extending trailer tongue

YotaOnRocks

YotaOnRocks

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2007
Location
Madison
My neighbor has a little 5x8 single axle trailer that was given to him from an old welder. Guy built it long time ago and seems to be well built.

Well my neighbor wants the tongue longer. It appeared to be made of 2.5 square tubing. Well after looking closer yesterday it is 2" tubing plated with 1/4" on sides and bottom. Appears he did it to strengthen the joint where he added the rise for tongue but not sure why he extended it all the way to end of tongue.

So my question is I told him to get some 2.5" tube 18" long. Plan was to put a piece of 2" tube inside as a slug and weld it up. But now I've looked closer I can't do that since original tongue is 2". What is the proper way to do this. Can I just buttweld them and add fish plates. will try to get a pic in a little bit.
 
Cut it off and start over. Use 3" angle

$.02.
 
Its a tilt trailer. Tongue comes out few imches rises about 8" and ans comes out another few inches. Don't think angle would work.
 
I'll try to walk over and get some pics in a few. Raining right now
 
Pics would help, but if its 2" tubing at the point where the front of the trailer bed meets the tongue, there is no advantage to using anything larger, since that 2" at the front edge of the trailer will have the highest forces on it and therefore be your weakest point.
 
IMG_20140415_141637_593.jpg
IMG_20140415_141622_406.jpg
 
If its a tilt then I would assume that the tongue would detach somewhere under the trailer so I would just remove it and start all over.
And make sure you use very thick wall or its gonna fold
If it were mine I'd probably just ditch.the whole design and go with a v shape using 3" channel
 
I'd probably start at that dump pin and replace everything forward.
 
Well ideally I would replace the whole tongue but he doesn't want to spend any money. Do you think it will fail if I butt weld the 2.5 to the 2" plated on sides which makes it 2.5 and add fishplates to it. Maybe a gusset back to where it raises up.
 
If this isn't safe I'll just tell him to buy a stick of 2" tube or I can't do it.
 
YotaOnRocks said:
If this isn't safe I'll just tell him to buy a stick of 2" tube or I can't do it.
Click to expand...

I don't feel it's safe as it is, nevermind if you lengthen it. Making it longer will put more stress on it making it more likely to fail.
 
What don't you like Jeff how they put the rise init. Does it just need to come out straight.
 
From the pic's I gather this.

Material looks chincy...

There is gonna be slop in the slid in of the rising hitch.

No I do not care for the riser either.

it's probably just me, but I don't believe in polishing turds. When I fix or modify something it's to gain strength for it's intended purpose. To modify this would be a cheap way out and possibly risky pulling down the road with a heavy load on it.

To lengthen it correctly (in my minds eye) one needs to run the tongue material back to the sub frame of the axle. (if this is the type of tilt trailer I am familiar with) two pieces triangulated & one up the center line.

Like said, 3" angle would be plenty with the 2.5" square tubing up the center.
 
He doesn't want to do it right so I won't be doing it for him. Thanks for the help guys.
 
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