Burley_Industries prototype expedition trailer

Burley

Adventurer
Sorry everyone it's taken me a little bit to respond. I usually rely on emails for notification of a response but don't seem to be getting them lately.

To Rwhat:

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...Industries-prototype-expedition-trailer/page9

See post #86

Still unanswered questions for prospective buyers.

Trailer looks good. However since you plan on selling it here's my opinion.

Not diggin the fenders. No protection for rocks breaking your back window. If it's used for a cook surface I would skip cooking drunk food, i.e. fried foods. Gonna make a mess on the side. I would not want to be behind it on a paved road or especially a gravel.

The stitch welds on the skin are over kill. I would have just left stitch welds on the inside or used angle iron with hardware and used seam sealer. The spare tire is a waste of space on the tongue which the area could be used for storage to distribute tongue weight or used for a big cooler.

The jack storage on the inside is wasting usable space for certain sized totes, ect. You own a jeep so you should know this.

Front tongue jack look like it has to be removed, unless it's stored facing foward at 90*. So unless it stored facing foward it had to be installed before every time you have to un hitch or hitch up.

Tailgate has to be heavy especially skinned with steel and that bracing. Dropping down 180* is gonna be heavy. You probably better off with a swing out tailgate that could have a table intergrated in and maybe storing the spare tire on that and freeing up the tongue storage.

I would skip running off the shelf trailer leaf springs and run something else. Although keep the leaf spring set up since it's user friendly and very durable.


The list can go one. I'm only giving my opinion since you plan on selling them.



That last line is the key. I re-read that post a few time and can't seem to come up with any questions. It looks like all statements and opinions and nothing posed as a question. While I appriciate you taking the time to give your opinion, if you have a specific question I'm more than happy to answer it. You just have to pose it as a question so I know you want a specific answer.
 

colorado matt

Adventurer
you are right .... I am way out of my element ... groupie I think is a good analogy ... never will I have the money to buy what I would love ... my only hope is, with help, to build one ... even trying to find a starter trailer it seems that so much work to get it close to what I want and I approach the money spent to build from scratch .... I apologize for my post ..it was on the argumentative side ... I will limit my future post to questions that I have that pertain to me ... thanks for the smackdown and the locating pins answer ..... as for ih8mud ... would love to surf that site ... maybe because I am not a member and that pops up more ads but my old laptop locks up every time I go to that site ..it is quite frustrating .... Matt
 

Burley

Adventurer
I think that the angle is about right but to me they look to be a little too close together, almost invoking more of a pyramid shape. Maybe sort of too close to the tire? Not a showstopper but might be in need of adjustment on future builds.

The idea behind the placement of the fenders was to try and get them as close as possible without interfering. They are relatively close but that picture is a little deceiving. There is 3 inches gap between the fender and the tire. I could totally be wrong and regret it but I just don't think the axle will have that much articulation. I'll definitely report back once it''s on the trail for some testing and adjust in the future if needed.
 

Burley

Adventurer
Looks Good! Estimated cost of materials?

If I add in the rest of the things to finish the trailer; powder coating, wiring and electric, plumbing and other misc. the BOM is around $2500. I also tried figuring hour spent on the build and a rough guesstimate is between 200-250 hours. That number is quite a bit higher than I think it would take if I build another one since some of that time was spent re-working ideas that didn't pan out on the first go.
 

1store

Banned
I would skip running off the shelf trailer leaf springs and run something else
Many years in this business . If on a Hard trail you break a spring. Off the shelf trailer leaf spring many place to get new/ used springs fix on trial.
Baster spring can't find fast have leave on trail for a few days . Your Time to come back and find not a thing left.
Cost to get off THE trail $500 to 1000 are more .Have to leave in shop hard to find spring more money to shop .Someone has to pay for time to find baster spring . Cost to go back to get your trailer are a week in motel room your time wasted. As small as most off road trailers are ride has more to do with tires. A few use car sell men cons will say we have these spring made for us this why are trailer is the best .IT cost them maybe $ 30.00 for the con.
As a builder what happens when your supply of baster sprigs go away . It will happen when you need to send out replacement.
 
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Burley

Adventurer
Many years in this business . If on a Hard trail you break a spring off the shelf trailer leaf spring many place to get new/ used springs fix on trial.
Baster spring can't find fast have leave on trail for a few days . Your Time to come back and find not a thing left.
Cost to get off THE trail $500 to 1000 are more .Have to leave in shop hard to find spring more money to shop .Someone has to pay for time to find baster spring . Cost to go back to get your trailer are a week in motel room your time wasted. As small as most off road trailers are ride has more to do with tires. A few use car sell men cons will say we have these spring made for us this why are trailer is the best .IT cost them maybe $ 30.00 for the con.

I like that perspective on the situation. I agree with the logic.
 

tgreening

Expedition Leader
I just popped in here at the end but I can still offer up a couple 'pinions.

Springs - standard off the shelf type stuff for sure. I avoid proprietary like the plague.

Fender placement - I don't think it's so much of a clearance question (articulation) as a proportion thing. I'm guessing if you moved the front/rear so the spacing between them and the tire is close to the same as the spacing above the tire, she's going to look better. Or you might be able to change the angle to accomplish the same thing without moving the bottoms of the fenders forward/back. A little boxier looking, but that might not be a bad thing.

Design - I see you're getting an amount of "you shoulda did this" and "you shoulda did that", and the way I see it is you build what you want. If you want to build a few extra of your design to sell to a few folks that's your biz. If you want to start building trailers, things will get a bit different. :). The one thing that does really stand out to me is the weight. I think I saw someplace like 1100# dry/unloaded? That's pretty hefty for a 4x6 trailer, and coming I'm sure from being seriously overbuilt. Strong is never a bad thing but at some point it can become wasted. For example I've owned 3 different M416s, dry weight I believe 550#, and all of them pushing 40 yrs old. Frames are formed channel and sides stout but unsupported sheet metal. What I mean by unsupported is no square tube framing or the like. They get away with that by dmpling the sheet metal which gives it some rigidity, and putting some bends in it here and there for the same reason. Strength without additional weight.

Uncle Sams kids are not gentle with their equipment and all these trailers help up very well to years of abuse. Dents and dings for sure, but none of them were bent or broken wrecks. Mine weren't even rust buckets. Good for 500 # off-road and I believe 750# on road. I can't imagine needing to tote that much extra crap off-road, but the capacity is available.

The point is I think with a bit of structural redesign you could shave a boatload of weight off your trailer and sacrifice not much in real world usable strength.

But what you're building btw, is looking very well done.
 
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Burley

Adventurer
I just popped in here at the end but I can still offer up a couple 'pinions.

Springs - standard off the shelf type stuff for sure. I avoid proprietary like the plague.

Fender placement - I don't think it's so much of a clearance question (articulation) as a proportion thing. I'm guessing if you moved the front/rear so the spacing between them and the tire is close to the same as the spacing above the tire, she's going to look better. Or you might be able to change the angle to accomplish the same thing without moving the bottoms of the fenders forward/back. A little boxier looking, but that might not be a bad thing.

Design - I see you're getting an amount of "you shoulda did this" and "you shoulda did that", and the way I see it is you build what you want. If you want to build a few extra of your design to sell to a few folks that's your biz. If you want to start building trailers, things will get a bit different. :). The one thing that does really stand out to me is the weight. I think I saw someplace like 1100# dry/unloaded? That's pretty hefty for a 4x6 trailer, and coming I'm sure from being seriously overbuilt. Strong is never a bad thing but at some point it can become wasted. For example I've owned 3 different M416s, dry weight I believe 550#, and all of them pushing 40 yrs old. Frames are formed channel and sides stout but unsupported sheet metal. What I mean by unsupported is no square tube framing or the like. They get away with that by dmpling the sheet metal which gives it some rigidity, and putting some bends in it here and there for the same reason. Strength without additional weight.

Uncle Sams kids are not gentle with their equipment and all these trailers help up very well to years of abuse. Dents and dings for sure, but none of them were bent or broken wrecks. Mine weren't even rust buckets. Good for 500 # off-road and I believe 750# on road. I can't imagine needing to tote that much extra crap off-road, but the capacity is available.

The point is I think with a bit of structural redesign you could shave a boatload of weight off your trailer and sacrifice not much in real world usable strength.

But what you're building btw, is looking very well done.

Thanks for the input. I like your idea on the fender gaps being symmetrical. I'll definitely keep that in mind on the next one. I couldn't agree more about the weight being excessive for a trailer this size. I've got about a dozen different ways I've been coming up with that I'll change on the next one to save weight. I suppose that's why I called it the prototype, even after all the changes I've made along the way, even when it's done, I'll change the receipt on the next.
 

Burley

Adventurer
It’s been a slow week on the build. I ended up having to replace the transmission in my LX450. Luckily that’s the sort of thing I do for a living so I was able to do it for a reasonable price. Other than that, I’ve just been working on small stuff trying to get the trailer ready for powder coat. I’m sure I will, but I’m trying not to rush it to much, and make sure all the little thing I want to get done, get done. These are the tailgate cable I made, they are 3/16 vinyl coated so they are smooth to the touch.



Cables installed


about 17 tie downs added to the inside of the trailer


more tie downs
 

Burley

Adventurer
Also got the prop rod done. This is just a secondary precaution in case a high wind comes or a strut begins to fail.






prop rod holder, should make using it easy to use.


 

Burley

Adventurer
I'll be running two of these dual light LED assemblies on the lid.




With the garage lights out and my little jumper packed hooked up these lights put out a ton of light.
 

Burley

Adventurer
I got the RTT on last night to check how the struts do fully loaded. They work great, I'm really happy. I'm planning to head to powder coat this coming week.





 

Titanpat57

Expedition Leader
You Sir, have managed to pull off building one attractive brick $hithouse...:ylsmoke:

Looking forward to seeing this loaded and on the trail.

Painting to match the LC?

Beautiful welds, keep up the good work and thanks for the updates!
 

Burley

Adventurer
Thanks...I think. The plan is to try and match the LC. I have some great trips planned for this season .
 

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