Multi-Purpose Subaru Trailer

[TACO721]

Oh, I've got more build photos that I'll post here once I stop being lazy. And by the way, my trailer box is 5'4" wide and 7' long, which in my opinion was the perfect size. Easy to weave through dense traffic while passing through cities to visit breweries, small enough for easily navigating offroad trails, but big enough to sleep a couple people with room for gear.

Also, you may want to stay tuned for the pop-up tent that I built on top of my trailer, it was cheap and absolutely perfect for my uses.

yeah. i agree it's a nice size. we have a open utility trailer that 12 long and 7' wide use it to haul the ATV's. but it could never go down trails.

 

[deepmud]

I don't have a closeup of the shock hoops at the moment, but how the attach to the frame is fairly solid. It took me a couple days to do some strange angles and tons of mockups with those bars. Basically, they are welded down the outside of the frame AND across the top. This way with a load on the trailer, the vertical side weld is in tension and the horizontal top weld is in compression.. it works in my head, haha.

And since it made an almost 4000 mile trip loaded with >1000 pounds of stuff through some minor offroading, nasty sections of main roads, and mountain passes with zero failures, my thoughts on its strength were confirmed! :smiley_drive: Though it definitely could have used some load testing before loading up and leaving, but where's the fun in that!


But I do agree that a bit of triangulation never hurts. I'd rather not put a bar across the usable space, but I could see triangulating the hoops to the wings of the trailer to help.

I think in your sketch you have leg from the top of your struts down the the deck of the trailer abut I don't see that in the finished product. I am another reader surprised your welds aren't tearing out. I think it's a testament to your smooth ride of the design that it's holding up. It's a lot of stress up high there, lots of leverage from the strut down to the frame. I see cornering forces are mostly carried down low into the subframe, but still some serious torque from your vertical load - especially if you bottom out with a heavily loaded trailer - the towers will want to come together and meet in the middle. In the car they came from, there is a LOT more metal around/down and even carrying the load to the roof - or on a front end, the strut tower is close to the firewall - and even then it's common to add support bar over the engine tying the two sides together. Trailers tend to work very hard - I'm glad it's holding up, but keep a close eye on the welds down by the frame, look for signs of flexing/cracking, and catch it early.

 

[MadMax11]

Here's some more of the build:

I built this floor out of a sheet of 4'x8'x5/8" inch plywood, plus some scrap plywood glued together with Titebond III (which is AMAZING wood glue, by the way).

Then I started building 2' high sides with 1/8" oak plywood and 2"x2"s. For my first woodworking project, I'm pretty proud of it.

I applied some cherry/brown stain to the wood to keep it fairly waterproof.

And then, it was time to start thinking about the pop up tent I wanted to build. I built some brackets out of aluminum, and then picked up some 1" aluminum bars and 90 degree pvc angles.

And then a couple pictures to show how it sits empty when buttoned up.

To come later, pictures of the tent built on the tube frame, and photos of it loaded up and in use.

 

[TheThom]

Looks great! Good progress!

 

[Chris Cordes]

Cool build very unique good job

 

[TheThom]

I just peeked at this again. I would recommend something in addition to the stain for waterproofing. Stain/polyurethane combos don't tend to work as well. You can get some exterior grade spar polyurethane and spend one day applying it and add YEARS of longevity to the finish on your trailer.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[deepmud]

love the tent fab. Keep it coming.