Harbor Freight Trailer

[justbrian]

My harbor freight trailer arived today. Assembled it and took it for a test ride. I got the 40x48 with 10" wheels. I have never towed a trailer on a bike before and was quite suprised at how it good handled. I did not have any cargo on it. My main concern was tight turns. i hit the local parking lots and put it into some tight turns (scraped the floorboards) and did not even feel the trailer bind up. I then hit the interstate and had no problems. pretty sweet little rig. next weekend will be the first camping trip that i can take so much stuff that my wife might be excited. ha who am i kidding. still a good investment and easy to build rig. paid 144.00 at the store.

[dui546]

Got any pictures?

[lonewolf]

just remember to keep enuf weight on the tongue! i hav a modified harbor freight trailer. I chopped it a bit to make it narrower. and hav and old style car top carrier bolted to it. if you pack it without enuf tongue weight, you will get wobble going down the hwy. I also put on a longer tongue. i ride with some guys who hav been building and pulling trailers for a long time. the thing they hav come up with over the years, is that your tongue should be 1 1/2 times the length of your axel. this will greatly reduce any swaying or wobbling. good luck with the trailer and hav a blast camping !!!!

[lonewolf]

wow ! just read my post! really need to spell check ! lol

[misunderstood]

wow ! just read my post! really need to spell check ! lol

Whut doo ya meen ???

[ponch]

wow ! just read my post! really need to spell check ! lol

you can go back and modify it.

[justbrian]

just remember to keep enuf weight on the tongue! i hav a modified harbor freight trailer. I chopped it a bit to make it narrower. and hav and old style car top carrier bolted to it. if you pack it without enuf tongue weight, you will get wobble going down the hwy. I also put on a longer tongue. i rise with some guys who hav been building and pukking trailers for a long time. the thing they hav come up with over the years, is that your tongue should be 1 1/2 times the length of your axel. this will greatly reduce any swaying or wobbling. good luck with and trailer and hav a blast camping !!!!
thanks for the advice. swaying trailer behind a motorcycle sounds horrible! Something to remeber

[lonewolf]

thanks ponch!

[macmac]

Just a few thingds to keep in mind..

The grease in the bearings from the box isn't lube grease, and is just packing grease for shipping.

The tongue should go lever to down hill towards the bike when it is on the hitch. If it is up hill, the trailer will have a mind of it's own.

25 to 35 pounds at the trailer hitch is about right.

A loaded trailer will make stopping longer.

Check and re check the latch. Mine came off with no warning, and still after it did I don't know why. It wasn't pretty.

It is probably a good idea to remove the smaller leaf, to reduce stiff bouncing.

Cross the safety chains under the tongue. (Pray you never use them)

[skeeter]

macmac- I understand that to be 'level to downhill towards the bike'. Good advice.
Q- would shocks help reduce the bounce? or not worth the effort of installation?

[lonewolf]

you can reduce some of the bounce, by not filling tires to mfg. specs on tire. i only run about 20 pounds of air in mine. what i do is when my trailer is fully loaded, i roll it over a soft spot in the gravel/sand. i try ti make sure i get an imprint of most of my tread in the sand. over filling and you will get just a narrow strip of tread .

[justbrian]

A pic of the trailer attached to the bike, I foud a used cargo carrier for 75 on craigslist that will be the rest.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t88/briancbradley/009.jpg

[skeeter]

Looks wide. Don't forget to ride in the center of the lane.

[chuckster131]

Darn, I wish you were closer to me!! I have one to give away http://s2.images.proboards.com/cool.gif


A pic of the trailer attached to the bike, I foud a used cargo carrier for 75 on craigslist that will be the rest.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t88/briancbradley/009.jpg

[jrd]

A pic of the trailer attached to the bike, I foud a used cargo carrier for 75 on craigslist that will be the rest.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t88/briancbradley/009.jpg



Brian,

I have the same trailer. Did all your lights work on the first try? My trailer would not ground properly. I finally figured it out, I hope it went better for you http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif Congratulations on the trailer!

John

[justbrian]

A pic of the trailer attached to the bike, I foud a used cargo carrier for 75 on craigslist that will be the rest.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t88/briancbradley/009.jpg



Brian,

I have the same trailer. Did all your lights work on the first try? My trailer would not ground properly. I finally figured it out, I hope it went better for you http://s2.images.proboards.com/grin.gif Congratulations on the trailer!

John
John,

I plugged it into my truck after assebling the trailer and it all worked. This weekend i will be tapping into the bike so ill let you know how that goes.

[ds06nomad]

I have the m/c trailer from HF with the 12" wheels that I pull behind my truck, not my m/c . It's "functional" at best, otherwise a POS. The electrical wires constantly snap. You have to leave slack in them for folding/storing the trailer, so when it's in use, the loose wires scrape on the ground and get damaged/destroyed.

Now I just leave the trailer open and not in the folded/stored position. Still have to rewire it though from the last use. The size tires also do not "allow" for normal highway speeds. I don't know about everywhere else, but in SoCal, if you're not doing at least 65mph, you're going to get eaten alive by traffic, including truckers!

Also didn't come with a floorboard! WTF??? Too thick of plywood and it won't fold shut anyway; too thin and it may not support the weight of the bike, etc. And watch the bolt heads that hold the floorboards on. They're right in line with the creases and also hit when folding the unit up for storing.

Poor design IMO. I think I paid ~ $250 on sale.

[triguy32]

Late reply here. I bought the same trailer, chopped it in half, re-welded together. so tire center to center is exactly half the distance of axle to tongue dimension. It pulls perfectly! Also being narrower (it is no wider than my fairing), I never have to worry about catching a trailer wheel on anything I ride a little too closely to (posts, pot holes, tall shoulders, curbs, etc.). I also, removed the small leaf spring, run tire pressure much lower, and load carefully (as mentioned in previous posts). My trailer is the one under the spotlight section on this website. Since building it, I have added a cartop carrier and LED lights on the back. I have less then $200 total investment and it works like a dream. This is where not only the power of the Nomad, but the triple disks really shine. I get NO change in fuel mileage when pulling the trailer!

Happy motoring! ;)

[justbrian]

Late reply here. I bought the same trailer, chopped it in half, re-welded together. so tire center to center is exactly half the distance of axle to tongue dimension. It pulls perfectly! Also being narrower (it is no wider than my fairing), I never have to worry about catching a trailer wheel on anything I ride a little too closely to (posts, pot holes, tall shoulders, curbs, etc.). I also, removed the small leaf spring, run tire pressure much lower, and load carefully (as mentioned in previous posts). My trailer is the one under the spotlight section on this website. Since building it, I have added a cartop carrier and LED lights on the back. I have less then $200 total investment and it works like a dream. This is where not only the power of the Nomad, but the triple disks really shine. I get NO change in fuel mileage when pulling the trailer!

Happy motoring! ;)

do you have any pictures of the re-welded axel

[macmac]

Did you add to the tongue? It appears longer than std..

You plan to mount a carrier only? No platform of wood or metal? No cooler mounted backwards?

[justbrian]

No i did not extend the toung, i did however, add a 3/4 inch 40x48 sheet of marine plywood and mounted a car carrier from sears to it and added led brake lights. this weekend im going to paint it. got around 280.00 in it so far.

Please be carefully, friend of mine had a bad spill last year was in the hospital 2 weeks. I think it was from pulling a trailer and tried to stop real quick. A dog ran out in front of him and when he hit the breaks, he through a wreck!!! Motorcycles were not meant to pull or stop a trailer!! My 2 cents. I wish someone would come up with trailer brakes on a motorcycle trailer, that would make all the diff in the world. I pulled a trailer with my Venture on a 6k mile trip, sold it on e-bay when I got home, just too weird!!! Please be carefull!!!

[oldbikers]

I bought one 4 weeks ago they put it on back order and yesterday I got part of it 1 box sure wish I had the frame.

[zoom45]

Where is the spotlight section?
Zoom45