Draw bar on trialers

Broodie! I cant think of many household trailers that would stand up to outback punishment. Generally they are made of a thin angle iron lower frame so there is not anything substantial to weld a decent A frame to. If it has slipper springs, it is best to change to eye to eye and if not, will the standard ones hold up to corrugations and rough roads? Is he axle and bearing type up to the job? A short A frame is good for tight tracks and less flex on the A frame, a longer A frame is better for reversing and general towing. The problem is if the trailer is not up to it and fails in a major way, where do you put all the gear that is in it? I really believe it should be purpose built to avoid any problems. My thoughts only. Michael.

The key decisions re drawbar length are what needs to be stored on the A frame (spare tyre/tool box etc) & what size door/tailgate needs to open allowing sufficient clearance between the two. In general a long towbar will give a smoother ride & be easy to back while a short one has greater offroad ability & will follow the tow vehicle through tight spots.
For my trailer I ended up with a 1.6m drawbar (2.9m to axle) which gave sufficient clearance for a large swing door with a big spare tyre on the A frame.
As for towing a modified house-hold trailer in the desert ............good luck :-)

A long drawbar is always better within reason.

the only two places that a long drawbar is a problem is where you actually want the trailer to jack knife easily to get it into tight places.

or that it simply makes the trailer too long.

the main hang up points on trailers are the hitch & the point of the drawbar and the rear edge of the trailer.

mounting the hitch between the drawbar arms rather than on top of them allows you far better clearance, as it places the drawbar above the hitch point rather than below

cheers

hi broodie H3
just a word of warning from me as this is what happened even when i took precaution in respect to carrying a honda geny and this was in the wellbody of a previous navara ute and my current mazda bravo so if you intend carrying your geny in the trailer mentioned beware
there is a huge possibilty that some and or several parts on the geny will vibrate loose/drop off and or become damaged due to the horrific horrigations as i prefer to call them
and i might add that in 1987 there was hardly any corregations to speak of on thCSR but we encountered plenty on gunbarrel and kidson track
but in 2002 the the scene had changed and they were really badon lower half of CSR but not as bad as from all reports like they are now and get described as extremely bad

the fuel bowl retainer screw came undone and dropped off
the float assembly dropped out letting the needle valve
out luck has it that i was carrying the geny in it original packing box and was encased with polystyrene and i had installed a rubber ribbed mat also
so was able to retrieve and refit the said parts
in addition a side panel ran loose and several other screws also kept coming loose in cluding the oil dipstick and had to be constantly checked on a daily basis

and was in spite of the fact i had carefully gone over every screw /stud /bolt on both the genny and vehicle before leaving home

on the navara the front wellbody to chassis retainer bolt ran loose and i found it at a morning tea break with only two turns to go before it would have dropped down and be lost
i didnt tow a trailer and still had trouble even with a vehicle that had an after market suspension
in the long of it despite all of my pretrip prep things still came loose so if you intend carrying stuff such as gennies etc in a trailer over the current extreme horregation that now prevail expect there to be some problems
the best advice i can give is to get some of that thick rubber matting that is used in horsefloats and put on the floor of your trailer this will take a bit of the bad vibes out of the trip
clark rubber have it
and every thing will need to be strapped down
preferably to anchor points installed in the floor of your trailer as good downward pressure is better than a strap that just goes over and across the top of an item and is tyed off on the rope rail at the top side of the trailer if you get what i mean

i and not an alarmist and i'm not trying to deterr or put the fear god into you but just passing on an experience i had and hope you can avoid
hope you have an enjoyable and trouble free run
cheers
barry