Travel Trailer with nose wheel

[JimB1]

Does anyone have experience with a airplane type castered nosewheel installed in the triangle area of trailer tongue. Seen one at the racetrack on a good sized enclosed race car trailer, tow vehicle was class C motorhome. Owner couldn't say enough nice things about how it improved every aspect of combination rig handling. Suspention system for nosewheel was pretty beefy coil spring and maybe interior shock absorber and system was adjustable for how much load to carry. Didn't get into number crunching with the guy, but I'm wondering, if your tow vehicle is pickup dually (cummins of course) with max length slide in camper and bumper hitch is extended way out and you're nearing GVWR, 12,000 lbs but have plenty GCWR, 9000-11000 lbs, will the nose wheel work well to share the 10-15% load trailers need at the tongue thus keeping some load off the long extension bumper hitch and GVW. Thanks for any links and advice. Jim.

 

[PJereb]

I want to see a picture of one of these things.

 

[J&LRam]

20-25 years ago there was a single and a dual wheel setup like that for TTs . It was made for folks with half tons to pull bigger TTs without a lot of tail sag. Check with a RV dealer in your area thats been around for 20-30 yrs they may have some info... ... JIM

 

[Ron Bissett]

Rented one about thirty years ago and it was stable but as to how much it put on the hitch I do not know ,It had two small wheels in front about twelve inch springs built in to the center of the vertical center. the wheel assy was free to travail in all directions . Used it only one trip did fine no problems ,At that time I had a 3/4 Chevy and a cab over camper (carry light) wood frame aluminum sideing loaded both trailer and camper with two gas tanks and full crew of eight . They must still make them just hard to find there must be some old ones still on the road . Ron Bissett in Metro Louisville KY

 

[klenger]

In the Lucy Ball movie "The Long Trailer" they are pulling some really big trailer with a standard passenger car, and it appeared that there was a dolly of some kind under the hitch to support the weight. I had never seen that before. Seems like a great way to get into trouble by towing more than the tow vehicle is rated for.

 

[JimB1]

klenger, I seem to recall that picture now that you mention it. Guess that means we have some grey. Cars in those days, you could lay a good sized deer over each front fender with plenty of front bumper to lash the head too and running board and/or door post for lashing down the hindquarter ankles. If you got "skunked" the mandatory squirrel was applied to same locations. Regarding the travel trailer nosewheel, my soon to be bachelor retirement (having split the pie just once) will be a lot of years pulling the toys around for many a mile. It's a struggle to get the diet right for not exceeding GCVWR in a 1 ton dually and having seen this nosewheel set-up just one time two years ago with very satisfied owner, I thought I'd see more of it but haven't. Not keen on going above 1 ton for budget and convienience reasons. Looking to get best handling/performance for combination rig, slide in camper and maximum cargo trailer, in that weight category and the nose wheel sure looked good. Also intend to stay within all ratings limits. Bean counters don't miss a trick when it's time to apportion liability recovery strategies and being above weight limits paints a bulls-eye on the soon to be sugar-daddy. Engineers and manufactures being sharp people, most of the time, must have a reason for this not being a common item. Hopefully the reason is mostly budget related and the engineering end of it works well. At a guess, it could be up to a 2k$ option in a sales market where pennies per copy are trying to be saved. Will start website searching but there's so much schpeil and return spam that sites like this look pretty good for the unadulterated information. Jim.

 

[GCrowell]

Towing Dolly

Years ago, and I mean about 45 years, my dad purchased an old 27 foot travel trailer. To give you some idea, it was a tandem axle heavy heavy trailer. He got or maybe it came with a two wheel dolly that had an adjustment crank on it to add or take off weight on the TV. We are talking late '50's here. He pulled it with a '53 six cylinder standard shift 3 speed 9 passenger Chevy station wagon with air bags to save the springs. BTW it didn't save the diff though! A custom made welded hitch. Talk about overloaded! Back to the dolly. The only problem we had was if you put more weight on the dolly to save the 'car', it would bounce a lot on the roads and make a terrible racket not to mention the effect on the hitch. It really gave us a fit when we visited a state park in NC that had a dirt road up a grade for about a half mile. Needless to say, the dolly road on the 'hump' between the ruts and you guessed it, lifted the drive wheels off the ground. We were stuck. Not enough adjustment room to raise the dolly so we had to dig out from in front of the dolly until he could get out of the ruts with the drive wheels. Not much real info here but the dolly was and may still be available but consider where you will be towing. If you get in any situation where the dolly takes the load, you could be in trouble. Boy, I hadn't thought of that old rig for many many years. Thanks!!



George

 

[Un-Hemi]

Here's one. There may be others.



http://www.tufftow.com/intro.htm

 

[JimB1]

Un-Hemi, Thanks a ton. That's exactly what I'm looking for and I bet there's a bunch of members that'll take a look at your link. Also remember now about the owner of the one I saw talking about motorhome cabins breaking off due to too much hitch weight and road bounce, which is what he wanted to protect his class C from. Jim.

 

[PJereb]

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What a weird contraption!



I know there are a lot of class C motor homes that have a tongue weight rating that would be exceeded by my brother standing on the rear bumper, seems like this goofy thing could help out in some situations.

 

[AHughes]

Bumper Pull trailer dolly

We're going back at least 50 years now. I think my dad had a 2 wheel dolly to tow our Airstream trailer behind a 49 Oldsmobile. I believe the dolly was a "Slimp" and it, as I remember, (at this age who knows?) it performed pretty well. It looked similar to the one that is shown on this post but I believe it had a ball mount for the trailer and also a coupler for the car. It also had two wheels and a spring assy. Boy that's a long time ago Don't know if they're made any more. I've seen some at swap meets but not lately they're probably in museums by now.