Yankee

I had a custom aluminum trailor built to haul my sand rail. The trailor only weighs 1000 pounds or so. It is a 6x12 with a single 3500 lb rated axle. has 8 foot car ramps that slide into storage under the bed.

I had it custom built because I will sometimes use it for hauling stuff heavier than my little buggy, which probably weighs no more than 1100 pounds. I also wanted the axle placed in a specific spot (farther back than normal), since most of the rails weight is in the back. This gave be the right amount of tongue weight when loaded.

The trailor is strong enough that if I added a second axle it would support a 5k vehicle. It has plenty of extra supports welded in.

I have trailor brakes on it and a controller in the Jeep. I have hauled a ton or so on it short distances at 55 mph or so. With the trailor brakes and hemi, cannot hardly tell it was there. It is fine with the sand rail at 70 mph.

However, especially on my 2 door I would not haul much more than that at high speed.

I would personally not want to haul 6 or 7k pounds at highway speed behind even a JKU. I also think stock trailor axles might not work for getting it through the trail to the broken vehicle you want to recover. You would need to have the axles they use on those "off road" expedition trailors that articulate.

I just park the trailor at the tail head. When I break the buggy the Rubi will just go in and drag it out to the trailor.

Yes I still take the Rubi on the trails, but carefully. When I want to beat the hell out of something, the rail is a lot simpler and cheaper to fix, and much easier to get 2 hours home.

Finally, the trailor was not cheap, I probably have $3500 into it and it is much less trailor than you will need.

Nwapache

This is very similar to what I have in mind, thank you! I wouldnt try to drag a trailer between trees and over rocks, it would stay at the trail head for sure!
Thanls for the input, aluminum, double axle,good brakes, tongue weight balanced...

LMTD

WTF lol my bad! YOur original post was not clear though.

I thought you wanted to drag the trailer onto the trails to recover broken heeps!

You simply want to beef up the JKU to be a tow rig. It is not outside of reality, all it takes is money. The JKU gains a little in wheel base, but that is not really the concern since you want to carry a lot aka another heep. You need first to explore what the actual weight will be and NO, keeping the weight off the tounge is NOT the key, that is simply a key to disaster. You have to have the weight forward or your trailer will sway and yank you right off the road. If you do not already know this, you have perhaps months of reading and learning to do before you are going to be able to build your own, it is just not that simple.

The military version of the JK has a towing capacity of 7,500 pounds or so. It also has rear leaf springs etc. You are going to need to research how much load the rear axle can take on the JKU or your going to be fooling with a lot of bearing failures etc.

Basics: 2 3,500 pound dexter leaf sprung axles with electric brakes for the trailer, heavy coupler, likely to replace entire drive train aka motor, tranny, shafts, rear axle and associated suspension, reinforce rear frame rails, possible replacement of front axle as well depending upon braking and availible rotors for the JK, and when you are all said and done, you still have a fairly short wheelbased tow rig.

Might be easier and cheaper to buy a hemi dodge truck, shorted the frame and toss a JKU tub on it.

Nwapache

Sorry for the confusion, english is not my first language.
JKU build sheet looks something like this:
6.4 hemi
Hd 60 rear
Hd 44 front
Ram brakes
Frame reinforcement
Custom rate rear springs
You get the idea... I don't mind building the jeep as best it can be, but I don't know squat about trailer specs to cover the difference. I could do something like you suggested, but to me, it wouldn't be a jeep.

Nwapache

It suddenly occurred to me that I am describing a J8. Maybe I need to contact aev and save myself some hassle....

Yankee

You want some tongue weight. Just not too much and certainly not too little. With my setup and the sand rail on, it is probably around 200 pounds, which rides fine as I am only hauling 2300 pounds or so. Did some figuring and measuring before the trailor was built, and it worked out great. You would have more tongue weight than that hauling a Jeep though, more than the stock rear springs would like.

Having dual axles will help with all this.

I still think hauling another Jk on a trailer very far or fast is too much for even a JKU.

A J8 with a hemi or even better, a diesel would be pretty cool. I do not know what their tow capacity is.

OverlandJKU

I think 10% of the trailer weight is the general rule for tongue weight for light trailers, so your guesstimated 200 lbs tongue on your trailer is about right. There is also a formula for how far back the axle needs to be but I can't recall... I found all the info with google when i was building a trailer a few years back..A good trailer builder will know all this..

Also, I seem to recall that the military version of the JK has leaf springs instead of coils....