Towing off-road trailer in SAND

[XJINTX]

Ok, looking for experience...

Going to N. Padre Island this weekend and taking the Jeep and trailer into the beaches 50+ mile 4X4 area.

I have good experience driving vehicles in the sand but not with a trailer.

I will air down Jeep but wonder about trailer? Since it will be around 900 lbs do I need to air down for a bigger footprint of keep aired up to "slice" through the sand as pulled?

Thanks in Advance!

 

[teotwaki]

I had similar questions before I went to Arizona & Utah in April this year. (http://suntothenorth.blogspot.com/2012/04/rizona-utah-with-my-expedition-trailer.html) I read all of the threads here and elsewhere and saw some pretty questionable advice too. I also found some videos from a guy in Australia (http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/74611-Trailer-towing-off-road-videos/page3). Anyhow, Mario (ElCoyote) from Adventure Trailers wrote a post that convinced me that airing the trailer tires down makes perfect sense. The whole idea of airing down is to provide a bigger contact patch and a lower pounds per square inch of tread that contacts the sand. On pavement you want to minimize rolling resistance with a moderate contact patch through proper tire inflation. However, on the sand you'd like the trailer to have less of a chance of digging its tires into the sand and causing more drag that the tow vehicle has to fight. How much air you let out is best determined through experimentation and possibly at the location you'll be traversing. In my case I had the vehicle down to 18 PSI and the trailer at 22 PSI. Load up your trailer and start airing down one tire until you have gotten a max contact patch and note that air pressure for later use.

Take lots of pictures!!

 

[UK4X4]

low pressure as wide a tire as possible

make your anchor a light as possible and know you'll be peddle to the floor in soft sand.

You have spread your total load over 6 tires instead of 4 but only the four are driven so you want the trailer to sink as little as possible
reducing the drag as much as possible.

multiple sand ladders will be your friend in soft sand !

 

[kevint]

Subscribed. Looking forward to learning from your experience.

 

[XJINTX]

Should be a good experience as there will be a couple of us pulling trailers with different vehicles and different type tires.

We too will have sand ladders, a couple winches and straps of course.

 

[SWITAWI]

Also looking forward to hearing your report afterward, but I'd say the driving style won't change when towing. Easy-does-it on the throttle inputs and keep your momentum up. Flooring The Throttle = Digging A Hole every time I go down the PINS. Overall I don't think you'll have much of a problem since you're already familiar with the terrain.

 

[teotwaki]

I'd throw in that you'll also want to be mindfull of the tire sidewalls which will stick out a little more horizontally when aired down

 

[adventureduo]

I don't agree. I never air the trailer down for sand. If anything i'd inflate. I want to minimize the pulling resistance on sand as much as possible. Let the tires cut through the sand, instead of plowing. They do not have a powered momentum so they don't need traction or an adequate "foot print". They rotate through and therefore don't slip or bog down due to lack of floatation. Only problem situation i'd ever change this would be if i knew i was going to be "side hilling" the trailer and wanted to make sure i had a bigger foot print for stability.

Also, make sure to keep your momentum up and give space in front of you so that if you need to stop you can do so on a downgrade of a drift or dune. It's a little harder to get going with a trailer behind you. (See photo)

And for the record, we absolutely air down the tires on normal washboard roads, but you asked about sand in particular.

 

[teotwaki]

I'd like to see a picture of how a tire "cuts" through sand :ylsmoke:

 

[UK4X4]

Sorry dave - the thiner the tire the deeper it goes into the sand- the harder to pull it

The wider the tire- less pressure means it floats more and less power to pull it through as its not as deep into the sand

take a look at any desert specific vehicle and trailers- I don't see any skinny high pressure tires

This is as big a trailer I've seen, this was in the UAE- close to saudi- used to move drilling rigs- its about 2x the size of a standard tractor trailer

I bogged my Patrol- he bogged his truck- he went arround the whole truck and trailer dropping tire pressure and got it out

I used my sand ladders

This is a real sand tire- its a lrage ballon with a huge surface area to float the tire over the dunes

 

[teotwaki]

and here is what Mario said:

The goal in sand is to "float" on top of the sand and eliminate wheel spin. When you drive over sand and leave a perfect imprint of your tire tread, you have reached that goal. Be mindful that different types of sand require different pressures i.e. coarse hard packed moisture laden sand on a beach vs. fine almost silt like sand that would be near a dry lake bed. We did some experimentation a few years ago in some dune sand in Arizona in order to find the "traction sweet spot" for my Comanche and trailer. The truck weighed in at 4250 lbs and the trailer at 1400 lbs. Tire size on the truck and trailer was 285/75R16 E rated, BFG AT. We made several attempts at climbing the small dune, first at "dirt road pressure" 20 psi on the truck and 15 psi on the trailer. We were stuck instantly due to wheel spin. We lowered the truck down to 15 psi and left the trailer at 15 psi. We got a little further up the dune but still bogged down and got stuck. We made several more attempts, gradually reducing pressures to find the "traction sweet spot" until finally with pressure down to 10 psi front, 12 psi rear and 8 psi on the trailer, we climbed the dune without heavy throttle and leaving a perfect imprint of the tires in the sand all the way up.

If you have the opportunity, I would suggest going through a similar exercise with your tow rig and trailer to find your traction sweet spot for sand. A fun way to spend a few hours and learn a lot about your rigs capabilities.

 

[Mark Harley]

The guys down at Nags Head run Airplane tires on their sand retrival tow rigs.
They bounce like hell on the way to the beach, but extract vehicles easy!

 

[LaOutbackTrail]

Roger, you'll be good deflating the tires.

For the hell of it, you should experiment and do a quick write up based upon your findings.

 

[teotwaki]

Roger, you'll be good deflating the tires.

For the hell of it, you should experiment and do a quick write up based upon your findings.

And pictures for all of us trailer junkies! :elkgrin:

 

[LaOutbackTrail]

That too.