Phantom Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 (edited) I borrowed a flat deck trailer from a friend to take my Z to an event a fair distance away and discovered a few things: 1) The ramps are too short so the break-over at the bottom got into my air dam and the bottom hung up on the break-over at the top. 2) Adjusting for that I set the trailer ramps on top of some regular car ramps and tried again. The problem here was that the angle iron "treads" on the ramps were so far apart my tires wanted to stay nestled down between them so it took a bit of power to push the tires up out of the pockets. Unfortunately, that was enough that the rear wheels shot the car ramps out from under the trailer ramps and down came the Z. Fortunately, there was minimal damage and some judicious jacking got things back in order and the car off the ramps. That experience told me that I'd never try using a flat deck trailer again. Yes - I've had several suggestions on how I could do things to make it work but one bad experience was enough for me. A couple days ago I started the search for a trailer so that I could trailer the Z places so that my wife could go with me. The two of us fit fine in the car but there just is not enough room for all the "stuff" we need to take with us. Thus the search for a trailer so I could use my Suburban as the hauler plus have it carry all the other items we wanted to take with us. Long story short I found a nearby trailer store that was running a special on a 7,000 lb tilt-deck trailer 16' long. Went in, liked what i saw and, after checking around a bit about the manufacturer, bought it. Hooked it up and headed home on the interstate. Oops - at 60 MPH everything was fine but by 65 MPH the trailer was seriously whipping the back end of the Suburban around and cars behind me were backing off. Slowed it down to a stable 60 and took the next opportunity to turn around and return it to the dealer. He said that was the last one on his lot (it was on sale) but that he'd get me another one the next day. He called me later that night. It turns out that it is difficult to properly balance a 16' tilt deck trailer to get enough tongue weight to keep it tracking straight (no problem at 18' or more) and this manufacturer had not done it right. There is now a recall on those trailers. Ouch. The dealer felt so badly about it that he got me a 10,000 lb 16 footer and for the same price as the lighter unit. It is far superior in construction and details to the first one and tracked fine at 70 MPH. Now all I have to do is figure out how I'm going to keep the Z on it now that I can actually get it up there. Edited July 3, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 Having a trailer is like having another car. It has to be figured out and maintained. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to locate the car on the trailer to avoid sway. My winch just died, and to put a new one on it, I had to have a bunch of welding done. It's a whole 'nuther project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 3, 2016 Share Posted July 3, 2016 If you have trouble getting the car on and off, back the truck onto ramps like you'd buy at the auto parts store to change oil. Really helps. Mine is a tilt bed, Still need the truck on ramps and some 4' boards to get my car on there. A Texas rollback style might do it, but just a 17' tiltbed isn't cutitng it, my race car is very low though. FWIW, my 17' tracks great. Haven't had any issues at all, even pulling my friend's S10 Blazer which was a lot heavier than my Z, obviously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Backing the truck's rear tires up on the conventional car ramps really makes it a nicer angle... 12' 2x8 oak boards are in my 20' box trailer because the prior owner had a front engine digger and a pro-gas bucket rail, works nice for evening out ramp break over disparities. Then again, having my 'druthers those new kneeling air bag trailers are the bees knees! Edited July 4, 2016 by Tony D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 (edited) Yes Tony, I figured that out. I also decided it was a Rube Goldberg approach to the problem and that it would be much safer to just get a tilt bed trailer Where all the wheels could stay on the ground and my tow vehicle - that's steadying the trailer - doesn't have it's rear up in the air with the potential for tipping. I'm sure folks have done that thousands of times but I don't want to be the once that it didn't work right. Agree - If I'd had the cash to get one of those air bag kneeling trailers I'd have gone that route in a heartbeat but, at 4x the cost, it was not a consideration. Jon - evidently 16' is the length where it becomes an issue and requires very careful design. Edited July 4, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 So I'm practicing loading my car today and I'm wondering where y'all attach your tie-down straps at the back of the car? The front has the tow hooks but what about the rear? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Took a big piece of meat off my right thumb today with a flapper disc when cleaning up welds from having a new winch plate welded onto my trailer. It's in the spot where my pen rests when writing. It's gonna be a shitty week....surgeon with sore right thumb.... My trailer is 16' and trails fine. My LS powered S10 extended cab weighs 4000#. My Z and trailer together weigh 400#. I moved my car up until it added 500# to the rear axle weight of the truck. When I first centered the car over the trailer axles, it swayed bad. Since I put 500# on the tongue, all sway stopped. Another issue is the fenders on the trailer. I have dropped axles on my trailer (to reduce loading angles), but I can't open my doors when loaded between the fenders. So, I winch on and off, every time. I like winching up-I feel in control of the loading process. And I have 6' ramps (heavy). Never, never, never try to load without the trailer attached to the tow vehicle. Never, never, never move your loaded trailer without at least 1 strap fore and aft. I had a bracket welded to my rear crossmember for attaching straps to. I had additional tie-downs welded to the trailer deck to allow custom attachment. Finally, I painted stripes on the deck of my trailer to allow me to load straight from the start. And I bolted rubber chalks onto the deck to let me know I'm loaded in the right spot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 Well, found out my front is low enough to require a 2x12 under the ramps on the back of the trailer. Also found that my Z needs to be within 3" of the front of the trailer to get it to come up off tilt. It pulls fine at 70 with the car in that position. Bolted a 4x4 across the front of the trailer where the tires will be stopped in the right position. I'm using 4 straps in an X pattern to hold the car down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 I wanted a tilt trailer for a while. Feeling better now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Well, found out my front is low enough to require a 2x12 under the ramps on the back of the trailer. Also found that my Z needs to be within 3" of the front of the trailer to get it to come up off tilt. It pulls fine at 70 with the car in that position. Bolted a 4x4 across the front of the trailer where the tires will be stopped in the right position. I'm using 4 straps in an X pattern to hold the car down. I'm pretty sure it was John Coffey who told me not to cross the straps. If you should lose one strap, the other will try to straighten and could pull the car part way off the trailer. You have to consider why the one strap would come off, probably something pretty bad is already happening. If you're going to be towing it a lot, you might consider installing hooks on the car and trailer front and back. I got the typical racer look hooks and modded them a bit to make stronger and I'm towing with the car attached to those. Most of the ones in the rear are just a flat plate bent at a 90 degree angle and the loop is horizontal. When you pull on it it's going to stress the bend, so I got Bryan at zccjdm.com to send me a set unbent and unpowdercoated, cut them and welded back together with the loop vertical and then gusseted top and bottom. Kind of a rough copy of what John Coffey had done on the ROD back in the day. I don't recall if you're running bumpers. If you are, especially with 280 bumpers you should be able to make something that will fit under the bumper and not be so obvious. In the back my tilt bed has about a 2' long 1/4" thick diamond plate section so I cut slots in that and hook the straps there. I was going to run D rings but knew that I would lose clearance under the splitter, and tube80z gave me the slot idea. That is a much better way to go if you're tight on clearance. In the front I had some 10,000 lb D rings welded to the tilt bed, as my 110V welder wasn't up to the task. I agree with Keith that winching on is nice and controllable. I have a 3500 lb Harbor Freight winch, works like a charm. Changed the cable out for rope as the cable got snarled pretty much the first time I used it. I can get the car on and off myself and not feel like I'm going to break anything. Mine tilts when the car gets about 1 foot away from the front of the trailer. I'm sure that varies from trailer to trailer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) Good information Jon. Thank you. I crossed the straps to keep the car from moving sideways as I could see that being a possibility on the roads up here. Any spots at the rear of the car that can be safely tied to if no hooks installed? My trailer has D rings at the outside corners on the rear and on the tongue in the front. I replaced my 280 bumpers with the MSA type 2 aero kit. Edited July 5, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 With no hooks, I think most people either strap the tires down or they hook to the rear control arms. Not a fan of tire straps after yet another Coffey story: he told the story of a guy towing through I think it was Pearblossom Hwy, which has short hills lined up one in front of the other for about 20 or 30 miles. The guy had the tires strapped and the car hit a particularly bad oscillation on the trailer where the trailer and car extended and then bottomed at the same time for a bit and it ended up pushing the top of the strut through the strut tower. I believe it was a BMW that this had happened to, seem to remember pictures. Got to the track to find that the car was mangled. I didn't want to try and crawl under the car every time, so I avoided the LCAs, but they're pretty accessible on a stockish height Z, although I have to wonder if they'd get bent over time just from the ratcheting down. Some people use chains on one end and straps on the other. I guess if you had a convenient spot to weld loops to maybe you could set it up to hook chains to. Maybe add loops to the LCAs or something.I would think that the outer D rings would be OK for tire straps but I wouldn't use for tie downs in the middle of the car because you have the same problem as the X, but then it's really trying to pull the car off the trailer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted July 5, 2016 Author Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) I have 10,000 lb rated tie straps with good sized hooks on the end. I tried them on the LCA's and there is a spot they hook in real well so I'll try that until I can get some hooks on the rear. The front row hooks work well but result in a really short strap. The good news it's more of a horizontal pull on them rather than a vertical. Edited July 5, 2016 by Phantom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) You reminded me of one problem I had. In the rear with the hooks on the back the lengths are so short that a normal tie down wouldn't work. I have some straps with an axle wrap and those wouldn't work even if I did an X in back. I had to buy extra short straps from US Cargo Control. Mine are 6000 lb rated with 2000 lb operating. The fronts are 10K lb like yours, but I seem to recall I couldn't get the 10K short enough for the back. Edited July 5, 2016 by JMortensen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Duncan Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 They make straps now with a sliding D ring on one end so you can loop the strap around whatever and connect that way Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 New winch. Same old wench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
260DET Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Don't think that my tandem airbag trailer is available in the US, basically it's a tilt plus the airbags are exhausted to unload and then pumped up when reloaded. My little Cherokee diesel tows it like a champ, one reason for this is that there is virtually no overhang past the Jeep's rear wheels so they are close to the trailer, less leverage involved. Plus there is a high weight allowed on the towbar not that it's necessary here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 All the sweet trailers are Down Under. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony D Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 (edited) Mac's Tiedowns...got a nice bag and everything. Axle straps, through the wheel straps... I was hoisting Z's into a container and my electric winch button stuck on...a little "y" strap from Macs held a Z suspended by the front tow hooks 8' in the air while we got chainfalls on to unhook the electric and finish the job manually! It's basically a "winching strap" that hooks through smaller Tiedowns and chassis holes to let you winch a car onto the trailer with an even center-pull. Not supposed to lift with it! Forgot to take a photo and submit for free stuff at the Mac's website! NIce tie down stuff from Mac's. Edited July 9, 2016 by Tony D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clarkspeed Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Little tip. I installed a pair of tie down rings in the outer nutplates just behind the seats. You can easily reach under the car blind and hook on tie down straps in the trailer and allows the rear straps to run parallel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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