OK, full explanation of what I'm doing. I didn’t want to bore folks with this, but since you asked…
When we camp, there is often a lake, but we are not camped right beside it - you have to walk or drive to it. For the trip to camp, I haul the canoe on the roof of my Suburban because I am towing my Airstream behind (can't tow the canoe from home on a trailer). While at camp, it is often just me and my daughter that hit the lake, especially if early in the morning (wife and youngest daughter still sleeping). We have to drive the Suburban to the lake with the canoe on the roof. My daughter is too small to help me get the canoe off the roof and into the water. Even for my wife and I, it’s not “easy”, which leads her saying “let’s just not take the canoe”, etc.
So I am going to build a trailer that is light enough to carry upside down on top of the canoe on top of my Suburban. Less than 100 pounds, hopefully significantly less, like 50 pounds. Then when we get to camp, we unload the whole canoe/trailer assmbly once, and then I can tow the canoe back and forth to the boat ramp on the trailer, and can easily launch with just me and my daughter by backing the trailer into the water.
Something like this (but not using a roof rack bar system because I can’t launch from that. Notice that this has tires similar to what Mike suggested):
http://www.orsracksdirect.com/yakima-ra ... ilers.htmlOr what I want is even closer to this:
http://www.castlecraft.com/canoe_trailer.htmBut those are expensive and not exactly what I want anyway.
I will have the Canoe directly resting on the metal trailer frame, probably 2 bars, supporting most of its length, rather than sitting on “bunks”. Really just the 2 long frame members fairly close together, wheels near the back with no suspension, a few crossmembers with bars bending up to vertical to vaguely be side poles that hold the canoe in, and a tongue/coupler. If I do it right, I could also use this with my 12-ft Jon boat if we take it instead, which is the same width as the canoe. The two long frame rails will support the canoe better than short bunks.
I really want the wheels to be side-mounted (like “cantilevered”) rather than in double-shear like a bike or motorcycle fork, mainly because I don’t want to have a “fork”. Just for simplicity, and because that’s the way I pictured it.
But if it would work with fork-mounted tires, I’d be fine with that. Maybe even with the “fork” made by a short piece of tube that runs horizontal beside the trailer frame, putting the wheel hub in double-shear.
I thought about using bicycle tires, especially ones off a trailer for kids that you pull behind a bike, since the trailer tires are mounted cantilevered. I am 100% sure this would work for the amount of weight I’m talking about (200 pounds at most), and would be fine for driving between campground and lake. But then I thought it would be nice to have tires that are rated for highway speeds, in case I need to pull it a few miles down the road for some reason, or even to use at home – we only live 5 miles from a Jordan Lake boat ramp, so this would be a convenient trailer to use for those short trips as well.
The tiny trailer tires/wheels are called 4.80-8, weigh about 10-11 pounds with rim, and look like this:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00758 ... d_i=507846 Then you’ve got the weight of the spindle/bearings/hub/lugs, which I think is about 10 pounds each side.
http://www.amazon.com/Tie-Down-Engineer ... er+spindle These parts are really common used and new.
Would a motorcycle wheel/tire/axle/hub be lighter than 20 pounds? If so, then that’s a potential reason to go that way.
And how easy would it be to find 2 cheap/free motorcycle front wheels/tires of matching size? I don’t care what type they are, as long as they are DOT rated so there would be no issue with road speeds
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91 RallyX Audi Coupe Quattro
89 A-Team Astro-van demo derby winner at 2011 NC State Fair (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MrZqwENRqU)
Broken 89 Subaru GL-10 RallyX turbo wagon - need to sell it and all my parts cars
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