My father built me my first gasoline powered quad when I was 4 years old. That was 46 years ago heheh. Got rid of my last two when my boys were teens and repairs were more common than a ride but now that they are all grown up and on their own its time to get back in to it. I planning on buying a couple of 800 bombs and will be needing some way of moving them around.

I've started designing a trailer set that let's me trailer the two machines to where I'm going then breaks down to two quad width trailers for hauling gear up the trail. Is there anything out there like that already? If not I'll just build some. Are there quad sized campers available?

 

Closest thing I know of to a camper to pull behind a quad would be some of the camper trailers motorcyclists drag down the hiway. I suspect with some suspension mods and different wheels/tires they would work.

Like to see some pictures of your breakdown trailer when you get it done.

 

I plan on spending some time building the trailers in the fall when my life will hopefully slow a little. I'll post some pics when I get them built. I'm planning on an adapter tongue that makes the two trailers tow side by side until I get to ride areas, and then gets stored. Debating between all aluminum construction or a steel tube frame with aluminum on top. I plan on air ride suspension with load leveling. I figure the compressor might come in handy on the trail, and it will let the the trailors lower for loading instead of having ramps.

 

I agree that it sounds like a cool idea.

BUT (said to be the largest word in the english language)

Is it really a practicle solution?

An 800 BRP weighs in at close to 700 pounds with all fluids. So you need a trailer that is strong enough to carry that load, plus some gear and a safety margin - all at highway speeds. Since you are talking two quads, you are looking at a minimum of 1,400 pounds of load, plus trailer weight, plus gear load, plus safety margin for your trailer set up in highway configuration.

Once you convert to the smaller trailer for use behind the ATV, your needs change drastically. You only need to carry what? - 100 to 150 pounds of gear max. You need low pressure, off road type tires. Your suspension and frame can be much lighter - yet you will be hauling at least half of a trailer that's capable of hauling your ATV's on the highway.

Add to that the expense of the complexity of the "transformer" type trailer, plus the time spent converting from one mode to the other and I'm thinking that you could buy or build a more conventional ATV trailer, buy or build two small equipment trailers and load both bikes and both trailers on your highway trailer - all for less money and less hassle.

My opinion.

Jaybee

 

Well I wasn't really thinking of a conversion so much as just having two smaller trailers running side by side. The adapter tongue stays with the tow vehicle and I've alread drawn it up and it isn't really all that heavy. Removing it will involve simply flipping open three trailer hitches and a couple of bolts. With respect to the 150 lb load you quoted as requirements for a quad trailer, we haul moose out of the bush that weigh more than a fully fluid laden 800 quad, so I need a payload of at least what the quad weighs for each trailer. Tires will obviously not be off road but I'll get the widest ones I can get to lower ground pressure. I'm thinking if the entire bottom of the trailer is flat excepting where the tires are, and with the air suspension capable of letting the wheels retract substantially I can kind of tobogan it across really mushy areas as long as I design a good lead in angle to the front end. Alternatively I can easily winch it across bogs. I'm hoping they will also enable me to ferry my quads across deeper water, which will be a big plus since a lot of our northern ontario power utility line roads and snowmobile trails disapear into small lakes since they are used primarily in the winter.

Appreciate the discussion, all good points.

Where's the darn spell checker! heheh.

 

Well, I've got to admit that I certainly didn't consider the moose angle. Just don't find too many moose (mooses? meese?) in Tennessee. The few ATV trailers that i've seen around here are smaller and narrower than the ATV pulling them - a necessary concession to the fact that many of our trails are barely wide enough for a typical ATV.

So when you are running down the highway you'll have four wheels on the road - all in a line - with two tires basically up under the middle of the joined together trailer. Is that right?

Interesting concept. Have fun with it.

Jaybee

 

Yers, basically two trailers running side by side. Will have to make sure the wheels are aligned properly but I'm a millwright by trade so that will be easy. Basically it will be two identical trailers about 1" wider than the quads so they just slide in with minimal clearance, and both will be hitched to an adapter tonge and probably tied together at the rear and front with a bolt to keep them tracking the same path. Our trails are anywhere from 100 yard wide power line clearings to scraping the sides, and cutting down the odd tree to get to the Moose or Deer. (Moose applies to both single and multiples hehe) So a trailer 1" wider than the quad with a good lead in angle will work fine. I'm needing to keep the width to a minimum more to allow for highway regulations than trees which we just cut if they're in the way.

Our hunt camp currently has two industrial 16 wheel drive atv's (Bush Swamper)which we use now when hauling moose out of the bush but they are really maintenance intensive and not practical for long rides. The quad with a trailer and a winch will get us to most places we down moose with a chain saw and a little patience. It beats the heck out of carrying them, and personally I find getting to the moose is a lot of fun.

Hunting aside, Wife and I plan on doing some long runs to James bay etc. (for a start) and we'll be needing a lot of cargo capacity for fuel, camping gear, food, spare parts, etc. We were deciding on wether to buy a camp or cottage and decided to make the continent our camp and gearing up some quads properly is the way to achieve that. I like to see nature in my travels not cities so my idea of RVing is to load up some quads and do a few hundred miles of bush trails, not highway.

Would you guys know a good Bomb dealer I could contact for some u.s. pricing? Preferably near the Ontario/U.S. border (Michigan).

 

Hi Mad Inventor, you mentioned that you have 2 Bush Swamper 16 wheel ATV's, where these made by Bristol Machine in Sudbury? I understand that they went belly up a few years ago. I have never seen one but am interested in this machine. Is it a skid-steer, how does is operate mechanically?

Thanks for any info,
Hoot

 

Pics would be appreciated. That sounds like a great idea. As for the Bomb. 800's (well I guess Can AM 800's now) they are an awsome machine. At an ATV ride a few weeks ago Bombardier was there and they let you test drive their machines. And when I say test ride it wasnt a puttsie ride around a field, they took you on a trail, and then the lead guy took off. This way you could go as fast as you wanted. The power is incredible, I drove the 800 for the first half of the trail, then switched with my dad and drove the 650 back. Power, handleing , and ride are all 3 incredible! Im sure you will be pleased!

 

Yes both machines at the hunt camp were manufactured by Bristol ages ago. I don't know of any new machines being manufactured anywhere.

Yes, bush swampers are skid steer. They have a forward reverse gear box for each bank of 4 axles. Those gear boxes are driven by manually shifted Variable speed drives. You actually apply some brake to turn when both gearboxes are in the same direction, or you can reverse one of the gear boxes to do a full spin. One really cool feature is what was patented on the machines. The axles for each pair of wheels located across from each other are hollow and there is a third axle within those two which provides support for loads which are trying to bend the shorter hollow axles (which would cause serious loading at the load bearing points). Not sure if my description makes any sense but I can send you a sketch if you're interested. I think there's an easier way to accomplish this but I'd need to run an FEA on the design I'm thinking of to confirm my suspicions.) Frankly they are not very well designed and require a ton of maintenance per operating hour, but they can't be even remotely matched for getting you there performance in Northern Ontario bush and swamp by anything else I've seen. If you flip this thing over it is pretty much a 4'X8' wall of tires with only about a 5" slot down the middle where the chain case is located. It simply cannot get hung up, and it literally floats on water on its tires, not on a tub design such as that used by Argos etc..