Powered trailer dolly instead of an RV garage?

azrving wrote:
I looked at those tow dollies for a utility trailer but never bought one. I have used an old John Deere 112 lawn tractor to move a medium sized boat around on my property. It has an old school cast iron kohler engine, rear wheel weights, tire chains and a large stack of plastic covered weights from a home gym system fastened to a rear frame which also holds the ball. It could use front end weights and it would be easy to weld up a frame work and add just about anything as weight. Front weight would be needed as I could see the front end coming up when you put that much tongue weight on it.

It depends on your mechanic and welding abilities and availability of cheap used equipment in your area.

If you are using one of those dollies on dirt and grass it may do better with tire chains.

Forgot about tractors. A ball on a 3pt hitch is near perfect.

You could also just cover it with a Sunshield tarp like we have for years. Check out the Cover Superstors at: https://www.coversuperstore.com/Sunshield-Silver-Black-Poly-Tarps
or do a Google search for silver/black tarps.
No, I don't work for them or gain anything if you buy from them but have used that type of tarp for all of our camper life.

I looked at those tow dollies for a utility trailer but never bought one. I have used an old John Deere 112 lawn tractor to move a medium sized boat around on my property. It has an old school cast iron kohler engine, rear wheel weights, tire chains and a large stack of plastic covered weights from a home gym system fastened to a rear frame which also holds the ball. It could use front end weights and it would be easy to weld up a frame work and add just about anything as weight. Front weight would be needed as I could see the front end coming up when you put that much tongue weight on it.

It depends on your mechanic and welding abilities and availability of cheap used equipment in your area.

If you are using one of those dollies on dirt and grass it may do better with tire chains.

Guess you missed this recent thread in which many with narrow minds mocked the idea of assisted trailer parking. :R Certainly seems like it would be a solution for you though. :B

Another idea is a storage facility. I faced a similar situation because my driveway is between two telephone poles, extremely hard to back in. I keep the trailer equipped with everything except food which I purchase on the road.

Another benefit is people don't know when I'm gone because the trailer is not home. I don't have to pay additional taxes on the property. Covered storage is around $60. a month here, way less then payments to build a new building.

Only you can decide what best suits your needs, just throwing out another idea.

I bought a Park-it 360, 10,000 lb model with the basic "B" option. I have a 28 ft TT. It didn't work well for me. I used it to pull the trailer into it's final position I my back yard. I used my truck's front witch to pull the trailer through a 24 foot gate making a 90 degree turn. I backed the truck through the gate pulling the trailer in to park the trailer's street side along a 60 foot fence that runs east and west. The property line with the gate runs north and south and is 40 ft long including the gate. The south end of the 40-foot fence connect to the East End of the 60 foot fence making a 91 degree angle. I wanted the trailer door to face the back of the house.

When I got the truck backed in as far as I could go I unhitched and moved the truck. Then I usd the dolly to pull the trailer the rest of the way so that the coupler would be about six feet from the east end of the 60 foot fence.

It didn't go very well because I was pulling across grass and then dirt were a shed used to be located. The trailer tires were sinking about an inch deep into the yard where the grass was. This was causing a lot of resistance and even with two batteries and two full 30 pound propane cylinders on the tongue the wheels on the dolly we're free spinning and not pulling very much. I even stood on top of the dolly to give more weight to the wheels and I'm 320 lb and it didn't do any good.

I had to use the trailer tongue jack to lift the dolly off the ground so that could place a 2 x 10 under it. I also had to get the guy that was cutting my grass and two neighbors to push the trailer while I operated and steered with the dolly to finish moving the trailer into position.

These dollies might work fine on concrete, asphalt and hard pack gravel but they definitely do not work at all pulling across grass or loose dirt.

I hope you have better luck and are not having to pull or push the trailer accross grass and dirt.

I purchased my Park-it 360 through saferwholesale.com. They also have several other dollies to choose from, however they are more expensive. Some of these have the wheels farther apart which I think would make it more stable and they also use standard drawbars for hitching. The Park-it 360 is a bit complicated because the tow balls for their dolly has a spot welded on it that has to be lined up inside the coupler when hitching then you have to tighten up the piece that holds the ball tight against the bottom of the coupler to lock it into place. This is so the dolly won't fall over sideways while connected to the coupler. This happened when I used the dolly to move a utility trailer and I didn't tghten the collar against the coupler.

You might try a front mounted hitch or if you've got a jeep or some other small SUV that is more maneuverable, use that. Yeah, you will be over weight but at 5mph it should be OK.