Size of your trailer

[BigClay]

I looking at purchasing a trailer to haul my ZJ around on. What size trailers do you guys have? What is the "ideal" size trailer for a ZJ. I need a pretty light one because I will be towing with a Chevy Tahoe with a 350 in it.

[CrawlerReady]

I think 16' would be the shortest you can go. Dual 3500# axles is the minimum you can go. Brakes on at least 1 axle preferred.

I just sold my 16'x7' 7000# trailer because I don't think it would handle the weight of the ZJ well enough. I feel that I'd be bending the axles ever couple trips. The trailer itself weighed in at 1600#, which left 5400# load capacity. My ZJ before this past project weighed in at 5340#, just to give you an idea. My guess is I'm pushing 5800# now.

Ideally you want 10%-15% spare capacity on the axles and tires. I'd recommend a load range "D" tire, my old trailer had "C" and they wore horrible.

So I guess what I'm getting at is, IMO, at 10000#, 16'x7', dual axle brakes is ideal for a ZJ.

FWIW my new trailer is an 18'x7' 10000#, dual axle brakes and weighs in at 2200#. edit: Oh and I paid $2400 for it with the spare....which for a brand new trailer, is a good deal these days.

[zjeepin]

my trailer is has an 18ft deck on it and is roughly 72 inches between the fenders... ideally you want to be able to drive between your fenders but i have to drive over mine... i got a screamin deal on the trailer so its worth it to deal with the width issue..

most car trailers are 16ft long decks and 80" or so wide.. you can get aluminum trailers that are effin sweet but they are expensive too. just do your homework and shop for a long time before you buy, there are normally deals to be had on trailers if you are patient

[ATL ZJ]

I paid $900 for mine about 4-5 years ago. It has an aluminum deck that you can hear rattle from a mile away and the axles are bent so it eats a tire or two every few thousand miles.

But it does have brakes on both axles and a nice 2- 5/16" coupler... and a hand winch, which is great for cinching down the suspension to get rid of the small amount of body roll my rig has.

The deck on mine is about 78" wide I think and I had to widen it in the front to be around 85". My rear tires hang off a few inches on each side and I have to drive over the tires (no fenders) when loading/unloading. One of the brake lights works all the time and the other one works intermittently. Want to buy a trailer?

[CrawlerReady]

^ HA nice. Yeah my deck width is 83" (although it's advertised as 7'). My ass end is 81.5" wide and the front will be about 86" wide. I'll have to strengthen the driver side fender so I can drive over it.

[SirFuego]

I would say 18' is ideal because it gives you the best flexibility, but you can get away with a 16'. I've towed with an 18' trailer before and I didn't notice much difference in terms of maneuverability.

That said, I have a 16' trailer -- which is a pefect size now for my bobbed ZJ. However, when it was full-bodied, the tailgate was really close to the back of the trailer when the tongue weight was perfect. This meant that tying it down by the bumper wasn't an option because the tie downs were almost vertical, which doesn't stop the rig from moving front and back.

As a result, I started to tie the rig down by the axles and am much happier. The rig doesn't go anywhere (even slamming on the brakes) and the suspension of the ZJ sucks up the bumps on the trailer and gives a smoother ride. With onramps, I do notice the sway of the ZJ, but I don't tow like a crazy man, so it's manageable. I have had to make emergency maneuvers without any problems resulting from the sway of the Jeep.

[CrawlerReady]

I use 4 straps for my ZJ. 1 for the front axle to keep it from rolling backwards when accelerating, 1 for the rear axle to keep it from rolling forward when braking, 1 on the front bumper to suck down the front suspension, and 1 on the rear bumper to suck down the rear suspension.

I personally don't think it's very safe to not strap the body down due to body roll. Even if you feel the ZJ has a stiff suspension and can handle it's own, in that split second that you have to swerve out of the way of an oncoming vehicle that the driver has fallen asleep at the wheel or (insert any other scenario that requires you to swerve), the body roll of the ZJ will be enough to take control of the trailer, most likely causing you to lose control of your vehicle. Just my .02 though.

[BigClay]

Cool. Looks like 18' is going to be perfect, but 16' will do.

Trailer braking system is next on the list. What do you guys run, proportional or time delayed?

On the Tahoe, I have a stock tranny cooler, I have upgraded the front rotors to slotted and dimpled, and new EBC yellow pads. The rear is factory drums. I know this is not the ideal setup, but it is the best I have right now. Any other upgrades to consider?

[ATL ZJ]

What is proportional and what is time delayed? I just run a prodigy controller and plug the trailer in...

You should probably look into a weight distributing hitch if you haven't already.

[paulkeith]

i think proportional applies a braking force to the trailer proportional to the decel of the tow rig, and time-delayed units apply the pre-set force a certain time after the pedal is depressed? a tekonsha prodigy is a proportional controller.

[Zombie]

You should probably look into a weight distributing hitch if you haven't already.

This..

I towed a 7000 pound house trailer a few times with my 96 Yukon I had before my 5.9. I wouldn't EVERY want to do that without a good weight distributing hitch, and possibly a set of bags. My yukon didn't have bags, but I'm spoiled now from towing with a cummins dodge that has them.

I'd say its a combination of weight and wheelbase, but that Yukon was kind of squirelly... Look into an equalizer.

[LouisianaZJ]

I have an 18 ft deck lowboy dovetail trailer (16ft+ 2 ft dove), w/ 82" betwen fenders... 102" ouside fenders so it is at max permitted width

Want to add brakes to the second axle....

[rstrucks]

Mines an 18 ft (16 + 2) as well. It is at or near the weight limit with the two 3500lb axles. My ZJ is too fat! You could definitely get by with a 16 footer though.

[LouisianaZJ]

obligatory poser pic

[cLAYH]

I've got 3 trialers I use depending on what I'm doing.

The first trailer I bought has a super long tongue and a 12ft deck. It was designed to pull a bobcat behind a dump truck and still let the truck be able to dump by jack knifing the trailer. ZJ just fits on there with the front bumper hanging way over the tongue.

Next trailer is an 18ft H&H tilt deck. Fits the Jeep nicely and I can even have my quad on the deck behind the ZJ. I've even had my 1ton, diesel, dually crew cab long box on it for an emergency recovery. It has a warn 4500# winch on it for sucking dead things up onto it. Its a great all round general purpose trailer for vehicle hauling. Wish it had heavier axles though. I did upgrade to D range tires, the "c"s were crap.

Now I have the redneck toy hauler, 30ft GN with a 16ft GN mounted on the front half leaving 14 feet of deck for the ZJ(rear bumper hangs off the back).

I always tie down with chain/boomers by the axles and have never been bothered by body roll.

So if you want to ONLY tow the ZJ with the smallest/lightest possible trailer go 14ft. If you want a bit of extra room for a storage box or other gear go 16ft. 7000# axles are fine but upgrade to D range tires for better durability.

[Tommy]

Here is the trailer I built. Overkill yes, large enough for just about any rig.

20' long and 102.75" wide.



Winch is a good thing to have and the next mod for this trailer, although I have used the winch on the jeep with a snatch block for recovery before. I also store two sets of ramps, one long, one short, a full spare, and a shit load of tools/parts/fireworks in the box.

[SB406]

I always tie down with chain/boomers by the axles and have never been bothered by body roll.

So if you want to ONLY tow the ZJ with the smallest/lightest possible trailer go 14ft. If you want a bit of extra room for a storage box or other gear go 16ft. 7000# axles are fine but upgrade to D range tires for better durability.

I agree with this.
If you want to go lightweight, a 14 ft open center deck will work perfect. This is how we used to drag the race car around.

I currently have an 18 ft full diamond plate deck trailer that I built. Tandem 6000# axles with brakes on both, load range F tires. It weighs 2450#. I do a lot more than haul my 4x4 around with it. I designed it to have drop in sides for hauling scrap, firewood, or whatever you want. The ramps are attached on the back to help with the ol "ramp kick out scenerio" and the ass is dovetailed to help ground clearance on low cars. Fenders are made to drive over/ have cars dropped on them at the scrap yard. M8000 on the front is a life saver.
If you only have 1 need for your trailer, shop accordingly. I have many needs, so I have a bigger unit. There have been a few times when the tow rig has been unhooked from the trailer, put on the trailer, and towed home by something else.

[SirFuego]

So if you want to ONLY tow the ZJ with the smallest/lightest possible trailer go 14ft. If you want a bit of extra room for a storage box or other gear go 16ft. 7000# axles are fine but upgrade to D range tires for better durability.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this as I would recommend a 16' trailer as the minimum for a full-bodied ZJ. You probably could fit a ZJ on a 14' trailer, but I'm not sure how close you could get the tongue weight to "ideal" (or even "safe" for that matter) without having part of the Jeep overhang the front or back of the trailer. Having an "ideal" tongue weight is key for longer trips and is not something I would want to give up just to save a few pounds. Maybe it's because I tow with a 1/2 ton, but I know when my tongue weight is off and if it's off by too much, I can feel the trailer pushing my truck around -- which it doesn't do when the tongue weight is dialed in.

I would be very curious to see pics of ZJs on a 14' trailer and how it handled on the road to see if I am off base with my thinking here.

[SB406]

The ass of the ZJ doesn't need to be over the deck. Just the tires. The deck between the back tires of the ZJ and the trailer tail lights is wasted space if you don't have flip up ramps. Go to the local circle track. Every car coming in is hanging off the ass of the trailer. Same goes for almost every U-Haul you see going down the highway.

ZJ's aren't that big. When you put a 79 4 door Lincoln Continental on a 16 ft trailer with flip up ramps, you have trouble.

[cLAYH]

SB406 is right, you can have the front/back end hanging over or behind the rear of the deck to get it centered where you like it. As I said my first trailer had a 12ft deck with rear flip up ramps and I had no problem balancing the ZJ on it, just hung the front over the tongue which was no problem on that trailer as it had a REALLY long tongue.

Track length on a ZJ is actually less than 10ft. So theoretically it could sit on a 10ft deck but it would be pretty tough to tie down and get decent angles on the chains. 14 ft would give LOTS of room for balancing and chaining. I often haul my ZJ on my 18ft with my quad on the back sitting sideways.

Here is a pic of my current setup. It is 14ft from the back of the RV to the end of the deck. This gives you an idea of what a ZJ looks like on a 14ft deck. On a regular trailer the ZJ could be rolled forward to hang over the tongue for more tongue weight.

I could roll the ZJ about another foot forward to reduce the rear overhang but I find where it is there puts less hitch weight on the truck and it rides better.

[cLAYH]

SB406, I know what you mean about having a trailer to do it all. Here is my tow rig on the trailer it normally tows.

Thats only an 18ft deck BTW....

[SB406]

Nice.
Every one of my tow rigs has come home from the auction on the trailer it was going to be towing. I usually make a point of getting a picture of the old tow rig pulling the new one home and the new one taking the old to the junk yard. I dropped the ball on this last tow rig change, but here's a pic from a few years ago.

[cLAYH]

I would be very curious to see pics of ZJs on a 14' trailer and how it handled on the road to see if I am off base with my thinking here.

Was looking at some old pics and found some of my old trailer(12ft deck) with my sister's ZJ on it. As you can see its on the trailer backwards because of the flip up ramps. My old XJ used to fit facing forward but the ZJ was just a bit longer and the ramps would hit the rear window. Other trialers I've had didn't like vehicles being loaded backwards but this one didn't seem to care, probably because of the long toungue.

Anyway this shows what a ZJ looks like on a 12ft deck so you can imagine how much more room there would be with a 14ft deck. The truck towing it is a 2001 Dodge 1500.

[BLK97ZJ]

16' ringo

[chadjans]

14 foot is not long enough. And that 12 foot setup is scary. Min size for a ZJ is a 16 foot. And towing with the load with engine in the back does not give you enough tongue weight.