MadMax11
New member
A little background on this build first. I was planning on moving from AK to CO with my girlfriend, and wanted to drive my Subaru down with all of our stuff. Problem is, even with a small amount of stuff, the Suby is simply not big enough to haul everything down by itself, so I planned a trailer build.
Requirements:
- Cheapish (~$500)
- Lightweight so the Suby can haul it (~500#)
- Enough space to pack quite a few boxes + spare tires + a couple spare parts
- Room to sleep 2
- Smaller than my car for aerodynamics sake
- Ability to convert to flatbed easily
- Repairability
- Offroading capability (& general toughness for the ~3700 mile trip)
I realized that that list had quite a few ideal characteristics, but I didn't want to sacrifice too much in any category. So i planned. And schemed.
It turns out that I had a spare 91 Subaru Legacy laying around (with a missing engine and dead tranny), so I decided to cannibalize it to tackle a few items on my list (cheapness, spare tires, spare parts, repairability, offroading capability).
I pulled the rear subframe to use as the base for the trailer. It had all of the drivetrain parts necessary for the trailer, and all of the parts could be used as spares on my car. I loved that it had so many interchangeable parts in case of disastrous failure in the middle of nowhere (quite a possibility with an untested design on a fresh trailer).
I scoured the internet to see if anyone had done a Subaru trailer build that I could learn from before jumping into building the frame. I found one awesome dude who had used an old torsion subframe from an 80's Subaru, but my Macpherson strut subframe was a whole different animal. I thought through many different designs using pencil and paper, yet it always seems that reinforcements and modifications constantly reshape and evolve my designs, which I consider a key part of my building process!
.
Requirements:
- Cheapish (~$500)
- Lightweight so the Suby can haul it (~500#)
- Enough space to pack quite a few boxes + spare tires + a couple spare parts
- Room to sleep 2
- Smaller than my car for aerodynamics sake
- Ability to convert to flatbed easily
- Repairability
- Offroading capability (& general toughness for the ~3700 mile trip)
I realized that that list had quite a few ideal characteristics, but I didn't want to sacrifice too much in any category. So i planned. And schemed.
It turns out that I had a spare 91 Subaru Legacy laying around (with a missing engine and dead tranny), so I decided to cannibalize it to tackle a few items on my list (cheapness, spare tires, spare parts, repairability, offroading capability).
I pulled the rear subframe to use as the base for the trailer. It had all of the drivetrain parts necessary for the trailer, and all of the parts could be used as spares on my car. I loved that it had so many interchangeable parts in case of disastrous failure in the middle of nowhere (quite a possibility with an untested design on a fresh trailer).
I scoured the internet to see if anyone had done a Subaru trailer build that I could learn from before jumping into building the frame. I found one awesome dude who had used an old torsion subframe from an 80's Subaru, but my Macpherson strut subframe was a whole different animal. I thought through many different designs using pencil and paper, yet it always seems that reinforcements and modifications constantly reshape and evolve my designs, which I consider a key part of my building process!
.