A quick wrap-up to this thread. After much thought, I finally decided to go with the advice of using the excavator to turn the trailer around. I bought a bolt-on receiver tube (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KSHXVC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1). By a stroke of luck, the bucket had two holes drilled at just the right separation. Four would have been nicer, but I used some grade 8 hardware and bolted on the receiver tube using the top two holes. This mean that the hitch was sticking out at 90 degrees to the excavator, but by swinging the body and cab, I could make that 45 degrees, and figured that would work.
On tow day, I headed straight down the hill. I was really glad I decided not to reverse down, I think that would have been a long slow process, but straight down was all of two minutes work.
Unhitched from the truck and got that out of the way, then hooked up to the excavator. It took some getting used to just how maneuverable the trailer was like that. After a couple of tries to find the right angle, I got the trailer turning nicely, and at the closest point still had a good 12 inches of clearance - tight, but good enough. Took it nice and slow, and with about half an hour of maneuvering, had the new trailer perfectly positioned!
Thanks all for the advice, the help I got here turned what could have been a long hard day, into a breeze! :)
Cheers,
Chris.
