Yakima EasyRider Utility Trailer Review and Assembly
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Review and Assembly of the Yakima EasyRider Utility Trailer
Hey guys, today we're going to be checking out the Yakima EasyRider Utility Trailer. I've already got it set up here just so you can get a good idea of what it looks like and so you can see its full potential.Now, right off the bat, this trailer can be delivered right to your doorstep in just a few boxes. It's also very easy to assemble. We've actually got that footage at the end of this video, so stick around if that's something you'd like to see. But with this trailer, it's going to allow us to carry a wide variety of accessories. On bottom, we've got two kayaks.
On top mounted to the load bars, we've got the Yakima SkinnyWarrior, and on the other side we've the Yakima SkyRise Tent. So as you can see we're going to be able to customize it any way we want.Like most utility trailers, it's going to connect to your 2" ball, which is nice, because that's a common size. It includes safety chains and trailer wiring so we can remain safe and legal on the road. Now, you'll notice that the tongue is extra long. It's actually 80" from the trailer to the end of the coupler.
This is so we can carry boats up to 19'. It's actually collapsible so we can stow it easier. We'll show you this later.I've gone ahead and taken off the gear. That way you can get a better look. As you could see, it has a tubular design.
The whole thing is made out of aluminum. It's extremely lightweight. With it being aluminum, we don't need to worry about any rust or corrosion. We can use it to help us get our boats into the water. You saw how we had it set up.
We had two kayaks on bottom. The rest of our gear was up top. On the bottom, the crossmembers are fixed. This is ideal for your heavier, larger, or longer equipment. The load bars up top are adjustable along the rails. These are ideal for carrying your bike racks, your kayak carriers, cargo baskets, and other accessories.Now, the load bars themselves are going to work with your standard clamp-on accessories as well as those T-slot accessories. You can see here after I raise up that rubber stripping it's going to reveal that channel. All we have to do is remove or trim that rubber strip around those accessories and it'll give you a nice clean look. Now, the load bars here at the end also have a tie-down loop for securing our gear.Now, I mentioned that the load bars are adjustable. To do so, you can take the included Allen key, loosen up the bolt underneath, and adjust them along the rails. You'll want to set these up to where they'll work best with your accessories. The maximum cross bar spread we can have is 60". It features an axle-less suspension with coilovers. Two control arms are attached to the frame for a smooth ride.I mentioned that it inaudible 00:02:25 trailer wiring. It's actually a standard four-pole connection. The trailer features an amber side marker on each side up front, a red side marker in the rear, and two tail lights. On the driver side, it features a license plate light and a license plate bracket. All of the lights are LED. Here on the outside we have about a 21-1/2" diameter tire on a 12" premium aluminum wheel. It is black in color. All of this is covered by a plastic fender which is going to prevent debris, mud or water from splashing up over our trailer.When you're ready to disconnect from your tow vehicle, the kickstand jack is going to prevent us from damaging our coupler, and the large plastic handle is going to allow us to easily maneuver our trailer to our location to set up. Once we've got our trailer disconnected and out of the way, maybe we've got our tent set up, now it would be a good time to fold that tongue out of the way. That way no one's tripping over it. It's very easy to do. We'll remove the clip and pin. Pull out the entire pin and then we can just rotate it in.Now with our setup we've got the Yakima SkyRise Tent Platform installed. That's going to give us a stabilizer jack on each side in the front and then a total of four wheel shocks. That's going to give us a little bit more stability if we've got our tent installed on our trailer, and it's going to prevent it from shifting when we're climbing around inside. Now, that kit is sold separately. Note that when the stabilizer jacks are installed, you will not be able to fully rotate your tongue underneath your trailer, so it will be slightly out a bit as you can see. Also, if you're going to be folding your tongue out of the way, you may find it easier to mount your kickstand jack close to your trailer, and you do have that option. We'll touch on that when we go over it in the assembly.That folded tongue is also going to come in handy when stowing your utility trailer in your garage. Can see we don't have to worry about stepping over it. We have it folded to the side. It's out of the way. It's going to take up less room. Now, I don't even need to remove all of my accessories from my trailer. I can leave them in place for next time. Now, if you do take advantage of that folding tongue, I recommend that you do place your jack closest to the trailer. We've got that set up here, and with the SkyRise Tent stability jacks installed, you will not be able to fold that tongue all the way in to your trailer.Now we'll give you some dimensions. These may come in handy when you're stowing your trailer. The whole thing is about 14-1/2' long, 79-3/4" wide, and about 41-1/4" tall. Because it's a utility trailer, you might be tempted to completely load it up. You do, however, want to stay within the 500 pound weight capacity and make sure that's all distributed evenly throughout the trailer. That way it remains safe throughout our travel. Now we'll show you how to assemble the trailer. Though it is a lot of parts and it seems like a lot, it's not that bad. Let's go ahead and get started.We'll start by grabbing our spine, which is the piece with the coupler attached to it, and the spine extension. It's hinged at one end. We need to fold it out, run our wire through the spine extension and attach the two ends. With it unfolded, we'll also go ahead and insert the pin. This is going to lock it in place. It's also going to make installation a little bit easier.Next, we'll take the large crossmember here. This one's going to have the opening in the center. We'll slide it onto the spine all the way to the two holes here and line them all up together. Now, you'll want to be sure that the tubes here are pointed this direction. Then we'll take two long bolts. You'll want to be sure to have a flat washer installed down through the top.With the bolts going all the way through, you can see they're out the bottom of the frame here. We can move on to putting our bracket in place. It's just going to line up here just like that. Now, I've got it propped up. That way I can easily access underneath. Then we'll just put on our hardware. Then to tighten down, we'll use a 16mm socket and a 17mm wrench. After we tighten down this side, we'll repeat the same process on the other side, and then we'll want to torque those down to Yakima's specifications.Now we'll grab our next two crossmembers and put those in place on the spine. They're both going to face the same direction as our center one here. We'll need to drop our wiring down through the center and then put our hardware in place. Now, this part may be fairly difficult. With one bolt through, you'll need to put on a flat washer followed by the locknut. Once you've got it started, you can then put the other through and then the other flat washer and locknut. Now we don't want to tighten this down all the way just yet. Just leave it loosely installed. We'll also want to plug in our wiring and then we'll move onto the other crossmember. For this one, we'll first do our wiring. Then I'm going to feed it down through the frame, line up our holes. Now these are threaded, so we won't need any locknuts. Once we get these tightened up, we'll need to torque them down to Yakima's specifications.Now we can turn our attention to our fenders. We'll need to attach them to the side rails. We'll want to be sure that we run our wiring through and connect that, and we'll also need to connect our ground. It's going to be located right here, can see how the paint is already ground off. Take our hardware, flat washer, put that in place, and get that started. Now it does include a Torx bit that we can attach to our impact to run that down. For here, we can use that same hardware to mount the fender to our trailer. Then we can repeat the same process with the other fender.Then we can move on to setting our side rails in place. You'll want to plug in your wiring at the rear. It can help to have an extra set of hands. Then we'll take our Allen bolts, put these through. Doesn't rightly matter which side you put through first and the rest just get installed in each section. Then we'll take our included Allen wrenches and tighten these down. They don't need to be extremely tight. Just get them nice and snug and you're all set. We can then jump back to our rear crossmember and torque these down. We can just feed the excess wire right back in.Now we'll install the arm and hub assembly. We'll want to be sure that the hub is facing towards the fender. The other end is going to fit in between here. We'll line up the holes. We'll take our bolt and insert it through the side. You'll want to be sure you have on a flat washer. On the other end, another flat washer and then the locknut, and we'll snug these down with a 21mm wrench and a 22mm socket. Then we'll need to torque them down to manufacturer's specifications.Next, we'll install the kickstand. We've got two options. We've got up here by our coupler and we've got just behind our pivot. Doesn't rightly matter which one you choose. I'm going to install mine just behind the coupler. Take our hardware, line up our holes, and get that started, and the tool is included for this. For the shock, it's going to be installed between the shackle here. We'll take the large bolt with the flat washer. We'll come from the inside out and we'll take another flat washer and then a locknut. At the hub, we'll raise that up, line it up, push it in place, flat washer, and then pin it. We'll snug these down. You'll also want to torque them down to Yakima's specifications.Next is our tires with four lugs. Now, this size is going to be 21mm. After you get them started, it can be helpful to use a socket to get them snugged up. You'll want to be sure that the diameter of the socket will fit the diameter of the lugs just as you see here. In some cases, they can be a bit thick and you would not be able to fit it into place. We won't worry about torquing these down just yet. We will lower the trailer down and then do it.The last step is to install our crossbars. The brackets fit over the tubes. Want to be sure that the hinge is on the inside. On our crossbar, we need to make sure that these are positioned all the way out just so they're easy to find when we set them in place. They set directly on top of our brackets. The holes line up and then our Allen bolts go into place.With both crossbars installed, you need to decide what you want your crossbar spread to be. You want to be sure to position them to where they're going to work out best with your accessories. You'll also want to be sure that you have even bar overhang. So with it loose, you want to be sure you have the same distance from here to here on each side. We'll just tighten it down with our included tool. Now, you don't need to over-tighten, just get it nice and snug. By tightening this down, it is drawing down the crossbar and squeezing the clamp around the tube bars. With everything tightened down and torqued, you're ready to load up your favorite accessories, hook up to your towing vehicle and hit the road.
Info for this part was:
Video by:
Andrew K
Video Edited:
Jacob T
Installed by:
Hayden R
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