Bumper car trailer ideas

[couper]

A couple/three years ago I started a plan to build a trailer from an old "DODGEM' metal bumper car but shelved it for a while 'till I finished our house construction. Now that's over (except for the mortage payment) I want to get this thing at least pull-able to drag behind my coupe to Louisville in a couple months. I bought a couple 1950's boat trailer fenders from a swap meet and a pair of torsion spindles from Northern tool. I haven't figured out quite how to build the deck yet. The length of the tongue, the distance the rear axle should be behind the vehicle, etc. are all still to be determined.
Has anybody seen anything similiar? I measured a couple homemade poptrailer rigs to get an idea, but I haven't pulled the trigger on a design.
Any thoughts, pictures, or websites would be great!
Do these little things bounce around alot?
Lance

[Carnut]

Here's one, kind of a replica:





or one without the hitch?



Think I need to get around to setting up a Trailer Pics page.

[58 Yeoman]

Here's what Tom Finch, who builds Tailwind Trailers, said about wheel spacing and tongue length, on the Honda MC board.

For each 10 inches of tongue length, the tire contact patch centers needs to be no further apart than 5 1/4".

So, if the distance from your ball hitch to the wheel axle is 40", then multiply 5.25" x 4 (increments of 10), and you get a 21" center to center of the tire patches max.

50" tongue length would be 26.25"  (5 x 5.25).  

He builds some very nice trailers, but they're not cheap.

http://tailwindtrailers.com/

Hope this helps.

[enjenjo]

On a trailer this small, you can't carry a lot of weight, normally. So you can mount the axle pretty near the rear of the trailer without excessive tongue weight. by doing that, it will tow better than a more balanced trailer. Also that will allow a wider axle for more stablity. If you try to keep the tire and wheel weight down, it will not bounce as much too, because the unsprung weight percentage will be lower.

[couper]

Excellent info. and pictures guys. Thank you. mine resembles the little purple trailer the most. Phil, I'll calculate those figures tonight and see what I come up with.
Lance