Trailer question

[bikerjohn]

I am getting ready to buy or make a trailer!

I found one for $300, havenot looked at it yet.

Has 8 inch wheels is 48" long 30" wide, Has a swivel hitch.

I am looking at building one using the Harbor Frieght trailer w/ 12" wheels as mentioned here. I figure if this will run me around $300 anyways.

 

Question, which is better 8 or 12 " wheels and why?

[86er]

My trailer, which was built by a friend in 1983 and given to me in the fall of '05, has 8" wheels. After pulling it over 5600 miles this summer I have decided I want to put 12" wheels on it. I'm sure it will look better and I think it will pull better. I've already tried a friends 12" wheel to see if it fits and it bolts right up and fills the fender nicely. So if the clearance is there you can very possibly move up to bigger wheels. I think most of these trailers are either 4 or 5 lug wheels.

 

I don't have one yet, but I'm a firm believer in swivel hitches. You would have to add that to a Harbor Freight trailer and they're $70 or more. I'm just waiting til I can afford wheels and a swivel hitch!

 

[Condor]

I am getting ready to buy or make a trailer!

I found one for $300, havenot looked at it yet.

Has 8 inch wheels is 48" long 30" wide, Has a swivel hitch.

I am looking at building one using the Harbor Frieght trailer w/ 12" wheels as mentioned here. I figure if this will run me around $300 anyways.

 

Question, which is better 8 or 12 " wheels and why?

 

 

Thats kinda what I thought when I ran into the PiggyBacker for $300, after thinking about doing the HB bit. Nice little unit, and why have something expensive sitting around 51 weeks out of the year. Your's is one up with the swivel hitch.

[whozleft]

My Neosho Starlight trailer has done well with it's 8" wheels since I bought it back in 1997. The bearing problems between an 8" and 12" wheels should be negligible I would think. The one part you never hear about is how the bearings were maintained in the first place. I always repack my bearings each year and would do so no matter what size trailer wheel I had. It's a whole lot easier to do work like this at home on your own time instead of trying to work on it out on the road somewhere.

 

I guess my point is, take care of what you have and it should serve you much better than something never maintained. I even know guys that never check the air pressure in their bike tires before riding. Then when something happens it's always the bike's or the tire's fault.

 

Good luck on getting a trailer. They do make it much easier to ack all the stuff the wife wants to take along!

[bikerjohn]

Thanks Guys

Good info!

 

Biker John

[Guest Swifty]

Even the 12" tires are basically just rated up to 55mph.

I concur...my HF 12" wheels were way out of round and were too far out to be professionally balanced. I bought a new set of high speed rims and transferred the rubber....kind of minimized the advantage for me of Harbour Freight being a cheap trailer option.

[Jerry M]

I think Harbor Freight just had there 40X48 trailer on sale for $179.00 reg.$229.00 you can buy a car top carier from Pep Boys for $89.00 and that is all you need I used diamond plate for the deck instead of plywood.This trailer comes with 12'' wheels,the key is maint.just grease bearings every year and you shouldn't have a problem.Jerry

 

 

ps. It tows great.

[Guest FreeMasonRC S.FL]

I up'd the size of the tires, because of the concern of smaller tires swaying at speeds of 70 miles an hour. I normally keep the bike at 65, but 70 to 75 to pass

[Condor]

I don't know if this will resolve anything, but I found this page which deals with speed codes toward the bottom.....

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/TireSafety/ridesonit/brochure.html

[Freebird]

A few of these messages were deleted. I know that Tartan Terror and Klaus are both good guys but seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot in this discussion and it was quickly turning into a person discussion rather than a tire discussion. So.....please everybody...take a DEEP BREATH...go for a ride...and let's let bygones be bygones. You are all great and this type of thing will happen from time to time.

[Tartan Terror]

It seems there is truth to things both Klaus and myself said. Here is the best article on it that I have found. I look at manufacturer infomation all the time and personally havent seen anything lower than a Q rating.

 

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=35&currentpage=48

 

I recommend using a higher quality tire such as Carlisle Tires for trailers. Duro does use an M rating which is 81 mph.