Kayak Trailer V3

This winter I rebuilt a Harbor Freight trailer that I had.  I made it with a slide out drawer so it'd be easy to get to your gear.  Underneath the drawer I have room to store rods / paddles and other long items.  It is lockable and I can keep my gear in it ready to hitch up and head out to the fishing grounds.

  I welded up the crossbars out of 1 1/2 inch - 3 /16 inch square tubing.  I will be able to haul 4 kayaks on it.  I wanted to extend the tongue, but ran out of time.  I bought a 12 inch receiver hitch extension which seems to work out well so far.

Looks great Mike.  Very functional. I like the ability to lock the box for security while camping.  But what is up with the green kayak?  I have never known you to have anything but yellow.

Thanks James, I picked up a Jackson Coosa HD for some shallow river fishing, smaller water.  It's for my Top Secret fishing holes.

I like it Mike, unfortunately I won't get to see it in June cuz your bringing the rv

Nice work Mike!! I really like the slideout drawer. Unfortunately my utility trailer has to be multi use and the big box would make it harder for me to haul other gear. For the purposes of a fishing trailer your setup is perfect!!

Mike looks good. Nice and slick.  The drawer out the back is a great touch.

I would revisit your plan to extend the tongue when you get a chance. 
Although you effectively moved the trailer back using a hitch extension basically doing the same thing as a longer tongue would do, you also increased the leverage point seen at the welds of your truck receiver. 

Being it's a light trailer you probably won't see any issues with using your Class III receiver on your truck over a long period of time, but if you ever tow with a lighter vehicle with a Class I or II receiver, it will tear those up with any kind of tongue weight or bobbing up and down caused by the trailer movement.

What did you use for the slides?

Matt - You could make something like this that you could slide the whole box out when you needed to use the trailer for other things. I.e. Removable box ( container )

Insayn - I will eventually extend the tongue when I get some spare time. I thought about the leverage issue. I'm not worried as I only have about 50-70 pounds of tongue weight.

Smitty - Here's what I used for rollers. I used 3/4 inch plywood for the bottom of the drawer that sets on top of the rollers. I used 2 by 4's on the sides that are installed above the drawer plywood and keep the drawer from tipping when you pull it out. Hopefully that makes sense.

Looks good Mike, Im sure you'll put it to good use.

Mike - that looks like a great HF kayak trailer you've built.  I'm sure it will be perfect for you when not hauling the RV !

Also, I agree with Insayn on going with the extended tongue vs the extended receiver.  When I did mine, I flipped the bracket that the coupler mounts to the underside of the A frame, allowing the longer tongue to mount on the same plane as the angled frame pieces.

-Sam