Picked up the HF trailer yesterday at the local retail store. Price was $159 plus an additional 20% off. $135 out the door:) (yes it's the one with the 12" wheels).

There are a couple good threads with pics like the one here:
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=302292&highlight=tire+trailer

I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do, but wanted to see if there are any suggestions before I start putting something together. My plans are to put the box up front with a couple 5 gallon fuel cans. Tires (245 HoHo's or 255 RA-1) will go in the rear vertically. I'm not sure if I'll just strap them down or fab up some uprights and a cross bar. Flooring will be diamond plate or just plywood, depending on how spendy I'm feeling.

Any more detailed pics, parts you used or general advice is appreciated. What do you wish you did differently?
Oh, and any good(i.e. inexpensive) sources for the Dalan hitch?
TIA
Craig

How did you get an extra 20% off? Are they on sale? I look forward to peoples responses since I am planning to build a tire trailer too.

Thats my trailer, feel free to ask me anything about it. I love it, wouldnt change a thing.

The hitches come up used every month or so, Expect the whole project to set you back about $500 when its all said and done.

few things:

-make sure you put some good grease in the wheel hubs
-get a spare tire kit
-alwasy get the trailer with the bigger wheels (high speed)

plywood flooring here.... stacked tires up w/ metal piping through the centers. The pipe was threaded from HomeDepot and I used a cap to screw in the top.

http://www.hidforum.com/eric/c5hitch/2.jpg

How did you get an extra 20% off? Are they on sale? I look forward to peoples responses since I am planning to build a tire trailer too.
I got an email coupon for 20% off one item good until Nov 9th. I believe it's only good at retail locations. I'd be happy to email it to anyone interested. Just shoot me an email to cnlippe@adelphia.net and I'll send a copy.


edit* BTW, I went to HF a couple weeks ago, when the online price dropped to $179 and I had an in store 10% off coupon. They were out of stock, so I got a raincheck. When I went back yesterday, the in store price was $159:buttrock ! I believe the online price is back up to $229. My adivce is to keep checking prices online and call the store if you have one locally. Many times I go in to the store with a great online price and find that the instore price is even lower!

Craig,
You are more than welcome to come over and take a look at my set up anytime. The way I have fuel jugs mounted on mine has worked out very well for the past 2 or 3 seasons. (You can kinda sorta make out the fuel jugs with my set up from that old picture in your posted thread). Too bad you are doing this now. I am thinking real hard about changing plans for next season, making two nice used Da'Lan hitches and one nice well-sorted tire trailer available maybe in the next 6 months or so . . . . :devillook It is the monstrosity of a 44ft long enclosed trailer that is keeping me from whole-heartedly taking the plunge so far.

ben

Thats my trailer, feel free to ask me anything about it. I love it, wouldnt change a thing.
The hitches come up used every month or so, Expect the whole project to set you back about $500 when its all said and done.
few things:
-make sure you put some good grease in the wheel hubs
-get a spare tire kit
-alwasy get the trailer with the bigger wheels (high speed)
Yep, your setup is pretty much exactly what I had in mind. I'm glad to hear that you like it, cause I'm going to (try) and copy it:redspot .

Craig,
You are more than welcome to come over and take a look at my set up anytime. The way I have fuel jugs mounted on mine has worked out very well for the past 2 or 3 seasons. (You can kinda sorta make out the fuel jugs with my set up from that old picture in your posted thread). Too bad you are doing this now. I am thinking real hard about changing plans for next season, making two nice used Da'Lan hitches and one nice well-sorted tire trailer available maybe in the next 6 months or so . . . . :devillook It is the monstrosity of a 44ft long enclosed trailer that is keeping me from whole-heartedly taking the plunge so far.
ben
Hey Ben!
Missed a great day at Nelson's Sat! Had a great time dicing it up with Kevin's M3 and Jeff K's M5.

I'm not going to put the hitch on until the spring, so I'll take one of yours when you are ready to part with it.

How are your fuel jugs mounted? I may come take a look when I drop the car off at Brett's in the next couple weeks.

Glad to hear you all had fun at Nelsons, hopefully you all are throwing down a some good lap times with all that cool weather and fresh pavement.

I took a few pictures a year or so ago for another bf.c member that was asking me about the gas tank mod from my trailer. Basically they are custom for the standard 6.5 gal tanks you get from Walmart, etc.

Basically I went to my local Crack Depot and purchased a 5 foot length (if I remember the length correctly-- doesn't matter, only came in one length) of stainless "L" bracketing, which was cut up into the three pieces to make each tray. The two supporting brackets are just Stanley 6" (or 8"?) angle brackets. I bent the bottom portion so it would hug the contour of the trailer underneath (see pix). The angle brackets were attached to the trailer at just two points (marked with purple arrows on some of the pix) with same spec hardware that the trailer was assembled with, and the makeshift tray was bolted to the angle brackets and trailer with one size smaller hardware (don't remember specifics anymore, sorry). The each tray holds the 6.5 gallon jugs very well, very stable. There was an added highway aerodynamic benefit with the gas tanks being tapered by the handles (so the taper points forward when they are on the trailer, not sure if you can appreciate that in the pix). The tanks rest in the trays and get strapped to the trailer with winched 2" strap also from the depot.

My only complaint is that when I have the tanks fully loaded with fuel (13 gal total), the trailer with tool trunk is a bit forward heavy (more than the recommended 60% of trailer weight forward of axle), meaning the tongue-stress weight is a bit more than I would like. But all of this is lower than the max tongue weight for the hitch, so it is all academic.

http://home.comcast.net/~benaj/pix/Tank_Mod1.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~benaj/pix/Tank_Mod2.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~benaj/pix/Tank_Mod3.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~benaj/pix/Tank_Mod4.JPG

Give me a call anytime you are in the area and want to take a look at the trailer or want to see how it all wires up to the car, etc.

Ben

mmmmmm Race Gas.

Someone had an erector set ;)

Jay

Someone had an erector set ;)
Jay
I know it looks a bit playschool ghetto, but it works very well and I was too lazy to ever get around to painting it to get it to blend in better with the rest of the trailer . . . .

Function over form any day :buttrock

I know it looks a bit playschool ghetto, but it works very well and I was too lazy to ever get around to painting it to get it to blend in better with the rest of the trailer . . . .
Thanks for the pics! Exactly what I needed to see. That set up should work just fine.

I know it looks a bit playschool ghetto, but it works very well and I was too lazy to ever get around to painting it to get it to blend in better with the rest of the trailer . . . .

Not ghetto at all. I should have added......you're my kinda guy! Although you may need overload springs with all the hardware ;)

Jay

Jay,

Thanks for the tip, but I already have a set of these on the way:

JC Whitney (http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/tf-Browse/s-10101/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2005972/showCustom-0/p-2005972/N-111+600003421+10201/c-10101)

:buttrock

I did a little work on mine this weekend. I fabbed up some outriggers for fuel cans much like benaj's and used plywood for the decking. I was going to use diamond plate, but didn't realize that it was made for actual diamonds:eek: . That's the only explaination I can think of for the price they were charging for a sheet!

I looked for a box for the front, but was shutout at Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart and Tractor supply! I found a couple candidates, but all had wheels. I'll have to take a look online.

Still not sure how I'm going to mount the tires in the rear. I'll work on that next weekend.

I took some pics, but my home computer is on the fritz, so I'll post them later this week.

Finally got around to finishing up the trailer this weekend. Should work out just fine. Here are some pics:

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c299/sawbones/Image016Large.jpg

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c299/sawbones/Image013Large.jpg

Just a word of caution....I knew a guy that had a set of wheels/tires on a rack on his M Coupe. They were tied down with a similar strap to yours and he was parked at the hotel with every one else for the next day's track event. In the middle of the night someone pulled up in a pickup, cut the strap and started to steal the wheels. Fortunately they were scared away and didn't make off with any of them. He now uses a thick bike lock cable or something and carries a spare tie down strap.

Looks nice, and familiar Craig. Nice gas cans!

In terms of Reed's comments, I can't quite tell from the above pictures, but it looks like Craig also ran a cable through the wheels. I would strongly recommend to anyone with one of these trailers to use a nice, thick coated bike cable with a good padlock to discourage casual thieves from walking off with your track wheels (as well as a backup safety system if your straps were to fail while towing at 80mph on the expressway). I also use additional padlocking of the trunk, hitch, wheels of the trailer, etc. at night. I don't know about you all, but I usually sleep awfully soundly at night between track days . . . .

Craig, how good are those bungee cords for your gas tanks? If your tanks are full, are they going to hold at 80mph on a bumpy expressway?

Ha! Nice 2.7T engine cover on the wall in the garage . . . . We got a box full of that stuff sitting around in our garage as well!

ben

Looks nice, and familiar Craig. Nice gas cans!

In terms of Reed's comments, I can't quite tell from the above pictures, but it looks like Craig also ran a cable through the wheels. I would strongly recommend to anyone with one of these trailers to use a nice, thick coated bike cable with a good padlock to discourage casual thieves from walking off with your track wheels (as well as a backup safety system if your straps were to fail while towing at 80mph on the expressway). I also use additional padlocking of the trunk, hitch, wheels of the trailer, etc. at night. I don't know about you all, but I usually sleep awfully soundly at night between track days . . . .

Craig, how good are those bungee cords for your gas tanks? If your tanks are full, are they going to hold at 80mph on a bumpy expressway?

Ha! Nice 2.7T engine cover on the wall in the garage . . . . We got a box full of that stuff sitting around in our garage as well!

ben


Yeah, I do have a bike cable securing the wheels as well to hopefully keep the casual theif from taking them, as well as a padlock for the box and hitch. The bungees seem pretty secure with minimal play, but I'll most likely strap them down with some tie downs as well for towing.

Good eyes on the S4 cover. This is all that remains from the car:
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c299/sawbones/audis4.jpg

http://photos.bimmerforums.com/data/508/medium/DCP_1745.JPG
http://photos.bimmerforums.com/data/508/medium/DCP_1743.JPG
http://photos.bimmerforums.com/data/508/medium/DCP_1742.JPG

The front of the trailer is the A-frame kind from a different HF trailer. I bought the replacement parts and modded them to fit. There is aluminum diamond plate deck under the big tool box and on the triangle in the front. The front box is used for extra "junk" like cleaning supplies, air compressor, etc. It is only strapped on and can come off to carry an air tank or gas cans.

The wooden things on the sides are ramps to get the front end up high enough to get a jack under so I can change the camber plates. I am looking for a less bulky, lighter, plastic solution. Ideas?

Fenders are heavy duty replacements for the crap ones that blew off the trailer when I hit a bump.

Next thing will be side carry gas cans.

[The wooden things on the sides are ramps to get the front end up high enough to get a jack under so I can change the camber plates. I am looking for a less bulky, lighter, plastic solution. Ideas?

.rhino ramps?

http://www.autobarn.net/blitusarhinr.html

I bought mine of that Wonger guy. First thing I did was "Pimp My Trailer"

I painted the wheels silver (as seen in this pic) and then painted the centers black. It was HOTT! I also welded up a nice DTM exhaust tip as seen in the circle. MAD KEWL jo! I couldn't find spinner hub caps for it because the wheels were so small. So I upgraded to a full car trailer and bought my spinner hub caps.

rhino ramps?


Have them. Quite a bit heavier than the wooden ones. I am looking for lightweight.

if you are talking about an e36, what about getting those jack plates the slide into the side holes? They look like a ping-pong paddle.
Just found this link:http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/shopcart/BE36/POR_BE36_E36REC_pg15.htm
bruce


Have them. Quite a bit heavier than the wooden ones. I am looking for lightweight.