Setting up trailer - wheel chock and tie down spacing?

lol!!

 

I just got my tailer and had 3 rows of e-track put on the floor and two down each wall. I then installed the STStands and LOVE them. I know it's over kill but I can throw the dirt bikes in and use the e-track. It also allows you to use the trailer for other things. We hauled furnature in it yesterday, very handy.

 

i have used an unmounted baxley sport chock and 4 tie downs and never had a problem. the angle of the tie downs and amount of tension i'm sure make a difference. of course all the other shit in the way keeps the baxley from moving too much also.

 

I'm glad all you other guys have never had your bike fall over.

I'll keep bolting my Sportchock down, and will continue to recommend others do the same.

 

sorry your bike has fallen over. mine has moved around a little but never fallen. bolting down the sport chock is certainly a good idea but i use mine other places than just the trailer so bolting and unbolting it gets to be a pain. if i had a quick way to bolt/unbolt i would fer sure do it.

 

you've got to at least have a pin or something through a hole in the floor to keep it from sliding around....but with the weight of the bike on the baxley (or my groovy design) you don't need to actually bolt it to the floor.

 

i will agree that without a pin of some sort and only two tie downs on the front then yeah it will probably move around with nothing to keep the rear from bouncing a bit. i put the bike in the baxley, tie down the front how i want it then get a good rear tension with two more tie downs. it probably doesnt make much difference if it's tied down tight enough, but leaving the bike in gear couldnt hurt.

 

The trailer mount kit comes with a small plate that mounts to the floor and a wing bolt that goes throught the chock, takes less than a minute to screw it down.

Best guess for me was the bouncing got so severe that the springs compressed enough to pop a strap or two loose, then as the bouncing kept on it flopped over. That road between Atlanta and B'ham used to be bad.

 

We built our own strapless stands in an afternoon with about $75 in materials for 4 stands. Straps suck!!!!!

 

oh really? i wasnt aware they had that available. i need to look into getting a couple of those. :up:

 

the best trick i've seen for this is to add a bungee to your tiedowns. just bungee from eyelet to eyelet (parallel and right along the tiedown). it will keep the tiedown tight all the time and not unhook.

clever.

or just use a strapless design like joe said. i have always felt that is the way to go. i really like transporting my bike on a rear stand....then the straps are more like insurance than anything else. just about immovable.

 

4 straps pulling down and slightly forward as someone said . Make sure you have them all pulling slightly forward because if a front strap breaks and the rear ones are pulling to the side or rear it can pull the bike over or right out of the chock . That's the most common mistake I see is the rear straps pulling the wrong direction .....

 

Good idea on the bungees, thanks.

Axle on the SV isn't hollow.

 

Spooner uses Baxleys w/o bolting them down and only ties down the front in his Pace. I haven't had time to get my trailer all set up yet, so I had a Baxley in my H and H today. The rear of the bike flopped around like crazy. My stands are also mounted exactly the way his are, and two of them came down. Clearly there is a difference in suspension from his trailer to mine, although they both have torsion axels and H and H typically has a pretty good reputation. I guess it could be the way the trailers are loaded too, but I thought mine was pretty well balanced.

 

Yep-we have 4 baxleys and I don't bolt them down. I did use roll on bedliner stuff for the floor so it sticks to them well. Probably did 15k miles towing last year and they never moved an inch... I just cinch down the front and the rears barely move. My trailer seems to ride super smooth. I left my earplugs sitting on the seat and never lost them on a 2 hour drive lol!

 

So am I not the only one?

 

I use Baxleys and bolt them down. They have holes already on them ready for two bolts. I took a piece of steel about 5-6 inches square drilled 5 holes, one small hole on each corner and one large hole in the center. welded a nut to the center and screwed the steel plate under the floor of the trailer with deck screws. I made two for each stand. Now the stands are secure and the bolts come out real easy takes 2 seconds.

 

We use 2 Baxley bolted and only 1 tie-down per bike to secure the rear (I got E-track tie-off extensions since pix. was taken..) in a 6x10, no tie-downs up front.

We made the trip to Miller (1500 mi. roundtrip) and the bikes didn't move an inch.

 

Hey C7Fx did you raise the floor of your trailer to make the E-Track flush? Is there any problem with sagging? Also what did you use to paint inside?

 

Sorry for the late reply..

When I had my 6x12 enclosed trailer, I had the Baxleys bolted down. At the track, it just took a second to unscrew the two bolts in the trailer bolt down kit to take them off. When I got my 7x14 enclosed trailer, I was just too lazy to installed the trailer bolt down kit. The way you see them in the picture, they are not bolted down. Now, I just set the Baxleys down on the carpet, and tie down the bikes. No problems.

One time I had 4 bikes aboard, the front two had the Baxleys plus tie downs, the two bikes in the back just had tied downs..No problems whatsoever.

The Baxley work either way, you can bolt them or just set them down, and I always use tie downs too.