Ghetto landing gear

Mitch Hoy

Mitch Hoy

Participating member
Location
Rochester
Among other modifications, I had the idea to weld high-lift jacks to either rear side of my dump trailer for poo man’s loading stabilizers this week. They would be mounted to the box frame and be hidden behind the doors when loading/unloading. I will have to mount some kind of strapping system to be compliant with DOT, so the handle doesn’t fall down during transport.

Anyone tried this? Thoughts? Idea is to stabilize fore/aft to take pressure off aluminum ramps and facilitate driving machine into trailer to load material. I have loaded trailers this way using jack stands without the trailer being hitched to a truck. Conventional jacks wouldn’t have clearance to crank, and hydraulics seem like platinum rims on a rust bucket.

I think I’m pretty cool for thinking of this right now, need some holes poked in my thought process.
 
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You could get a dump roll off...

You could drive your machine into the trailer while it is attached to your bumper.

I don't understand why the Jack's are necessary, but I would like to understand.
 
Dump trailers tip back and forth while loading with ramps, loading the parking pin on the hitched truck and deflexing light trailer ramps. My dump has 4’ sides which is tough to clear with most material and attachments for my mini. Most of the time I stack and push forward but I am tired of worrying about the parking pin on my truck, even with the tires chocked. It would also be nice to neatly stack a smaller load in front of the box and load the mini behind it. Lastly, jacking in back pushes the fulcrum far enough back to load without the unit being hitched, if needed.
 
I watched a guy unload a 50’ man lift we were renting. The truck was on a hill facing down hill, as he got the lift to the back of the trailer it lifted the front of trailer up, raising the rear tires of the truck enough to nullify the truck parking brake. And away he went, I sprinted to catch up and managed to jump into the truck and get it stopped. Pretty exciting for a minute. Jacks like you’re describing would have been perfect in that situation. I have them on my flatbed trailer and find them very useful. On my dump trailer I put a piece of log under it and that helps. But I’m interested to see what you come up with on yours.
 
What i sthe dimension from the ground to the point where you would attach a jack?

My Hi Lift has served me for over thirty years. It makes me really nervous when I use it for anything but a static lift. if the jack is more than half up...I get blocking so it is more secure.
 
Tom Dunlap said:
What i sthe dimension from the ground to the point where you would attach a jack?

My Hi Lift has served me for over thirty years. It makes me really nervous when I use it for anything but a static lift. if the jack is more than half up...I get blocking so it is more secure.
Click to expand...
I have seen high-lifts fail at a large extension, so I get what you are nervous about there. The working extension would be no more than 24”, and the load would be shared between two. Any deflection or deformation would also have to fight the counterbalance of the trailer.
I guess the one thing that worries me is if the rig takes a hard nudge while the jacks are loaded. Of course, it’s hard to say how much travel the rig would have once the stabilizers prevent it from see-sawing. Maybe not much.
 
Mitch Hoy said:
Dump trailers tip back and forth while loading with ramps, loading the parking pin on the hitched truck and deflexing light trailer ramps. My dump has 4’ sides which is tough to clear with most material and attachments for my mini. Most of the time I stack and push forward but I am tired of worrying about the parking pin on my truck, even with the tires chocked. It would also be nice to neatly stack a smaller load in front of the box and load the mini behind it. Lastly, jacking in back pushes the fulcrum far enough back to load without the unit being hitched, if needed.
Click to expand...

I'm kind of experiencing some of these issues, have dealt with some, and have bumbled into new issues.

I snagged a dump rolloff trailer. 16 yard bin. My ditch witch pin is just over 80 inches high. With the bmg I can just clear it while it is rolled off. With whole trees, I load large logs in the front by cutting to 6' then poking the first in with the second for 12' total (bin length). Then 12' brush gets loaded on top, from the back. I have double doors, so I close the lower 2' when the branch butts get to the back. Then awkward short chunks over the side on top of the brush. Then, medium sized 12' branch/trunks get loaded from back. Then I close the top 4' doors and roll on.

Sometimes I tilt the bed and run the dw into the bin when it is not rolled off.

I never feel like I need jacks. I just leave it on the ball.

I'm shopping for a flatbed f350 so I can side load my dw.

When I dump, my rear wheels go up and I get stuck spinning since my e350 is 2wd. I have various solutions that vary in success... shopping for 4wd...
 
I’m currently exploring the dually flatbed idea. I have a friend up in Chanhassen who has a very similar setup to mine, and he found a stake bed dump 350, pretty sure it has a 7.3 in it too, low miles. I get a little jealous thinking about all the combinations you could run with that, while the rig remained under cdl.
I haven’t run into a roll-off trailer before, sounds cool. I have worked with companies that run roll-off trucks and I dig it.
The 14yd trailer has been a solid and economical way to transport. Right now I’m trying to find ways to improve it within my model without having to scale up.
 
I have 2" square tube welded to my frame. Road signs often have posts of square tube, with holes dotted along all four sides. A hole in the tube-on-frame holds the adjusting pin that locks the sign-post legs. Square feet welded on to the bottom of the feet. I leave 2 finger gap for loading, sometimes with some gravel under the foot, in case I need to build up a bit under the foot, and be able to knock out gravel from beneath the legs, once the trailer is squatting from load, if I'm adding more that the mini. Easy to adjust. Lightweight and cheap.

Jacks would be nice, but much more expensive. You can cut rounds to fit beneath. A 6x6 post with some squares of plywood to fine-tune would work. My one shorter trailer just has the rear, center of the frame supported on a block during loading/ unloading.
 
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