HF Trailer Tongue Arm Brace 

Glad you found the video(s) helpful. HF makes three versions of this folding trailer, e.g., light, medium and "super" duty. Mine is the "super" version. The "medium" one comes with such a cross-brace for the tongue arms, the other two don't. I'm sure there's an engineering/cost reason for this, but IMHO, that "reason" was stupid, and they should just include a brace with all three models. I'm sure you'll find, as I did, that adding a brace like this will be a BIG improvement in the strength/twist resistance of your tongue arm assembly, especially when you add the jack.

Thanks ... HF had the same "brilliant" idea with their medium-duty version of this trailer (this one is supposedly the "heavy-duty" version), which uses a slightly different/weaker tongue-arm. Guess they left it off this one to keep the cost a few bucks lower ... only conceivable reason that makes any sense. I decided to fabricate/add the brace to this one after seeing the tongue arms visibly torquing/twisting around as I was trying to maneuver the loaded trailer around on the tongue-jack caster. Only needed to see that once ...

Very kind, thanks. Just finished another 1,000 mi hauling trip ... trailer with these mods has performed flawlessly, all at normal freeway/hauling speeds of 55-65 mph, and from sea level to as high as 8,000 ft. My biggest problem has been trying to keep my load cover tarps cinched down in high winds ... I've gotten pretty good at it, but this last trip was a real challenge ... high winds just tear the crap out of 'em no matter HOW well you've got 'em tied down ... many stops along the way to adjust, re-tie, etc. But if tarps continue to be my biggest problem, I will continue to consider the relatively small investment of time and money I put into this HF trailer a SMASHING success ...

Again, thanks. This was the last, most labor-intensive single "add-on" I did, after hauling the trailer about a thousand miles fully loaded, and seeing the tongue arms torquing/twisting under load when maneuvering the loaded trailer on an asphalt surface, off the tow ball/vehicle, load on the tongue jack. Had a guy on here "suggest" I should have just welded the support onto the tongue arms, but IMO, that would have actually weakened the OE steel at the weld points. This solution doesn't alter the load-bearing characteristics of the OE steel (only drilling small holes, then *increasing* support/strength around the bolt holes with properly fitted bolts/washers and steel plate). Major improvement in every respect ... especially in the "peace of mind" area ...

Glad you found the video helpful. China has swamped the entire world with cheaply manufactured goods, and Harbor Freight would not exist without them. To "call a spade a spade," these trailers are definitely a "compromise" on beefiness/durability features that most Americans love, but the price, and the practical utility these trailers deliver for that price, are what have attracted American buyers to these things, by the millions. That was certainly the case for me, and the trailer's performance over many thousands of road miles has given me no reason to regret it.

One of the things I like about this trailer and this is why I continually look at mods and everything else that people do is that they make this a very one use trailer a lot of times it's a bike trailer a lot of times it's a UTV trailer so anytime I can see a multi-use out of this trailer and it be functional and pretty good I really like it

@@fredberry1342 ... a few "judgy" people decide to hate these things: a) because they're Chinese-made, and/or b) aren't crazy-over-engineered/over-built for their purpose. I think most of those types probably hate it because they're trying to convince themselves that the megabucks they've spent on other trailers were "worth it." These HF trailers obviously serve an important niche in personal use utility trailers: light-duty; easy to move around/store/deal with; readily adaptable to many uses, and probably most of all, inexpensive. All the videos/interest prove their popularity/usefulness. All I can say is my experience with the one I bought/built has been well worth the money I spent, and every step of "the trip" doing the mods. The trailer has done everything I've ever wanted or needed it to, and done it well.

Anyway we can talk on the phone. Do you have a crap email account. I will send you my number to it

Your definition of "crap" and mine are clearly different. I never "replaced the wheel bearings." I removed and repacked the OE bearings with a higher-quality, high-speed grease to safely support greater highway speeds, and the OE bearings are still fine ... I've never even felt the hubs get hot, even when hauling in 100-degree+ heat. The main reason I was seeing twisting in the tongue arm was that I added a clamp-on tongue jack that was not part of the original assembly/parts, and the cross brace was designed to offset the effects of that optional add-on. The two together now work perfectly, as designed/intended. The OEM paint on the trailer itself is still intact ... the "crappy" paint was on the tongue box I added ... also not included with the original trailer. I bought the HF trailer for its combination of features, DIY potential, and VALUE packed into a very modest price. In that respect, there is nothing on the market anywhere, from any manufacturer, that even comes close to this thing. You're talking to a guy that previously custom-built a fully enclosed/roofed food/drink service kiosk, complete with custom-welded framing, on top of what someone like you would probably consider a "non-crap" utility trailer ... plank deck ... big bracing ... big wheels ... big suspension ... heavy duty pipe/closed channel framing/steel mesh walls ... I know/understand the difference, and I didn't want a "mack-daddy," giant, non-folding utility trailer that'll haul a car; can be thrown off a cliff; is made out of kryptonite, and costs $10,000. I wanted a relatively small, lightweight, adaptable, and foldable utility trailer that I could easily pull out/use anytime I need a sturdy 4x8 box for light hauling jobs; safely haul behind the lightest of cars/trucks, and then fold up and store in a small space inside my garage when I'm done with it, instead of having to cover it with an ugly tarp and store it in the open somewhere on my property, like a hillbilly. Trailers like that I can RENT on any occasion I might need one. On all the other occasions I've now always got the trailer I need neatly stashed away in my garage. The trailer would have been perfectly serviceable, and would have performed as advertised, without any of the "extra" stuff I did to mine. My mods turned a $600 "bare bones" utility trailer into a much better, customized and easily-adaptable hauler you couldn't buy anywhere for less than $3,000. That was all my choice/preference, as is the case for anyone who's looked at my vids and seen an idea they like and want to use to customize/upgrade their own. If you're so "shocked" by the quality of this or any other product sold by HF, you obviously don't have to buy/use any of their stuff, or be so "judgy" about others who do ...

1. Easiest way to avoid problems is, e.g., don't overload the trailer ... apart from the risk you described to the tongue arms, it will also cause "invisible" damage to the suspension components, rated for the weight capacity of the trailer, but not more. 2. The reinforcement of the tongue arms you described will probably work fine. If I was going to weld anything on the OE arms, I think all I'd do is close the open channel with a flat strip of steel running the length of the open side of the arm. The cross brace I added firmed up the whole assembly very nicely. 3. I obviously agree ... great, highly-customizable trailer for the $$, especially if you're willing to spend a little extra time/money on a few "enhancements."

Yea...with the post pandemic price gouging, Harbor freight almost double the price to $549

My local Ace store keeps a database of their customers' paint orders, so I was able to use their color cards to match the Rustoleum "Colonial Red" to the same red I used for the fence. Definitely the closest of about 3 or 4 different reds I had to pick from. I picked the satin finish because the finish on the exposed parts of the trailer frame have begun to get dull, and the finish on the unpainted brace wasn't totally smooth to start with ... my welder buddy put a brush-on primer on it, which I only partially sanded/smoothed out before re-coating it with the Rustoleum primer. The OEM paint on the trailer frame is a lot better than the stuff HF's Chinese manufacturer used on the tongue box, but I have no doubt that both will wear/fade more quickly than the Rustoleum.

Enjoy ... glad you found the videos helpful.

Yep ... you're well under the max load for that trailer. Safe travels.

Sorry for the delay in response ... saw the original message, was too busy to respond, then forgot about it. Glad you found the videos helpful ... I had a lot of fun doing the build and making the vids, but by the end of it all, I was also pretty "done" with the time-consuming process of devising and sourcing parts for every little thing I wanted to beef up/improve. On the cross-brace, I'm afraid not ... I've relocated to another state and the cross-brace project was a highly-customized "one-off" for us ... it really just came down to using some scrap steel he had left over from other projects at his place, then me sourcing the nuts/bolts and adding the matching paint.

That's correct. HF makes three different versions of this folding trailer, and the "medium" one comes with a cross brace, but the "super duty" one does not. I don't know exactly why, but I think it's because the tongue arms are a little beefier on the "super duty" version, so the manufacturer apparently concluded they could leave out the cross brace in that model. As far as I'm concerned, and based on my actual experience using the trailer, that was a stupid design decision. When the "super duty" trailer is loaded to its rated capacity, the stress on the tongue arms is substantial, especially if you've mounted a tongue jack on one of the arms. My "custom" cross-brace fully eliminated that issue, and made the entire tongue arm assembly FAR more resistant to twisting/torque-ing under a full load.

@BL Alley ... oh ye of little faith. Here's a link to HF's current website photo of the Super Duty model (1720 lb. rated). C-channel (open inside edge)... NOT "box" or "tube" steel (closed, square tube): www.harborfreight.com/1720-lb-capacity-48-in-x-96-in-super-duty-folding-trailer-62671.html

Just a good quality exterior latex, picked out from swatches at local hardware store, and custom-mixed ... ended up being a really good match for the OE paint. If you want a good reference color for matching, use Rustoleum "colonial red" ... nearly identical to the OE color.

Glad you found the videos helpful. On the cross-brace, anything's "possible," but the tongue arms on this particular trailer are "c-channel" steel with one open side, not a fully-closed tube, so trying to fabricate and weld a cross-brace on that without impairing the load-bearing characteristics of the OE steel would be tricky ... all depends on how you prep the OE steel, and design/cut/weld the piece you're adding. Too many potential failure points for my "risk assessment." I purposely chose the "bolt-on flange" method of attaching the cross brace so that I wouldn't have to mess with any of that. Other than the holes drilled for the anchor bolts (which are fully mitigated by properly sized/secured flanges/fasteners), no impact on the structural integrity of the original steel ... only the reinforcement/strength added by the brace ... it has worked beautifully ... exactly as I hoped it would when we designed it. BTW, this is how the cross-brace that comes with the HF trailer model just below this "super duty" model is attached to the tongue arms. That trailer comes with lighter duty "c-channel" tongue arms that don't have the additional, curved open edges that this one does. That's the only reason I can figure that the OEM didn't supply a cross brace with this model, which I obviously considered a "cheap-out omission" by the OEM ... one that was dumb enough for me to go to the trouble of building/adding MY OWN cross-brace to their design, after actually seeing how the OE tongue arms were torque-ing/twisting under load in the OE material ... before I added the brace.

I provided a link for the hardware a few times in the comments section on the video featuring those add-ons ... just scroll through the comments, you'll find em.

@@dmrtechnology6033 I did notice the cross bracing on the lower trailer and was wondering why this didn’t come with it. Definitely not a good option by Harbor Freight. I may actually weld a steel tube underneath the tongue arms just to reinforce and also may add a tube through the middle as I am planning to convert this to a 5x10 trailer. It is an opportunity for me to learn welding with the cheap titanium welders at HF which I am planning to buy. How many miles do you have on the trailer now? Have you maxed the capacity anytime?

@@dmrtechnology6033 I was able to find it. Thanks.

@@philos212 ... I probably have about 4-5,000 miles on the trailer now, in pretty much all road conditions. I've never met/exceeded the weight capacity ... think the max I've put in it is probably around 1,200 lbs., and it handled that fine. The main issue with weight capacity on this trailer is the suspension. It's only a single axle/single leaf spring, so you if you get anywhere near the max load you're at much greater risk of bottoming out the suspension going over bumps (which, in turn may damage the axle/suspension components), as well as having a tire blowout. You can safely haul loads at/near the rated capacity, but the heavier your load, the more careful you have to be about speed and bumps.

Good from the standpoint of providing support for both tongue arms. Not so good from standpoint of creating two support points that operate independently of one another, and have to be separately operated/controlled. IMHO, the weight/duty class of this trailer doesn't justify that added hassle. The cross-brace that I made/added helped a lot to make the HF single-arm "universal" jack more stable. If I was going to make/add anything more sexy than that, I'd modify the cross-brace design to allow mounting of a single, center position jack on the brace.

I'm afraid not ... "one off" from scrap he had left over from a different job, and totally customized to specs for this particular application/trailer.

Since I've replied to the same "cutting corners" stuff about these "Chinese" HF trailers multiple times, here's a copy of one such reply: "China has swamped the entire world with cheaply manufactured goods, and Harbor Freight would not exist without them. To "call a spade a spade," these trailers are definitely a "compromise" on beefiness/durability features that most Americans love, but the price, and the practical utility these trailers deliver for that price, are what have attracted American buyers to these things by the millions. That was certainly the case for me, and the trailer's performance over many thousands of road miles has given me no reason to regret it." Re "drilling holes in the hitch poles will only weaken them." That has not been my experience either. Drilling holes in the "hitch poles" [aka "tongue arms"] doesn't "weaken them," e.g., when the purpose of the holes is to securely bolt a cross-brace onto the tongue arm assembly as a whole. This configuration/solution didn't "weaken" either the tongue arms, or the assembly ... it significantly strengthened both. When I bought/assembled this trailer, I didn't want/need a tank. What I wanted/needed was a small, inexpensive utility trailer that was still durable/adaptable enough to use with lots of different small-ish loads, and easy to hook up, haul, move around and store. That's exactly what I got with this trailer, and much more.

I'd be interested in seeing a study on that question, e.g., whether adding a weld that bisects the OE tongue arm, or drilling small holes that don't compromise the OE steel, then mated to a much stronger/thicker piece of steel with properly matched bolts/washers. If there is a meaningful difference in load-bearing characteristics, my money is on this design being the stronger of the two, and less likely to cause a stress-fracture in the OE tongue arm at the point where it's mated to the cross-brace. That's exactly how/why I chose this design over welding the brace onto the OE tongue arm.

That's because I made/color-matched it custom, with the help of a friend with a welder. The stock arms will "work" fine without it, but I designed/added the brace because I added the HF clamp-on tongue jack, and didn't like the way it made the tongue assembly torque/twist under load.

LOL. Had to go with what my friend had on hand, and I liked his design ideas in the end. Overkill, yes, but wow ... that brace is SOLID, and I like that. Made me a LOT more confident about the whole tongue assembly during my hauling trips.

HF has 3 different models of this trailer. This one is the "heaviest" of the three, rated for loads up to 1,750 lbs, and all the materials/parts supplied by the OEM are suitable for its load rating, all of which info is readily visible on the permanent VIN/ID plate that is riveted onto one of the tongue arms by the OEM. That's the info that matters to the DMV officials who do the original certification/registration on the finished trailer, and mine zoomed through that process with no problem whatsoever. All my mods were added AFTER that inspection/certification occurred, and they've all been done to improve utility/reliability/apprarance of the trailer ... not to "fix" anything. Finally, I've now hauled the trailer thousands of miles, loaded, unloaded, freeway, local roads, wind, sun, darkness, rain, snow, ice, and nothing ... I repeat ... NOTHING on it has yet broken or failed on me. Based on my experience, therefore, the only "crap" I've seen through any of this is ... your opinion.

Glad you found the video/info helpful.

LOL. Yeah ... uhh ... you ought to ask for ... umm ... your money back ...