Open Race Car Trailers - Building A Trailer On A Budget

In Part 1 I covered building the basic frame of a budget race car trailer. It was fitted with 6,000-pound mobile-home axles. They are plentiful throughout most of the country, and some are even free if you want to crawl under a mobile home to get them. Our trailer has runners rather than a solid floor, which makes changing oil on your race car easy while it's loaded.

The target was $300 for the basics. I went $6 over budget on the steel, and I was given the mobile-home axles.

This month we'll finish the details and add some nice touches such as a winch. So let's finish it up.

Before rolling down the road, your trailer needs fenders. Arguing with the gorilla in the car behind you about a rock mark in his windshield is seldom any fun. You can buy a pair of fenders for $75 to $100. However, I made mine from a section of leftover purling. My fenders cover behind and over the tires, but not in front. The front is the part of the fender that always seems to bend back into the tire anyway.

Cut the blanks 74 inches long. Notch out 5 1/2 inches by the width of the flange in each side flange. This allows a smooth bend. Center these notches 16 inches from the rear of the blank. After bending, trim a piece of scrap to fit the curve and weld it in place. The Millermatic 185 wirefeed machine welds the thin parts just as it does the thicker ones-easily.

Use a piece of 1 1/2-inch angle to cap off the front. Double this and you have a nice pair of fenders. And the cost is low-a little work and a little time.

One-inch square tubing is used for mounting. This spaces the fender out from the frame properly.

Tire racks vary according to need. On this trailer, the side frames are built from 11-gauge, 1 1/2-inch square tubing. It was going to be made from 1-inch material, but the steel company shipped more 1 1/2-inch and less of the 1-inch. The crossbars are 1-inch square. The larger size for the sides makes it more stable for only a slight increase in cost, and I recommend this configuration.

The height of the side frames is 72 inches off the trailer surface. The front side tube is vertical. The rear downtube is angled back. The width at the top is 18 inches while the spacing at the bottom is 32 inches. Bars across the top provide a base for a deck. A length of purling was added across this area for the seat. This is a good place to watch the races.

The taper of the sides lets you cut side covers from a single sheet of 4x8-foot material. On other projects, I have used Coroplast material for this purpose. This is a plastic that appears not unlike corrugated cardboard when viewed from the edge. It is light, strong, and cheap. You can trim it to shape with a knife. Best of all, a 4x8-foot sheet is less than $10 and can be purchased at plastic-supply and sign-supply shops. Attach it with self-drilling, self-tapping screws. Be sure to use washers. This panel makes a good place to display sponsor names and car numbers.

The crossbars for holding the tires are 28 inches below the top crossbars. This should allow you to put in any size you might need-except some Sprint Car tires-so check your tires for fit. The mounts for the holding rod are welded in to match the tire sizes used. It is best to put a tire in the rack and check for position before welding.