Lightist trailer ever!

[john527]

Here is our gas milage trailer, the only thing steel is the axle, just finishing up painting on our logos,

[bill van steenwyk]

Very nice construction.................

but a hint from personal experience. If you leave the boat on the bottom that beautiful finish stands a very good chance of getting "pecked" up by rocks and other debris thrown up by the wheels and tires of your tow vehicle.

Might try raising the racks a little and put the boat higher to keep it looking nicer longer. An added benefit is it helps to break up the wind on the motor box a little more.

Been there, done that, had to refinish!!

[john527]

We have a custom fit cover for the boat!

[Yellowjacket]

Think aerodynamics...

Considering that the weight of boat and motor are generally less than 300 pounds, weight that you are towing isn't the biggest issue. The biggest thing that robs your gas mileage over 60 mph is aerodynamics. I've towed lots of small trailers behind my Corvette, carrying race tires, and if you could keep the package tucked in behind the tow vehicle there wasn't much of a mileage penalty. I could get 26 mpg towing and get 28 or 29 without the trailer at the same speeds (around 75 mph). If I had a package that suck out much mileage dropped to 20 or less.

If the rig stood up more than 4 or 6 inches above back of the tow vehicle or presented much of bluff body gas mileage went into the tank. This is because it causes the air to get forced down between the trailer and the car and then out the sides and that causes big drag.

I saw some SAE papers on the aerodynamics of vehicles towing trailers and you really have to try to get rid of the air spilling off of the leading half of the rig and then hitting the box on the back.

As Bill noted getting the boat higher would help, but if you want to have an economical tow rig you need a lot lower profile box, or a box that holds the motors, but cranks up like a pop up camper when you are at the races, but cranks down so as to not have a big frontal area on the road.

If you are towing with a pickup, a truck cap will help a lot, but you still need to have some continuity between the back of the truck and the box on the back or the air will flow down toward the boat and then will get stagnated on the front of the box and create big drag.

Hope this makes sense, but don't be thinking that weight is the key to towing economy, for towing 1,000 pounds or less, aerodynamics is more important than weight.

[blueskyracer]

I think it looks great and if you are going up any big hills than lightness will make all the difference in mileage.. Now where does that fancy boat cart go??

[pav225]

Great work

Trailer and boat look great!!

Mike

[john527]

the boat cart will be on the trailer also, just have not put the brackets on the main trailer yet to hold it.

[KG4]

Nice looking trailer.I had a trailer similar to that one i went to Detroit to pick it up with my then Pontiac transport van and on the way back i burned up the tranny 2 hours from home.It was like pulling a parachute.LOL

[wagner-racing16-s]

Bob,
Wish I still had the trailer I sold you. With boats on it the trailer would tow beautifully. It was no fun towing the trailer I bought off of Tom Smith that same day back without any boats on it. I burned through so much gas towing that thing back and it is a heavy huge trailer. Best way to to is to just have a few boats on it thats for sure.

[john527]

heres are old trailer we built back in the 80s, remember thats when gas was a whopping $1.25 a gallon

[john527]

opps, heres the picture...

[HRTV]

You can always skip the trailer and go back to the old school route :-) this photo was taken last weekend at Brodenbach. As you can see many Euro teams still do it old school style :-)

[blueskyracer]

You can always skip the trailer and go back to the old school route :-) this photo was taken last weekend at Brodenbach. As you can see many Euro teams still do it old school style :-)

I would do it like that in Europe to with gas like $7-$8 bucks a gallon

[runabout333]

The 427M///527M trailer was very typical for the late 80's and early 90's.
We pulled all the way from central Kansas to Winnepeg, Canada in 1991.
My tow vehicle was a 1988 S-10 extended cab with a 4.3L V-6 and an
aftermarket installed tranny cooler.. I ran the truck for 486,000 miles..
It never faltered... The tranny cooler was the key..

[halestorm]

Here is our gas milage trailer, the only thing steel is the axle, just finishing up painting on our logos,

Do you have any drawings or construction details you could share? I'm about to make a 2 boat trailer but my 4 cyl car has a pretty low towing capacity so it'd be good to make it as light as possible.

Thanks!