Tilt trailer help

[KirkD]

I bought a 14k 20' tandem tilt trailer to haul logs on and it has a dampening cylinder to let the bed down easy as you drive on it. I want to replace it with a lockable cylinder. I have seen trailers that do lock and adjust on the rate but am having trouble locating a source for one. Help!

[barbender]

In a former job, I pjlled around a Felling 14K tilt bed that had a valve for locking the cylinder. I would think you could just add a valve to your existing cylinder to be able to lock it. When locked it would hold up skid steers and 5K asphalt rollers. Things can get interesting, I used to pin it and run one piece on, then a second piece behind and then open the valve. I got lazy and tried to back a skid steer off without closing the valve. I figured I'd just back off quickly before the trailer sef down, well it didn't work It's a good way to get a good look at the sky ;D

[KirkD]

The cylinder on this one does not have any external ports like and in and out. Only an oil fill hole midway up on it like a jack would have. So it was never designed to have external control. 

[Ljohnsaw]

In that case, how about replacing that cylinder with one that has ports, run hoses out to the side and place a flow control valve there to control it.

[KirkD]

I thought there was more to it than that. Aren't the dampening cylinders built different than a hydraulic one?

[Ox]

Think of it like this:  say you have a load of gravel in the bucket loader of a tractor.  You want to let it down easy and slow.  You don't mash it all the way to max down on the hydraulic lever, you feather it gently, to let just a little bit of fluid past the valve to control the rate of descent.  This is cushioning.  Same thing would be happening in a hydraulic cylinder in your trailer while using a valve of some sort.