waddisme

Thinking about putting a tire rack on trailer for track season. I usually have my R80s on car, but I always bring my BFGs in case of rain. I have scoured the forums for used ones, but found nothing. The place that made my trailer is out of business as far as I can tell. Maintenance guy here at work can weld me one if I tell him what I want. Anyone seen one around or have a template/pics of your homemade one? Here is a pic of the trailer:



TIA.

jaa1992

Maybe sperkins will chime in with pictures of his.
I do have one silly question - where do you guys get the steel to make these things???

Bad Karma

Sometimes you can find a good local place, if it's just small sheet metal I buy it at my local hardware store. Bigger stuff you can buy on the internet at places like onlinemetals.com

sperkins

Looks like we have very similar trailers. I built mine low to keep it out of the wind so it wouldn't hurt my already crappy fuel mileage. I can get 7 tires in there and it uses the trailers' front bar as the base. It cost me less than 50 bucks to make and it works great.

Oh and it's bolted on so I can remove it anytime. I thought I was going to have to weld it, but it's extremely sturdy just bolted on.

hemmerman

If you have basic welding skills there's no need to buy one. I used scrap pieces of 1" SQ tubing and 1 1/2" dia. tubing for center bar w/drilled hole in end for the padlock.(Important, people will steal your nice race rubber and wheels at just about any Motel you spend the night) I mounted my rack low so the tires rest on the floor of the trailer. It looks like you have room for that by the picture. If you don't have room and need to have the car under your wheel rack you'll need to go to bigger tubing and a lot more bracing. I had a metal fabucator quote me a price for one around $500. I'll take some pictures of mine and post them. I got most of the design ideas from others I race with. Maybe others will post pictures of their creations. Keep it simple.

waddisme

Looks about perfect for me. Do you have to have tires removed to tie down front of car?

sperkins

Nope. There's plenty of room up front.

Rednels

I see a major problem with Perkins setup....way to many sticker tires on that trailer

All joking aside, I like your setup.

GettReal

Here are a couple pics of my trailer.. excuse the descriptions on them, these are the pics I used when I was going to sell it.

CHJ In Virginia

I had the same problem, my trailer manufacturer did not offer any kind of tire storage rack. I designed my own rack and had a local metal fabricator build it for me and I did the install myself. me. Total cost of materials and labor was $550. Rack is 2X2 mild steel tubing and the mounting feet / tirebar plate was 1/4" mild steel. It is crossbraced to insure maximum ridigity. I also added a couple of high mounted stop lights on the back for greater visibility since my truck lights were largly obscured by the car.

I elevated the rack to allow the nose of the Vette or other car to extend under it. Tool box was on the tongue so that area was not available.

You will have to design some sort of tiedown for the tires as well as theft security. I ran a piece of 1" plumbing pipe side to side and used a lock on each end. The end plates are 1/4" steel with a 1 1/4" hole for the rod. It will keep an honest person from borrowing the tires / wheels, but nothing will really stop a dedicated thief.

The entire rack is attached using 1/2" bolts on 1/4" thick steel plate feet. The whole rig is very sturdy and did not cost a huge amount to fabricate. I can carry 6 tires and the trailer spare with the width I had available.

waddisme

Wow! That is a lot of steel tubing. Might be a bit of overkill for me, but an awesome setup for someone to see in the future.

brkntrxn

Here are the plans to the tire rack we built for my trailer.

waddisme

Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

Z07coupe

A couple suggestions: 1. I used a 1 1/2" or 2" pipe to secure the tires on the rack. Then slipped a pvc pipe over the steel pipe to protect the wheels. 2. On the end of the rack where the pipe runs through a hole or slot, use a vertical slot to accommodate different size tires (such as the sketch demonstrates). 3. The upright corner posts could be extended above the tires like Gettreal shows. While traveling, extention cords or air hoses can hook over the corner extentions and strapped tight to secure. Also you can then cut notches in a piece of 3/4" plywood and set it on top for an elevated seating position at the track. Remember to tack a step or two to assist climbing up to the seat. I screw the plywood onto the wooden bed of the trailer while traveling. 4. I also added both stop lights/turn signal lights high on the rack to be seen better. While traveling in the rain after dark, the lower lights are hard to spot. Also, we mounted a rear facing flood light up high to assist in the dark. Mount an on/off switch next to it. 5. Some sort of cargo boxes across the front will serve as a stone shield. A box could be mounted with the rear of the box mounted on the deck, and the front rail can provide support through the mid portion of the cargo box. The tire rack could then be mounted above the cargo box, so as to not take up much deck space.

Bill Dearborn

If you have a trailer with a 16 ft bed you have to be careful adding a lot of weight at the front. Tires are going to weigh 50 lbs apiece, the rack is going to weigh 20 to 30 lbs and a tool box?? Who knows?? A 16 ft bed doesn't give you much room to move the car back to offset the weight in the front and end up with a reasonable and safe tongue weight. You need at least 7% of the loaded trailer weight on the tongue to keep the trailer from wandering but you don't want to have so much tongue weight you overload the back of your tow vehicle and make the front end lift. An 18 ft trailer probably would work well with the suggested arrangement.

Bill

waddisme

It is an 18ft trailer. Going to use the square tubing for frame, and bolt to trailer like CHJ attached his. Then just use angle iron to finish out rest following Kevin's drawing. Decided if I am going this far, might as well build one where I could get car under it if I need to. May try to move tongue jack forward to get a tongue box for winch, straps, chocks etc.. One less tub to carry around then. I will post some pics when done.

Falcon

There's a big benefit to having the tires at deck level like Scott's. Those tires are heavy and loading and unloading them will wear your back out. At deck level, you just roll them on, roll them off.

brkntrxn

Johnny,

If you want the original Visio drawing or a full size .jpg of the drawing, send me an email.


-Kevin

DansBlkonBlkZ06

Kevin,
Send me one too. I thought I'd never say this to you, but nice rack!

Z07coupe

I agree with Bill Dearborn and Falcon. It's tough on an old man to load those tires.