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[w3526602]

Hi,

I have was gifted a 2-bike motor-cycle trailer, (by a forum member) a couple of years ago, which I'm ashamed to say has spent the time since then standing vertically against the wall in my garage, surrounded by junk, and out of reach.

I have now reached the stage where I cannot justify hiring a skip, or even a Hippo-bag, to remove small quantities of excavated "spoil" from my garden.

The plan is to build a small box to sit on the trailer. The question is ... what is it's MGW?

If it is of proprietry manufacture (it might be), it should have a weight plate on the draw-bar ... but as I say, it's out of arm's reach.

It doesn't have brakes, so the MGW is NOT over 750kg.

It is fitted with Mini 10" wheels and tyres, so it's MGW is NOT over 600kg.

Two men can lift it over a hedge, so I'm guessing it's ULW is not more than 200kg ... probably a lot less.

So now I seek advice from somebody who know about such things.

It has a tubular beam axle, and a pair of short leaf springs. Each spring has two leaves. The axle and springs appear to have been purpose built for a trailer. I have seen similar axles and springs listed in a trailer catalogue, possibly INDESPENSION.

It has a pair of short leaf springs, each with two leaves.

And now you know as much as me.

My payload appears to max out at 400kg, or possibly a smidgen more. I can live with that. I assume that I can carry a further 200kg, in "rubble sacks" in the back of the Freelander.

What sort of bikes get carried on these trailers ... (presumably not a pair of Harleys?), so 125s?  250s? Trail/trial bikes? What's a ball-park figure for the weight of such bikes?

All advice/comments welcome.

I'm sure my daughter would like to know too ... she constantly has a Hippo bag being filled, in her front garden ... I wonder if they are "not too heavy enough" to be lifted onto the trailer using a couple of poles "sedan chair" style? (It costs well over £100 to have a Hippo bag removed).

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[Genem]

The advert for branded "Hippo Bags" shows three sizes, the smallest being 90cm x 90cm x 90cm,  or  roughly 0.73m3.  They give an "allowed" weight of 1 Tonne.  Soil being quite heavy, ( SG an average of 2.6)  you will reach that 1 Tonne long before the bag is full, I'd estimate that "rammed", a small Hippo bag of soil could weigh +/- 1.9 Tonnes.

Short answer, No, don't attempt to lift it manually onto a trailer, even with a lot of friends.   

A quick google shows twin bike trailers for hire with a payload of 344Kg. (  https://kenttowingsolutions.co.uk/motorbike-trailer-hire )

340Kg of soil is not a very big heap. ( Think 13 small modern cement bags ).

How about you have some extra deep pockets built into your trousers, with holes in the bottom tied off with a draw-string. Simply shuffle around the local park quietly dribbling a trail of sand and soil behind you ?  You'll remember the film...  This will have the advantage of disposing of the material on the Councils property at no cost to you !   

[Wittsend]

OK

So you wish to take soil and/or rubble to the tip.

When you get your 400Kg to the tip how are you at 80 going to lift and tip
As soon as you put some sort of crane on the trailer you become "trade waste" and you'll probably need a license.

Most tips now have a weekly/monthly "allowance" - it's very merger, one or 2 bucket loads.
And you may have to pay to tip that ! That's in Norfolk - could well be different in your area.
(and councils wonder why people fly tip) 
Builders doing work for you now won't take away the waste - else you pay more.
They get charged a trade rate!
(and councils wonder why people fly tip) 

 
You need to contact your local council and find out how much waste you can tip in one trip.
Ask if there is any help to off-load your waste.
Ask if there is any pensioner discount.
You probably won't like the answers.
(and councils wonder why people fly tip) 

The solution then is to dig a big hole and bury your waste 
(courtesy of Going Straight)

or Gene's approach and fill your trousers !
Every time you walk the dog you could lose a bucket load.
(courtesy of the Shawshank Redemption)


Another approach is to advertise FREE soil or FREE (clean) rubble on Gumtree and on your local community website.
Free to collect.
Worked for me - I was able to get several car loads of brick rubble to build up my drive.


 

[Genem]

...Or, as you are remodelling bits of garden, make a feature of it -  use it as the base for some "raised beds". More accessible from a wheelchair too ?

 

[w3526602]

Hi Both,

Thanks both, for your helpful  (and courteous) replies. I do so miss having a little trailer even a 4ft x3ft (120 x 90)cm that can handle a multitude of  sins.

My father always reckoned that a cubic yard of sand (moisture content unspecified) would weigh a ton (which I think weighs 40lb more than a metric tonne.  I read on the label nailed to the Hippo bag that it has a Load Capacity of 1000kg, and a Factor of Safety of 5

Most of the soil from my side garden has gone now, probably one more scrape to finish ... but ! still want a trailer.

TOOLSTATION sell rubble sacks, which could be used as refuse sacks, but somewhat expensive ... but a lot stronger. They will carry half a hundredweight,(call it 25kg) with room to spare. Too expensive for my purposes, in the quantity I would need, and awkward to handle when full.

My favourite way of moving soil, sand, gravel, etc, is in TOOLSTATIONS YELLOW 3-gallon buckets. Easy to fill, easy to carry, easy to tip (and save the bucket). Easy to wash. Black buckets don't last for ever, but I've never had a yellow bucket fail. Black buckets cost £1.70 while yellow buckets cost £3.12. The buckets are 340mm (14" nominal") over the rim flange. I'm guessing you could squeeze 5 buckets into a 88" Landy, and perhaps 8 into a 109". They can also be "stacked" when full.

But lets assume the buckers are only loaded to the 2.5 gallon mark ... Assuming Allan's Specific Gravity of 2.5, that would mean each bucket would weigh 63 pounds  ... about 28kg ... a 4ft by 3ft trailer could carry 6 buckets totaling 170kg, but lets call it 200kg, to make the sums easier

The tip is about 4 miles away, but lets say half a gallon of diesel per round trip.  Er ... I haven't the faintest idea what diesel costs, I just brim the tank when the needle gets low.

At 200kg per trip. IF diesel cost £10 per gallon (which it doesn't) that would come to £50 per ton/tonne.

It costs £149 to have a 1 ton Hippo bag taken away.

I find filling buckets is much easier that throwing soil into a bag with floppy sides, that gradually gets further away from where I'm digging. It is also easier to discipline one's-self to fill ten buckets per day, rather than shovel frantically until you are knackered.

But each to his own.

602

PS. Did I ever post  the picture of my bruised arm?

[Wittsend]

No .... we are waiting for you to upload some pictures from your camera/computer 

[Genem]

Hi Both,

Thanks both, for your helpful  (and courteous) replies. I do so miss having a little trailer even a 4ft x3ft (120 x 90)cm that can handle a multitude of  sins.

My father always reckoned that a cubic yard of sand (moisture content unspecified) would weigh a ton (which I think weighs 40lb more than a metric tonne.  I read on the label nailed to the Hippo bag that it has a Load Capacity of 1000kg, and a Factor of Safety of 5

Jon, I'm sorry to say your Dad was wrong on that one, unless the sand was VERY loose. The metric weights system was roughly based on a 1 metre cube of water weighing 1000kg, 1 tonne.  Water has a specific gravity of 1, etc.  Sand ( like soil) has an average SG 2.6 times that of water...

I'm doing a bit more archaeological digging tomorrow, pointing trowel in hand....like you we cart the spoil off in buckets.  Neat piles, set well back from the trench, of turf, stones and soil... We are looking for finds to confirm the site is Iron Age, so far all we have is 16th century pottery, but we are only 6in down at the moment... 

[Craig T]

The metric weights system was roughly based on a 1 metre cube of water weighing 1000kg, 1 tonne.  Water has a specific gravity of 1, etc.  Sand ( like soil) has an average SG 2.6 times that of water...

No roughly about it Gene, 1 cubic metre of water is exactly 1000 litres which is exactly 1000Kg or one metric ton. 1 litre of water is 1Kg or 1000 grams.
I was bought up with metric and find it a very simple system. It's pounds, ounces, tonnes, CWT's, stones, etc that confuses me and don't get me started on the Fahrenheit temperature scale. 

I was watching a program last night about a sculpture someone found in their garden and were hoping it was made by a famous artist but they couldn't decide what material it was made off. I said, dunk it in a full bucket of water, catch the water that is displaced, weigh that water to find the volume of the sculpture, weigh the sculpture and I could tell you straight away if it is bronze, steel or aluminium.
They chose to drill a hole in the bottom, catch the shavings and have them analysed only to find it was indeed aluminium.

Craig.

[autorover1]

By the way Imperial is Ton's, one 'n'  not two . I was educated in imperial but had to convert to both in the 70's which was interesting having to work in both as a Cost estimator at Austin Longbridge . Often used the water displacement method to arrive at the volume of some castings / forgings . I was at the last year at College doing imperial HNC, it changed to metric the following year. Failed the Applied heat at ONC & took it again but it was then Metric rather than imperial.  Interestingly I find it very difficult to work in cm as a unit of length ,as the motor industry use virtually exclusively  mm  .

[Robin]

It's interesting working with my lad - I was brought up with imperial measurements - he was brought up with metric, though I suppose I had some influence on him as well.

We both use whatever measurement is easiest to read, and rarely misunderstand each other 

Eg. If something measures exactly 8", that's what we say - not 20.3cm or 203mm, but if it's actually 20cm, that's what we use rather than 7 7/8".

Now if I happen to pick up a tape measure my brother-in-law left when he visited from Germany, I soon swap it as it only has a metric scale!

Is there a word for that - like ambidextrous if you can use both hands for the same tasks (useful for screwdriving in tight spaces!)?

[Gibbo103]

John, pretty certain it’s got 8” wheels rather  than 10” mini ones. It was used to transport a motorcycle combination many years ago. I would suggest that you could safely load 200kg on the trailer.

[Craig T]

I do kind of work in both.
I used to use imperial quite a lot when I was an apprentice machinist as we made some parts from older drawings and some of the older machines still had imperial scales on them although most were converted to digital readouts by then. I still have some imperial micrometres and other measuring tools but I tend to read them then convert into metric rather than try to work in imperial.

I did some work in France last year and used a tape measure over there that was metric only. I had to stop at the local Weldom (DIY) store on the way back to the airport to buy one for myself!

I too don't work in cm, only in mm. In the aerospace industry it's all mm and no one mentions cm

Craig.

[Gibbo103]

Craig, yes you are correct - cm is not an si unit. I only used mm in civil engineering before retirement, but when I first started, I had a job building a road in to Fords plant at Dagenham and the drawings came from USA dimensioned in metric feet - feet, and tenths of feet, not inches! I then built roads on the old Hornchurch aero drone where the dimensions were metric, but divided in to 100ft grid squares.

[w3526602]

Hi,

I'm not going to fight anybody over the weight of a cu. yard of sand, but the Hippo bag in my front garden is (900 x 900 x 900)mm AKA one cubic yard, and it says one 1000kg (FoS = 5), with a warning not to brim it with masonry. The same bags appear to be used to deliver bricks.

Whatever. I was browsing, looking to buy a new INDESPENSION TRAILER MANUAL, and came across this ...

 https://indespension.co.uk/technical-documents ...

It looks like it might be useful, occasionally, but I only gave it a metric glance.

Gibbo, I won't argue about the trailer wheel size, as again, I didn't study them before standing it against the wall in my garage. I'll look after brekky.

I regard 8" wheels as wheel-barrow size, so very low MGW ... I'll check that when my new INDESPENSION catalogue arrives, assuming the latest edition carries that info.

I see that Ivor Williams also do a trailer catalogue... at a price. When I was pondering on a Dinky wheeled, Cortina or MGB engined S2 (to lower the seat height, so that Barbara could board like an "Officer's Lady" (reverse in, sit down, swivel on bum, with knees tight together...) I think I found it was IW who could supply a wide range (down to 12"?) of wheel with Land Rover stud pattern.

Hi Dave,

You are right ... the trailer wheels ARE 8", fitted with 4.00" tyres, obviously road pattern. Even with a torch, I was unable to find the MGW of an individual tyre.

Wheels appear to be zero off-set "trailer wheels", and have studs at 4" PCD, same as a Mini (and several other marques and models from the 1960 - PM me if anybody wants a fairly comprehensive list,  which ranges from Mini at 10", to Morris 1000 at 14", with 12" and 13" in between.

My wheel barrow also has 8" dia. wheels, but with 3.50" tyres, which are marked NOT FOR ROAD USE
It seems that the maximum load for a 4.00 x 13 x 6PR rating tyre is 335kg, for each tyre giving a total of 670kg.

Hmmm! I assume that is "as measured" when hitched to the tow car, as the tow-hitch should take up to 20% of the trailer weight ... maybe?


More anon.

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