Hydralic tilt bed or not?

[jpasture]

I have been looking at trailers. I found a nice trailer that tilts by the use of a hudralic cylinder. It has 2 feet of stationary bed in the front and 16 feet that tilts. The pivot appears to keep both axles (all tires) on the ground.

I watched a friend winch on a froze up allis onto his tilt trailer and it got my attention. Please share your opinions! Thanks for looking -
John Pasche

[Franz©]

I preferr compressed air. I've built both hydraulic and air tilts, and the air is a lot easier. Considering the number of trucks riding down the road on airbags, the dependability is there. With hydro, you generally have a cylinder riding in all the road slop, where it is most difficult to service, and a pump that becomea a PITA sooner or later, PLUS the extra added bonus of fluid that eventually gets contaminated. Then there is the valve. That generally becomes it's very own bundle of joy over time. Even a liftgate pump package gives you greif when you need it least.

Air on the other hand is just a matter of an airbag, which you can buy cheap on ePay, and a hose. If you want to get fancy, you can add a pair of $5- valves, and have complete control.

You'll still need a winch, but you can go with a much smaller winch when the deck tilts.

As far as keeping both axles on the ground while tilting, WHY? Using the rear X for the tilt point saves a ton of construction and $$$. If you know how to operate a tilt, you won't excede the limits of the X, pulling something on the deck. Let gravity work for you instead of working against gravity. As soon as the load is on the deck, open the valve, and let the deck return to road position as the load moves forward. That also eliminates guessing if you have the load on right. When the deck comes down, you're balanced. Move it ahead slightly for the weight you want on the hitch and bind it down.

As far as the trailers with the first 2 feet stationary are concerned, I find them wanting. In my opinion the design puts a lot of unnecessary strain on the frame.

[MoRo]

If this trailer works like I think it does, the hydraulic cylinders are not powered by any pump. The bed tilts by the weight of the load, the cylinders are nothing more than fancy-schmanzy shock absorbers to keep the trailer bed from whipping up or down.

The outfit I work for has a trailer like that. We use it for hauling our skidsteer loader around and it works great! We have used it three seasons now and nary a problem that wasn't caused by whichever idiot was using it at the time. It's a Felling brand. One can stand on the tail of the trailer to tilt it back for loading if need be.

[Phillip Hutchinson]

g'day all,
The 12 foot tandem trailer i built was a tilt,it had no fancy cylinders or anything it had rocker suspension under it and it never slammed down,it just come down gently as the weight come on to it.As far as having extra weight all i did was to have the "A" frame part pivot on the body of the trailer.and a bolt throught the front to secure it.Here is a piccie of the trailers i build for an elevated platform that we sell at work,it is a tilt trailer with a beavertail built into it as well,they are rated at 2 tons gross weght,this one was powdercoated

[BobH]

I have an Econoline 14,000 lb. hyd tilt now and having both I'd never go back to a non tilt. I had a pump installed on mine at the factory and added a 12,000 lb. winch myself. The thing you have to remember about a gravity tilt is you can only load 1 thing. Once you go over center the deck comes down and thats it. It's not going back up until the load goes behind the center of gravity again. With a pump you can keep it up as long as you want, lower it, tie down some stuff and tilt it again to load some more. The fixed 2 foot might be all right on a gravity tilt but anything overlapping it and the main deck will prevent tilting up again. Mine has a deep cycle battery under the bed that charges off the truck to run booth the winch and the pump. I move engines, machine tools, tractors and trucks with mine nothing beats it for versatility. Come up to our show in Rhinebeck, New York, on June 9-10, its on Harrys show calendar and take a look. I'm the guy set up across from the registration tent with the shingle mill and all the Majestic engines. Bob

[Ken Majeski]

Well... One thing you have to consider is the weight of the trailer. Any tilt trailer is going to weigh more than the non tilt counterpart. I've seen some very Nice Tilt trailers BUT the GVW was the same as lighter trailers and the actual allowed payload is less. So it depends on what you want to haul and what it weighs.

I bought a 22 Foot 14,000 GVW Gooseneck in 94. Trailer weighed 4800 so that left about 9,000 payload. So I ended up adding an extra axle... I've seen these 14,000 Pound Goosenecks up to 28 Feet long.... What does that leave for legal capacity...???

I now have a 14,000 GVW 18 foot bumper pull. Trailer weighs 3,000 so that leaves 11,000 payload. This trailer is Low and has foldup ramps and loading Portable engines with a winch is easy... I passed on a 12,000 GVW one that was built like a Brick Outhouse but when I considered what it weighed you couldn't haul much and be legal...

Just because it looks Good on the lot that don't mean it's the best trailer for you... The trailer salesmen don't seem to want to tell you what their trailers weigh...

[twslandlord]

I've been using an H&H hydraulic tilt-bed trailer to move engines, machine tools, & forklifts for some years. I recommend one that uses a hydraulic cylinder (hand pump on mine) to raise & lower the deck. It's more versatile than the gravity-only tilting methods. Most of these things have pretty steep angles so you need a good reliable winch. I recently won the lottery (sort of) & plan to upgrade to a Lift-a-Load (www.lift-a-load.com). They're ungodly expensive, but light (3000# weight for 12000# capacity), have a 5 degree entry angle (no ramps ever!) & are cheaper than 1 accident. (I'm prone to mis-haps.) I've also given up on pipe rollers in favor of dollies. Depending on what I'm moving, my favorite brands are: Multiton, Wheels for Machinery