Amberwolf's Flatbed Kennel Trailer Mk2

This is a new trailer based on experiences from the last one:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18671
that is buried with Fred (melted around her in the house fire).


First, I was going to use the wire crate I already had at the apartment, but it is huge. (most of these pics are actually from *after* I widened the trailer, but...)
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It's much wider than the trailer...and realistically, so will be any other crate or kennel I can use for Tiny (even my other one for Hachi/etc had been bigger than the trailer could relaly fit, and rubbed on the wheels sometimes, alwayws with a load in it other than a dog laying down). So I proceeded to modify the trailer itself to be widened at need.


Now, remmeber that widening the trailer means it will no longer fit thru a doorway, or even thru some of the bike paths that have the poles at each end, and definitely won't fit on many sidewalks if I ever had to use them with it (I try never to, but very occasionallly there is no other safe path to get somewhere). So any method I can use that isn't "permanent" is better.



My first thought was to just move the WHEELS outboard further, since their mounts are separate parts of the trailer. I thought I'd just use a side piece of a 10-gallon metal aquarium stand I'd acquired a few weeks back on super cheap clearance (as part of an idea for cargo rack I haven't been able to build yet), But it turns out I'd have to do some serious mods to the mounts and hte "frame', and I don't have the Unibit here at the apartment and it may well have been stolen by looters at the house (they've begun breaking into the sheds now), and I also don't have bolts and nuts long enough to secure it all together, and woul dneed to go buy some. Wanted to try to do this "now" (monday, at the time), so....



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Since that probably wouldn't work out as well as I wanted, I decided to just widen the whole trailer, by cutting the bed in half and bolting extensions inside/outside the tubing. I had stuff right here at the apartment that I knew would do that, so.... Also, I could more easily unbolt one end of each extension, slide the halves back closer together, and thus have a trailer that will still fit thru doors/etc., when not being used as a kennel trailer.



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Some connections were obvious, but a few I had to ponder. Some bits I had were *just* too short but I managed to repurpose at least two parts of that ex-razor foot scooter I'd found in the trash here at the apartments.





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Batery getting low so rest in next post if ther'es time.
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More pics and notes:













But until I got the frame widened I didn't notice the damage to the crate itself that renders i tunusable for this purpose (until I could repair it, which can't happen till I get it to the house, which can't happen until I can get tiny there with me, which can't happen till I repair it.....)

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And since the looters have now stolen the crate and kennel I did have at the house that I was going to use instead, I had to go buy a new one at work:
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Now I just have ot acutally attach it to the trailer.




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Ok, it's finished, and Tiny will evne use it without coercion. She doesn't exactly enjoy th eride itself yet, but she'll tolerate it and still get back in it to go back the other way after we're done at a destination. :lol:

I wound up narrowing it again almost back to original, putting the plywood back on, and bolting the kennel to that, because I forgot to go get longer bolts and big fender washers to bolt the kennel directly to the crossbeams I put across the bottom of the frame, and I didn't have enough crossbeams anyway. I hope to fix that later. But it also means I can at least wheel it thru the doorways, and use it on sidewalks, etc., which I can't do with it widened out.


After repairing CrazyBike2 at the house, I wired up the old Fusin kit taillight as the trailer taillight on the traction pack voltage, and an old motorcycle brake/taillight as the brake light on 12V, just to make sure people could see the brake light. THe trailer is short enough that anyone following can easily see my regular bike's taillight and turn signals and brake light, too, but just in case they'r enot watching them, that's what these are for. I don't have a plug for them yet, I just twist the wires into the harness at the appropriate points, cuz I didn't have time before dark to locate suitable plugs in my remaining piles of stuff.


Anyway, some pics of it with Tiny in it, on and off the bike.

Fixed up the taillight / brake light so now the MC LED unit is boht tail and brake, removed the Fusin taillight thing. Put a (crappy) connector on there to make it quick to hook up to the bike. More details over in the CrazyBike2 thread post from today.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=810122#p810122

Well done and it looks like Tiny is very much at home in there, I like how you make good use of any bit's that you can find to do the job and without any welding, have been meaning to do the same for my dog cause I miss the ride when I take her out in a car

Thanks. What I really want to do is finish this bike:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=43328
(well, STARTING it would be nice, actually) that would let me put the kennel *on* the bike itself, so she could be right there with me. I'd feel more comfortable about that, too, cuz there is always the chance of the trailer coming off (despite my hitch pin and TWO safety links including one steel cable, in addition to it's original clamp).

Even with my overengineered hitches I used on the previous trailers with DayGlo Avenger, it came off when I was taking Hachi up to my workplace on a day off, a long time back. She was unhurt but it was scary I'm sure for her and it was terrifying to me, horrifying would probably be more apt, cuz it could've happened in traffic and she would've been run over and probably killed.

So...while it doesn't bother me much to pull a trailer full of *stuff*, even so heavily overloaded that the trailer is suffering from every little bump and crack, it DOES bother me to pull a trailer with one of hte dogs in it. I still do it cuz there's not much other option to transport them places, but I still would prefer to have them right there with me--and i'm sure they'd rather be that way, too.


That's why I would like to finish the "loooooooongbike" or at least a version of it that would allow me to install a form of crate on it that I could see thru the top of, and have hte dog right there with me in my sight. But I think for practicality I would really have to make it a trike--tilting or leaning, probably, but a trike, cuz I just don't think I could balance it properly with a dog as big as Tiny (or Hachi or Nana) moving around in the cargo section in front of me, especially if they did it in a turn.



That said, this trailer does work for it's purpose. Ypedal has a similar base trailer he uses for Sandy, but I think he is still using the original cloth/plastic covers that come on it for kids to ride in, rather than the way I did it. But Sandy is cool with riding in the trailer like that, and probably wouldn't jump out or anything--I don't know Tiny well enough yet to determine that, but I suspect she probably would run off after something sufficiently interesting, and I am nearly certain that she would run AWAY from something sufficently scary.

Hachi was teh closest to enjoying the rides, of the previous group, though Nana didn't have aproblem with it she couldn't be trusted not to just jump out if I had the crate door open. Even Hachi wouldn't've stayed in it if she could get out, when something interested her enough--when she used to ride in DayGlo Avenger's leftside cargo pod, before she grew up too much to fit in there, I always clipped her down to the bottom of it so she couldn't jump out, because she was irrepressibly interested in EVERYTHING.


So if you make a trailer for your dog, make sure you take into account his or her behaviors, fears, interests, etc.--you can train them to be serenely riding along in it, but those basics of their personality will still take over in the heat of the moment if something happens that brings them up.

I'd also recommend big balloony tires if you can (that's what I had wanted to use but coudlnt' find any for 20" around here, just 24" and 26"), to give a little bit of "suspension" to the trailer, unless you really feel you can put a real suspension on it. Or you already have good roads and paths that aren't like the "bombed out airstrips" we call roads here. :lol:

Trip to the house with Tiny again today, traile rworks well. But I found a hitch ball at Goodwill (since mine is unlocatable in the stuff at the house, presently--see the housefire updates thread for today for that info). Pic also is pic of the handles I found tha twill become cargo strapdown/tiedown points on the trailer and bike.

Further musings are in this post.
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=820114#p820114

Some pics of it in use:

Since I have a second, even bigger, St Bernard now, I'm going to need a bigger trailer. So, since I also wanna have a trailer I can just clamp onto a regular bike for stuff on occasion, I've been keeping an eye out for other trailer stuff I can use.

Yesterday when out with Bill at Goodwill I found another kid's bike trailer, this time wiht 16" wheels (probably crappy ones, but I can fix that if needed). They aren't hollow push-to-release axles, but solid with a pin thru a hole at the inner end to secure them to the trailer for quickrelase/folding up/storage.

This trailer is itself too small for either of the dogs, being even smaller than the one I started with to make Tiny's trailer above, but it can easily become my small-cargo trailer for other purposes, when I don't wanna haul around the big one for just a few things that I know won't fit on the bike itself. That means that I can then safely further modify Tiny's trailer to become heavier-duty and a bit larger, without worrying that I won't have a trailer handy at any particular moment should I need one (haven't all summer, but sometimes things come up).


I thought I took pics, but they're not on the phone. (I've ahd that problem a few times lately and I still don't know if it's a phone problem or just me not operating it correctly and/or misremembering). I'll have to get some later during disassembly for defect-checking.




So, on hte subject of bigger and/or heavier duty:

I've been planning to switch to the automotive ball-hitch for the existing trailer, but hadn't found all the parts in my stuff to do it, all at the same time. I finally ran across the balls again, as I have two 1-7/8" ones to use on the bike (and Delta Tripper, if I resurrect it), but now I can't find the part for the trailer tongue. I bought it the day of the fire last year, intending that week to be doing the mods to the bike and Hachi's trailer to make it work that way, but obviously never getting that far because of what I came home to.

So, I've got more digging around in my stuff to do before I just go buy another stupid tongue, but it will probably come to that. I guess then I'll have one for another trailer if I run across it eventually.


I've dug out the tubing to use for the new front end on the trailer (Y-bar / A-frame and tongue support), and the ball-mount on the bike itself, so that is ready to be built as soon as I get the tongue, or find mine.

The ball mount for the bike will just bolt on between the cargo pods, at axle-height behind the rear wheel, in place of the existing clamp-on-tube that's there for the bike-frame-clamp style hitch the trailer presently has (which really isn't meant to handle the weight/etc. of the stuff I do with it, and I'm surprised it's never failed).

I may have to experiment with the placement/etc of the actual pivot point, but I can hope that my first try will just work.



I have not yet quite decided to use powerchair brushed geared motors and wheels to help push the trailer yet, but I've considered it a few times, cuz they can much more easily handle the weight than the wheels these things came with. I haven't broken a wheel yet on there, but I fully expect it will happen at the worst time when loaded up with one of the dogs in there. AFAICR the gearboxes have clutches in them to disengage the gears from the motor, so at least it will mostly freewheel when I don't need to use them. The only big catch with using them is that each motor/gearbox/wheel is probably 20lbs or so, and I would need to use two. :/

I decided to just make a whole new trailer from "scratch", so it'll be a new thread here:
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=63781

I'll still use this one on a regular bike, if I ever need to ride one, so I don't have ot deal with baskets/pods/etc on it.