Tilt Deck Trailer Discussion

[tobyw]

It's pretty well established that I am old, overweight, out of shape, and that in no uncertain terms my laziness knows no bounds. To that end, I have begun to look for a solution to having to deal with the heavy and awkward ramps on my flatbed trailer, and the seemingly obvious solution is to delete them... Now to get it out of the way immediately, I am not advocating trying to load/offload without ramps on an otherwise average flatbed trailer; my hat bill simply is not flat enough for that sort of thing. However, a tilt deck trailer seems to be a viable option, and having used a couple of variants over the years I wanted to get some input from other folks that may have as well. And more specifically, I'd like to kick the ball around the different pivot designs out there. I seem to consistently run across (3) primary designs:

This one tilts the entire top deck, including the fenders, and pivots behind the rear axle:



This one also tilts the entire top deck including the fenders, but pivots at the base of the A-frame:



This one tilts the deck in between the fenders and pivots between the axles:



Out of these (3) designs, I have my eye on what I would consider to be the right answer, but would love to hear any feedback from others on tilt trailers before I pull the trigger...

[Roman]

Which ever is cheapest

[Deputy Dodge 413]

Spring under axle trailer, dovetail, rear stabilizer jacks, lockers engaged, no ramps needed. Dove tail may drag slightly when dropping into a parking area, but that's what the volume know on the radio is for.

[TJDave]

Like Cory said, I never used the ramps on my dovetail trailer for anything with 35"+ tires.

At work we have two 12K trailers. One tilt, one with ramps. The tilt is the trailer the driver's always grab first if what they are hauling runs. It is similar to your 3rd pic. The trailer with ramps has a winch for broken down stuff. Have to keep it plugged in when sitting, or use a solar charger.
I'm sure you could MacGyver a way to make a winch work with a tilt deck trailer.

[Jay W]

We have 3 tilt decks at work. One is a deckover hydraulic Big Tex. For sure the best system but not the cheapest. The second is like your #1. It's a Summit, gravity tilt, the worst of the 3 we have. The last one is like your #3. It's a Big Tex, gravity, works great for equipment. The only down side is the tilt part of the deck is only about 77" wide even though we have 83" between the fenders. If you're in Yakima and want to see them in person, let me know.

[tobyw]

Appreciate all of the feedback. Good bad or otherwise the decision has been made and the trigger has been pulled... She's a 2026 (yep, title says 2026 as we sit here in February of 2025 ) Versatile Trailers 7k tilt deck with an overall bed length of 14' and 82" between the fenders. I had initially spec'd a 16' unit but just as I was about to write the czek, a shipment of new trailers arrived and there were a couple of these little 14' units on it. A short time later I was test loading the Donkey onto one of them and ended up deciding I liked it better. In my humble opinion, I prefer the U-haul approach to trailers: less is more. Plus, having such a small trailer keeps the neighbors from wanting to borrow it to haul their crew cab dually loaded with firewood

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Just as Jay W noted, the tilting portion of the deck is only about 77" in width so the tires stick over a bit while loading, but once the front settles down the perimeter framework is 82" wide and there is no issue. Out back I may end up gluing on a 4" wide strip of checker plate to widen the area where the tires roll, but honestly it's not going to keep me up at night:

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My back already feels better

[Roman]

Ooooohhh, the LJ wears it nicely!

[tobyw]

Following back up on this after almost a year of dutiful service and probably around 10,000 miles of being yarded around everywhere from WA to New Mexico and all states in between It's been a fantastic decision to have the tilt deck and the diminutive 14' length: it's extremely easy to load/unload; it's very easy to maneuver; and there have been multiple occasions where because of our short overall length, we've been able to leave it connected in campgrounds for an even simpler experience than ever anticipated

With that said, it hasn't been all puppies and kittens... Due to the short bed length, an issue immediately arose when loading the Donkey:

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What happens is the weight on the nose of the Donkey overtakes the pivot point too soon, and the deck drops before the back tires get there I was able to crawl up and get the Donkey on the trailer the first couple of trips, but that defeated the entire purpose of the tilting deck. So, I rummaged through the scrape pile and found some 3/8" thick diamond plate and carved out a couple of "ramps". I then made a pair of hinges out of some scrape pipe and long 1/2" bolts, and booger welded it all to the tail of the trailer:

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Now when loading longer wheelbase vehicles, I simply flip out these little extensions and the rear tires of the vehicle keep things firmly planted on the ground as it rolls up the tilt deck, just as intended. It works flawlessly and I couldn't be happier with how this mod worked out.

Other quick mods included adding a tongue box:

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Relocating the spare tire from the silly side-saddle mount to the front of the deck:

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Sleeving the safety chains:

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And adding (4) reverse lights for nighttime shennanigans:

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[tobyw]

With the Donkey no longer in the fleet, the little tilt deck trailer was now tasked with hauling around it's replacement; the 2024 JLU-R XR:

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Here is where things went sidewards, literally... The stark contrast in weight distribution between the 4-door Bronco (roughly 60/40 front/rear) and the 4-door JL Wrangler (roughly 49/51 front/rear) platforms left me with a massive deficit in tongue weight. The short deck length meant I couldn't pull the JLU-R XR far enough forward before it ran into the headache rack My first trip towing the JLU-R XR was a white-knuckled affair due to the tail wagging the dog at anything above 50mph My hopes and dreams with the stubby tilt deck were quickly fading

But, since I'm a stubborn pharmer, I wanted to make it work... I devised a simple motion ratio scale to get a baseline measurement of actual tongue weight:

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It's not perfect, but given the basic 4:1 geometry we can clearly see we're only looking at about 400lbs of tongue weight Given the rule of thumb of wanting at least 10% for a conventional trailer, our target is 650lbs minimum (the trailer is roughly 1,750lbs and the JLU-R XR another 4,750lbs). Some quick and dirty experimentation led to pulling the Jeep forward several inches, finally breaching the magical 650lb threshhold:

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What all this tom foolery revealed is that we need an additional ~5-1/2" of forward parking space to get the proper minimum tongue weight for the JLU-R XJ

[tobyw]

Now that we know what we're up against, it's time to make it happen... Step one, remove the offending headache rack:

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With a clean slate, I took several factors into account such as the lid of the toolbox (which only opens to about 45* by design), the swing path of the deck latch, the theoretical location of the tie-down straps as they run from the tongue anchor point up to the tire strap, and the desired minimum centerline location of the front JLU-R XR tire to get the tongue weight we need:

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After a couple of iterations and perhaps and adult beverage or two, I settled on the best location I could pharmer up for the new headache rack cross beam. The factory headache rack was built using 1/8" box tube components, and didn't weigh much in the grand scheme of things. In my quest for as much tongue weight as I could muster, I searched for the heaviest material I could find, and that came in the form of some heavy wall tube:

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I then carved out some simple offset stanchions that provided as much weld area as possible to the trailer frame:

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Then I put some heavy tacks on everything:

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And gave it a test load to see where things landed:

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Yahtzee!!! We are roughly 1/2" further forward than necessary, and given the redesign of the headache rack itself using beefier materials we've added at least 50lbs of additional static tongue weight

It looks perfect on the trailer now, and I also verified the strap configuration doesn't interfere with the new headache rack:

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I pulled the trailer back in the shop, threw booger welds everywhere, and lathered on some fresh enamel paint:

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[Roman]

Nicely done!
I've always been curious about tongue weight. My Big Tex 16' trailer's hitch seems to ride REALLY low. The deck appears to be sloped up to tow rig but I can't readily find a 12" drop hitch. Behind the motorhome I could possibly run farther forward, but not sure if it would translate to less weight on deck.