Is something like this possible without the truck doing a wheelie?
The main goals of the design are:
1. The UTV needs to clear the 5th wheel hitch.
2. The trailer needs to be taller than the UTV ramps.
3. Reduce the amount of parts and effort needed to store and setup.
To accomplish that what if you made the front ramps permanent. Never have to move or touch those.
The rear ramps would attach to the truck receiver and serve a dual purpose. The ramps themselves will be part of the final completed structure if you include a pivot.
Pretend there was a winch in the truck to pull the UTV upward. Then in the last couple feet of movement the rear ramps begin to rise up. Tall enough that it wont scrape the ground. If a single receiver is not strong enough, you could add 2 additional receivers to the rear of the truck. Then build the rear ramps into 2 separate pieces that would attach to the Left and Right receiver. You could then use the center receiver to include some type of jack that could raise and lower the ramps. Or some type of support brace for when you hit dips in the road.
The part thats been tripping me out is trying to picture the weight distribution. At first i thought the pivot would move the center of gravity further forward. But the more i thought about that the less i believed it to be true. The rear of the UTV is still hanging way off the back.
But.....i started to think about the winch. If you kept the winch under pressure pulling the UTV forward, wouldnt that transfer some of the weight further forward relative to the truck? It would need to be designed that without the winch the weight distribution is still safe. But you could still snug down the winch a bit and im pretty darn sure that would take a bit of weight off the rear end. How else could you explain the rear ramps rising upward as the winch does it job? You would definitely lock the pivot ramps with a pin. Then tap the button a few times to snug up the winch. Might even be able to measure from the ground to the wheel wells to prove a shift in weight distribution with the winch snug.
Ideally the 2 removable rear ramps could play tetris with the permanent ramps in the bed of the truck while the trailer is hooked up. Thats part of the reason for moving everything further back and lower. Instead of up high and further forward. I wonder if the first sentence i wrote is the truth. Truck might do a wheelie in the paper plate model below.
