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Educate me on Trailers
Our school has the unique opportunity to acquire a new trailer to my specifications. I'm knowledgeable about a lot of things but trailers certainly isn't one of them (yet). For those of you with trailers, tell me everything we need to know. This will be the trailer for our school for the next decade if not more, and I want to make sure we do it right. Pictures are welcome too.
I want to know sizes, weights, specs, options, nifty features, graphics, what you use it for, what you pull it with, etc. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
About 4 years ago we purchased a Pace America 6 X 12 enclosed. It has a large drop gate that is a 1000 lb capacity ramp and a small side door. It is only single axle with no brakes so the load capacity is 2000 lb -- add brakes and it goes to 3500 lb for the same trailer. This is a VA State law -- we went with no brakes because it doesn't have to have a state inspection sticker. There is a great deal of room, fairly stripped down when we got it and we installed our own tie downs. It is fairly light and very easy to pull. The automotive dept services it -- they do not have to do much. It cost us less than $3000 and has been great to have. We have pulled it with my 2001 Silverado, 2004 Trailblazer with a 4.2 l 6cyl, and a new Nissan 6spd V6 --- none have any trouble pulling it. It is registered to the school systen so tags are govt use -- we keep it at our school and have the only keys -- we are the only users. We currently have no graphics on it, but are working on getting a wrap donated -- there is a local guy that is very creative and we want something that will make people really look.
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
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Ours is 6 x 10 or 12 - not posotive. Single Axle. Twin doors on the rear and a side panel door. Very similar to the attached photo.
Exterior - We have a large "234" logo on each side. We have our major sponsors on each side. On the rear, we have a smaller "234" and 6 of our major sponsors. We had these done by TKO Graphics and they have held up well for about 6+ years. TKO does trucks, cars, commercial graphics, etc. Interior - We added one high shelf along the wall without the side door. It is good for extra bar stock, flags, etc. It goes most of the length of the trailer and is about 10" wide. We added another short shelf above the side door and it is large enough for the control board. We added several "D" clamps to the floor and walls so we could secure the load. There are "studs" running vertically and braces horizontally so we found several good places to add these. We also added several in the floor. We made a ramp for ours from Aluminnum Plate. It is about 5' long and has pins to hold it in place. We have a cross bar that goes across the back of the trailer and we strap the ramp to it when we are traveling. Our "normal load" - robot (in front), 2 - 18" W x 42" rolling tool carts (one each side), our robot cart, battery cart, smaller tool boxes and other items in totes. It holds everything we need for a competition. Some considerations - Who will tow it. Ours can be pulled by a smaller SUV or truck. Who will insure it. Ours we "gave" to the school so it has township plates and is insured under the schools policy. Who can use it. We only allow ours to be used for robotics trips, not personal use. A larger trailer can give you some more space, but also restricts who can pull it. A trailer with brakes (electric or surge) requires the right wiring on the tow vehcle, and a larger truck to pull it. Be sure to get a spare tire, lug wrench and jack to keep with the trailer (we installed a spare tire mount on the tongue). We love having ours and have pulled it all over to competitions, demonstrations and other events. With the logos on it, it is a rolling billboard for our team and for FIRST. I will get some photos and add them. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
We've had our trailer for about 2 years now.
A couple of things I'd change are no side door as it is an extremely rare occasion that we use it and it pushes the rear axle back making it easy to end up with too much tongue weight. It also means there is a gap in places to attach tie downs. I requested electric brakes but a student was put in charge of ordering it and did not get them. Trailer tires are only rated for 65mph so take that into consideration and the ones that come stock on most trailers are cheap junk. I'm ordering up some new ones before St Louis they will be D load range rated truck tires. ST (special trailer) tires have a heavier wt rating than passenger of C load range tires. Hope this helps. |
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Ours is a 7'x14', tandem axle, "V-nose" with a drop door rated for 3500lbs and a walk-in side door. It doesn't have brakes but that would probably be recommended given its load rating. It has a 2-5/16" hitch and we pull it with my 1500 Silverado most of the time.
It has about 8 "D-ring" tie downs on the floor and about 8 more about 5' up, scattered along the side-walls. We also recently added full-length E-track tie down rails at the bottom of both side walls and at about 3' above the floor. This has been a GREAT addition as it allows us almost infinite flexibility in loading. It has a deep-cycle battery and 3 roof-mounted fluorescent lights and a light just inside the walk-in door. The trailer is black and our graphics are 2-color vinyl (yellow and white) on each side (done by a local sign company). Suggestions for someone in the market: 1) Think about year-long storage of the trailer. Ours is too big to fit into our shop so we have to store it off-site. 2) Think about how you might want/need to adjust how you transport now vs when you have a trailer. We've actually migrated into fewer larger rolling carts for our supplies (instead of a lot of smaller containers when we had to get everything loaded into the bottom of a charter bus). 3) Get something big enough... Not having a trailer, you might be surprised how much room all your stuff might take and if you purchase a trailer and it isn't big enough for everything, you'll still be forced to deal with the hassle of loading the stuff that wouldn't fit into the trailer! |
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I spent a couple of years looking and thinking about trailers and I lucked upon a dealer that had just what I wanted.
For example, Pace ships a lot of 'standard' consumer cargo trailers but you can order just about any customization from a chart. The dealer ordered a custom but it turned out not to be what their typical customer wanted but exactly what I was looking for. So we managed to cut a deal after it sat on his lot a long time. We got a Pace American 6x12, tandem axle, electric brake, extended height trailer. http://www.paceamerican.com/trailers/journey The extended height is very important to us as we can roll a pit or road show nearly pre-configured and pre-packed. A critical dimension is the height of the door frame, which is less than the interior height. Interior height spec is nearly useless to us. The wire rack in this picture is 5' wide, nearly 6' tall, 2' deep. There are several teams in this area that have transitioned to using this rack system but you need the extended height to get it done. Plus you don't bump your head when entering or walking around in the trailer. This thing rolls in preconfigured, we set the sign and ready to go. It is wonderful. It sits on the trailer on the right side behind the side door. Between the rack and the back door sits the tool box. On the left side of the trailer is the robot cart preloaded with a showbot if necessary, and this year the bagged and tagged robot. We enter the side door to load specialty packages and other occassional stuff. Everything is secured with E-Track down both side walls, about 40 inchs off the floor, E-Track D-Rings, and normal ratcheting straps. Go here to see E-Track It is way nicer to have electric brakes and tandem axles. It cost more but is definitely worth it if you are doing extended hauling or heavier loads. The whole rig looks like this. Ed |
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Does any one know details on the NASA machine shop trailers?
I am pretty sure we will have a trailer next year but considering that my team is actually three schools with limited space; a portable small machine shop would be practical for my team. |
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We got a 16ft utility trailer from Trailers Plus in Fontana (now in Redlands). We love it. They service it for us every six months.
We pull it with a Dodge Caravan with a towing package. Will be getting a truck so we can pull more weight in the trailer. Would like to add a generator and lights (in and outside) as well as build in some storage of some sort. Graphics were purchased from Two Pencil Designs for a very reasonable price and extremely good quality. Here is a picture of the trailer with graphics.... ![]() Here is where we bought the trailer.... http://www.trailersplus.com/?gclid=C...FWcZQgod9ENVww |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
I strongly recommend dual axles and electric brakes. I have had single axle trailers where a broken spring has resulted in the trailer sitting on top of a tire on the ground. It's rare, but that second axle can be a lifesaver. In addition, on the occasion when you have to haul more than normal, you can.
I recommend electric brakes. Here in the icy north, having brakes that stop the trailer without pushing on your tow vehicle (surge brakes) are a wonderful thing. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
Here's what we're currently looking at:
Our trailer will be custom built by http://www.heacocktrailers.com/ 6x14 x 7 foot interior height (standing room inside) tandem axle Rubber? Suspension as opposed to springs (they tell me it's better, less bounce). Surge brakes. Rear fold down ramp with torsion spring Side door up front Interior and exterior lights Larger battery with solar charger/maintainer Possibly a mount for a generator on the tongue and a power input and at least one receptacle on the interior and exterior Side retractable awning Full vinyl wrap E-track at 2 or possibly 3 heights along the whole length of both sides, including interior of side door A few floor mounting D-rings or similar. Painted steel diamondplate floor. Spare tire mounted on tongue. (I'm interested in hearing the pros/cons of where to put the spare. Possible tongue-mount for barbeque instead of or in addition to (running out of space on the tongue). What am I missing? We have the opportunity to order this once and forever more, so I want to make sure we do it right. Like machinery, I figure you will always need a bigger trailer. But we don't want it so big we can't pull it with a normal sized vehicle, and we don't want it to be too much of a pain to park. It will be parked outdoors year-round in SoCal. Our intention is that it will be multipurpose as follows: - Hauling stuff to regional and offseason events - Moving large and/or heavy things on rare occasions (a donated machine tool or Lego tournament tables for example.) - Helping to support the expansion of robotics to all schools in the school district. We may do something like a mobile robotics minilab with many kits of Lego or Vex parts or computers or drawers of parts or things inside, that we could take to local schools for a day. Our current possibilities for tow vehicles are a 2001 Ford Ranger 4.0L Extended Cab Automatic, and a 2000-something Honda Ridgeline. We may also have access to a mid-1990s Diesel Dodge Ram Dually Extended Cab, but we would need the trailer to be towable by any of the aforementioned vehicles. Thoughts? I mostly concerned about the max size and weight to tow with the Ranger. From specs I read, we seem totally okay. Comments? Also, we were looking at 7x14 rather than 6x14, but we thought the extra width would be hard to see/drive/maneuver. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
Be sure you really, really want a trailer. Our second or third year we were able to use a 6' x 12' trailer that the school had. On paper it seemed perfect. In reality we found that it created more problems than it solved, especially at the Pittsburgh Regional. Towing it up and down hills on narrow, crowded one-way streets was a challenge, and parking it got very expensive (we were charged as if it were two cars). It's also a bigger target for theft since folks [correctly] assume it's filled with tools.
Since that initial experience we've gone back to hauling everything in school vans. It's probably not an issue except in certain cities. |
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
We just purchased a Homestead brand trailer from a local dealer this year.
6'x10' Single Axle (No Brakes) and it uses a 2" ball so it can be towed by most SUV's, Trucks, or Vans. We elected to get the rear ramp and the side door. The only other major option was we elected to go with the taller height so we could load a max height robot on a movers dolly without tipping it. This makes the trailer about 7'6" tall and consequently is about as much pain to park as a box truck when it comes to parking decks. The school district bought it so it has local government plates as well. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
A 6 x 14 tandem trailer is probably 2500 pounds empty. You will easily get it close to 5000 pounds with room for that much stuff.
I would be worried about the Ranger, and that is about the tow limit for the Ridgeline. Check the vehicle ratings and be sure you are not going to exceed tongue weight or total towing weight. The rubber suspension is nice. We have that on our trailer. Smooth ride. The front tongue is a great place for the spare because it is easy to get to. Surge brakes are good and are very common. They are reliable and only need a connection to the back-up circuit on the tow vehicle to lock them out when you back up, so it is minimal impact to the vehicle wiring. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
I agree with Chris. You start throwing stuff in the trailer and next thing you know you have a gross weight over 5K.
A Ridgeline really limits your options. A Ranger max's out at no more than 6K. You also need to think about your trip length. Are you driving coast to coast or just scooting around town ? What is your top extended speed, what is your terrain. In addition of weight, weight you have to start and then stop, you are also dragging a giant parachute behind you. Weight and the giant parachute adds up to stress on the drivetrain. I've seen people take their minivan and put a hitch on it, drag a big trailer a thousand miles and cook their transmission to the tune of $ 5,000. Money that could have been used to get a better vehicle and / or trailer. In a few weeks when we go to St. Louis I've got to pull the rig over the Appalachians. We have an max ascent / decent of a couple of thousand feet and a max grade of 4%. After that it is downhill and flat all the way to the Mississippi. We do about 2 dozen events a year. A 7x14 would be nice but a 6x12 is nimble and navigates the urban jungle and rural jungle well also. We do not carry a machine shop in the trailer. Ed |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
couple things I noticed that are different from our trailer that I think are important.
Ours is lined with wood, helps protect the skin of the trailer from damage from the inside. We have a couple vents on the roof that let in light and let out hot air (important in SoCal) The roof of our trailer is curved giving it a bit more strength. |
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
Take at look at what you are really going to be hauling. If you go the minimalist route you can use a smaller trailer. More options on tow vehicles at least for local travel. If you go with the monsters you are limited yourself to something with a heavy duty tow package with the weight & brakes to safely pull it.
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
The Ranger is rated tow up to 5,600 lbs. Not sure on the Ridgeline.
We towed a 6x12 tandem axle U-Haul with the Ridgeline loaded with all our stuff for competition with no problem. I'm thinking A 6x14 tandem axle would be about 2200-2400 lbs empty, and we'd have at most about 1500 lbs of stuff in it. I'm inclined to think we would be okay. Most trips would be local, but we've tossed around the idea of hauling it out to IRI, or Cal Games, etc. I just don't want to get too small of a trailer and regret it. (but I guess the same can be said for too big of a trailer). Does a rounded off "nose cone" make a lot of difference? Do we need that? Also, I'm interested more about comment regarding lining the interior to protect damage to the exterior from the inside. This crossed my mind, as I believe the walls of the trailer are something like .030" aluminum right? If something got banged into that on the inside, I'm assuming you'd get a dent from the inside out right? |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
Ours has plywood inside walls, studs and then the exterior aluminum shell.
You want to have an inside lining of some type. And I think you will quickly hit 1500 pounds. Robot and batteries will get you to 500 quickly. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
Yup, as Richard has stated above, we would love to be the company that would do the trailer graphics. We feel strongly about keeping the love and business within the robotics community and price accordingly. We are reasonable in pricing with a quality that exceeds expectations every time. If you would like to talk more about pricing and see photos of our work, please email me at Alex@TwoPencilDesigns.com.
Good Luck with your trailer hunting! |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
Depending on the manufacturer of the trailer it may either have a "rounded nose" or a "wedge nose" or some other shape for aerodynamic reasons.
One other trailer design you may wish to compare is how it is vented as some of them are more vulnerable to leaking and damage contents. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
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The Ranger is probably fine no matter what. The Ridgeline I'm a little skeptical of. Mainly no experience with that one. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but generally the walls interior walls are plywood. You don't want to touch the outer skin from the inside. 0.030 aluminum. ditto on the roof. The arch shape is more for water runoff than anything. There is a reason they build them like this Even though mine is a Toyota Crewmax extended with 10,800 towing capacity. We are going to Raleigh next week. I think I might go across a truck stop scale and get our gross weight. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
If you go with the diamond plate floor make sure it has a durable no-skid coating applied.
The Ranger will pull it fine if it's got the 3.73 gears (common on the 4wd) and stock size tires. The Ridgeline, if it pulls it very often, hope you have the extended warranty to pay for those transmissions it will go through. The Dodge won't even know it's there and it's MPG won't be cut in half or more like the other two, meaning it will use less fuel than the others. |
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
Who is going to pull it and where will you store it?
Jane |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
here we go
Ford vs. GM vs. Dodge vs. Toyota someone just needs a deep gravelly voice ..err don't know how to do that here.. |
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I'm not a Dodge nor a diesel fan BTW, just stating the facts of Diesel vs Gas. |
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All good comments. Thank you for the feedback and keep it coming. The Ridgeline is a much larger truck than the Ranger (and has many well-designed nice features) but it's not a true body-on frame solid rear axle truck. The Ranger is mine and the RidgeLine is another mentor's.
It sounds like we definitely need some sort of interior walls. |
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Your link seems to not be working, so here is one of mine. ![]() |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
You really need to know the maximum weight you will pull before you make any decisions. Is a diamond plate steel floor really that important when plywood probably weighs less, does the same job, and is ridiculously cheaper to replace? I've towed small trailers with a few different Rangers and I can say from experience that you shouldn't try to use a compact pickup to tow a full size load. Scariness definitely will happen, and that is multiplied when you have expensive and precious cargo (i.e. robots, tools and probably students too). The Ridgeline has a capacity of 5k lbs. so I would look past that option too if you are going to get a trailer like what you listed. You need a vehicle that can tow the trailer you buy, otherwise you have to buy a trailer that your vehicle can tow.
You have to remember that a lot more goes into towing than just weight. If you pull a shorter trailer with a shorter vehicle and load the trailer up at all, it is going to dance all over the freeway and stress the driver out until it ends badly. If you will ever go near a freeway, or plan to ever drive faster than 40 mph or so, buy a smaller trailer or a bigger truck. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
A couple of thoughts.
1. Don't forget to include the weight of everything you will throw in the tow vehicle when you are looking at the weight the tow vehicle can pull. Passengers and all that stuff in the back decreases the amount you call pull. People tend to forget that. Six people and luggage adds up. 2. Get a good tongue lock for times when the trailer is sitting by itself, either at the school or on trips at the hotel or venues. Some of the places we compete aren't the safest for a trailer. You might even want to get a Denver Boot to lock the wheels. Here is a site that has stuff to help. Don't know anything about them, just did a search. http://www.universalboot.com/ For those of you who don't have electric brakes, I suggest getting them. It is an easy after-market installation job. Did it myself on my box trailer. Even a moderate weight trailer will warp front disk brakes on a tow vehicle if you aren't careful. Much better to have the drag of trailer brakes help slow you down. Much safer too. Dr. Bob Chairman's Award is not about building the robot. Every team builds a robot. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
To add to Dr. Bob's post regarding locks,
If you are parking the trailer during an event and leaving it hitched to the tow vehicle, remember that locking the tongue to the ball isn't enough. You should also use a locking pin to attach the draw bar to the hitch receiver. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
David,
Sounds like a sweet trailer you are about to order but I would definately consider the extended height version. We have a standard height trailer and our crate has to go in on its side. good luck and see you in St Louis. mike d |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
I thought I'd pull up this old thread rather than start a new one. We are about to get a trailer ourselves. I'm looking at a 6 x 8 or 6 x 10 being the largest possibility. We are also considering a 5 x 8 (which has a side door and drop-down rear).
Various points in the previous threads suggest that folks would go bigger if given another choice. We successfully took 2 robots to IRI (from New England) in a dinky 4 x 6 rented Uhaul, so the 5 x 8 would seem "spacious" by comparison. However, when looking at about 40 lined-up robotics trailers at IRI, the 6x10, to 6x12 size seemed to be the overwhelming favorite. Smaller size is easier to pull and is less likely to be over weight. It's $1200 less, too . Larger size is...larger. What would you do? |
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Seriously though, it's a trade-off between variables, and you need to decide which variables matter to you. My old team has borrowed a huge trailer, >12' for sure, from a sponsor. We can fit everything back there, and I'm sure if you asked us to use a smaller one, we wouldn't have known what to do. If you have space, you'll find a way to fill it. If you want space, then I'd say go for it. - Sunny G. |
Re: Educate me on Trailers
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Our team had our trailer donated last year. Even though its nothing huge or extravagant it definitely gets the job done, so we are very grateful for that. Im not positive on the exact dimensions but its around 4X8X5 for the actual cargo area with just a single axle. We had our vinyl donated by the local graphics shop as well to spiff it up a little. One thing about this is make sure to do individual vinyls for each sponsor incase you need to add one or remove one. Inside we added some D ring tie downs and have a good selection on ratchet straps for securing robot and other materials while in transit. I think if you are on a tighter budget something like this would work quite well for you!
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Has anyone out there regretted their "too small" trailer? |
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The TechnoKats trailer is quite a bit larger than we need to transport a robot and pit material to a competition. But we sometimes fill it with much more than that. We brought a complete wooden field to the first CAGE off-season competition, and to IRI to be the practice field. We haul a bulky collection of electrical wiring and distribution panels, plus a huge cart to carry the overhead wiring bridges, to those competitions. It's more than we need for some things, but it's very nice to have the space when necessary.
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
We rent a 6'x10'x 70" enclosed trailer for $28 Day. Rear ramp and side door, inside lights, lockable, inside tie downs, single axle. That's plenty of space to carry 2-3 robots and over 8-12 crates of gear and 15 batteries. We do 2-3 short travel, over night events per year which require the trailer. I've been talking to the guy who rents it to us and he may just sponsor us and let us use it. The rental place takes care of the maintenance and storage. The rental yard is close by. We pull the trailer with a V8 SUV and pack it with 4 students and a driver.
It's hard to beat that price and the convenience of renting. The rental place even has GPS locating devices if theft is a issue. |
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This is mildly tangent to the topic, but I amused myself with it so i thought I'd share it.
A few years back while living in Florida I decided I wanted to put up a small storage shed next to my house using one of the pre-fab kits from Home Depot. I checked with the local zoning board, who informed me that I would need a $250 permit, and full plans and site maps, and it would need to meet Miami Dade Building Code, 6 weeks to review it, etc. I then called the Florida Highway Patrol to find out what the design requirements were for a trailer. They said they didn't care, they just needed to know how much it weighed so they knew how much to charge me for a license plate. So I proceeded to design and build a "trailer". I used a small storage shed from Home Depot for the basic frame, built it next to my house, and then proceeded to indefinitely design / build the chassis. If I ever finish it and I decide to take it on the road, I guess I'll have to figure out how much it weighs so I can get a license plate for it. |
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We generally use a U-Haul 5x8 or 5x10 trailer to bring our things to events currently. We used to use a sponsors trailer that was rather spacious so we stowed jackets and such in it during the day.
We suposedly have a trailer the school will let us have because it was wrecked. A tractor ran into if I remember correctly, but we have never seen it. I do not know if this is because we decided it wasn't worth the effort or they just are not forthcoming to allowing us to have it. The one year we went to Championship(Atlanta) we used a sponsors trailer that I think was 14 to 16 feet long and a parent pulled it down while we flew. This worked out rather well for a reason most people wouldn't think of. We had everyone put their luggage in it, this avoided extra time at the airport and the extra cost. We took almost 40 people so this was a lifesaver for us. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is trailer locks to prevent people from stealing the trailer. With having a trailer that constantly sits where anyone has access it always has the chance of getting stolen, even at events! 1108 is one team in particular that had their trailer stolen from GKCR in 2009 or 2010 right off one of the teams vehicles. Trailers can be great but just be causious when leaving them around. |
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Re: Educate me on Trailers
Whatever trailer you purchase, make doubly sure you keep it secured. I give tips earlier in the thread based on first hand experience of losing a trailer with everything our team owned in it. Double door locks with hidden hasps, strong steel cable with heavy duty locks throu the wheels, locking lug nuts, hitch lock, paint the license number on the roof, and add an active tracking system. Finally, don't ever assume it is safe any time it is out of your sight
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