The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Equipment => Topic started by: Womble on July 15, 2016, 05:40:08 pm
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Our wee trailer came with a lightweight jockey wheel that lasted all of two trips before it bent out of shape, so I replaced it with a heavier duty one. However, because the wheel was now a larger diameter, it hung down too far below the draw bar, and gave insufficient ground clearance for speed bumps etc. To correct this, I made a bracket to raise the wheel up a couple of inches when in the 'up' position (see attached photo).
Unfortunately this bracket has now also bent (as you can see, partly due to having used the wrong bolts, and partly because the box section I used wasn't strong enough). What I think I need is a stronger method of raising the clamp up. A 6" length of heavy duty angle would probably do it, but the minimum length I can buy is 6m!
Any bright ideas folks?
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It looks quite a low trailer so it would be better if you could just take the jockey wheel off for when your driving. My boat trailer has a hinged clamp that clamps the jockey wheel so its quite easy just to take it off and put on again when you need it.
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Is that steel box section? looks like 3-4mm wall. should be fairly strong.
Looks like the wheel can pull up level-ish with the a frame of the trailer chassis, is it still hitting the floor at this point?
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Hi Greenbeast, the existing 50mm box section does raise the wheel high enough - it just wasn't strong enough, so bent out of shape. That's why I wondered if there was an alternative way to do it.
NethertonSH - Thanks for that - I'll investigate further :thumbsup: .
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Stronger box section or a piece of angle should do it. Sort of thing an engineering shop would have in their scrap bin for the size you want. Any one local you can approach ?
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As said by others, use stronger material .
But out of curiosity, what are you doing with yours that puts so much load on your jockey wheel ?