Hello Dolly

Maybe those dollys haven't reached the Left Coast as yet, you blokes were always a bit slow with new technology
Seriously I do think a special licence is needed to tow a caravan. You can go for your licence in a car, then legally hook up a 45' three tonne caravan behind it and get out on the highway.

Having spent many years living and travelling up and down the East coast in the 70's and early 80's in vans, we came across a lot of these dollies. The main reason they were used, as told to us, appeared to stem from insurance requirements at the time. If you bought a big van, 30-35ft, which back then were of lot heavier construction, then logically you would need a bigger vehicle than the average car to tow it, eg; an F100 or a 4WD as we did. But then came the clincher, to get insurance you had to have a sprung towbar as commercial type vehicles were considered too hard in the suspension. This could and did lead to vans suffering everything from collapsed frames, detached fittings to bent drawbars, things we saw plenty of. At the time we hit the road Hayman Reece were about the only ones to offer sprung towbars, an item that cost an arm and a leg back then. Consequently a lot of van owners opted to keep their comfortable cars, avoiding what were thought to be trucks as tow vehicles, and went for the dolly set-up. The odd thing is that years later the Insurance industry changed their mind, as they discovered the continual bouncing on a sprung towbar was causing more damage than a rigid towbar. I also agree that van drivers should be tested for towing skills, as we have come across some shockers. Anyone that has seen the Top Gear caravanning episode would know what I am on about.

That is interesting, obviously the dolly hasn't got any brakes so I doubt it would be legal today.

All

An oversized version of the Hutchinson Dolly was also used in the 60's on Freighter (I think) machinery floats. The self tilting, centre axle, draw bar pig trailer type units.

Usually (the ones I recall anyway) had an unsprung tandem dual bogie on small dia tyres. The dolly was a single axle 2 wheel device on an axle about a mtr long using similar tyres to the main axles.

I believe the concept was for the usual draw bar weight (around 10% of the trailer GVM) to be carried by the dolly - so allowing the towing vehicle to be loaded to its normal GVM. EG: no loss of loading due to trailer weight being carried on the tow vehicle. I think the trailers were good for around 12T payload - so the dolly saved around 3T of tow vehicle capicity.

Oldfulla :'(

I wonder if one of those dollies would solve a problem for me.

I have a 10x5 tandem trailer where the front axle is middled on the trailer box with the 2nd axle behind (i.e long front overhang short rear without including the drawbar). It is naturally heavy on the draw bar - even when empty. The compliance plate says the trailer tares at 500kg but I think that may be out as empty it feels heavier than a grossly overloaded 6x4

Normally it is not a problem as you distribute weight evenly (or even slightly rear) on it and it tows dead straight at licence loosing speeds (in Vic anyway)

However it is also used to carry my Lister Autotruck (size 10x3). It weighs around 850kg but about 750kg of that is directly over, and connected to the front wheel.

I can't place the Lister on forward as it puts too much weight on the towball so I put it on backwards with the front wheel above the rear wheel of the trailer. I can't put it further forward or we run into drawbar weights issues again. So I adjust the weight by the placement of ramps etc to try and keep the weight forward without overloading it. Used as such it is normally only carried 10km or so at around 90km/h although I did tow the Lister from Melbourne to Echuca (where it now lives) once. If I fo over 90km/h a series of large bumps set up a sway in the Lister motor & Gearbox over the single front wheel and has once caused the trailer to sway while taking evasive action to avoid another driver who cut me off when there was only he and I in sight on the Calder Highway near Gisborne.

Would a dolly enable me to load the Lister forward and reduce the potential stability issues while staying within towball limits or would it just make the potential problem worse?

G'day Bparo, having not seen a dolly set-up on a van for some years I doubt they would still be legal. Perhaps you may be better off with a set of load levellers to help even things out. One downside of the dolly lay-out that I can see, is that unless the trailed vehicles brakes are set to come on first then there is a good chance of the dolly jack knifeing. As an addition to my previous post, virtually all the dolly set-ups that we saw had vacuum over-ride brakes fitted, possibly to avoid this occurring.

I don't think it would be legal, they won't let you hook up another trailer behind a trailer behind a car which the dolly effectivly is. Be cheaper anyway to get someone to move the axles on your trailer to the right spot.

Bparo,

Was about to say the same as Bigcam.

As ray indicates you can get helpers for towing. I have towed heavy display van a couple of times. It was close to the limit of the diesel Landcruser which was used for towing. Very heavy front on the van also! But with heavy duty load levellers was always able to get the tow ball weight to reasonable levels. To help with swaying issues which the big long van had a lot of! Also had anti-sway bar also. Was a lot to connect up but made the towing of a big heavy van as easy as towing a 6x4! At least until tight corners and backing anyway!

However correct loading of vehicle or correct trailer setup always a much better option rather than trying to fix an issue which could be avoided.

The load levelers and anti sway would be the best "modern" solution for ensuring the weight is placed correctly on the car.

Another option would be of course don't go over 90km/hr!

Bruce

Assuming the dolly device is still legal - then in broad terms fitting one would improve things.

One of the little recogonised features of the dolly is the length of its draw bar in relation to the load bearing points. The 2/3 - 1/3 positioning of the couplings (car to dolly, dolly to trailer drawbar) also reduces the sway factor. Sorry - I cant explain it better tahn that.

Having said that - has your trailer got compensating suspension? If not - that is a problem in its self. The fact your axles are set further back than normal will improve the trailing factor - and more so with a tandem axle set up - providing it is a compensating suspension. However - that additional offset needs to be taken into account when positioning the load.

The old rule of thumb for positioning a trailer axle was for it to be set back 1" for every foot of box lenght. EG: on a 6' x 4' trailer - the axle would be around 6" behind centre. OR - approx 10% of the box length.

Oldfulla

looks like the simple solution is my original plan - to fit a towbar to My Inter and do any distance towing with that.

The Lister was designed for flat, paved areas and bottoms out quite easily (need 10 ft ramps to load it onto the 10x5) so doesn't have the clearance to load it onto the Inter without a permanent loading ramp and one of Swishy's floats would be over kill.

Thanks for the advice