Yard dolly or trailer mover?

3 dog nights wrote:
OK... First you weld some heavy crossbeams in your engine compartment, then you drill thru the hood of the truck and put a second set of rails on the hood. Problem solved!! Just back it in as far as you can, unhitch, turn the truck around, switch your hitch from the bed to the hood, rehitch and push it the rest of the way.... Piece of cake.

Let me know if you need any other problems worked on, I'm full of..... ideas!

LOL! :) I think I'm going to buy an old VW bug and put a 5er hitch on the roof for repositioning the trailer. :)

3 dog nights wrote:
OK... First you weld some heavy crossbeams in your engine compartment, then you drill thru the hood of the truck and put a second set of rails on the hood. Problem solved!! Just back it in as far as you can, unhitch, turn the truck around, switch your hitch from the bed to the hood, rehitch and push it the rest of the way.... Piece of cake.

Let me know if you need any other problems worked on, I'm full of..... ideas!

LMAO!

Lyle

57 Panhead wrote:

pbar34 wrote:

Hi Steve,

For the benefit of the others, let's talk about this for a minute. What type of tragic accident are you envisioning? I realize scary is in the eye of the beholder and I can see some people not wanting to tow a 5ver down the road because of the potential of a tragic accident but let me describe this set up further and try to minimize your fear.

Let's take the most obvious potential accident and that is the 5ver rolling out of control. With flat ground, this set up moves less than 1 MPH. If anything breaks or stops working (which would require two separate failures - the PowerCastor and the 5ver breaks would have to fail together - the 5ver would slowly move in the direction it started. Chalks can easily be placed under the tires to stop the movement. It is that slow on flat ground. On a slight hill, I'd recommend that two additional spotters walk along the 5ver, with chalks in hand, ready to place the chalks, if anything happened. I would not use this set up on any substantial grade. Again, common sense needs to prevail here, like most places in life.

The other potential accident is that somehow the PowerCastor fails to support the kingpin weight. I'm not quite sure how this could occur but let's pretend the large cup welds break and the kingpin support is no longer provided. For this, I keep the landing legs a few inches off the ground, similar to a pull test with your tow vehicle.

The other type of failure that is being alluded to above is that the two struts stress and break the landing gear legs. For this type of failure to occur and cause danger, both landing gear legs would have to break at the same time. Even if both landing gear did break, the unit moves so slowly that you simply stop pressing the "deadman" switch and everything stops moving.

Like I said above, I realize people have different risk and fear levels but I don't see this system as a tragic accident waiting to happen, any more than I see the risk of tragedy from towing the 5ver down the road.

Phil

Well Phil first of all what one person can do and feel safe may be outside the comfort zone for some one else. For me this kind of activity would be way outside my comfort zone. After a life time of working in an industry that has its share of safety risks I always let one thing guide me. That is..... If it doesn't FEEL safe, don't do it.

If you are comfortable moving your 5er with a motorized dolly more power to you.


Steve

I used to get a little bit of the willies when I helped crew our tractor club's near-100 year old Case traction engine, when I thought too much about walking around/working on a pressure vessel at 150 psi that's nearly a century old. I got over it. :-)

Lyle

No.

OK... First you weld some heavy crossbeams in your engine compartment, then you drill thru the hood of the truck and put a second set of rails on the hood. Problem solved!! Just back it in as far as you can, unhitch, turn the truck around, switch your hitch from the bed to the hood, rehitch and push it the rest of the way.... Piece of cake.

Let me know if you need any other problems worked on, I'm full of..... ideas!

pbar34 wrote:

Hi Steve,

For the benefit of the others, let's talk about this for a minute. What type of tragic accident are you envisioning? I realize scary is in the eye of the beholder and I can see some people not wanting to tow a 5ver down the road because of the potential of a tragic accident but let me describe this set up further and try to minimize your fear.

Let's take the most obvious potential accident and that is the 5ver rolling out of control. With flat ground, this set up moves less than 1 MPH. If anything breaks or stops working (which would require two separate failures - the PowerCastor and the 5ver breaks would have to fail together - the 5ver would slowly move in the direction it started. Chalks can easily be placed under the tires to stop the movement. It is that slow on flat ground. On a slight hill, I'd recommend that two additional spotters walk along the 5ver, with chalks in hand, ready to place the chalks, if anything happened. I would not use this set up on any substantial grade. Again, common sense needs to prevail here, like most places in life.

The other potential accident is that somehow the PowerCastor fails to support the kingpin weight. I'm not quite sure how this could occur but let's pretend the large cup welds break and the kingpin support is no longer provided. For this, I keep the landing legs a few inches off the ground, similar to a pull test with your tow vehicle.

The other type of failure that is being alluded to above is that the two struts stress and break the landing gear legs. For this type of failure to occur and cause danger, both landing gear legs would have to break at the same time. Even if both landing gear did break, the unit moves so slowly that you simply stop pressing the "deadman" switch and everything stops moving.

Like I said above, I realize people have different risk and fear levels but I don't see this system as a tragic accident waiting to happen, any more than I see the risk of tragedy from towing the 5ver down the road.

Phil

Well Phil first of all what one person can do and feel safe may be outside the comfort zone for some one else. For me this kind of activity would be way outside my comfort zone. After a life time of working in an industry that has its share of safety risks I always let one thing guide me. That is..... If it doesn't FEEL safe, don't do it.

If you are comfortable moving your 5er with a motorized dolly more power to you.


Steve

I have helped my neighbor with his power caster to move his hot rod car hauler. He just sold the hot rod and wants to sell the power caster but it really is for a TT using the ball hitch. It can work the brakes on the trailer for safety.
chevman

Grady23 wrote:
As a safeguard, rig a pull wire/cord to the breakaway cable. If it starts to get out of control -- Just puland engage the brakes. Just be sure the battery is charged.

Always! The Power Castor also has a switch to engage the brakes but the breakaway cable is always within reach when operating.


Phil

As a safeguard, rig a pull wire/cord to the breakaway cable. If it starts to get out of control -- Just puland engage the brakes. Just be sure the battery is charged.

57 Panhead wrote:
The whole idea of moving a 5er with a small dolly is a tragic accident looking for a place to happen IMHO. Just plain scary to me.

Steve

Hi Steve,

For the benefit of the others, let's talk about this for a minute. What type of tragic accident are you envisioning? I realize scary is in the eye of the beholder and I can see some people not wanting to tow a 5ver down the road because of the potential of a tragic accident but let me describe this set up further and try to minimize your fear.

Let's take the most obvious potential accident and that is the 5ver rolling out of control. With flat ground, this set up moves less than 1 MPH. If anything breaks or stops working (which would require two separate failures - the PowerCastor and the 5ver breaks would have to fail together - the 5ver would slowly move in the direction it started. Chalks can easily be placed under the tires to stop the movement. It is that slow on flat ground. On a slight hill, I'd recommend that two additional spotters walk along the 5ver, with chalks in hand, ready to place the chalks, if anything happened. I would not use this set up on any substantial grade. Again, common sense needs to prevail here, like most places in life.

The other potential accident is that somehow the PowerCastor fails to support the kingpin weight. I'm not quite sure how this could occur but let's pretend the large cup welds break and the kingpin support is no longer provided. For this, I keep the landing legs a few inches off the ground, similar to a pull test with your tow vehicle.

The other type of failure that is being alluded to above is that the two struts stress and break the landing gear legs. For this type of failure to occur and cause danger, both landing gear legs would have to break at the same time. Even if both landing gear did break, the unit moves so slowly that you simply stop pressing the "deadman" switch and everything stops moving.

Like I said above, I realize people have different risk and fear levels but I don't see this system as a tragic accident waiting to happen, any more than I see the risk of tragedy from towing the 5ver down the road.



Phil