A different kind of trailer build: 20' enclosed "support trailer"

[orangeTJ]

I installed some floor mounted D rings in the front to accommodate my Jeep. If you look closely, you can see to existing D rings up near the cabinets. They were too far forward to suit my needs, plus the tie down straps would make using the front section of the trailer very difficult (for cargo, etc.)

I later removed the L track. I kept tripping on it.

I used some really thick aluminum backing plates (shown to the left) rather than the thin galvanized metal that came with the tiedowns. I bought the aluminum bar stock at a metal vendor between Tacoma and Fife, WA.

I think it's 1/4 thick.

 

[orangeTJ]

Jeep in the trailer:

The hard top barely cleared the enclosure that surrounds the spring for the ramp door.

When I loaded/unloaded the Jeep later, I always aired down the tires.

 

[orangeTJ]

The battery was mounted in a box inside the cabinet, with a vent hose going to a wall vent. The battery would barely hold a charge. During the process of redoing some of the wiring, I removed the battery and box. It turns out the battery had a hole in the bottom of it from rubbing on one of the screws that held the battery box to the floor. It had puked some acid out. I suppose the previous owners never realized how bad the battery was since they always powered up the trailer with generator or shore power, and rarely used the DC lights.

I replaced the battery with a Deka AGM.

I had a spare inverter/charger in my collection of stuff, so I planned to use it as a charging source in the trailer. It's the industrial version of a Heart Interface Freedom 10, known as a FleetPower 1000. It served me well in my Desert Fox toy hauler from 2003-2006.

I needed an outlet to plug the charging input into.

I tapped in to the outlet above the counter top after cutting a hole for an outlet inside the cabinet, then installed an outlet in the hole.

Outlet removed from the wall:

Hole cut:

Outlet installed:

Inverter and original battery, before I discovered the hole in it.

Some of the photos above show some IP Shelving (Industrial Post shelving). I installed two of them and later spaced them apart and placed the inverter between the two, which puts the inverter behind the center divider between the two center doors on the lower cabinet. I also threw in some scrap carpeting in the bottom of the cabinet.

I could use the inverter to power up the trailer, but hard-wiring it in would require some major rewiring to hard wire it in (holes cut in the wall, etc).

The easy solution is to plug a short cord in to the front of the inverter and run it outside through a hole in the floor (which is already present) and plug the cord in to the shore power inlet.

Another option is to plug the shore power cord in to the back of my truck camper and get power from the truck camper's inverter and solar, which I have done several times on trips.

I'm a huge advocate of 3-stage smart chargers for deep cycle batteries and won't settle for anything else. The inverter/charger is a 3 stage 50 amp charger. If I were to need to buy a new 3 stage charger, I'd most likely get a Xantrex TrueCharge. I worked for Heart Interface (which is now known as Xantrex) for about 8 years and gained a huge amount of knowledge on DC electrical, battery charging, etc.

 

[orangeTJ]

There were four of these old school 12vdc lights, which looked like something that belonged in the cockpit of a law enforcement boat.

I replaced them with some RV style fixtures.

There were originally 4 light fixtures. 2 up front (shown) and 2 more further back, but centered across the width of the ceiling. One is behind the A/C and the other is 3' or so behind it. About a year ago I added a 5th light fixture at the very back. When I did that, I installed totally different light fixtures because the lenses on these kept falling off.

 

[orangeTJ]

May 2012, the trailer was ready to hit the road for OX12. The trip was going to be about 3 weeks long, and I had the Jeep in the trailer.

I ordered a longer Supertruss Hitch extension, thinking for sure I'd need it to prevent the camper jacks from smacking the trailer on sharp turns. There's a huge jump in length - 24", then the next is 32". I was sure I had a 24", so I ordered a 32". I didn't get it assembled and mounted until the day I was ready to leave. I pulled out on the street and was dismayed at the sagging tongue of the trailer. I had a lot of tongue weight, and the leverage made the situation look dismal. I did a jackknife test, basically right as I was ready to hit the road. I had lots of clearance, so I dismounted the 32" extension and reinstalled my original and did another jackknife test. The load looked better with the shorter extension too.

WOOHOO, plenty of clearance with my shorter extension. Truck and trailer were almost 90 degrees here. This is one huge benefit of buying a cargo trailer with a long tongue - mine measures out at about 52". Some cargo trailer dealers don't have the forethought to order them with extended tongues, and it makes it tough to tow with a wide rig. Typical tongue length (standard) is 36". The local Haulmark/Wells Cargo dealer in Fife, WA has a knowledgeable staff, who know that people tow like I do, and they order EVERYTHING with at least a 48" tongue. I've been a customer there since the 90s, and have had various discussions about tongue length.

The longest distance trip I took was to OX12. When I pulled out on to the road after doing my final jackknife test, and realized how sluggish the truck was with all the weight, I almost went back home and unloaded the Jeep. A few minutes later, on the main road I almost went home again.

After that trip, I decided I was never putting the Jeep in the trailer and towing it behind the truck and camper again. It border-lined on being a white knuckle experience due to the weight of the camper, the trailer and Jeep. I was way overloaded. The last stretch of highway heading south to Flagstaff was the worst - I was fighting a bad headwind about 1/3 of the day that day. Truck would only hold 50 mph.

 

[orangeTJ]

June 2012, I took the trailer on the first motorcycle camping outing - wow it was nice having a garage to finish installing bike upgrades onto my newly acquired KTM 500 EXC.

Later that summer I did another long trip with the trailer, using it as my motorcycle hauler. I camped with friends, then attended the NW Overland Rally, then camped with friends again. It was close to a 3 week trip.

Prior to last year, the 6x12 was my main motorcycle and camp gear hauler. By that time, I was realizing how nice the "mini-garage" was on my motorcycle camping trips. The 6x12 was getting annoyingly small for the other things I was using it for, which far surpassed the amount of time I used it for camping, so I decided it was time to switch modes on the big trailer (convert it to camping support/motorcycle hauler) and sell the 6x12 and get a 7x14.

I sold the 6x12 Memorial Day weekend last year.

June last year, I did the usual group campout near Lake Wenatchee, WA with friends (and motorcycles) like I've been doing since 1997. Everyone thought it was a wise choice that I start using the 8.5x20 as a mini-garage.

Later in June I used it again at the NW Overland Rally.

Summertime, parked in the sun, with no shore power available, the trailer gets scorching hot inside. I'd been wanting to install a Fantastic roof vent/fan and maybe insulate the ceiling. Last year I lucked out at the NW Overland Rally with the weather being unusually mild. The moderate clouds and the breeze kept the trailer somewhat tolerable inside, temperature wise. A powered roof vent fan would at lease circulate some air when it was warm out, and exhaust some of the hot air.

 

[orangeTJ]

It was time to install a wheel chock in the floor to accommodate easier transport of motorcycles. I had been hauling bikes with them loaded backwards in the trailer, with the front tire up against the ramp door. It worked, but pushing a bike up the ramp backwards was getting old, as was having the bike try to jettison out the ramp door if I opened the door while the bike still had tie-down straps securing it. The tie-downs were pulling the bike up against the ramp door.

I am a long time fan of Pingel removable wheel chocks. When I sell trailer, I always keep the chock and all the mounting hardware.

I loaded my trusty DR-Z400S to get the location for the chock.

The dark colored stripe on the floor, where the front tire is positioned, is where the L track was located.

 

[orangeTJ]

Brake wiring - it amazes me how shoddy some of the wiring is on trailers. I've seen all sorts of low budget connectors used on the undercarriage, but this one tops them all.

I replaced all of this mess with heat shrink sealing butt-splices.

 

[orangeTJ]

Fast forward to this year:
It's time to do more upgrades!!

Planned mods and upgrades: (still a work in progress)

Insulate the ceiling
Upgrade the interior lighting (round 2)
Install a powered vent fan
Install more switches for the plethora of interior lights I am installing
Add a DC fuse panel
Add additional clearance/marker lights

Possible future upgrades:
Car Stereo and speakers
Carpeting on a portion of the floor - those square interlocking carpet tiles might work well, unless it's cost prohibitive.
Awning lights
Install some high power flood lights on the back, for more visibility when backing up.

In 2013 I relocated to Eastern, WA and have a house with a nice shop.

About 2 months ago, I moved the trailer in to my shop to get it out of the weather, so I could start working on it.

 

[orangeTJ]

When I bought my Arctic Fox truck camper, I removed the Fantastic fan/vent and installed a MaxxAir fan/vent that I kept out of my Desert Fox.

I finally am putting the nearly new Fantastic vent to use, in the trailer, in place of an exiting vent. It's something I've wanted to do for several years, but didn't get to it because it's a major project.

Step one of several projects involving the ceiling was to remove all the ceiling panels. This photo was taken after I'd already installed a bunch of new wiring and some of the insulation

Old vent removed:

This marks where the wiring exits the fan. I needed to drill a small hole through the metal tubing (frame) that surrounds the vent.

Hole drilled:

Grommet I used in the hole:

Grommet installed.
The trailer had foil bubble wrap placed between the roof skin and rafters. Vapor barrier yes, insulation value, probably R .05

 

[orangeTJ]

I put some butyl tape around the vent flange prior bolting the vent to the roof.

I also put a wad of it in the screw holes.

Interior view.

The foil backed bubble wrap was installed at the factory. These photos were taken prior to drilling the hole for the wiring.

 

[orangeTJ]

All of the new DC powered items will be fused through a 12 circuit fuse panel with negative bus:

 

[orangeTJ]

Ceiling insulation:

1" thick foiled backed foam board worked perfect:

I think I used 5 sheets of it.

This photo shows some of the wiring for the new lights. I installed a LOT of new wiring.

 

[orangeTJ]

I taped my lighting plan to the wall:
The red circles indicate NEW lights.

The blue rectangles and circles indicate existing lights, which are getting replaced with something new.
The green circles were an idea for under cabinet lighting - but I haven't made a final decision on what style and how many lights I will put there.

Existing AC and DC switches are just inside the door. I will add more DC switches here. The original configuration only had one switch. I removed it from the wall and have fished all my new wires through the hole.

I haven't purchased all the switches yet, because I'm still revising things as I go.

 

[orangeTJ]

Here's a better photo of the ceiling insulation completed:

The lighting project is a chore. I temporarily reinstall the ceiling panels to measure out and mark locations for each light I'm installing. Then I remove the panel to mount the lights.

When I am ready to fully reinstall each panel, I leave it partially hanging down so I can connect the wires for the lights. I am doing one panel at a time.