Show what you tow!

[coalminer16]

I love the wheels as well. I was thinking you could have just used a VW solid rear axle. My brother used one from a rabbit for his water trailer to water his trees. A vw truck axle is straight but harder to find. Nice job either way. The benifit is that you don't need to carry extra tire changing tools and spare when they are already in your car for your car (and now trailer).

 

[Hatchet Ratchet]

740 lbs of mulch for the new flower bed(don't have to mow around clothesline anymore)

12ft boat w/ 14ft canoe

At the boat landing.....

How my custom Stainless Hitch is mounted

more from custom hitch install http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=188448&page=3

 

[coalminer16]

Care to show more on that hitch. More then just one side picture?

 

[Frankencar]

http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s313/FrankenCar/VWTowingM715112708015.jpg

 

[Frankencar]

 

[NB_TDi]

Sweet Jesus.

 

[NarfBLAST]

Frankencar, that is the most bad ass golf I've ever seen. Awesome!

 

[tivoKlr]

jetta-truck

I needed a bed for the rotten one on my plow truck. The Jetta with a 2 place did the trick.

This is what I typically tow with the ALH.

Tows great.

 

[coalminer16]

WOW on the golf.

 

[TDIJetta99]

Frankencar, that's about what I want to see hahaha..

I pull quite the amount of stuff with mine as some of you guys have personally seen..

I just did 2200 miles round trip to Daytona beach for bike week with this.. The bike weighs about 700lbs and the trailer weighs around 350 or so..

 

[whawker]

Loaded up for Burning Man 2009. Heh, camper empty 1450lbs, loaded about 1900. Car had maybe 1000lbs also.

 

[BradleyRas]

Firewood:

My bike & camping gear (beer included):

and when I don't have my trailer I'll improvise:

 

[mech644]

Thats a funny place for a white tail doe to take nap? Around here they usually climb into the back of a truck. Them Penn. deer must be numb in the head!

 

[homac]

Oh my ! Now I have seen everything.

 

[Frankencar]

was you kid sitting there too?

 

[coalminer16]

Now that is funny. A car seat next to a dead deer. "daddy, can I pet the deer" I would probably do that only I would have to find a way to stuff an elk in my Golf. I would likely take my VW pickup for that hunting job though.

 

[Savageman69]

Trailer isnt pretty but for 125 bux cant complain...going to paint it this summer for sure.

 

[techrealm]

Towing from OR to WA then off to MI via Yellowstone and southern WY 2009. Over 30k with a 6x10 trailer heavily loaded with gear, water, wood etc. electric brakes on the trailer.

Heres what doing a favor gets ya... Actually I knew I was gonna get stuck. I didnt expect them to raise the lake that hour though,
My friends f-350 is a foot or two out of frame. He had the wrong hitch on his truck to put his jetski in after he took it out of the toyhauler... I still havent taken the front tow eye off.

 

[Kriesel]

I love the extreme approach angle on those rocks! haha

 

[oilcan_boyd]

The longest tow was a 6x10 box trailer to long beach, mississippi after katrina.

This picture is 1700 pounds of scrap steel going to recycling.

(That is an upside down honda crv)

And here we have about 3800 pounds of block.

 

[delvi__acevedo]

jetski

 

[deezelpower]

Firewood!

I tow about 4 loads like this per year, since 2004, with your common everyday Costco trailer

This particular load was @2200lbs for trailer, 300lbs in car plus two adults (250lbs). A little scary with the sway if I don't load it right, power certainly isn't a problem (OEM PD) and braking was fine. I wouldn't try this down a mountain pass but across the ferry to whidbey island is cake. With the trailer >200 over the tires get a little warm even when maxed at 80 PSI.

After installing the Eibach Pro-Kit coils, it almost eliminates any rear-end sag. I was worried that lowering it would ruin towing but turned out the best thing I ever did.

I even tow around my '74 Super Beetle with a tow bar but I don't have any pix of that yet...

 

[NarfBLAST]

The 3x6 got its old axle back today. The axle had been freshened up with a pair of used 175/70/R13's I recently had mounted and balanced on the rare 5.5" x 4 bolt pattern 13" wheels.

I hitched up the trailer and engaged hover mode to make the axle swap easier. (click picture to enlarge)



I rolled the 60" axle with the Avus wheels into the garage to be fitted to the 4x8 trailer I am working on.

Took the 3x6 to IKEA tonight. Can't wait to get back to work on the 4x8.

 

[coalminer16]

You must live on a quite street. I don't know if I would do it out in the street like that even if it is on the side. But I live on a busy street.

 

[WEDEL.1]

Our new camper trailer which we picked up last week. Off to get some practice in it over Easter, in preparation to our Adelaide-Perth road trip next year (Easter) across the Nullabor......

 

[McBrew]

Here's my mobile laundromat!

Okay... I was actually moving our old washer/dryer up to the house we are selling in PA... we replaced it with an LG front loader. Had to drive this old Whirlpool combo about 150 miles, then shoehorn it down an old cellar door and into the basement of a 110-year-old row house. It was... ummmm... fun.

 

[odinsjetta]

Pulled a used Jetta home today that I recently purchased with a toasted automatic transmission. Was very impressed with how my wagon performed. Was about a 25km journey.

 

[Keven]

Do you have spacers on those wheels? How much do they weigh?

 

[delvi__acevedo]

Do you have spacers on those wheels? How much do they weigh?

yes I do 30mm, I dont know the weigh

 

[Fix_Until_Broke]

When you're pulling this with your TDI...

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and then at 70 MPH you hear a BANG and feel a strong jerk, the result is likely a blown tire like this...

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but what you don't expect is for it to break your hitch in the process...

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Safety chains save the day.

If you look close at the crappy picture above, you'll see that at the top of each piece at the break, there's a slight darkened depression in the middle. This is an area of high cycle fatigue that has been cracked for a while and has started to corrode which is why it's darker. This is on the top side of the bend and is in tensile when pulling the trailer/compression in breaking

At the bottom of each piece if you look close and use your imagination, you'll see a ~0.050" tall strip of very smooth/fine area. This is another area of high cycle fatigue that has not been cracked for a while as it's still bright and clean. This is on the bottom side of the bend and is in tensile when breaking with the trailer/compression when pulling.

The other 95% of the 1/2" x 2" drawbar was low cycle fatigue, sudden failure as it's very rough and "torn"

I magnafluxed/glowed the rest of the cross bar for any other signs of fatigue and didn't find any.

It used to look like this...

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The new and improved one looks like this...

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It's a pair of 1.5" x 0.125" wall box tubes with a 3" x 0.625 top plate to mount the ball.

It needs a coat of paint and a 1" hole punched in for the ball, but otherwise I like how it looks.

It should be much stronger in the side to side direction (think wagging trailer) and less suceptable to fatigue with the large smooth radius on the inside of the bend. I tacked the box tubes together then made 4 cuts through the 3 sides leaving the inside corner un-cut. I then bent the tubes to fit the curve of the back bumper then welded the now wider gaps full so it's like a formed piece of 1.5" x 3" box tube with a 1/4" thick reinforcing web in the middle.

I'll try and get some pictures of it on the car once I get it painted and mounted up.