1/8 2.5x2.5 or 3/16 2x2 for tongue

[Southern Oregon Bob]

Nitetimes- I've already welded it on and I have worried a little about the times I'll be off road with it behind my jeep cj8, so I'm probably going to add a srtap on the bottom and space it out from the tongue in the middle like I saw somewhere on this forum. That I would think would at least help with the verticle strength, but as we've seen on this post just thinking does'nt make it so. Bob

[Nitetimes]

What you do with it is entirely up to you, but if I were you I would do something like I have in this drawing. I'm not sure how far along you are but this should still be do-able. It would help with the stress side to side and up and down while still giving you the capabilitiy to jack-knife the trailer. The further back the frame you take the rear-ward end of the angle the narrower the A-frame will be but you will still get the extra support you need for what you are going to be doing. Keep in mind, large rocks, ditches, logs and the like are going to put a lot of side stress on an unsupported tongue. A lot of jerking around and you could find yourself detached from all your hard work.

[Southern Oregon Bob]

Nitetime- that looks like a drawing of what I did, the location of the tongue and diagonals connect to the frame just like you've drawn.
I did not use angle iron on diagonals but .95 2x3. The other differance is they come into the tongue about 30" from the frame to allow 16" for box and another 14" between box and frame to accomodate where my Kin-Skill type front rolls back under on the bottom. So I have 30" of tongue from frame to diagonals and then I would like another 34- 36" from there for 90 degree jack knife. Does that sound like to much. I need to learn to post pics, it would save alot of words. Bob PS sorry I have 2 threads going that turned into the same topic

[Nitetimes]

If you set it up like that I think you should be fine even with 3' of tongue out past the diagonals. If you are conserned about it bending where they come to the tongue, slide the piece of 2X2 you have inside the tongue past the point of where you attached them. You could leave about 10" of it stick out and use that to to mount the coupler on.

[angib]

I've put up a new message about a new page on my web site covering:
- the strength and weight of some typical tongue sections;
- a spreadsheet to calculate the properties of other sections;
- a description of the Tongue Factor strength calculation - which is also included in the spreadsheet.
Tongue Strength

Andrew