Home building a trailer? Legalities?

I can't see a problem if it's properly built and looks like it's properly built : lights, mud-guards, good (braked) tow hitch, twin axle.

We built our own transporter a few years ago, and it's never been a problem.

It can be pricey buying all the right bits and lots of steel, though.

You will need auto reverse brakes. My advise is buy a modern scrap caravan chassis and use the axle / hitch off that rather than buying new. The chassis will be worthless for adapting as they tend to be very flimsy compared to traditional caravan chassis. The suspension is rubber in a tube so easy to cut a section out of the middle and narrow to whatever width you require.

I've got two trailers. Erde 102 - smallest available from Halfords and a folding / tilting 8' x4'. In the past I've made trailer from scratch but as others have said it can get expensive and I found actually cheaper to buy ready made !

Paul H

I was told
They were in the same league as towbars in that if it hasn't got a manufacturers build
Plate you are onto plums if you need to make a claim.

Worth checking

Oh.
Robin, I'm really sorry to have to be the one that breaks this information to you. Especially after your post about Wiscombe had reminded me what great times I'd had there, but:

Trailer IVA. Starting on 29th October 2012. A trailer like you're proposing would come into the O2 trailer category. There were lots of guidance notes and a manual available online a few months ago through the business link site. But that seems to have been moved.
Some info here: www.transportoffice.gov.uk/crt/repository/IVA-Guide-version-30-Dec.pdf

www.dft.gov.uk/vca/additional/files/vehicle-type-approval/trailers/trailer-seminar-pdf.pdf

And I have an electronic copy of the manual if you want to pm me an email address to send it to.

Good news:

• Test is only £70 or so
  
• Most of the requirements are pretty sensible, and are straight forward anyway.
  
• Still no separate registration number for trailers in this country (ie, how do "they" know if the trailer is new, or just thoroughly "rebuilt"?....)
  
• There's 5 months before 29th of October. Get cracking!
  

So, yeah, it's a bit curse word, but it could have been so much worse.
From a technical point of view, building a trailer is a great idea. You'll have to work out if the economics work for you. Buying an old trailer or caravan might be the best way to get parts cheaply. If you want new parts, go direct to the people who seem to supply a lot of the trailer firms: Peak trailers. They make the rubber torsion axles to the width you want and can weld on extra brackets for mounts and brake cables, etc cheaply.

Thanks guys, all sounds like good advice. Just to complicate things a little, I should have said, but I'll be making the suspension/axle my self, as I've got a specific design in mind for it. Which is a whole bunch more work for me, but will save a big chunk of money.

That's a bit of a curse word about the trailer IVA, thanks for the heads up, but at least it's cheap, and I've got no problem with meeting the regulations, just more red tape, although to be honest I was surprised there wasn't already a test for them. I'll hopefully have it done by October anyway though, the idea will be to do this strait away as fast as possible, so I can use it to shift my mini around during the build. The mini will be 650kg maximum, so 99% of car trailers big enough, with low enough entry are waaayyy overweight for it, and as my tow car's only ~1300kg, so the lighter the set-up the better. Basically I want something a decent size, but with only a ~1000kg load, as I'll only really be needing it for race prepped cars, which can be deceptively wide/long, but don't tend to weigh much at all.

It's probably worth mentioning that it will be a twin axle too, it'll mostly see motorway miles, and I want the extra stability considering the tow car's relatively light.

hence me keeping the rear axle off my escort van when it got written off

sounds like ile have to make sure i do it before november then! I'm making my own as I'm fed up of all this weight plate plums too, I'm gunna make a large-ish box trailer to match the pickup bed on the budget pickup, then probably a mega-lows car trailer too. theyll be towed with something thats way too old to worry about having a plated towing weight, and the trialer will also be unplated, so the only thing i can possibly fall foul of if overall train weight being too high. mkaes it a lot simpler.

renault master ones are also good if you want heavier weight axles. the guy in the unit next door to me had a beavertail car trailer he made specifically to move a f150, and it moved my parisienne and a buick regal too. he then cut it up to make an even bigger one to put a boat on!

Car based van axle is a good idea, but wont fit in with my plans unfortunately. The sus I've got planned is pretty straight forward, but fairly unusual. I'm gunna keep quiet about the actual design until it's done, but the only thing I'll need to buy is the hub assembly and hitch, although if they'll meet the regs I could be tempted to use VW rear stub axles for the hubs, plentiful and cheep with drums and they're attached with 4 simple old bean bolts on a flat surface, plus being 4x100, sets of 4 13" steels with tyres that'll easily take 1300kg are available off pretty much every 90's hatch-back without a ford badge, so are silly cheep.

Ok, sounds like I'll have to scrap using VW brakes then.

you can still do it by playing with wheel cyl/master cyl sizes to get the efficiency robin, assuming youd doing a hydro setup that is and not just using the handbrake like a lot of people do.


and yeah, ive got a trailer or two 'in stock' here to form the basis of a 'new' one, which is handy.....

youre not allowed hydro brakes now? ive used at least two trailers with em in the last few years