Bolt together aluminum open car trailer: kit or plans?

2017 is the year I get a car trailer. I'm looking for an open aluminum, either from plans or a kit. Maybe something along the lines of this Boat trailer

I haven't had any luck finding car hauler plans. Has anyone done this? I want aluminum for lightness and since it's bolted; my welding chops are not up for a trailer but I own a torque wrench and know how to use it.

Thanks

Watching with interest.

There's a lot of engineering design involved as it relates to the tensile strength and selection of mounting points and fastener and hardware selection. I honestly wouldn't expect many kit options that I'd trust to be safe to be out there, and I'd expect the end product to cost more then 50% of what a good new open aluminum trailer cost, and without the high resale value of an open aluminum trailer.

Just spend some time looking at the Trailex Trailers website to see how theirs are put together. Pricing is pretty stiff compared to steel trailers.

I believe Trailex are bolted.

There is a LOT of aluminum in the Trailex trailers. They look to be built to compete with the American trailer standard of wanting to be able to haul a dumptruck behind your dually without worrying about stressing your trailer. It looks to me like it would be fairly expensive to build a similar trailer buying the supplies piecemeal. There are European trailer manufacturers that build Aluminum trailers to haul your racecar behind a sedan. Those might provide inspiration for a cheaper build.

In reply to MrJoshua:
Trailex's smaller, bolt together trailer is rated for 3100 lb, so that's less than half what my steel trailer will haul. It's narrower and shorter than mine ,too. Still $5100 though.Those lightweight Euro trailers are nice, too bad no one here seems to build a trailer to fit the smaller cars like that.

In reply to DeadSkunk:

I stand corrected. The double height side rails led me to believe they would be rated for more. Trailex makes some nice stuff.

The Brian James trailers from England look like they would be an easy tow. I actually built a steel trailer sized to my old Formula Vee autocross car. It was suspensionless, except the axles were mounted to a rocker on each side. I could tow it with my Pontiac 6000 STE at 70 mph. Never weighed it, but it wasn't very heavy. It would run well with my Austin Mini on it ,too.

Pay very close attention to fastening style. You can't just bolt aluminum together on a trailer like this. The bolts will wallow out the holes in no time.

Look for styles that clamp and use friction/tensile joints. For instance,

The example on the left is bad. It relies on the aluminum around the bolt to take the force. The example on the right is good. The steel on both sides clamps the aluminum and spreads the force load along a much larger area. You will be surprised to find how many use the engineering on the left.

Most boat trailers don't really rely on this engineering. Boat trailers get their strength from the fact that they have 2000 lbs of a stressed-element truss sitting on them strapped down. (the boat) My aluminum boat trailer is constructed like the drawing on the left, but it will last darn near forever as long as I tow it with the boat on it. But an empty flatbed will flop like a noodle. My boat trailer also uses galvanized steel crossmembers.

I guess what I'm really saying is, don't use modified aluminum boat trailer plans as a basis for a flatbed.

I just read through the build thread you linked to in the first post. I really like his approach and attention to detail, but I don't like the nylon bushing idea. Putting something softer than aluminum in the hole will protect the aluminum, but I have a feeling he'll have trouble with the nylon wearing out very quickly.

But I do like his use of plates. That really spreads out the load. I think that (short of welding) the best method of fastening would be riveting. I don't mean like little pop rivets, I mean like big hot compression rivets.

In reply to Jeff:
Since you're in Ontario go looking for used snowmobile trailers. They're usually aluminum and bolted together. You might be able to take one apart and renew all the joints. They tend to be wide, so you could narrow it if you need fresh aluminum to redrill holes. The 3 or 4 sled models have tandem axles and load capacities adequate for small cars. Many are in the 1000 lb range empty. I've never looked at one in detail, but you may be able to lower one and just buy fenders at Princess Auto if the tires protrude above the deck. Most are plywood deck, but it wouldn't be hard to fab some tire runners and remove the decking.

If you want a good source for decking some of the older U-Haul box trucks have really tough aluminum flooring.

Thanks for the tips. I like the idea of a sled trailer as a base; those are everywhere.