I'm looking at a 16' or 16'5" enclosed trailer to haul my 3rd gen. Upon measuring my 3rd gen I noticed that it is about 16' long on the head, maybe an inch or two less.

Do you guys think a 16' is a little too small. What is the minimum you would recommend?? I want to keep this as small as possible. 20' would work I suppose, but I want to keep things as small as possible because this trailer will double as a trailer to haul my lawn care business equipment around town. How about a V trailer? Would that give me enough leeway to go with a 16'?

 

16' enclosed is too small
for enclosed i'd say 24-28' at least, especially if you want to walk in the front of the car. I've used a 24' enclosed and it worked nicely.

for an open trailer a 18' dovetail is nice and around $1800+

 

26' or 28' is best length for an enclosed trailer.

 

I don't bring the front of the car right to the front of my 16' open trailer. I leave room for my fuel cans. It also reduces the amount of tongue weight by having most of the weight over the axles. The back end of my car hangs off the end of the trailer.

If I was going to buy an enclosed trailer, minimum would be 24'. 26-28' would be preferred. The only thing holding me back from a purchase is I would also need at least a 3/4 ton truck to haul it. My lowered 454SS 1/2 ton can pull the trailer but not the tongue weight. It has no problems pulling the 16' open trailer.

 

Definately when towing an enclosed trailer the added tongue weight of a tool box, gas cans, etc on the front would be a better towing experience with a 3/4 or 1 ton truck. My 3/4 ton suburban tows 100x's better than my old 1/2 ton ever could. Especially on windy days or over bumpy roads.

 

I currently pull mine with my dads Haulmark 22'. The nose of the car comes about 2 inches from where the side door starts. I'd go with atleast 26' if you want to haul a 4wheeler/golfcart or anything to ride around in the pits. I can fit my 4-wheeler in there, I just have to turn it sideways and slide it up close to the front. When I buy a trailer, i'll get a 28' footer.

 

How would a 20' work? I go to the track about 4 times a year and could throw my tools and what not in the back of my pickup. I know some of you guys do this every weekend and in that case you might as well get as big as you can afford. But I'm trying to get away with as small as possible since this will double as a cargo trailer I haul around everyday in town.

 

20 will work, it will be tight, but it will work.

 

For what your going to use it for the 20' will work....granted not the best scenario, but when your pulling double duty with it for work and pleasure there has to be a trade off, and since I own a construction/remodeling business I know all about towing large trailers in town for work-it sucks!!

We use a 20' Haulmark to haul the S-10 to the track and that is a snug fit, just wish I knew length of the standard cab long box S-10 vs the firbirds/camaros's. We still have enough room for fuel jugs, jack, stands, chairs, etc...but it's tight...so Im thinking based off my car on my 20' open trailer you would have about 12-16" from the front of your car to the inside of the trailer and the back of the car will be right up next to the rear door...tight yes, but it will work.

24' for the average joe door car is about right for a car and a moped/scooter, 28' for the average joe door car with a 4 wheeler/golf cart.

 

On a 20ft I think you will have a hard time straping the front of the car down due to the amount of space in front of the car just a thought.

 

I had thought of this, but if the car is all the way to the back and it is 16' long, won't I have 4' of working room up front?

 

Easiest way to do this with cramped quarters is using pre made lengths of chain for the front, it'll be a tight squeeze laying under the front to hook them, but then you can really wrench on the straps on the rear diff to cinch her into place.

If you got a 20' with a V nose, that would really help out alot in both room inside as well as fuel milage towing the thing.

 

I bet ihc is right on track with the V nose idea and thay usually have the door or ramp in the front it would be easy as an open trailer then.

 

like this one, with a v nose and a side door on the front.

 

Enclosed trailers rock! I purchased my first enclosed last year after doing my home work, I decided to purchase a '97 chevy dually w/454 for pulling and a Haulmark 24' enclosed car hauler.

Since bringing the car hauler back I have added some goodies to it. The first being side railing. Then a winch . The trailer also received a rear camera, spare tire + cover and some other hold downs for the 10x10 shade and chairs. The truck got a dvd + monitors. I have been very happy with the setup.

 

I wont say a winch is a necessity with an enclosed, but I can promise one you install one, you'll wonder why you did'nt the day you bought the trailer. Enclosed are very nice, but when you get into mid sized cars like ours, or G bodies, etc...getting in and ouot of the car once it's loaded, or getting ready to unload is a major PITA. You either suck in your gut and try to get out the door, or you pull a duke boys and go through the window...no easy way, and it's harder than getting into a car with a full cage to put it into perspective. The pricey option is getting a trailer with a "concession" type door on the driver side, this way you can open the car door/enter/exit car ALOT easier...but that is a pricey option and one other place to get tweaked/out of square with traveling down the road, so it's a potential problem area.

OR you add the winch. In larger trailers with plenty of storage up front (cabinets/bench,etc..) the best place to mount the winch is beside the passenger side entry door to the trailer, mount a recessed D ring in the floor to which you hook up a block/tackle pulley...essentially making the winch cable look like the letter L if you looked at it from the trailer roof. This way your not tripping over a winch mounted up front, increases storage up front since you dont have a cable to worry about. Other wise if mounted in the front like i see soo many, it's a PITA since it's a trip wire always in the way no matter what. But loading/unloading is soooo much easier, hook up the cable and pull it on in, once at the track, just unstrap and "lower" it out of the trailer...no chance for door dings, tearing up the interior, etc...

The trailer purchase is expensive so many guys dont get a winch until later, but once you do-great investment for this purpose.

Chad: did you get the distribution hitch and sway control when you bought the trailer, or are you just towing it off a hitch alone?? rear mount camera's are the stuff, been contemplating getting them put on my plow trucks, but we dont get snow so that idea is fading LOL!!

 

i had a older 20ft carson (not the racer line) enclosed. i hauled a 70 nova in it once. it was a very tight fit but was managable. it did have a ton of tongue weight though. i had a small bench in the front of the trailer too, i can post pics when i find em.

 

Unless you have a 30' trailer I would think driving in head first with a 3rd gen puts a lot of tongue weight on the front. Do a lot of you guys back in? I have a chevy 2500 to tow with so tongue weight shouldnt be toooo much of an issue (i hope). But it's always better to be balnced. 10% tongue, right?

Oh yeah I have ttops so hopping in and out should be a breeze once inside the trailer.

 

Your going to have to try and see if backing in works for your set-up. I've personally never had any luck backing a ar in an enclosed and having it pull worth a crap. They always wagged their tail and were unable to go over 50mph before it was too unstable. We tried that pulling to Detroit once, almost had the rear bumper touching the nose of the trailer and it was still waaay to dangerious, ended up pulling it in normally and 80-90mph was all good from then on. this was a 28' enclosed with cabinets/counter/closet and full tool box and generator in the front along with a golf cart all in the nose....

you'll just have to see what works for your set-up, but unless it's some whacked out circumstance, I personally will never try to tow a car backwards on a trailer ever again...3 times it's caused more headaches/near heart attacks for me/us.

 

Oh I see, you just drive 'er on out the front when you get to the track, eh?

 

No, you open up the little door on the V part so you can get under the car and unhook it, and get to all your stuff easier while the car is still on the trailer.

 

If you were going to load one backwards, the car has to go way in the front to have any luck… even the light back side of the car is heavier then a quad or golf cart, and even then I doubt it will work in most setups. When it comes right down to it, too much tongue weight is way worse then too little, and weight distributing hitches can perform miracles wrt to the floating feeling you get with too much tongue weight.

WRT to size… I’m with a lot of people here… I’ve borrowed a friend’s 24’ and I was surprised how fast I ran out of room. I do wonder how big a hassle the whole v-nose/trap door deal is since it would help with loading, of course, it would suck in the rain…

Winches… once you use a trailer with one, enclosed or open, you decide that it is an essential feature on any trailer, especially if you have a disabled car

 

This statement could'nt be further from the truth and is setting guys for a serious accident on the road hurting themselves or others-DO NOT DECREASE TOUNGE WEIGHT in order to fit all of your stuff. This WILL cause the dangerious "tail wag" since more weight will be behind the trailers axles, you do not want this at all. any attempt at loading a trailer like that with hopes of "band-aiding" the sway problem with a sway controller coupled with to a distribution hitch is still beyong stupid and unsafe. It is a balancing act since too much tounge weight makes the front end feel light and affects steering/braking also, but it is still a safer pull then when you have more weight bais on the rear of the trailer.

I know the guys that have towed alot realize what I said is common sense, but there's soo many younger guys on here that "influence easily" and the roads are damgerious enough without sending them out with miss information and making them worse.

 

IHI is 100% correct .
Too much weight on the rear of the trailer will definitely cause a dangerous situation . Tongue weight only stresses the hitch & rear suspension . Too much rear weight can lift the rear of the tow vehicle causing it to whip side to side . Been there done that . If anything too much in front then equalize with the stabilizers .

24'minimum . Where i'm at a few feet costs a few $ more not much .

 

Woops… donno how I did that but not what I intended, I meant that too much tongue weight is way better then too little.

Too little and you get a trailer that is all over the road and doesn’t want to stay behind your truck. A setup that is genuinely scary to tow.

Too much is generally OK till you get to the point that it unloads the front suspension enough that the steering and brakes get light, and that can actually be fixed to some extent with a weight distributing hitch/stabilizers (what I meant by the weight distributing hitch comment second part of that mistyped sentence, I’ll leave it like it is so IHI’s comments still make sense)

 

If I were to do an enclosed it would be a gooseneck setup. For a little comparison here is my 86 on my 16' open trailer. You can see that to get the tounge weight I want I couldn't haul it in a 16' enclosed with the axles in a conventional location. On a 5000 - 6000 lb gross trailer I like a little over 1000lbs on the tounge. Some of the cheaper factory trailers I wouldn't trust overloading the tounge too much. Mine is home made so that's not a concern. This is also with a 3/4 ton diesel with a long wheel base. 70 mph on the interstate is no problem at all, even with lane changes and stuff it is as stable as a 40' trailer behind a semi. 20' Enclosed should haul it fine, you'll just have to load your gear after the car is in. 24' or longer would be great and prolly not that much more money or hassle around town.

Also make sure the specs are good on one of those V nose trailers. Most of those I see are used for snow mobiles and ATV's. Make sure it has enough axle, frame , and the floor is made to handle the weight of a car.

 

There is no hard and fast law about where the axles need to be on a trailer… there are at least 3 or 4 different common rules of thumb for designing a trailer, but if for example, in your case you knew a head of time that you’d want to load the car centered on the trailer bed there is nothing that says that you couldn’t move your axles a foot back to get a better tongue weight with your car where you want it on the trailer (though personally, I’d rather have the car scooted as far forward on the front of the thing as possible anyway). Moving the axles back will in general give you a more stable trailer, but also one that is harder to maneuver in tight spots.

That was my point originally, I’m pretty sure that by most standards that would be considered overloaded, where the tongue weight for something in that range should be around 600lbs.

There are some scary welds and designs on a lot of bought trailer tongue assemblies…, both the miller and Hobart welding forums have tons of threads about redoing them to make them something reasonable/safe. It seems like a lot of pros get away with literally having some monkey glop enough weld around the premade assembly and calling it good… I’m surprised that there aren’t more failures out there.

 

My rule of thumb is to put the axles where you could evenly load the length of the deck and have the weight disturbution be good. Then on something like a car where the weight isn't even you just adjust the placement of the weight. Take my trailer there, if the axles were back 8 -10 inches the car would be centered but the first time you put something like a pickup on it you would be overloaded on the tounge.

Also add that I wouldn't recommend any one put 1000lbs tongue weight on a 1/2 ton pickup with out some sort of load equalizer. My diesel has about 4500 lbs on the front axle so I don't have problems with too little weight on the front axle.

 

Hmm. I've got a 92 K2500 (3/4 ton). I wonder if a 20' trailer would put too much weight on the tongue for the truck to handle? What do you think? I dont want to damage the truck either.

 

Dont ask how, but I know your early K2500 can handle approximately 3T tounge weight...and then the frame will slowly start to bend down/spread out until the trailer jack is dragging the pavement. It was'nt me that was that stupid, but my best friend....legally the scale house should've never let him leave the yard with that load of dirt. his standard cab truck and 18' open utility trailer grossed 19K and the majority of the dirt was right on the nose of the trailer (dichead guy in the loader laughing the whole time he dumped it all in the front of the trailer)