To tow or not to tow?

G'day Keith, having travelled in that region with our camper, I don't see any problem with towing a box trailer, providing you slow down for any rough stuff.

Share the weight and keep an eye on things and you will do ok.

Keith, I guess as long as your trailer is a reasonably good construction and is pretty level after you have finished loading it, you should be OK.

I have seen badly loaded or lightly constructed trailers break or bend the A frame just where it goes under the front tailboard of the trailer due to the jarring or bouncing of the 4 WD.
Some 4bies bounce around a bit and it puts a lot of stress on the A frame just at that point. Once that bends there, there isn't much you can do about it.
Speed would also have a bit to do with that problem if the road is a bit rough too.

Dave

G'day Keith,
As others have said trailers can break. To cover this contingiency why not carry welding rods, welding lens, leads and maybe some steel. You will need 3 batteries to get a good weld. My old Viscount caravan chassis cracked, and I welded it on the road.
Also spare bearings & U bolts are a good idea.


Cheers,
Bill

I will add a little to the above....

Make sure the trailor bearings are in good nick by simply repacking them as not much else can really go wrong if the trailor is not overloaded.
Also high tyre pressures will not give putting stress back on the chasis of trailor so simply lower them a little after all they are part of the suspension also.
When I go onto rough corrugated roads I lower ALL tyre pressures by at least 5psi and much lower when traversing soft sand, on odd occasions I have been as low as 10psi in extremely soft stuff.
I have an off road Caravan with a standard coupling and really do go off road with it and by using the above measures have never had a problem with the actual towing. Just take it easy and drive to conditions.
The standard coupling goes to about 30% which if you think about it is a lot.

Hi there. All I did with mine was to check everything, as others have said (bearings, springs etc.) replace the old second hand tyres with new light truck tyres (bearing in mind many trailers are fitted with very second hand tyres in the first place), and finally fit the axle below the springs to improve the chassis height (a better fit with the drawbar height of the Prado).
After my experience with a blow out of a caravan tyre, I would not wish to drive out of my front yard with anything short of good tyres.

Thanks all for the responses... Thought I'd tell you how it went.

The trailer went fine.. except that I got it bogged in the sand 20 Metres from the camp site. Had to unload to move it the final leg.

So...no problems at all with the towing and such. I let the tyres down to 15 psi and had it almost perfectly balanced over the wheels. It did not stop me from going anywhere the Prado could. That being said a winch would have solved the problem of moving it up the dunes that last little bit, but still we had a lot of fun trying out new things.

Thanks again.
Keith.