Scratching up a modern car/race hauler

[LOBBS]

So I've got a Lonestar on the way and I want to build a modern car/race hauler for it. This will be the first tractor trailer I've ever tackled so please bear with me. From looking at pictures I'm thinking that a lowboy drop-deck trailer would give me the best start for the frame and major bits. Is this off-base? I know I'll have to build the enclosed box and liftgate. Which drop deck is the better start; the AMT Lowboy or the Revell Heavy Hauler? What are the lengths of these trailers? I'd rather build a 53 footer but I'd be happy if either of those was a 48 footer. Does extending the frames to 53' require the bits from a second trailer or are the structural pieces from Evergreen a good match for the needed frame sections? I'm not trying to replicate any brand of trailer in particular I just want something that is immediately identifible as a car hauler. I've seen some trailers with spread axles, some with tri-axles and some in the standard configuration so I've got some leeway there. I'd prefer to have an air-ride setup. Do either of those trailers come with the airbags or is that something I'll have to go to the (model) aftermarket for? If I've read right a modern trailer is 53' by 102" by 13'6"? One of the carriers that picks up at work says is has 110" on the inside dimenions of their dry van.

I'm sure I'll have lots more questions as I getting rolling along with this. Thanks in advance for your replies.

Edited May 23, 2011 by LOBBS

[highway]

Kyle, in my opinion, I would start with neither kit you mentioned, the ride height would be too high. You would be surprised how low the racing trailers actually sit and even though this is not the greatest pic, here's how one of my 1/32 scale haulers look.

If you want to use a kit as the base and modify it into a modern trailer, I would start with an AMT hauler that was released (a reissue of the 70s moving vans) in the late 80s/early 90s and modify from there. It would need lengthened and widened for a modern trailer, but would be a much better base to start with. Since it is a 70s era trailer modified for hauler duty, the dimensions of the kit only equal to 40 foot long and 96 inches wide. Most of the modern day trailers you'd find at the track nowadays are 53 footers, and 102 inches wide.

If you use a kit as your base for the frame, Evergreen should be fine, but in reality, the floor makes up part of the frame, as does the base of the walls. Again, it's a little hard to see in this pic, but this is how a bottom of a real trailer looks.

As for airbags, the kits you mentioned do not come with airbag suspension, and neither does the AMT moving van/hauler kits. You would probably be going aftermarket for those.

Finally, you are right on all dimentions for modern trailers, 53 foot long, 102 inches wide, and 13 foot 6 inches tall. The 110 inch markings you mentioned is for the inside height of the van trailer, and it has nothing to do with the outer dimentions. I hope this helps.

[ra7c7er]

I know they are expensive but you could get one of the Italeri trailers and scratch build the insides.

[highway]

I know they are expensive but you could get one of the Italeri trailers and scratch build the insides.

I've never had one of those kits, so that could be a real possibility, but it would need to be "Americanized". Those trailers are based on European lorries (trucks in the Queen's English ), so they are modeled to European specs.

[LOBBS]

Kyle, in my opinion, I would start with neither kit you mentioned, the ride height would be too high. You would be surprised how low the racing trailers actually sit and even though this is not the greatest pic, here's how one of my 1/32 scale haulers look.

If you want to use a kit as the base and modify it into a modern trailer, I would start with an AMT hauler that was released (a reissue of the 70s moving vans) in the late 80s/early 90s and modify from there. It would need lengthened and widened for a modern trailer, but would be a much better base to start with. Since it is a 70s era trailer modified for hauler duty, the dimensions of the kit only equal to 40 foot long and 96 inches wide. Most of the modern day trailers you'd find at the track nowadays are 53 footers, and 102 inches wide.

If you use a kit as your base for the frame, Evergreen should be fine, but in reality, the floor makes up part of the frame, as does the base of the walls. Again, it's a little hard to see in this pic, but this is how a bottom of a real trailer looks.

As for airbags, the kits you mentioned do not come with airbag suspension, and neither does the AMT moving van/hauler kits. You would probably be going aftermarket for those.

Finally, you are right on all dimentions for modern trailers, 53 foot long, 102 inches wide, and 13 foot 6 inches tall. The 110 inch markings you mentioned is for the inside height of the van trailer, and it has nothing to do with the outer dimentions. I hope this helps.

So the rails do not extend the full length of the trailer, only slightly more than where the suspension mounts? The perimeter of the box and the floor are then the main load bearing members of the trailer? I haven't been able to find underneath shots of the car haulers and the frames themselves are obscured by the storage boxes and/or sides of the trailer. Is there any way you could post of pic of the underside of the 1/32nd hauler so that I can get an idea of what the bottom looks like?

[LOBBS]

I know they are expensive but you could get one of the Italeri trailers and scratch build the insides.

I have seen the various versions of the European trailers so that may be a possibility if its easier to "Americanize" them rather than going another route.

[highway]

So the rails do not extend the full length of the trailer, only slightly more than where the suspension mounts? The perimeter of the box and the floor are then the main load bearing members of the trailer? I haven't been able to find underneath shots of the car haulers and the frames themselves are obscured by the storage boxes and/or sides of the trailer. Is there any way you could post of pic of the underside of the 1/32nd hauler so that I can get an idea of what the bottom looks like?

No, the rails like what are on the reefer van in my pic does only two jobs, attaches the suspension frame to the trailer and allows for the suspension tandems to be slid forward or rearward for the adjustment of axle weights. You can't see them in the pic, but all along the rail are holes for pins that come from the suspension to go into, the suspension itself is only held to the trailer by four and sometimes only two pins! The trailers that have fixed axles like a spread axle trailer (even though there are a few with a moveable front axle) or a tandem setup like the 1/32 scale transporter in my pic don't even have those rails, the suspensions are fixed directly to the floor of the trailer. The load bearing parts and frame of the trailer are what is unpainted on the trailer floor in the pic of the silver trailer.

As for pics of the underside of the 1/32 hauler, here you are.

One strange thing I noticed when I was taking these for you, the airbags on this suspension face forward, where most trailers I've ever pulled face towards the rear. I don't know if this is correct or if it is an error on Monogram's part, I've never had the good fortune to ever be underneath a real hauler!

[highway]

I have seen the various versions of the European trailers so that may be a possibility if its easier to "Americanize" them rather than going another route.

I've never had one of the haulers, but I did "Americanize" this Italeri Container trailer, and it was somewhat easy to convert.

The only modifications I had to make to it, other than cutting off the rear European taillights, was to move the front axle rearward to convert the spread axle to a more traditional tandem axle like the container chassis I've seen here. There was almost enough space between the axles to fit another set of tires!

The only other modification I had to make was to move the trailer kingpin forward, American trailers do not have as deep of a kingpin setting as the European counterparts. The tip of the pen in this pic shows where the kingpin was before I moved it.

[old-hermit]

1/25 scale race car transporter.

http://www.modelexpr...MT_6019Tsi.html

[LOBBS]

Thanks Matthew, this is all new ground for me. I greatly appreciate you taking those pictures for me. Counting the ribs on the underside of the trailer it would appear they are somewhere around a 15" or 18" spacing. This is looking more and more like something I'll have to completely scratchbuild. I could knock those ribs out pretty quickly at work on a Bridgeport.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that all the trailers had some kind of "spine" running from the kingpin along the full length and that the rest of the trailer was built off that. This is more like a space frame that I'm used to in the aerospace work that I do.

[QCDOC]

It should be easy to make this out of sheet styrene.

[LOBBS]

It should be easy to make this out of sheet styrene.

Yep, once I get the frame of the trailer worked out it should be fairly simple to get the rest to come together.

[Dave Ambrose]

AMT sold an Ernie Irvan hauler that sound like just what you need. I saw several at the Lower Left Coast NNL, so they have to be reasonably available. I have one that I swear I'm going to build some day.

Cheers,

Dave Ambrose

[Foxer]

Thanks Matthew, this is all new ground for me. I greatly appreciate you taking those pictures for me. Counting the ribs on the underside of the trailer it would appear they are somewhere around a 15" or 18" spacing. This is looking more and more like something I'll have to completely scratchbuild. I could knock those ribs out pretty quickly at work on a Bridgeport.

For some reason, I had it in my mind that all the trailers had some kind of "spine" running from the kingpin along the full length and that the rest of the trailer was built off that. This is more like a space frame that I'm used to in the aerospace work that I do.

I've never seen the frame of a trailer before so this is interesting. This is a simple beam and girder frame as a space frame is 3 dimensional, not planar. The sides HAVE to be girders to pickup all the loads coming from the cross beams, or purlins. This arrangement does make sense to keep depth to a minimum, allow a uniform floor load design and spread the loads uniformly.

[scale trucker]

any of the italeri motorcycle race team trailers would be the best..the ducati coursa is a great trailer and looks just like a featherlight ..also the sinalco show truck has a better trailer..ai have both any questions just pm me.

[highway]

Thanks Matthew, this is all new ground for me. I greatly appreciate you taking those pictures for me.

Not a problem at all, Kyle!

[Ben]

Hey Matt, I'm about 99% sure that those airbags should be in the rear. The arms are called "trailing arms" because they "trail behind". I have have worked on hundreds of different air ride setups and I've never seen them mounted that way. I'm sure Monogram messed up when they drew up the instructions.

[LOBBS]

I've never seen the frame of a trailer before so this is interesting. This is a simple beam and girder frame as a space frame is 3 dimensional, not planar. The sides HAVE to be girders to pickup all the loads coming from the cross beams, or purlins. This arrangement does make sense to keep depth to a minimum, allow a uniform floor load design and spread the loads uniformly.

I've never seen a "naked" picture of these trailers. I've only seen them as a finished product that has been fully skinned. In the Featherlites (and I'm sure some of the other brands), the upper deck is where the cars are stored while the lower deck is workspace with cabinetry and benches for the teams. The walls of the trailer become the supporting members for the upper deck and I'm very curious as to how they are buttressed without impeding greatly into working space of the lower deck.

[LOBBS]

any of the italeri motorcycle race team trailers would be the best..the ducati coursa is a great trailer and looks just like a featherlight ..also the sinalco show truck has a better trailer..ai have both any questions just pm me.

I've seen the Italeri race trailers and some similiar trailers (race and show) from Revell of Germany. Are these perhaps the same tooling or are they completely different animals?

[highway]

Hey Matt, I'm about 99% sure that those airbags should be in the rear. The arms are called "trailing arms" because they "trail behind". I have have worked on hundreds of different air ride setups and I've never seen them mounted that way. I'm sure Monogram messed up when they drew up the instructions.

That's what I figured to Ben, and it wasn't only the instructions Monogram messed up, but the mounts themselves too!

[highway]

I've never seen a "naked" picture of these trailers. I've only seen them as a finished product that has been fully skinned. In the Featherlites (and I'm sure some of the other brands), the upper deck is where the cars are stored while the lower deck is workspace with cabinetry and benches for the teams. The walls of the trailer become the supporting members for the upper deck and I'm very curious as to how they are buttressed without impeding greatly into working space of the lower deck.

Sorry for not being on in a few days Kyle, I've not been getting along very well with my new blood pressure medicine and have been down almost all week!

Anyway, back to the pics to help you out, this is very much like the 1:1 haulers like when you see the whining babies storming into the hauler after a bad race, someone with the numbers 1 and 8 in their car number comes to mind!!

And if you didn't guess, this is the 1/32 scale again.

As for the buttressing, I guess you mean support for the upper deck, there is none. The side cabinets also contain the surface for the cars, there is no other floor. If you need another pic without the cars, let me know.

Also, if you get the Speed Channel, try to watch the "American Trucker" episode called "Cup to Go". It follows Roush Racing on the road from Pheonix to Las Vegas and shows some nice inside scenes in the hauler!

[highway]

Well, let it be said I am not afraid to admit I was wrong, and man,

WAS I WRONG!!!!

I must not have even paid much attention to the show I told you to watch, because further research has turned up that the floor of the upper deck is SOLID!!

Here is one I found of a view of the top floor.

Here is one I happened to find looking under NASCAR haulers for sale, with much better interior shots.

The "office"!

Here's a couple other interior pics I found that might help out.

And one with a decent shot of the ramp.

[LOBBS]

Awesome pics Matthew. I've got a few links to post from Youtube that Featherlite posted once I get back to my computer. It's a two part walk-through one of their racing truck haulers.

I got my Lonestar today and have been ogling it all night at work.

[LOBBS]

Awesome pics Matthew. I've got a few links to post from Youtube that Featherlite posted once I get back to my computer. It's a two part walk-through one of their racing truck haulers.

I got my Lonestar today and have been ogling it all night at work.

The links as promised:

Take a Tour of a Featherlite Race Car Transporter Pt1

Take a Tour of a Featherlite Race Car Transporter Pt2

[Aaronw]

You might take a look at Galaxies trailers, they make a 38 foot gooseneck that might work for you or at least provide a starting point.

http://www.galaxielimited.com/trailers.htm