it before and let myself down before, but I must walk the whole hill to see every gate myself.
In this shot the start is to the right of the guy in the orange jacket (where the blue board is). However as it's so slippery there that you set off from the grass higher up and slither through the start gate.
When we got there it wasn't as bad as I thought and my plan was wrong, I clipped the blue pole, which ends your run. I'd thought I would need to turn much more sharply than I needed to and was set up wrongly when I got there. I've said it before and let myself down before, but I must walk the whole hill to see every gate myself.
In this shot the start is to the right of the guy in the orange jacket (where the blue board is). However as it's so slippery there that you set off from the grass higher up and slither through the start gate.
Then you have to carefully cross the
traverse and floor the pedal to try to get up to the tree that you have to turn
around. We managed that a couple of times but I failed to get around the tree on the last run,
which wasn't too bad as several others also failed, in the slurp.
A rather bizarre thing happened on the first Hill on our second run. It set off on the level, went for about 30 yds then up a short and very steep rise, turned left and into another traverse between gates which were offset so you had to weave between them.
We did well on the first run and almost reached the top.
On the second attempt the blast from the start line threw up a load of fallen leaves. I have long eyelashes (back girls...) and some stuck to them over my left eye. I couldn't see where I was going. I managed the left turn and started throwing my head about to try and dislodge them. I don't have a spare hand in these situations.
I carried on into the traverse, but because I couldn't see I clipped a blue pole with a back wheel. So we scored 9 on that attempt when we had scored a 2 on the first run (lower, better).
I realised afterwards that I had been stupid. There is no timing. The only stricture is that you can't be stationary for more than 3 seconds. I could have stopped at the turn, removed the leaves and carried on. Stupid Boy!
The results were the usual near the bottom end of the score sheet. However we didn't suffer any mechanical maladies and there were only a couple of Novices on the event, so we had lots of better drivers ahead.
Looking back at the places that caused failures I see a common problem.
I think it may be dawning on me what I need to do so by the next event I'll have tried a couple of practices and may have better grip (see what I did there) of the matter.
A rather bizarre thing happened on the first Hill on our second run. It set off on the level, went for about 30 yds then up a short and very steep rise, turned left and into another traverse between gates which were offset so you had to weave between them.
We did well on the first run and almost reached the top.
On the second attempt the blast from the start line threw up a load of fallen leaves. I have long eyelashes (back girls...) and some stuck to them over my left eye. I couldn't see where I was going. I managed the left turn and started throwing my head about to try and dislodge them. I don't have a spare hand in these situations.
I carried on into the traverse, but because I couldn't see I clipped a blue pole with a back wheel. So we scored 9 on that attempt when we had scored a 2 on the first run (lower, better).
I realised afterwards that I had been stupid. There is no timing. The only stricture is that you can't be stationary for more than 3 seconds. I could have stopped at the turn, removed the leaves and carried on. Stupid Boy!
The results were the usual near the bottom end of the score sheet. However we didn't suffer any mechanical maladies and there were only a couple of Novices on the event, so we had lots of better drivers ahead.
Looking back at the places that caused failures I see a common problem.
I think it may be dawning on me what I need to do so by the next event I'll have tried a couple of practices and may have better grip (see what I did there) of the matter.
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