Scenario - I have a dual axle car trailer and we have a nice parking bay on our driveway to put it on. Problem is that in order to access it, I have to back the trailer down the whole way from the road to the parking bay as there is no space to turn around both the truck and the trailer. Trying to back into the driveway from the road really isn't that safe - there's a blind corner in the road right above our property and I'm basically waiting for someone come barreling down the hill and take me out. It's a dodgy proposition in daylight and downright dangerous at night.
So, I need to be able to maneuver the trailer and turn it around without it being hooked to the truck. It looks like there are trailer dollies available for that, but obviously there are a lot of different ones and this has me wonder if anybody has any recommendations? I probably don't want a motorized one but I'm guessing that whatever I get needs to be tall enough to get the front axle of the trailer off the ground.
I've had those little two wheeled thingies for moving a boat and a sailplane trailer around. Handy, easy to just make one, but if it gets away from you the handle flips up (punching the boat?) and then the trailer hits the ground.
I like the idea of this three wheeled one. A clever person could motorize it, or cruise the aircraft forums for a pre-loved one. This one would be fine if your area is level and the trailer easy to pull.
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/category_trailers-towing+trailer-dollies
If you'll be walking the trailer over rough terrain, be sure it has wheels/tires that are suitable for the job. The red wheels above would not work well on anything other than smooth concrete.
Height adjustability of the ball seems to be the other critical feature.
I think it was SkinnyG who built one out of the back half of a snowblower.
Didn't you recently buy a decent sized John Deere? That should move the trailer just fine. If not, here's your justification to trade it on a bigger one.
I just bought the $55 one off Amazon and have only used it a tiny bit. It's fine though. The tires won't last they look like they're made out of rubber gloves in tire shapes.
No rough terrain fortunately, it's all tarmac or concrete slab, albeit with a bit of a grade.
The John Deere idea might have legs (wheels?) if I can work out a way to get the ball for the hitch high enough. I know it's got some sort of rear hitch mount, albeit without a hitch or ball. That should at least work when there's no snow on the ground. With snow on the ground it's more than iffy getting the JD down to the area where the trailer is stored.
Will you have to move it when loaded or only unloaded?
BoxheadTim said:
No rough terrain fortunately, it's all tarmac or concrete slab, albeit with a bit of a grade.
The John Deere idea might have legs (wheels?) if I can work out a way to get the ball for the hitch high enough. I know it's got some sort of rear hitch mount, albeit without a hitch or ball. That should at least work when there's no snow on the ground. With snow on the ground it's more than iffy getting the JD down to the area where the trailer is stored.
What about putting the hitch ball on the front of the tractor so you can see what you are doing? (Can also probably lift and lower easily if you can put the hitch on a bucket or something).
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
I should be able to unload the trailer before moving it. The main issue is that there isn't enough space to turn the truck and trailer around without a risk of getting closer to the leach field that I'm comfortable to.
The driveway is fairly long - I'm guessing about 50-60' if not more - so pulling in, unloading what's on the trailer unless it's broken, then unhitching the trailer and pulling the truck further forward should be OK.
In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :
Something I am considering - it looks like the cheap & cheerful way of hooking the trailer to the tractor would be to use some sort of ATV hitch adapter and a taller ball. I'm not quite sure if there is a good way to mount a hitch on the front, at least without fabbing something or getting the front hydraulic quick hitch.
Put a hitch on the front of your truck, unhitch before going up the driveway, and push it in?
In reply to Teh E36 M3 :
That would be the ideal solution, unfortunately that means I would have unhitch the trailer on the street on the aforementioned uphill stretch, so that's not really an improvement over backing it in from the street.
If I had enough space to turn the trailer around when being pushed or pulled by the truck then this would work really well. The problem is that the combo of truck and trailer is too long for that, so the dance would look something like this:
- Pull into the driveway far enough to unload whatever crapcan I have on the trailer
- Unhitch the trailer and pull the truck forward to get it out of the way and turn it around
- Hook up the trailer dolly/garden tractor/tug boat to pull the trailer towards the house to the slightly wider part of the driveway so I can get the truck out, up the hill, down the other driveway and into its parking spot
- Now I finally have enough space to turn the trailer around on the tarmac while contemplating how smart it was to buy a house that's sitting on a relatively steep hillside.
My parents in their mid sixties used one of the basic two wheeled manual ones to put an 18 foot pontoon boat into it's shed. They went from 45 minutes backing, filling and shouting using the truck to five minutes of fairly easy work even on grass in a sandy yard. Would recommend.
Can you mount a tow ball on the front of your truck?
Works a treat.
Or, can you stretch your want to justify a tractor and loader with a receiver mounted on the bucket?
In reply to wheelsmithy (Joe-with-an-L) :
See a couple of comments above - no matter which end of the truck I hook the trailer up to, there's not enough space to turn the truck and trailer around. The issue isn't really backing up the truck and trailer down the driveway - I could use more practise, but I'm not that bad at it - it is that backing into the driveway basically results in me blocking both lanes of the road temporarily, and I'm concerned that at some point, one of the local wannabe Takumis is going to take me out as there is a blind corner maybe 150' up the road from that driveway.
I have a manual trailer dolly. I use it a lot to move my single axle trailers around the yard. It's very handy. One of these.
However, you won't be able to turn a dual axle trailer, on concrete, by hand. To turn a dual axle trailer, you have to slide two tires sideways. I'm a big guy and I'm not strong enough to do that on grass, much less on asphalt or concrete.
Karacticus said:
Or, can you stretch your want to justify a tractor and loader with a receiver mounted on the bucket?
That seems to be the sort of overkill that we like around here 
.
My 16" car trailer weighs something like 1500lbs empty so I would hope that the current garden tractor (JD 445) should be good enough to move it around. And to be fair, I'd rather upgrade the trailer to a better and lighter weight aluminium trailer than buy a bigger tractor.
Of course there is also the "I feel rather flush" option .
In reply to BoxheadTim :
Your lawn tractor should be able to do the job though.
Can you set up cones/triangles in the road to give others a heads up that they may need to slow down/stop? (Not sure if stopping to set up the cones will increase the risk.)
I'm very lucky that I have pretty good sight lines in both directions from my drive at.
Toyman! said:
I have a manual trailer dolly. I use it a lot to move my single axle trailers around the yard. It's very handy. One of these.
However, you won't be able to turn a dual axle trailer, on concrete, by hand. To turn a dual axle trailer, you have to slide two tires sideways. I'm a big guy and I'm not strong enough to do that on grass, much less on asphalt or concrete.
Thanks, that's just saved me a bunch of money. I suspected that this style of trailer dolly wouldn't work that well unless also got some GoJak-like device for one of the axles.
How good are your fabrication skills? There are a couple of good ideas out on the interwebs to power one of the cheap 2 wheel dollies. Using cheap 12V winches.
dj06482 (Forum Supporter) said:
Can you set up cones/triangles in the road to give others a heads up that they may need to slow down/stop? (Not sure if stopping to set up the cones will increase the risk.)
Let's just say that the last time we set up cones it was because the movers were unloading the truck on the road as an 18 wheeler won't fit the the driveway, and someone got upset enough to call the po-po.
