Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

I usually load the 4 quads in the center, and it balances the weight on the axles and no weight on the tongue. Now I installed a gearbox in the front of the trailer. Loading them in the center leaves 2ft infront of them to the box....just looks funny. It looks like they should be loaded to the box, which places way more weight infront of the wheels, and on the tongue. I'm wondering if I should relocate the axles a little forward of where they are to balance the weight on the wheels? Looks like I could just move the rear axle infront of the forward axle and have it balance. Should I move it?

Thanks

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

What matters more than looks is the way the trailer is balanced. You should have about 10% of the total trailer weight on the tongue on light weight trailers. With your dual axle you can run less than 10% but not a lot. A trailer that is loaded tail heavy or is just balanced to where there is no weight forward will tend to "duck walk" and can go into wild gyrations after towing very well for many miles. I would suggest you load your trailer and run it across a scale. Find out what your weight on each axle is and what the hitch, tongue, weight is. Adjust your load to where you have a reasonable amount of weight forward and don't worry too much about how it will look to others. Their not the ones pulling it and don't have a clue about what is going on.

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

Really? I do that for my boat, but that's 7-8k lbs. This one is much lighter, I thought it should balance. I have loaded it balanced everytime and it tracks great(80mph hubs still cool and no sway or anything). If it follows the same rule, and is safer, I'll use the 10% rule.

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

The first axle should be back at least 60% of the length of the trailer or you will get tail wag...... The trailer will not track well.

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

Then maybe I shouldn't move the axles, because it tracks great. I'll have to shift the weight way back because of the gearbox.

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

Unless you have lots of heavy gear in that gearbox, you don't want to be moving the ATV's further back. You don't say how heavy a tow vehicle you have, but you will be better off with too much tongue weight than too little although the ideal is to keep tongue weight in the 10% to 15% range.

If you are driving on a straight road at speed and swing the steering wheel back and forth a few times, the trailer should track straight as soon as you center the wheel again. Tencubed calles it 'duck walking", I've always called it 'fishtailing", but if the trailer moves back and forth after you have straightened out your tow vehicle, then you need some more tongue weight.

Jaybee

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

We back our rhino up to the very front of our car hauler trailer and my kfx is centered between the two axles and our pick-up pulls it great and the trailer tracks straight as it could be. Thats a lot of tonge weight though. Is it hurting any thing?

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

5 to 10% tongue weight is what the book says, however -- if you are starting to exceed the limit of the hitch(too much tongue wt) you sag the back end of the vehicle, taking weight off of the front tires. Most of the braking is done with the front tires, add rain, ABS, and now you have almost no stopping power....everyone knows where this is going. Too little weight on the tongue and the trailer may start to oscillate, sway, fishtail, duck walk, etc.

Here's a cool way of weighing the tongue:
http://www.rverscorner.com/articles/tongueweight.html

My situation is a little different; Trailer tows great at speed with little to no tongue wt. Now I'v got all this weight up front on the tongue/hitch, it towed fine before, so I think it would be best for the trailer to carry the load like before. I'll have to play around with the placement of the quads. Towing capacity is around 10K, so no prob there.

Flatbed trailer dual axles in the center, should I relocate the axles?
 

You'll find that the larger tow vehicle you have the more forgiving the balance of the trailer will be. I added two feet to the rear of a trailer I used to have so it could haul three quads in a line. This put the tandem axles only about 1' back from the center of the trailer as measured from the hitch. No matter how I loaded it, it would tow fine behind my 2500 Chevy, but it would occulate all over the road if towed behind a Chevy Tahoe. As long as we put a 4x4 up front and a kids quad on the back, the Tahoe would do OK.

Jaybee