B & B Trailers caravan Brake
spring
chassis.
Hand-brake
50mm coupling
head
Breakaway
Jockey wheel
chain guide clamp
Telescopic
jockey wheel
1. From used parts
UNBRAKED
It is many years since you could simply go to a
car scrapyard, buy an old car rear axle and use it
as the running gear for a home-made trailer. I
built my first trailer this way using the rear
suspension units from a Bond Minicar. These
were the rubber Bramber Flexitor type now
made by Peak Trailers (see Chapter 3). I did not
require brakes so I used the hubs as unbraked
units. You cannot do this now; the law requires
that if brakes are fitted ‘they must work’.
Moreover, car-type brakes do not conform to
the European Directive covering trailer brakes
as they are not of the automatic reversing type.
BRAKED
If you do need a braked trailer and want to build
it yourself, the easiest way is to go to a caravan
breaker and buy an old caravan chassis because
these have had automatic reversing brakes
fitted since the mid-1970s. The only snag is that
caravan axles are nearly all wide tracked and
cannot be reduced in width if you do not want a
wide trailer. Caravan axles were usually made in
varying capacities e.g. 900kg, 1,100kg, 1,300kg
and 1,500kg in single axle form. The
chassis plate should tell you
what capacity axles
BPW caravan chassis.
56 Trailer manual
Suspension
Brake linkage
Corner legs
and brakes are fitted. A search on the Internet
or in your local classified directory will give you
the location of the nearest caravan breaker. The
old British caravan chassis makers – B&B
Trailers (semi-trailing arm suspension), Peak
Trailers (swing axle suspension) and CI (trailing
arm suspension) were all made with automatic
reversing brakes and all used coil springs with
hydraulic dampers. They make a very good
trailer indeed as they were of traditional
construction with at least four cross-members
making it a simple job in placing trailer
bodywork straight on to the chassis. There can
be some problems though in obtaining spare
parts for older designs of chassis.
The rubber suspension type then took over
the market and you will find AL-KO Kober and
BPW made the most commonly found designs.
Gradually the amount of steel in a chassis was
reduced and the chassis now has just two
longitudinal members with the axle tube as the
only cross-member. This is because caravan
floors now take a greater share of the load-
bearing construction, being made of a sandwich
of foam between two layers of plywood.
2. From new parts A T-bar chassis. Note
the eye coupling.
UNBRAKED
You can build and tow a trailer with a gross
vehicle weight (GVW) of 750kg without brakes,
but can only load it up to a maximum weight of
half your car’s kerb weight. If your car, say, can
only tow to a GVW of 500kg it would be better
and cheaper to build one using an axle, wheels
and tyres suitable for that GVW.
The simplest way would be to buy a ‘T’
frame drawbar and axle assembly on which you
can put any type of body structure that suits
your need. Pairs of suspension
However, this is more expensive than buying units.
separate suspension units which also offer
greater scope when establishing the
dimensions for the trailer. These are available in
various designs using rubber as the suspension
medium and are supplied with mounting plates,
which are welded to the chassis frame to which
the units are then bolted.
Care should be taken when welding these
on to ensure that they either ‘toe in’ or are
parallel with the frame. The suspension units
can be bolted to the mounting plates, the usually around 50–150mm behind the centre
wheels put on and then they can be clamped to line of the trailer’s platform or bodywork.
the chassis to give the desired amount of toe-in Typical steel sections for a popular size of
and then welded into place. Toe in is where the trailer of 1,200mm x 900mm (4ft x 3ft) (internal
dimension across the front of the trailer wheels body size) would be to use 40 x 40 x 3mm
is less than that across the back of the wheels angle section with 50 x 50 x 3mm corner posts.
i.e. pointing inwards. It is common for the The drawbar would be made from 50 x 50 x
wheels to have no toe-in, i.e. parallel or to toe in 3mm square hollow section tube, the axle from
by up to 3mm for 13in wheels. Toe-in helps the 40 x 40 x 3mm square hollow section tube and
stability of a trailer at speed. the floor reinforcement would use a
When designing a trailer the most difficult combination of 25 x 25 x 3mm and 40 x 25 x
details to determine are the length of the 3mm angle section. Obviously, for larger trailers
drawbar and the axle position. A longer drawbar much heavier gauge steel would be required.
makes the trailer more stable while towing. The
longer the distance from the coupling head to
the wheel centres, the easier it is to reverse the
trailer. The axle position has a significant effect
on the nose weight and you should aim for a
positive nose weight when the trailer is unladen
of around 5–20kg depending on the size of the
trailer. When building your own trailer you can
determine the axle position by balancing the
chassis on supports (axle stands are ideal for
this) and measuring the nose weight at different
locations by moving the support. Remember
that the point on the chassis which gives you the
desired nose weight is not the axle mounting
position but the centre line of the wheels. The
suspension units have a trailing arm so the
mounting point will be in front of the axle centre
line as the drop arms should face the rear of the
trailer. As a rule of thumb the wheel position is
Making your own trailer 57