drawbar extention

[arvor]

hi and thanks all for your great site.have been looking in for a while now and am impressed.anyway has anyone have any photos or designs for a drawbar extention i need to sink trailer deep at the ramps and need to keep car a little further out of the salt.so thanks for looking .and any ideas would be great thanks.

[seatime]

Hi arvor

those arvors would be tricky to get off the trailer, assuming you have an Arvor by your handle, which model?
love the style and shaft drive set-up, they would be great for trolling.

I launch a sharkcat from time to time that sits on an alloy trailer with a telescopic drawbar.
extended out it allows for an extra meter or so, a large pin (approx 70mm) holds the telescopic section in place.
the ramp where it's used has a relatively shallow incline and needs the extension to get the motor legs in the water with the vehicle stopped a meter short of the water.
the motors are then started, boat unhooked, then vehicle is allowed to roll the last meter with an abrupt stop to get the boat sliding.

no good at drawing on puters, so hope the explanation is clear enough.

regards

[Wear_the_fox_hat]

Arvor,
If you go through a Belco dealer, Belco may be able to custom make a swing away draw bar. I don't know if they do a telescopic model, but it may be worth a try.

Regards,
WTFH

[Dignity]

gelsec, how does a telescpic drawbar overcome trailer brakes - interested as I would kike to exrend my drawbar about 600 mm but every one I have turned to has said can't be done - older style trailer


arvor - there are plenty of swing drawbars aeound especially at the Toyota Classic ion Fraser n May - good time to go and have a look as there will be literally a hundred lined up on the beach - have only given them a cursory look though.
sam

[seatime]

dignity

I'm now reconsidering the wisdom of my post on this subject :-[ probably should have had a longer think before typing.
Said trailer doesn't have brakes and isn't registered :-X only travels 200m to the ramp.

[Reef_fisher]

Bang an extra metre of metal to the front of it. ;D

[saurian]

Dignity , not sure if I understand electric brakes bit , But a good old stiff bar , ie; steel bar same diameter as trailer .
Female and male hitch connection and maybe extra wires to help brakes.
Old trucks and graders use them lots , put stiff bar between tow vehicle
and thing that is being towed thus you have whatever extension from towing vehicle to boat trailer in your case.
Also beach launching swing down hub and wheel will help.
Full hub and bearing with studs & tyre on square and cylindrical bracket
thus you pull tyre and hub out of square steel bracket it hits cylindrical
steel and you rotate it to desired position ( 180 ) then slide back into square steel bracket, allows you to disconnect trailer from tow vehicle
and skull drag it without hitch being embebbed in ramp/sand.
Saved many a 4x4 from big tides.
If you combined the 2 you would be able to extend without altering trailer apart from 2 u bolt brackets for hub.
Sounds very confusing, havn't got pictures to show you.
Ta.

[wayne_cook]

noticed one on ebay the other day I think the location was vic. but it looked ok

[arvor]

thanks a lot for all your replies and info but ill have to see a couple to get the easest to make and usethanks again.

[predator]

Heres a couple of pics of a swingaway..
Pretty simple design.

[predator]

;D

[arvor]

has anyone got any pics of extention setup thanks.

[phewy]

Perhaps a system like this would work?

http://www.xtend-a-hitchnorthwest.com/_derived/pictures.htm_txt_boltedtotrailer4.gif


to this....

http://www.xtend-a-hitchnorthwest.com/xt9.jpg

[arvor]

thanks phewy thats the type of thing i need to make up.with enough pressure on the main chassis without puting the jockey wheel down and useing a straight bar.thanks again.gaz.

[Dignity]

arvor,
not sure of the application you need the extended drawbar for but the one phewey posted looks a little lite. The ones I have seen are similar but are hinged onto the trailer and swing back at the same level as the rest of the trailer and not underneath it. They are usually the same size channel at least and clamp back to the trailer. I will be on fraser next month and will try and take some pics for you (if the owners will let me)

gelsec - lost this thread for a while - guess we are thinking about different applications - mine was a more permament one.

saurian - would really appreciate some pics. Mine is a fairly old design, drawbar goes back a fair way and then angles off to the width necessary. These days trailers start a nice curved arc very early in the piece. I am a little confused by your description but will try and decipher it withoout the current overhead I am carrying - i.e. many beers and now some sparkling stuff that I don'r remember buying. As I am looking for a permanent extension the wiring and brakes I can cope with.

[seabug]

Here is a photo showing the drawbar extension used on a Tasmanian Police boat trailer.

Regards
seabug

[Dignity]

seabug, nice and easy and I want to do something similar. In my case the main traier frame starts 1.5metres from the towball (just behind the jockey wheel). I wanted to add 300 mm of drawbar which was a total of 500mm incling towbar hitch. Took it to a few places and to do the mods required massive changes to the frame and the integrity of the galvanising etc it wasn't worth the effort. Still thinking of extending thge draw bar only by the length of the towing hitch as in your pics, at least it will stop the anchor rubbing on my trucks spare wheel.

[seabug]

Hi Dignity,
I did not check how long the extension was on that trailer.

But if one was to order a trailer it should be possible to have the inside tube a couple of metres long.

The trailer was for a Plastic type RIB boat.

[seabug]

Photos of the "plastic" police boat.

This was taken at Triabunna.
A local said that this one was visiting,but that Tas. police had a number of these boats.

Regards
seabug

[Dignity]

thanks seabug, the extension only appeared to be as long as the tow hitch. will probably do the same

[seabug]

For using the above tube idea ,would it work OK if one had lugs with large holes each side of the towball on the tube.

And have say a 2m tube on the inside.

And have 1.8m strong chain/s .one end welded to the outside tube and with strong D shackle/s on the other end.

The chain could be carried in a purpose built box on the outside tube.

When the extra length was needed just drop the chain, attach the D shackle/s to the lugs,pull out the restraining pin,and drive foward.

A pin could then be dropped in a hole drilled in the top of the inside tube, just in front of the outside tube, to stop the inside tube retracting.

OK, so it is a bit agricultural,thats where I came from.

Regards
seabug

[seabug]

A cleaner way would be to have the inside tube 2 sizes smaller than the outside one,providing that this gave enough strengh.

Weld a piece of the between size tube on the inside front of outside tube.

And another piece on the rear end of the inside tube.

When the towbar was extended the two welded on sections would meet

A pin would be need to hold towbar in both positions.

Regards
seabug

[Roughasguts]

If you only need about a 300mm extension, I have the tow ball tounge extended 300mm that part fits in to the Haymen hitch which extends the tow ball out 300 mm. I did that so my Bow sprit doesn't smash me back window on my Paj when driving down a ditch.

Just wondering if that could be extended to 600mm with out any risk of failure.
Going to have to extend your safety chain and wiring if you go that way, but would be an easy fix if structually sound.

[Dignity]

that sounds interesting rags. would have to investigate the matter

[phewy]

Indeed it would be a quick and easy fix. Something like this 18" extension maybe....even longer perhaps.
http://www.etrailer.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/brophy/he18.jpg

Although, in reading on these hitch extenders, one site mentioned that "Using a hitch extender will reduce your hitch's overall capacity by 1/3."

So, if a greatly reduced capacity was guaranteed, it would be something you would keep in the back of the car and swap over at the ramp/beach.

[Roughasguts]

In that case with the above extension phewy, you could have several holes or at least one extra hole, to just re locate the pin.

If you go that way, check the thickness of the square tube extension mine would be lucky t be 3mm thick, guess it's alright.
But compared to me old mans Haymen 34 years ago that was a solid steel extention !!! May be over the top but it does seem better than hollow.

[seabug]

Extension towbars are legal in some states of USA.
I saw one about 2ft long on a heavy Duty Ford F250 in Utah.
But the Towball Weight was only 60lbs.
The extension was 2 inch bar steel.

I asked a ***man Rhe*** dealer if they were legal in Australia and he told me they were not.
This was in 2003

If they were not legal(roadworthy)there use ,even at the ramp ,would be risky.

If anyone wants a definate ruling on these it is available from,

VicRoads Road Safety Team
Number 60
Denmark Street
Kew
3101

Regards
seabug

[seabug]

This is a photo of the H/D F250 that I saw in Utah

I wish we could get away with the same loads and hitches as they do.

Regards
Seabug