What type and size trailer?

I must be the exception to your rule "can never over buy a trailer". Mine's rated at 47000 gross, 5400 empty. Zero chance of my ever putting anywhere near that limit behind my truck.

Not to mention the tire inadequacy problem. 47000/8 tires = 5875 ea. Ever see one?

I agree as any of the 1-ton dually pick-ups would have no problem being with-in truck spec"s with most flatbed trailers with this load.

Any tow vechile is only rated to stop the tow vechile GVW. The trailer is only rated to stop the trailer GVW.

As long as your with-in both vechile"s GVWR then there"s no problem with the combination.

The only time GCWR comes into play is for mfg warranty only!

DOT could care less what your GCWR is. DOT only cares that you do not exceed GVWR and GAWR and thats why both of these ratings are on the tow vechile door post certification.

GCWR appears no where on the door post certification.

T_Bone

The GCWR as well as the other specs are determined by VIN#. US-DOT requires it. That's why the state-DOT guys run your VIN. These DOT guys can spot an overweight string from a mile away. In many states, including mine, they seize the whole tow string when any weight spec is exceeded. To get it back you have to write a check that looks like the GNP of a small country.

If you are staying in LA you are allowed a little more leeway than if you are going to other states. Our laws allow more weight per axel in some cases.

Truck is 6,500 lb (all fluids and people and gear)
Tractor is 12,000 lb
Trailer is 3,500 lb

Do the math... you can't do it safely or legally. Of course, you didn't say what your tow vehicle is or what type of hitch you are planning on using but even with most 1 ton trucks you can't do it, period.

I can tell you what not to buy, a tri-axle.

I agree with the other guys, tandum duals and a 20k GVWR trailer.

T_Bone

I recently went to 4 axles (2 rows of 2) from a tri. What a difference! My load's a little more than Tim's.

Or even better a spread axle.

The tri (6 wheels) I had was a little over-loaded with an 8 ton tractor. Wasn't bad going forward, but that weight really made the scrub effective in reverse. I'll bet your road tractor is easier to wrestle than my deuce-and-a-half (power steering by armstrong).

A tri-axle will apply reverse torque weight loading upon the hitch on any terrain other than flat. There is no load sweet spot like a tandum axle trailer.

Just how bad is the reverse torque? Well I put on a piece of new 1/4" chain to move my empty tri-axle to the shop, (didn"t have a pintel hitch made up) and it snapped that 1/4" chain like nothing. Ohh yes the first dent in my new dually pick-up....LOL

Na, tire scuffing didn"t bother me as even a tandum will scuff alitte bit.

T_Bone

You've lost me. Reverse torque weight loading?

The tri-axle I had seemed to load just fine. Never had a problem going forward, either loaded or empty. Been on a lotta not flat terrain. I live on a mountain, as you know. You saying the trailer tries to pick up the posterior (my original word got censored) of the truck? If so, I never noticed, but my truck's 7 tons.

Now play fair....Not every one has a used military truck and trailer thats built like bridge to use in hauling massive weights!!! ...LOL

I"m using the term reverse torque weight as the weight is coming from a first class lever that rotates upon the axle.

With out looking up the strength of a 1/4" chain, around 2800lbs, you gotta agree that is alot of upward pressure to deal with at 60mph. I had no load weight on this tri-axle flat deck, just the weight of the trailer, about 4000lbs.

After finding that reverse torque could be applied to a tri-axle, it"s a design problem of tri-axle trailers, I did a couple experiments.

One test I loaded the tongue with a additional approx 3000lbs so with the existing 1000lb tongue weight for about 4000lbs total tongue weight and the coupler would still apply upward reverse torque weight on the coupler when moved on slightly uneven ground.

Most of the common surge brake couplers are rated at 2000lbs vertical loading. I have found one thats 3000lbs but very hard to acquire on the open market. I"m sure there"s heavier rated surge couplers but not a common item to find. So that would mean most of the common surge brake couplers are being used over there design limits.

To resolve my tri-axle design problem, I"m going to use a tandum hanger system for two axles and a single independant axle hanger system for the third axle. Another design could be three independant axle hangers.

It"s the tri-axle equalizing hanger design that is the problem.

T_Bone

You win. LMAO! Yeah, my hardware's a little off center. But truck and trailer only cost $7850 total. And that was with every option on the truck. Trailer ($350 at auction) needed some help.

The tri I had was a homemade job. Had a massive V tongue sticking out 8' from the bed, 6" I beams. Took a serious tongue jack, and that was with the trailer empty. You understand trailers a whole lot better than I do, or pretty much anybody, far as I can tell. These 3 axles were all floating such that it would have been difficult for them to lever up the pintle ring.

Now I've gotta visit it to take a close look at how it was put together. When I returned it, after borrowing it for 3 yrs, the owner headed me off to the back of his property. I didn't see anything that looked like a road. We were pushing down 3" tulip poplars and oaks that'd grown up since anybody had driven back there. Kinda fun. That's what these trucks were really made for.

I've had more trouble with small 2 axle trailers picking up a light truck when I drove onto the trailer. Gotta get that ramp support just right.

Something else that works extremely well is a rotating pintle hook. Allows the trailer to be in a different plane. At 50' long (truck+trailer), that's a very good possibility.

Ya that what I"m going thru now...do I remove 3 10k axles and install new 7.2k electric brake axles, install two 10k dual tandum electric brake axles. Then I can change out the pintel coupler to a GN and have what I need.

I have not checked my price of steel since it rasied in price but it appears to be cheaper to sell this trailer and build a new one and do it correctly this time. I was not in my correct mind when I bought this trailer and made a huge mistake.

T_Bone

Depends if you have your tri-axles mounted as equalizing or independant suspension. If equalizing then yes you do have the same problem BUT you also are using a GN coupler that changes things considerable as your lever arm is much longer (maybe, maybe not) depending on where the axles are mounted on the flatdeck.

Remember all this started because I had to move my trailer without the correct coupler, a pintel coupler, and used a piece of 1/4" chain accross my ball. Had I used my pintel coupler I have now, I would have never known there was a problem until latter.

The more I got to thinking about where the reverse torque was coming from the more concern I had for reverse torque loading at 60mph. If that happens then the trailer would go into a sway condition because of not enough pin weight.

If you run safety chains on your GN you could check for the same thing on your trailer. Just make sure your hitch can not travel very far when it comes off the ball.

Idealy you leave about 2" slack in the chains and you would see it start to unload on the ball but the coupler could not clear the ball. Leave the coupler open then move over a dip in the road surface.

Please Let me know if you do the test. I would be interested in the results.

T_Bone

Selecting the trailer is the easy part--you definitely need a tandem dual gooseneck rated at 20,000 GVW. We pull a 36' (32' deck + 4' dovetail) and it weighs 5600#'s empty. When you add that to the weight of a typical 1 ton truck, you end up with a safe "payload" somewhere between 6000-8000#'s. In our case we carry 4 Farmall Cubs or 3 AC B or C tractors and if the tractors are larger, only one or two onboard. My advice is to get a 20,000 tandem dual trailer that is only as long as necessary to carry your tractor. Therefore you'll have less trailer weight than we have and more likely to be closer to your truck's capacity which I hope is a ton and a half model or heavier. Many other things to consider also--electric brakes must be checked thoroughly for each trip and they often need adjusting if you're running anything over 1000 miles or so. If you don't have a heavy enough truck, you may not be hurting your trailer but you'll surely be exceeding your truck's capacity to tow that much weight and your braking system's ability to stop the load quickly in an emergency.