Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

This really is a big thank you to Doug.

Last week he posted that he was going to do a frame tutorial to document his next build. I posted that I had bought the Kuffle Creek plans primarily for the frame design and specs and had a couple of issues with the design, and that I thought the idea of a frame tutorial was a good idea.

He responded, "So you found the tongue problem, too?"

Uh, what?

I PM'd him to find out what he was referring to and he said after he hooked up his trailer, he stood on the tongue and it bent (3 inch channel tongue).

That wasn't the news I wanted to hear as I have looked at the tongue from the beginning thinking it wasn't beefy enough, but since I tend to overbuild everything, I stayed with the plans.

So with a long list of things I needed to get completed on the trailer this weekend, I took a really critical look at the trailer tongue first thing Friday night. Eyeballing along the bottom of the channel, what I had noticed over the last few months was in fact true--the tongue was deflecting, bending. I didn't measure the deflection, but I would estimate a quarter to three-eights inch from the body to the hitch.

No good. I could envision the thing bending into a curve over the long trek to Lake Bistineau next month.

So, Saturday I cut a piece of channel, took a grinder and vandalized the finish on the frame I had worked so hard on. I boxed the channel from the tongue jack (previously boxed with a 12 in long section to mount the jack) to the second cross frame member. All the modification took about four hours. The worst part was having to weld lying on my back and side under the trailer.

The tongue is now solid, straight, only slightly overbuilt, and ready to take on any Baja wannabe potholes, and I will no longer have to worry about whether on not those sparks I see flying behind me are from my trailer. Mind you, I didn't use the KC plans without question. I looked at the references on this forum and looked at the dimensions and capacity for the 3 inch channel, and it looked okay. But seeing how Doug had a similar problem, if you are building to the KC plans look at this issue and see if it applies to your build.

So Doug, curse you for the additional work you caused me this weekend, but a very, very big thank you for preventing me from being a broke down trailer on the side of the road.

Tony,

I need to apologise to you, as well as Kuffle Creek. After reading your message, I went and checked the numbers given for a horizontal channel in my tongue strength page and found they had an error, which I have now corrected. I've also made it a little clearer which way round I assume a channel is oriented.

I'm sorry to have added to your problem.

Andrew

Sorry about that Tony, I had to do the same thing....the plans say to build a certain way...but if you look further back in the plans, like on page 22 check the pictures starting with the text "flex conduit"...you can see that he had the same problem, and corrected it the same way...it just wasn't changed in the frame build...and I never really looked at the wiring section as I knew how I wanted to do it my wiring....oh well...nothings perfect...glad you got it take care of...Doug

Doug and Andrew--no apologies from you guys are needed. I will be the first to admit that I did no calculations knowing I was adding weight to my build. My build is heavy and I should have done some calculations and compensated. I just figured I would skate by with a little normal engineering margin or error (+/- 50% as I was once told ) and only have myself to blame. As far as I am concerned, you guys still have a spotless record!

I will benefit from the modifications--stronger tongue and stretched out leg, thigh and butt muscles from welding in the lotus position. I can hardly walk today!

My main point was to thank the people (that's you Doug) who keep posting the comments on the "been there, done that, bought the t-shirt and here's how you fix the problem." This is a true beneficial community of builders, and we all benefit by each other's mistakes and advice.

oh. I better look at my trailer tongue.I'm using the same plans. Thanks guys Peg

Andrew,

How many "daves" are required for the modifications to be sufficient for the cubby tongue?

Kevin A wrote:How many "daves" are required for the modifications to be sufficient for the cubby tongue?

It would be interesting to try the Aussie rules on the Cubby tongue. What's the length of the tongue (front of frame to coupler centre) and what thickness 2" x 3" is called for?

And, Tony, do I assume that effectively you've now got a 3" wide x 4" high tongue? Just enough for a 30-footer, eh?

Jack's comment that standing on the tongue may have bent it makes me realise that this is a reasonable extra strength test. Simply standing on the tongue next to the coupler produces very little load, but a big lad jumping on the tongue next to the body front is probably more than even the Aussie rules require for a very light trailer (say, <600lb).

Andrew

angib wrote:
And, Tony, do I assume that effectively you've now got a 3" wide x 4" high tongue? Just enough for a 30-footer, eh?

Andrew

I have to limit myself to 30'? Damn, there go the hot tub and pool table.

The box tongue is now 3x3, so the 1-1/2 legs weren't the 2" in your calculations.

Doug--I just went to the truck and looked at the KC plans. Interesting pictures. I hadn't noticed it before either. It looks like pictures from different builds because the channel in oriented vertically in one picture and horizontally in the other. At least that is what it looked like to me. The drawing in back that I used has the channel horizontal (legs down) whereas the flex conduit picture looks like vertical (legs to the side). Does it look that way to you? And yes, I do see the box, or extra metal in the picture where you can see the channel is oriented horizontal.

Has anybody emailed Kevin so he can correct the plans? Sounds like it they need to be changed.
Bruce