Tilt bed trailers?

[Nac]

:dizzy Tilt bed trailers how are they? i have never seen one around here. How do they work? I am planing on geting a 20 ton tag a long for my JD 160clc soon was looking at an Eager Beaver with only a 8 degree loading angle also noticed they have 20 ton tilt backs. Any info woulod be appricated.

 

[woberlin]

I just recently got a 12 ton older dynaweld tilt trailer to use for my excavator. I hate loading it on my beavertail as it fills it from edge to edge and when you reach the balance point going to the flat portion one slip or jerk and your in trouble. On the tilt bed you don't have that problem. Getting used to it tilting up and down takes some time, but it's not near as scary as the teetering back and forth on the beavertail. Plus if your near an incline you can often load or unload without using the full tilt. Mine has a 4" angle around the perimeter that would make it hard to slide off. I've seen some 20 ton tilts around here and they are nice looking trailers. When I purchase a full size excavator, they are the only tags I would ever even consider loading it on. I have yet to see a used 20 ton or greater for sale and for half the cost of a new one I can get a decent tractor and lowboy, but thats down the road!

 

[woberlin]

Take a look at "the icy equipment trailers" thread, there is a picture of one in the process of being loaded with a mini-ex. Usually your body weight will tilt an empty trailer down-then you drive up on it, and when it reaches the balance point it starts to drop down slowly as the cylinders bleed off. Unloading is just the reverse, back-up till your just past the balance point, wait till it tilts to the ground, and then drive off. Not having to use ramps is nice too.

 

[Nac]

Tilt trailer

So as you are loading the machine it hit the balance point and starts to lower and it is cushioned not just slams down. The other day I was loading my 160 on my friends 35 ton lowboy the rear tires came off the grond about 6".

 

[woberlin]

Yes, they are cushioned by the hydraulic cylinder, or cylinders. The cylinder piston has orifices in it that control the amount of fluid that can pass through it, thus controlling the rate of descent. They do not require a wet line, or power source, they are self contained, much like the cynder that keeps your screen door from slamming shut.

 

[littledenny]

The only tilt bed I ever loaded onto was one without the cushion - was scary, but that was some thirty years ago, and I was young and dumb back then. These days, think a titlbed would be the trick. I've got a Texas Rollback trailer, where the dolly slides forward and drops the tail end of the trailer to the ground, gives a 5 degree ramp. Great for classic and sports cars, but not heavy enough for the baby backhoe I want to buy, so i'll be for sale soon. Not taken with beaver tails - even those with braces under the ramps. Was backing a JD 310 SE backhoe off one last year, hoe weighted down the tail end, lightened the frontend enough to cause the dumptruck to slide downhill. Was pretty thrilling for about thirty feet until the truck jackknifed into the bank. Got over that in a hurry.

I'll take a new tiltbed, thankyou!!

 

[kamerad47]

I pull a 200 komatsu with a 25 ton towmaster tag along & never had any problems! You don't want a tilt trailer for big equipment because of the higher tailer height! Look at towmaster they have a double break beaver tail!!!

 

[woberlin]

Tilt trailers generally have the same deck height as beaver tail tags. On 20 ton and above the deck heights were from 34" to 36" unloaded from the manufacturers that I checked on, Econoline, Eagerbeaver, and Trailboss! Not that one type is any better to any given person than the other. It just comes down to what you prefer, and what you can afford.

 

[digger242j]

A tilt trailer (particularly a muddy or icy one) is a distinct disadvantage when you're moving a rubber tired backhoe. What woberlin said, "I hate loading it on my beavertail as it fills it from edge to edge and when you reach the balance point going to the flat portion one slip or jerk and your in trouble", is pretty much the opposite for a rubber tired machine. That balace point on a beavertail means that you've reached the top of the hill, so to speak, and where the deck flattens out under the front of the machine the going gets easier. On a tilt deck you never reach the top of the hill--you just keep climbing, and hopefully clinging to, the same slippery slope, untill the deck decides to tilt back down to level. Since most hoes are tail heavy to begin with it there's very little weight on the front tires--you effectively have no steering authority throughout the entire process.

The only tilt bed I ever loaded onto was one without the cushion - was scary, but that was some thirty years ago, and I was young and dumb back then.

I was young, and argueably dumber, at one time myself. I loaded a hoe with no brakes on a tilt trailer with no cushioning. It was slippery, and I sorta took a run at it. She kinda took a bounce, and when I found myself 3/4 of the way onto the trailer, but with my front tires two feet above the deck--well I concluded that since the front tires weren't touching the deck, it wasn't going to tilt back down any time soon, and waiting around to see whether the tires would land on the deck or somewhere off to one side seemed like a waste of time, so I just threw her in reverse and went back down. The landing must've been quite a spectacle. One old carpenter was just coming out of the porta-john. He stepped back inside for a second, and then walked over and, without saying a word, handed me a big handful of toilet paper....

 

[littledenny]

Digger:

Your points are well taken. The incident years ago was loading a Case 850 loader. I was real inexperienced back then, and had an uneasy feeling with the balance point equation, mainly because that loader had no brakes to speak of, and the drop was uncushioned. I was more worried about going over the front than anything else. I've since learned the equation of deck surface, muddy tires, front to rear and side slopes, rubrails, and the like.

In the more recent episode with the flat deck and beavertail, I was backing off. Truck was pointed a bit downhill, but more or less level. That JD 310SE, with the extendable hoe, 36 inch bucket and a thumb was really tail heavy. As I got to the ramps, the weight shift was sufficient to unload the tongue of the trailer, thus lightening the back of the dumptruck, which resulted in the truck sliding down the gravel road a bit. I had no where to go, so I hit the brakes and rode the slide out, some thirty feet before the truck noised into the bank. All I could do was watch the truck driver, who normally sits and rides the truck brakes in situations like this, sprint to his seat. He never made it. The other guy said I had a pretty comical look on my face during all this, but it took me a while before I saw the humor in all this. Lessons learned here - CHOCKBLOCKS!

All in all, think I'd still prefer the tiltbed, as I never seem to find a good loading site where the height of the braces on the ramps of a flat or beavertail trailer meet the ground as they should. All my jobs seem to be at the side of a gravel road, never in a flat lot. Guess life's always a compromise.

 

[kamerad47]

there is one more drawback to a tilt bed trailer is multiple machine loading!!!

 

[Landman]

NAC you need to look into the trailer we have it is an eager beaver 20 ton I think it is a model 20halx or something like that it has a 20 foot level deck, 6' beaver tail and 6' ramps with a 8 degree slope, it is real nice loading the excavator on it the machine fits good and the tip of the boom only hangs over the rear of the traile by 3' the key is loading the machine on the trailer the right way, we first used to load the machine all the way to the front of the trailer but it was tounge heavy so now we keep it about 3' away from the head board of the trailer and it rides perfect even at 55 mph.