Aussie Custom Built Camping Trailer

[Pete79]

Now that I have a fridge, I also need power.

So on went a 100w semi flexible solar panel, 10amp solar controller and 2x 100ah batteries

I cut some short lengths of fuel hose to make rubber bushes between the panel and the pod.

The junction box and wiring on the panel is obviously made to build a full array of panels, not just wrapping a single one over a luggage pod.
Just need to put a bit of thought into making a tidy run with this wiring to get it into the trailer.

Electronics have never been my strong point.
This was one of my first wiring diagrams, some minor points changed along the way (like no anderson plug on the panel wires and 200ah batteries), but this is pretty much how it looks in the trailer these days.

 

[Pete79]

And some touring pics with this setup.

First I had to stop this little bugger from stealing my trailer.

Then we hit the road.

We did a week touring the South East corner of Australia on our way from Sydney to Melbourne then on to 21 days exploring Tasmania.
This trip was only bush camping, no hotels or caravan parks. We covered around 5,000km and tried to do as many dirt roads or scenic routes as possible.

The rubber seals I fitted to the lid on the trailer did a great job keeping the water out (even in the pouring rain on the drive home) and no dust came in on normal gravel roads, but the really fine powdery stuff did find it's way in under the front tailgate (between the gate and the floor around the hinges). I haven't opened this front panel in ages and I've just run a bead of silicon around now it to seal it shut.

The solar and battery system worked brilliantly. I took the 240v charger just in case, but didn't come close to needing it.
We were lucky to have perfect weather pretty much the whole trip. And with about 8 hours driving each day there was plenty of sun on the panel to keep everything fully charged. I think this charging while driving is much better then taking panels that you need to set up once you've stopped for the night. There are no trees over head while driving on the road and the panel had a clear view of the sky pretty much the whole time while driving around.
There was a period that tested the amount of power storage that we had; from Arthur River when the panel was covered in dust for a full day, then 2 days of rain and cloudy skies. There was maybe an hour of sun on the panel before being loaded on inside the boat for sailing during the day, then driving in pouring rain the whole way from Melbourne to Sydney.
The panel didn't see any real sun for about 4 days and the lowest voltage I saw was 12.4v, even after driving in the pouring rain all day it was reading 12.6v when I isolated everything at home.

The brakes on the trailer have bedded in properly now and have proven many times that they were worth the cost and effort to fit them.
The best bit was going over the ranges and just using enough brake peddle to turn on the brake lights and letting the trailer do all the work to wash off the little bit of speed as needed, I only needed to use more pressure (and use the Jimny brakes) on the really sharp turns.
The brakes do need constant adjustment on the gravel roads, the right amount of brake force to help at 80km/hr is way to much when slowing from 40-60km/hr.




I like this comparison photo of what people tell me I need to take a family of 4 on the road for a month, compared to what I actually need.....

And some other random pics.

 

[Fugly]

Pete,
Very good setup....
Only thing I would add is a stone guard to the front of the trailer ....
Just my 2 bobs worth...

Cheers Fugly

 

[Pete79]

Thanks.
Yes, a stone guard is in the works.

The front of the mud guards have been blasted with rocks back to bare metal and it's not so nice turning up to camp with your drinking water tap looking like this...

 

[indiedog]

Pete, fully agree with the comparison on what you need. We have 3 kids and tow a 5x4 trailer similar to yours but have a storage box on the front which holds the battery, ropes, pegs, charger, hoses, etc. Whenever we go to the camping shows we are steered towards big vans but you really don't need it. We have a RTT on top of our trailer and use a swag. Love it and would never go back to a van. Our tug is slightly bigger being a KJ Jeep Cherokee. Again you are 100% correct that the solar panel does a great job of charging when driving. I had that setup on my Jayco and never needed the Anderson. With the RTT I've not got space for the panels which are stored between the front tailgate and the storage box when driving. Our tailgates are hinged using the same latches you used for your roof.

Would be interested to know where you got your brakes and your panel. I've also got a much smaller flexible solar panel and find it excellent.

Well done on the lateral thinking. Keep the info coming.

 

[Pete79]

Thanks Indiedog.
The panel and brakes are both just from eBay.

The panel was from the seller "welink solar" in Sydney.
I arranged pickup from their warehouse and got to chatting with the guy, he threw in one of those little waterproof controllers for half price of what he advertised them on eBay. But I soon started having open voltage issues with that controller and quickly upgraded to a good quality one bought from a friend of mine that does some electrical fitouts for the military/government.

The brakes where from "Sunrise" trailer parts, I contacted all of the trailer parts suppliers on eBay to see if they could do the F100 hubs for my Suzuki rims.
They all came in at about the same price and all wanted 3 weeks to machine the hubs for me. So I went with Sunrise just because they where around the corner from home and could save on shipping costs.

There's a bit of a story to my electric brakes setup, it was a bit of a saga, but thankfully it's sorted now.
I'll make another post for this issue.


I have a question for you.

We have a RTT on top of our trailer and use a swag. Love it and would never go back to a van.

We looked at RTTs for ages, but couldn't find anything that could fit us all in.
Do you put the kids in the RTT and you sleep in the swag?

I don't really think a RTT suits us at the moment, but I've always been interested if their is one that could sleep 2 adults and 2 kids.


At the moment we have 3 tents to choose from depending on the weather and where we are going.

1) Our favorite is our Blackwolf Turbo 300 (canvas) we have the full storm covers for the front awning and for long trips or trips with lots of short stops this tent is awesome. Blackwolf info here for those that haven't seen one.

2) We had a Blackwolf Mojave SG4 as our 'summer' tent, it was Ok, but took ages to set up and was pretty big. So we recently upgraded this for a new Zempire Drift tent out of New Zealand. Clicky link thing here with all the details.
This is our new summer tent and we're really happy with it so far. On clear night with no dew you can open the whole roof and truly sleep under the stars. It also gives the kids a huge play room away from the mozzies (we've had a few family dinners inside this tent when the mosquitoes wanted to eat you alive at sunset). Best of all, this tent packs up tiny and only weighs about 16kg all up.

3) Our trusty hiking tent and swag, perfect little set up for a quick trip away. The tent fits under the car seat and we use a Thermarest mattress in the swag, so it rolls up really compact too.

 

[indiedog]

Cheers Pete. I thought they might be eBay items. I've got a link saved for some brakes on there but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Getting those electric brakes dialled in, especially on a small trailer, can be a real pain in the .....

Original plan for the RTT was a Hannibal with a full annex as the plan is/was to build a new camper trailer. We wanted to use the RTT without the annex until that time. Last year we scored a brand new ARB Simpson 2 at the ARB garage sale in Brisbane. Got it for $400 so just had to go with it. The ARB is 1400 wide but we were looking at the Hannibal at 1600 wide. You can also get them 1800 and 2000 (I think) but too big for the trailer. Our kids are 9.5, 8 and 8. All 3 can easily sleep in the RTT and the wife and I sleep in a double swag which to be honest we find more comfortable. We just don't like the RTT mattress. Our boy also has a single swag and we take that along if we are in one place for a while. On road trips we leave it behind.

We thought about having a custom annex made for the RTT to suit the height on the trailer. You could then sleep 2 on the floor in that. Our kids are old enough now we don't have to be in the same "room" as them and happy to live with the double swag.

I gather your trailer is 4 x 4 feet?

 

[Pete79]

Cheers for that info.
Our kids are 7 and 7, but they still want to be in the tent with us. One of the things they love most about camping is waking up in the morning with the whole family.


The trailer is 4 x 3.5 feet.
Yes it's very compact. :squint:

 

[Pete79]

Now for my axle dramas....

Firstly I fitted a set of shocks under the trailer, I was pretty happy with my mounting brackets that I fabbed up and the shocks had pretty decent travel.

I used the standard front shocks from the Jimny, but had to make a slight mod for them to work as I needed.

But after a trip on some pretty steep muddy tracks with lots of loose rocks flying everywhere, the shocks got smashed in this position.
The same trip had some high speed dirt roads with big potholes right on the apex of a couple of bends, I saw the trailer completely airborne in the rearview mirror more then once on that trip.

The aftermath, peppered with big dents on both shocks.

Then I found that the U-bolts on one side had come loose, letting the axle turn with the brakes.
This is when I realized that I hadn't welded the locating tabs to the axle when I originally fitted the brakes. So I fixed that one.

I also found the springs had fully bottomed out on one side, it pinched the brake cable between the U-bolt and the chassis. There's a dent in the RHS and a scorch mark from shorting out the brakes.

All of this trouble did make me fix a few issues.
As noted above I welded the locating plate to stop the axle from spinning with the brakes on.

I've turned the shock and run them beside the springs. This new setup uses the whole stroke of the shock now.

But the big issue was the brakes.
From day one I had been having an issue with one wheel locking up.
I thought it was the adjustment, so found my self laying under the trailer on several trips backing off the adjuster on one side, only to set them up properly again once I got home.
I thought maybe it was the earth wire on my whole setup, so I ran a dedicated wire for the earth on the brakes back to the vehicle, still no better.
Then I started testing the whole wiring circuit, but the resistance was really low.

All of this was going on over a few months, I was just about to give up and started setting them up on the lowest power setting (basically not on at all).

Then when all the wires got smashed on this particular trip I needed to re-route the cables.
The ones I had on there didn't have enough length to run down the shock in it's new position, so I ran a new bigger power and a new bigger earth wire from the plug on the vehicle to the brakes on each side.
I couldn't believe it, my problem was now solved!!!

It turns out that rubbish 7 core wire that they sell to use on trailers with electric brakes is waaaaaaayyyyyyy too thin. It couldn't carry enough power to run both brake assemblies....
Nice big cables and no more lock up issues. :victory:

I've now done about 10,000km with the new cables on the brakes and still no more single wheel lock ups.

 

[PKDreamers]

Hi what a great trailer build well done.
I used these guys for bits when I put brakes on my trailer.
https://www.alltrailerspares.com.au/

 

[Pete79]

Thanks PKDreamers.
I found those guys where pretty expensive, it worked out cheaper for me to ship all my parts up from the southern states then buying off any of the suppliers in QLD or NSW.
My springs came from Adelaide and everything else came from VIC.

 

[Pete79]

Some more random pics of fun tracks to test out the little rig.

Got it a bit wet.

Got it even wetter.

And got it a bit stuck.
This was the hill that smashed my shocks with rocks, as usual photos never do justice to how steep (and in this case slippery) the tracks really are.

 

[Pete79]

I mentioned earlier that my first idea for internal compartments was using that ally tubing, well that didn't last too long.

There was a couple of reasons for changing my design;
The original design had some of the food stores under the table and chairs. But his meant I couldn't pack the trailer until the food was in, but the food is always the last thing just before we hook up and go.
But I wanted to pack mid-week, so come Friday afternoon we could just trow in the food, hook up and go.
So this needed to be a sliding drawer for the food, coming out from under the other gear.

The other reason for the change was the batteries.
I had been given a new company car that just happened to be a dual cab 4X4. I wanted to set up the back for some light touring trips and needed a second battery in the tray for my fridge.
So I split the batteries and made one into a portable power box.

And finally, when I started stripping down the alloy frame I found heaps of the plastic joiners had cracked, some had split in half.
So lucky I decided to rip it out before it all fell apart.



Portable power.

New single battery in the trailer.

This is where the battery lives now.

Rewired the solar controller and junction box behind the fridge.
The main isolator for the battery and the solar panel are nice and easy to get to.

The whole setup inside.

New slide with box for the food behind the cooker and cutlery drawer.

And everything packed, ready for the next trip.

 

[Pete79]

I mentioned in my first post that we had relocated from our rural property to the city.
Well, we're back on our land again. :wings:



I can't say I'm going to miss the city life or rental properties, there's nothing like living in your own home and having space to do what ever you want.
The only problem for me was we didn't have any covered outdoor space, and every man needs a shed, right??

So I as soon as we arrived back I set about building my new man cave.
Building on our block has it's challenges, but every challenge should be looked at as an opportunity.

So we brought in 36 tonnes of rock.

And started diggin'.

Then played with some rocks, poured some concrete and slapped up a shed.
All done in about 5 weeks.

After the wife gave everything a final clean up, I officially moved into my new office/workshop/man-cave last weekend.
I can't wait to start fabricating again in this new space. :victory:

 

[Pete79]

And a quick update on the trailer.
I fitted my new rubber yesterday.

Went from 205/75 R15 (~26") up to a pair of 30s.

With the new tyres fitted.

I did find one little issue with the new bigger tyres.
With the trailer almost fully loaded (no food, water or beer) I have 100mm of suspension travel.
But now I only have 75mm clearance between the top of the tyre and the mudguard.

Lucky I have a plan in the works. I just need to finalize a couple of points, then all will be revealed....