Centre of Gravity

[Tony Smith]

Is there a diagram showing the Centre of Gravity for loading purposes for the various marks of Carrier?
Failing that, have people devised their own method for determining balance when loading on to a truck or trailer, ie some reminder like 4 links aft of the middle roadwheel etc? When towing a trailer, it handles best with the load's CoG just forward of the trailer's balance point. Any advice?

[rob love]

Of course with no tongue weight, the control of the trailer goes out to lunch, with the trailer jumping left to right and possibly taking the load and the towing vehicle with it. Too much and you can damage your hitch.

I have actually seen somewhere an illustration on how to determine the tongue weight on your trailer using a bathroom scale. Of course, the tongue weight alone would kill most bathroom scales, even the Canadian ones which are made to measure the majority of Canadian women. (Hopefully Karmen doesn't read this thread, and it cetrtainly does not apply to her). Seems to me they used an extension under the hitch of about 3 feet, and made some multiplication of the results.

http://www.curtmfg.com/index.cfm?eve...ntpieceid=1347

The link above shows you how they did it.

Once you have set it up on your specific trailer/carrier combination, you can make marks to repeat it each time afterwards.


Personally, I measure the hitch height before I put the carrier onto the trailer, and then move the carrier until I get about 3" less height.

I put my ferret on my trailer coming home from an airshow and miscalculated. The thing was just about in the other lane. How I managed to stop, I don't know, but I near had to change my shorts afterwards.

[Rob Dyba]

I had to put a (dead) vehicle on a trailer backwards once, towed ok until a bend in the road un-settled it, white posts both sides taken out, unknown number of pendulum swings from the trailer in tow. Only time I have ever had 5 tonne of car & trailer sliding sideways at 80 kph, tow car on full lock, full throttle trying to regain control. Certainly a wild ride. A valuble leason learned...........

Rob

[Lynn Eades]

I did a similar thing with a load of timber. The trailer hit the bank on the other side of the road, and stopped the almighty knot of car, trailer, people ,and timber. Usually it goes quite wrong when you run out of negative lock.
The lady comming the other way said F. F. F. Far out!!!

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by robobmc
I had to put a (dead) vehicle on a trailer backwards once, towed ok until a bend in the road. A valuble lesson learned...........

Rob

Exactly what I'm getting at. Is the rear of a carrier heavier because that's where the eng, trans and diff are, and should therefore be loaded onto the trailer BACKWARDS to place more weight forward, or is it evenly distributed enough to put it on FORWARDS and move it well forward on the trailer?

[Pedr]

Hey Tony

What are you planning on towing it with??

SA Law dictates that the combined mass of trailer and load not exceed 75% of the towing vehicle. So this would mean that at approximately 2 tonne for a trailer and 4 tonne for the carrier, the towing vehicle must be at least 8 tonne ( that's like a laiden Aaco ).

And that any trailer with a curb mass greater than 2 tonnes have trailer brakes ( of greater capabitily than over-run braking ) and break-away locking brakes.

I don't know if the flaws ( oops Laws ) are the same in NSW, but that pretty much dictates what you can tow a carrier with.

As far as "doing a Brocky" ( fishtailing ) down the road, most electric and air braking systems have trailer brake controls so that you can slightly apply the brakes to prevent this from happening on braking.

Pedr

Picture is Alan Newton's carrier on MVCSSA's trailer.

[rob love]

I had my 12,000 lb capacity trailer built with carriers specifically in mind. The deck is only 14 feet long, and it has dual axles. I never had a problem with towing the trailer with the carrier on front end first. My weight distribution is near perfect when the carrier is almost back as far as I can get it on the deck, to where the foldup ramps just about touch the back of the carrier. Of course, this will vary with whatever trailer you are using, but unless you are working on a 10 or 12 foot deck, I think you will have enough room to get the tongue weight you would need for safe towing.


Here goes another army flashback: We were leaving Shilo to go to the G-8 summit in Alberta a few years back, and I was the convoy MRT. We hadn't even made it to Brandon (12 miles) when I came up to the first "casualty". It was one of those LSVW command posts with its 850kg cargo/generator trailer. The operator had to stop because the trailer was doing the bunny hop, and he felt there was something very wrong with the trailer. On looking in to the trailer, I saw that they had filled the entire back end of the trailer with dozens of filled sandbags, and that these actually had the tongue weight in to the negatives (it was pushing up the hitch). The operator had no understanding about how that could cause a problem.