So the theatre company that I am part of has an old home made trailer that has had a mobile theatre stage built onto it. Its a great bit of kit, but I'm a little concerned over its safety, though it may well be me being overly cautious and uninformed.
Quick description of the trailer. Its a home made steel chassis, with four 10" trailer wheels with those indiviual torsion bar type suspensions. Its un braked. The body is made of very thick and strong wood. Its around 9 ft long from the hitch, 7ft tall and 4 ft wide. Whole thing weighs about 550kg fully loaded.
The chassis is very strong up to the first axle, but from there back is really quite flimsy angle iron. This had resulted in the front of the chassis 'peeling' away from the body as the angle between the two wheels bent. I solved this by securely attaching the body to the chassis with big bits of angle and hefty bolts, front and rear, so that much of the bending force would go through the body itself, which is extremely strong.
After fixing the bendy chassis issue I started to look at other problems with the design and I am a little concerned. Its very narrow and tall, slab sided and has quite a high centre of gravity due to it being loaded all the way to the top. I just have images of it toppling over in a crosswind, or when the driver has to swerve for some reason, and causing a major accident. I was thinking some good old wheel spacers might be a good way to increase the width and reduce its topplability (I made that word up but I quite like it)
The tow hitch is also quite high. Its higher than ball on the tow car, and has to be pushed down a good few cm to couple up. This obviously means some of the cars weight is being taken by the front of the trailer and I have visions of jack-knifing under heavy braking.
Should I be concerned? Or can you put my mind at rest? Any ideas on how to make it safer would be welcomed as it may have to do some serious mileage next year.
Cheers in advance
Quick description of the trailer. Its a home made steel chassis, with four 10" trailer wheels with those indiviual torsion bar type suspensions. Its un braked. The body is made of very thick and strong wood. Its around 9 ft long from the hitch, 7ft tall and 4 ft wide. Whole thing weighs about 550kg fully loaded.
The chassis is very strong up to the first axle, but from there back is really quite flimsy angle iron. This had resulted in the front of the chassis 'peeling' away from the body as the angle between the two wheels bent. I solved this by securely attaching the body to the chassis with big bits of angle and hefty bolts, front and rear, so that much of the bending force would go through the body itself, which is extremely strong.
After fixing the bendy chassis issue I started to look at other problems with the design and I am a little concerned. Its very narrow and tall, slab sided and has quite a high centre of gravity due to it being loaded all the way to the top. I just have images of it toppling over in a crosswind, or when the driver has to swerve for some reason, and causing a major accident. I was thinking some good old wheel spacers might be a good way to increase the width and reduce its topplability (I made that word up but I quite like it)
The tow hitch is also quite high. Its higher than ball on the tow car, and has to be pushed down a good few cm to couple up. This obviously means some of the cars weight is being taken by the front of the trailer and I have visions of jack-knifing under heavy braking.
Should I be concerned? Or can you put my mind at rest? Any ideas on how to make it safer would be welcomed as it may have to do some serious mileage next year.
Cheers in advance
