On Apr 6, 4:51*pm, wrote:
On Apr 6, 5:55 pm, wrote:





The trailer for the Cherokee has always been so-so. *Its an old
Gehrlein (sp?) that was probably purchased new when the glider was
built in 1965. *Its the EXACT same type of trailer that Glub
Djerjinksi used for his Open Cirrus in the Sunship Games. *its heavy,
really long, and pretty old. *I had the door hinge rebuilt a couple
years ago which caused a smoldering fire in the plywood floorboards.
they werent burnt completely but the inside of them is gone. *then the
hitch got jackknifed by someone somehow. *The hitch has always been
kind of bogus anyway. *a few broken welds and some cracks have never
given me a lot of faith in it.

I loaned it to my college flying club this last weekend to transport
some tables and chairs for their fly in. *the hitch had a catastrophic
failure, but held together long enough for them to limp to the
airport. *No worries, they didnt destroy my trailer, the glider wasn't
in the trailer when the failure occured, and now I am forced to
address an issue that i had putting off for too long, definitely a
good thing.

So now the question is what to do? *Ive got some money coming in my
tax return and will have a small budget, 1000-1500ish to spend on
getting my car and trailer ready to go for the XC season. *Im sorta
hesitant to dump a lot of money into this old trailer, considering
that the rest of the frame is fairly well rusted. *I have pretty real
concerns that if I start to fix one thing it will lead to another and
pretty soon I will have essentially done a complete rebuild.

My car is a 1999 Oldsmobile Alero with the V6. *Not the worlds best
tow vehicle but it has lugged this monster trailer around the state of
Iowa for the last few years with few complaints.

I would love to see if the Cherokee would fit in a Cobra trailer. *I
think it would. *That would be riding in style! *I can imagine a lot
of ways to rebuild or build from scratch a much better trailer.
Current trailer is too narrow so it also has to be too long, as the
fuselage and wings have to be staggered to fit. *tongue weight is not
enough so the thing bounces around a lot during transport. *Id love to
have some time with some fabrication tools to develop really good
mounting in there. *The list goes on and on.

So the question to RAS is: *What are my best options? *Anyone have any
good ideas on how to build a glider trailer for cheap? *I could
probably make a 4 or 5 foot wide and 22 foot long trailer work. *I
understand steel prices are pretty high nowdays. *Is anyone building
their own trailers anymore or just buying factory built? *Thanks!

Its not that hard to build a trailer - if you are handy and have a
good
workshop you can use. Depending on how nice and how much $
you want to spend... I designed and built from scratch a stressed
skin aluminum tube trailer many decades back for my whale (think
humongous Schreder) - probably more money and time than you
want to spend. A wood trailer is much easier.

In any case - its a lot of time. And again you *really* need a decent
workshop or you'll loose your mind. Don't skimp on the axel - don't
go with small wheels and leaf springs. Get a torsion bar unit, and
think about spring for (gasp) surge brakes.

You'll spend more time making decent fittings than the trailer
structure - plan for it timewise.

Give me a ring at home some evening this week (before Friday;
I'm leaving the country for a couple weeks) if you want some
pointers...

See ya, Dave "YO electric"- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I recently (last summer) built a trailer for a Grob 103A. I used
larger tubes than you would need and the steel costs were about $900,
axles, fenders, floor and other trailer fittings were another $800. I
spent about 100 hours on the trailer without the glider fittings and
have spent another 100 hours designing and making the fittings, still
not quite done. Now I know why a trailer costs so much!

This was an open trailer patterned after the plans offered by:

http://www.oxaero.com/Luebke-Trailer.asp

The plans I bought were not adaquate for a two place ship but the
details and parts houses listed in the plans were worth the cost. I
used a lot of the concepts to design my trailer. The plans actually
are for a closed trailer and I hope to eventually get the siding and
top on.

If I were you I'd look on W&W or some other place and see if there is
an existing trailer that you could get to start the process.

I would also contact Dean Gradwell of Jacksonville Oregon, He has a
great trailer for his Cherokee and I think he built it from scratch.
Check with him though

DG Airparts:

501 Juanita Way, Jacksonville, OR 97530-9825,

Phone: (541) 899-8215

Mike