Tongue Box Ideas for 1/4 Ton Military Trailers

[77TLCFJ40]

I’m looking for ideas and pics of commercially available or home-brew tongue boxes for 1/4 Ton Military Trailers.

The two Harbor Freight boxes look like good options at a great price. Lots of pics of those. Any others? Any cool boxes repurposed and mounted on the tongue of these trailers? Has anyone built their own box?

Other than relocating the parking brake, are there any challenges that arise when adding a tongue box?

Thanks in advance for your contribution to this thread.

 

[smritte]

I know you said a bunch of pic's of these out there but, use the small harbor freight one. I looked and measured most everything out there. It fit the best and isn't too bad in the way of quality. All the others i looked at were too wide or close to the same dimensions but, were priced way high.

 

[Road]

K

I’m looking for ideas and pics of commercially available or home-brew tongue boxes for 1/4 Ton Military Trailers.
Other than relocating the parking brake, are there any challenges that arise when adding a tongue box?

Potential Challenges:

* When adding a permanent box to the tongue, keep in mind your tongue length, turning angles, and anything you may have mounted to the rear of your tow vehicle. Tongue boxes often have angled sides so they won't contact the tow vehicle when navigating a sharp turn. Adding spare tire, overland bling of one sort or another, a trash/recycling bag, etc to the rear of your tow vehicle may impact the turning angle when you have a box on the trailer tongue.

* Be aware of how much weight you are adding to the tongue. Depending on the material of the box, adding even just the weight of an empty box that far forward on a short trailer can throw off the balance and mean you have to load your trailer differently than you have before. Generally speaking, tongue weight should be about 10% of your overall trailer weight.

- Here's a simple search with a ton of links for tongue box ideas.
- Here's a good article from etrailer on Determining Trailer Tongue Weight.
- Here's a good Trailer Tongue Scale to help determine what's going on. I have and use this on my 1 ton trailer. A well-balanced trailer makes a big difference in how well it tows.

I see folks with 1/4 ton military trailers, meant to haul only 500lbs, add heavy boxes and too much weight cargo-wise (rack, RTT, awning, etc) then wonder why it rides rough and bounces so hard on the trail.

It doesn't take much to get to 500lbs on a stock 1/4 ton trailer. Just my rack, tent, and awning weigh around 300 lbs.

Good luck. Let us know what you do; the info may be helpful to others here.


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