Building the Turd

[climbingxj]

Well, less than two months to go! Sounds like an ambitious plan A! :Wow1:
What about plan B? :sombrero:

Nevertheless keep the horseshoes!

I need more than a year to get a simple off road trailer ready for the road carrying a tent on top.
It's the small things that cause problems! :wings:

Haha, yup, it's an ambitious plan A! I don't think I'll have her fully done, I do want to have it fully enclosed and comfortable by the end of may, and then more or less done by the middle of july for the first full week off, and then work out any kinks for a two week road trip in august. I've never built a trailer before, so let's see how it goes! I do have a lot of down time and on call time at work though, so making headway is possible. I'm expecting the most time will be eaten up with finishing the outside, and doing wiring, plumbing, and all that stuff.

As far as progress goes, We had two weeks of really nice weather. I got the tear down done during the evenings of the second week. I was planning on doing rust-removal, prepping for paint, and then painting last weekend, but it was cold on Friday, and I woke up to snow on Saturday. It'll all have to wait for another day.

 

[climbingxj]

thanks for all the tips on sealing the wood. I'm planning on having a frame constructed of 2x3's around the bottom of the floor that will sit flush against the metal frame of the trailer. The more I think about it the more I like the idea of totally fiber glassing the bottom, we'll see what I end up doing though. I'll have to do some reading into the suggestions others have made before I make a final decision

thanks for the tip on the trailer forum martinjmpr, I didn't know about that one, I'll have to spend some time poking around there.

 

[climbingxj]

Well, I've made a little progress.

Since we had a spell of wet and cold weather, I finished preping the frame for paint, and moved it in the garage. Here's a pic of it in it's new home, and almost finished being preped:



I did a little more work on it after that. I was surprised a little at how many tight and hard to reach spots there was on the frame. I got all the surface rust out of all but the most difficult to reach places (which I really can't see anyways, so who knows what is or isn't there....). I probably could have spend several more hours touching up little things here and there, but I've painted metal many times before and knew it wouldn't make a difference as far as adhesion went, so I ignored the perfectionist in me, cleaned the whole thing twice with Alcohol, and primed:



Sorry about the messy garage! It needs to be cleaned, but I'm trying to put that off until I know we won't get anymore snow. You can see some red on the frame. I ran out of grey primer after two coats, and there were a couple of spots I thought needed a slightly thicker coat, and I had some redish primer on the shelf, so I used that to finish up. I also brushed on the primer, which I've never done before on a metal surface. Brushing won't give me a showroom quality finish, but it's the frame, so really who cares, right? Also note that I didn't prep or prime the tongue and mounts for the propane bottles. I did this simply because there was a few finicky things to clean, and I wanted to make progress. Since this area will remain exposed once the trailer is built I decided to leave them as is for now and finish them once I've made some progress with the deck and body of the trailer itself. I like taking rust off things and putting new paint on, so I have no doubt it'll get done, I just didn't want to hold up building the body of the trailer for this.

On the way back from picking up paint and primer yesterday the wife and I decided to do a little exploring in the coolies near where we live:



I was shocked at how much garbage we found on our little trip. A huge pet peeve of mine is when I see peoples crap in otherwise pristine or beautiful places, or anywhere for that matter. It's not hard to throw stuff in the garbage, so why do people not do it? I don't know why it surprises me anymore; it's just so inconsiderate and upsetting. I ended up taking a random tire home on the roof rack, and may go back there with a garbage bag or two in the near future. Ending my rant, we had fun, saw a few deer (You can see a couple of them in the upper right corner of that picture) and got home so I could finish priming the frame. Overall a productive day.

I woke up to this today, and was glad I moved the frame to the garage:



The goal for this week is to get er painted and then have the floor done and bolted down by the end of next weekend.

 

[climbingxj]

Another Update

Alright, so another week has passed, and I've made what I feel is a fair bit of progress. I ended the last update with the frame in primer, and the next step was to paint it. as with the primer I brushed on two coats. The nice thing about brushing paint on is that each coat is nice and thick, the problem is that there ends up being little bits here and there where the paint isn't brushed on evenly. So I've had to go back over things with rattle cans to make sure there's a nice and even coat. I also used rattle cans to coat the harder to access areas of the frame. Here it is after the first coat:



After a second brush on coat and a lot of touching up with the rattle can, I started to build the floor. I decided to build it in place. I used 3/4" ply, and Home depot didn't have any tongue and groove, so I went with standard ply. I also didn't have time to grab my father-in-laws pick up, so I had Home Depot cut the sheets in half so they were 4'x4' and would fit nicely on my roof rack. Here's the floor half way through construction:



You can see how it's skirted with 2x3's around the edge of the frame and how I braced the location where each sheet of ply met. I glued and screwed each piece to the 2x3's:



Here the floor is completely built:



Before I pulled the floor off I drilled the holes I'd need to bolt the floor to the frame. I forget the exact size of the bolt, but basically they're a countersunk grade 5 bolt through the floor and frame with washers on both sides and two nuts to secure them on the bottom. I'll use a pile of waterproof silicone sealer to waterproof it. Here's a couple pics:







I was worried about the strength of the floor as I used 4'x4' pieces and thus had more joints, and I didn't use tongue and groove ply like I originally planned. A friend helped me lift the floor off and prop it up against the garage door to seal the bottom, and I was honestly impressed by how rigid it was. There was no visible flex when it was lifted off the frame. Here it is against the garage door and ready to be sealed



I did a lot of reading and thinking about the best way to seal up the floor. In the end I decided to fiberglass all the joints while being very liberal with the resin, and then put on three coats of a quality oil based floor paint. So why did I decide against using any of the sealers/bed-liner others have recommended? They all seem like quality products and have been proven to be effective, so why not use them? I was thinking about the old floor I pulled off the trailer. It was 35 years old, and was untreated plywood on a very well used trailer, and it had no treatment at all yet remained in very good shape. As I was browsing through a few build threads on the teardrops and tiny trailers forum (thanks again to the user who posted the link.... it's a great site), a poster was wondering if all the worry about sealing the wood on the bottom of the trailer was overkill since so many of these old trailers had unfinished floors and they've held up for decades without a problem. His/Her thoughts echoed mine, and after giving it more thought I decided that many solutions were overkill. While overkill can be good, I have a tight-ish budget so an adequate treatment will be fine. I've used floor paint on plywood floors before, and it's proven to be a resilient finish that holds up to a lot of abuse. I decided I'd see how well it holds up on my build. After buying the fiberglass and paint I ended up spending $68.00 with taxes, and have a fair bit of leftover fiberglass to use elsewhere. So all things considered I figure that it cost me half as much as bed-lining the bottom, and it's very well sealed. Sorry for the long winded description, here's a pic of the fiberglass:



Here it is after the first coat of paint, it got two more:



For some reason I can't upload any more pictures right now, so I'll edit and add pictures later. I then set it back on top of the frame after the paint was dry. It had started to snow just before I brought the floor back inside so I haven't bolted it down yet so that I can be sure that any water in the bolt holes had evaporated before they get sealed up with silicone. I used the time to get started on building the frame for the body of the trailer, Again, I used 2x3's. I also wired the trailer lights while I had the floor off. I also decided to deal with the old brakes while the frame was off. It turned out that there was no hydraulic fluid, and the old brakes and actuator were in really rough shape, so I decided that I'd go with electric brakes. The electric brakes at princess auto turned out to be the wrong ones, so I have to order them and install them at a later date.

I'm pleased with my progress this week. I have a busy week ahead so I doubt that I'll get much accomplished over the next four days.

 

[climbingxj]

Able to upload pics now. Here's the old brakes filled with cobwebs and the old brake actuator:





This is why you have dust caps on the hubs:



While brakes and hubs where off I cleaned the backing plate up and put on a fresh coat of paint:



I had to put the old stuff back on while I wait for the new stuff to come in the mail since the parts available at princess auto locally were the wrong ones.

Here's the end walls on:



Up until now I really haven't had to have any really specific drawings, I just knew what height I wanted the walls to be and the trailer frame dictated how the floor was built and what dimensions it woudl be. To get the sides done I have to make some specific drawings. Hopefully I'll make some more progress next weekend.

 

[elmo_4_vt]

Nice progress. Didn't realize the walls were going to be that tall. Maybe I missed it, but what is the height above the camper floor? Looks like about 6'?

As your designing, make sure to put your heavy stuff up front. That axle looks pretty centered in the trailer frame and you'll want to make sure you have 10-15% tounge weight.

Don

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[climbingxj]

Yup, the walls are that tall! Originally I was planning on a teardrop with a galley area out back. I figured it would be about 4' above the deck. I then realized that an extra 2' wouldn't add that much weight, and since it won't be an offroad trailer the higher center of gravity isn't that big a deal. I ended up settling on 6'3" above the floor on the outside and 6' 1 1/2" on the inside. It's just enough room for me to stand. Honestly I'm still not 100% sure this will be better for my purposes than a teardrop style build, but I guess I'll find out. It's not going to be extravagant on the inside, just a queen sized bed with drawers for cloths underneath, and a kitchen area. I'm not even planning on having a dedicated area to sit and eat inside, half the fun of being outdoors is actually being outdoors, so I really want to keep this just as a place to sleep and cook that's out of the elements rather than a home on wheels.

The total length is a little under 10'. A few years ago when I was climbing in Joshua tree I saw a small 10'-ish trailer another climber was staying in, and I thought it was pretty cool. Comfortable, easy to set up and move, room to stand up in, but didn't ruin the spirit of being outside. It was just a place to sleep, cook and store a few things. I loved the idea, so that's sort of what I'm aiming at here.

Thanks for the reminder about the tongue weight. I've been mulling over the interior layout and how to distribute the weight. I knew I had to have some tongue weight but I'd never read the 10-15% number, so that's really good to know, thanks! If anyone has any advice regarding weight distribution I'd appreciate it. My biggest concern right now is water storage. I'm planning on putting the galley at the front, with a gravity feed water system for the sink. I was thinking of having the water for the gravity feed tucked behind the front wall in a nook that will overhang the front edge of the trailer and a couple five gallon containers in the very back under the bed for when the system runs out. I figure that I can play with the weight a little and carry more or less water in the back to get the tongue weight in the neighborhood of what I'm aiming for (now I know that number is 10-15%!).

Thanks for checking out the build.

PS: I checked out your trailer build, I love the slide out kitchen you built, building it to fold out like you did was a very smart way to obtain the most counter space possible and put everything at a great height. Good work!