MacGregorSailors.com

help:plan to purchase new trailer for my the dealer recomends a performance tak 2460 b,it measures 23'6" from the winch support post to the rear of the bunks,has 2 axle's and disc brakes,rated at 6000 lbs,,,is it enough trailer,will those two float on bunks be enough,will they need moving or sould they be replaced,anyone have pic's of how to set the trailer up,,,thanks mark,97x

Got any pictures, Mark?

No pic's as i was hoping to see some here b4 completing purchase,,Has anyone bought a 2 axle alum trailer out there? Pic's and mod's please

Mark and others,
Pm me and I will send you what I did to my trailer. Tony

Hello:
Just a thought. My brother has an alluminum trailer with 2 axles and the darn thing floats up under the boat, making it difficult to launch and recover.

Just got back from the Christmas cruise (Christmas in summer is better), and found myself worrying for the whole trip whether the trailer max load was in limits. I haven't weighed mine yet, but with a 50hp tohatsu and batteries (one 560 cranker, and one 80amp hour house), and a modest anchor being the only add-ons, am assuming a weight of around 1,600 kgs (3,520 lbs).

This is right around the trailer limit in the manual, so even loading up clothes, cooking equipment, etc, had me worried.

I note however, that many of the mods that people do would be very heavy; 2 x 130 a/h batteries, 90hp engines, pressure water systems, beefier rigs, etc, etc.

So what is the margin on the trailer max weight? For a start, the manual suggests pulling the boat out with the ballast still in place for draining on the ramp. There's 700 kgs right there (though obviously not for the highway). I really would like to know at what weight the trailer structure, and/or axle rating are getting to a point where shock loading may compromise integrity.

Thanks in advance for any advice on weight distribution, hitch-weight, swing moment etc, but - and at the risk of sounding pompous - been towing boats for a really long time, and am up to speed on most of it. Really just want to know hard facts (if available) on the trailer's real capacity.

Lease,

At least for the trailer distributed with the 26X here in the USA, the axle carries components (wheels, hubs, springs, etc.) that are rated for 3,500 lbs., even though the physical axle itself (2"x3" rectangle) seems to match those with a 5,000 lbs. rating.

Regardless, the 26X never shipped with more than 14" wheels, and tires with max rating of 1,870 lbs. each. That means maximum "net axle" weight rating was 3,500 (or 3,740, depending on your personal risk quotient). Therefore, adding a nominal 10% for the weight that may be carried on the trailer tongue, the fully loaded, gross trailer weight was about 110% of the tire rating, or about 4,100 pounds (in USA-speak).

When my boat was new, with a Suzuki 60 (@ ~350#) and somewhat empty, I took it to a commercial scale and pegged it at 3,720 pounds, gross weight. The tires were carrying 3,540# based upon a second scale reading. Unfortunately, running the 14" tires to freeway speeds at that load ratio always left them very hot to the touch, and left me uneasy.

I elected to upsize the wheels and tires to 15 inches to gain some surplus rating for the tires (tire rating of 4,300#) - JMO, the weakest link in the system. Others feel adding a second axle is a better approach. Search on the word "axles" and seek those threads that discuss tandem, second or dual axles, to find much more discussion.

Frank,

Grateful thanks for your input.

I will be going to a weighbridge as soon as the holidays are over. They never seem to be open at this time of year, which makes one wonder who's watching the trucks, but that is an altogether different story.

I will also get the axle load-rated, but your assessment sounds about right.

The trailer and wheels are orginal US spec (my boat was imported used from the US) and the tyres have those nasty age cracks in them, so will be replaced by winter. I will take your advice and get some 15", or 16" light truck wheels and tyres fitted (weird, but we still use imperial for wheel diameters. In fact a tyre spec is a metric/imperial mix, ie, 150/275 x 15").

That leaves the trailer and cradle itself. Most people here are shocked at how lightly they are built, but I can see the design philosophy of the boat stressing the trailer and am in agreement. I really don't like strong for the sake of strong. It doesn't always work for you. Any ideas on the overall capacity of this part of the unit would be useful to know.

Tandem trailers are a nightmare in cost, upkeep, and sheer bloody weight on the road, so I would very much like to avoid one.

Lease wrote:I will take your advice and get some 15", or 16" light truck wheels and tyres fitted

You'll want to be very careful about how much you upsize. The existing 14" wheels and tires on the Mac X trailer barely fit under the fenders as is. Before I went to the double axle on mine there was ample evidence the tires were contacting the undersides of the fenders on a regular basis. Regardless of how little you upsize, you will have to raise the fenders for clearance. That is a problem in itself. I recommend you search on previous threads for reasons why, and would caution that, if you are concerned with the strength of the current setup, do not move the fenders up by simply redrilling the mounting holes higher; this will seriously weaken the trailer.

Move the fenders up more than an inch or so and they will actually hit the sides of the boat. I would venture to say you won't find a 16" wheel/tire combination which will physically fit without major alterations.

If you search, you will also find several major discussions on tires; LT (light truck) tires of a given size have a different internal construction and usually, a lower load rating than the same size ST (special trailer) tires. You'd be best off sticking with the STs. There is some disagreement as to bias versus radial; the bias design has stiffer sidewalls and is thought by some to be superior; they used to have the same argument about large truck tires but I believe the radial has pretty much won that argument. Based on my own experience with how hot the original bias tires ran, I might choose the radials because they run cooler. I've never run them on a single axle and don't know what that would mean for handling; since the handling pretty much sucks as is you can't afford any worsening in that area.

The standard axle load rating for the X trailer is 3500, not 5000 lbs. Both the 3500 and 5000 lb axles use 2x3" box section tubing, but the 5000 lb axle has larger spindles and bearings: 1 3/4 x 1 1/4" for the 5000 versus 1 3/8 x 1 1/16" for the 3500; hubs to fit the larger bearings will have six or eight lugs, not five. There was some discussion that some very early M trailers may have shipped with 5000 lb axes; not sure what's the latest on that front.

Lease wrote:Tandem trailers are a nightmare in cost, upkeep, and sheer bloody weight on the road, so I would very much like to avoid one.

Well, that certainly depends on your perspective. My total towing mileage is well over 10,000 miles, and to me the nightmare was having an axle/tire//brake combination for the first 4000 miles which was difficult to tow and almost certainly undersized to the way I wanted to load up my boat. The cost of my tandem upgrade was about $1200 US, certainly not a minor expense, though I could have saved about $250 if I had opted for drum brakes on my second axle rather than upgrading to discs. That's $950 compared to maybe $250 for the wheel/tire upgrade you propose. But it is diffucult to overstate how much easier this trailer is to tow (and with four wheel disc brakes, to stop) than the original single axle model. I tow comfortably at speeds to 75mph, without a hint of the white knuckle squirelliness of the original trailer. The extra weight of a tandem setup may be 250 lbs, not really significant compared to the overall weight. Upkeep? Two more brakes and spindles to service, but the tires and brakes should last twice as long. Maybe more as I had two tire failures with the single axle trailer, none since upgrading to two axles.

Chip if you took the water out of the ballast tank before you towed would the rubbing problem go away?

sorry Im giddy been up all night........

As I've written before, my choice was to upsize the tires, for two reasons. First, it is clearly a lot less costly ... about $300 for 15" Goodyear radials and new aluminum alloy trailer wheels (search on all-terms for "aluminum trailer wheels"), and the factory steel wheels were due for a change anyhow!

Second, I must back my 8-foot wide trailer into a 8.5' wide parking slot through a rather harsh, ~75-degree pivot. My dry-lot neighbors with tandem axles actually tear-up the asphalt (saying nothing of the tire abrasion) during this process. The noise reminds one of nails across the proverbial grade-school blackboard [/involuntary shiver].

I understand & agree that a second axle reduces the trailer's hobby-horsing potential - since the trailer can no longer see-saw on the single axle. This simply MUST reduce the sway-potential of the rig. If one believes that a second axle is worth its other disadvantages, having brakes on only one axle is a valid strategy, and might reduce the cost delta to only a couple hundred bucks. IMO, this considerably reduces the complexity, cost and future maintenance of the two-axle option - FWIW.