mikemikelle;
As some of you may know, my neighbor just purchased the beautiful Tucker 442 that was for sale on Ebay. He is new to snowcats, and I am new to Tucker.
Any advice on the do's and dont's of trailering? Proper tie down techniques? Have heard straps instead of chains, proper location for these? Want to eliminate possible damage caused by clamping things down to tightly, etc?
This machine is a 1966 442 with modernized tracks. Just acquired a nice deck over trailer w/a beaver tail and swing down ramps. Want to mount additional D-rings, strategically placed, to facilitate easy/fast loading and unloading.
Any advice much appreciated
Thanks in advance!
Mike,
You and your neighbor get major kudos for doing it right and asking! Seriously, there are right ways and wrong ways, and the wrong ones risk damage to your machine and potential injury as well. (That looks like an awesome trailer, BTW!)
Glacier Sean summed it up succinctly. You want to attack the straps (or chains if you prefer, the downside of chains being chipped paint) below the springs and the axles are a great location. Put the straps outboard of the springs, and as Sean said, cross the straps in an X pattern.
As reinforcement for this technique, here's a photo of a Tucker demo machine that they haul around for thousands of miles annually on their trailer.
A photo of the front straps with the lashing winches welded to the trailer.
I use 2" Vulcan brand ratchet straps with snap hooks at both ends and 24" axle straps with wear pads that have plated steel rings at both ends. Loop the axle straps over the axles just outboard of the leaf spring perches and connect the snap hook through both rings. Then connect the other end (with the ratchet binder) to the trailer and ratchet away until it's tight. After a few miles of trailering its a good idea to stop and check the security of the load and the strap tension. You'll find the straps may have loosened just a bit, so re-tension the straps with a few clicks of the ratchet binders. That's also a good time to feel the hubs on each wheel to make sure they're not too hot, which would indicate a wheel bearing problem.
The last Tucker I bought had some really clever tie-down points. The plates on top of the leaf springs (that the U-bolts attach to) had been replaced with ones that were beefier and had an extension with a large hole in it for attaching tie downs. A picture would illustrate much better than my words, but I don't have one. (I'll get one and post it to this thread in a few days.)