Howdy Expo!
I have been working on building (adapting) an easily removable new camper for the back of our dual cab canter.
After building up a canopy style camper and using that for a couple of years, we decided to sell it on after having a kid and needing something better for more than two people!
I've had this idea for a while that you could make a very affordable foldover style camper (think trayon campers) by doctoring up a forward fold camper trailer into a slide on.
The Trayon campers are really ute oriented size wise and still very expensive (even second hand) and the widest variant being 1980mm wide x 2200 long.
This got me thinking that a forward fold camper trailer could be doctored to complete the same task for much less outlay and arrive at a similar result!
Trayon:
Forward fold:
I measured up a few forward fold campers and found that the main camper section is usually 2100mm long and ~1800mm to 1900mm wide which would be a perfect fit on a 2100mm wide canter tray!
Of course there would be a few drawbacks like the camper door being at the rear rather than the side etc but figured this would be a minimal hassle to either live with, or change.
After months of noodling the idea and watching auctions for salvage campers which were written off due to damage I finally found a candidate which looked to be a good fit!
I found a brand new factory second ezytrail forward fold which appears to have been damaged on its production rig and sold off for $3k, still has the plastic on the cushions inside!
The base dimensions are 2100mm long and 1800mm wide which when mounted sideways will leave ~1.5m of tray to use at the front.
Have picked it up and now to plan on the undercarriage mods to make it suitable for mounting flat on the tray.
And below open on the tray, obviously opening out the back where the plan is to mount it to open to the left of the truck with the door to the rear once complete.
Should be a reasonably easy process to mod this to be a realtively simple slide on, will need to source some legs and get to work cutting!
Will add some updates as I get through it
I have been working on building (adapting) an easily removable new camper for the back of our dual cab canter.
After building up a canopy style camper and using that for a couple of years, we decided to sell it on after having a kid and needing something better for more than two people!
I've had this idea for a while that you could make a very affordable foldover style camper (think trayon campers) by doctoring up a forward fold camper trailer into a slide on.
The Trayon campers are really ute oriented size wise and still very expensive (even second hand) and the widest variant being 1980mm wide x 2200 long.
This got me thinking that a forward fold camper trailer could be doctored to complete the same task for much less outlay and arrive at a similar result!
Trayon:
Forward fold:
I measured up a few forward fold campers and found that the main camper section is usually 2100mm long and ~1800mm to 1900mm wide which would be a perfect fit on a 2100mm wide canter tray!
Of course there would be a few drawbacks like the camper door being at the rear rather than the side etc but figured this would be a minimal hassle to either live with, or change.
After months of noodling the idea and watching auctions for salvage campers which were written off due to damage I finally found a candidate which looked to be a good fit!
I found a brand new factory second ezytrail forward fold which appears to have been damaged on its production rig and sold off for $3k, still has the plastic on the cushions inside!
The base dimensions are 2100mm long and 1800mm wide which when mounted sideways will leave ~1.5m of tray to use at the front.
Have picked it up and now to plan on the undercarriage mods to make it suitable for mounting flat on the tray.
And below open on the tray, obviously opening out the back where the plan is to mount it to open to the left of the truck with the door to the rear once complete.
Should be a reasonably easy process to mod this to be a realtively simple slide on, will need to source some legs and get to work cutting!
Will add some updates as I get through it
Last edited:
