Father and Son’s Off Road Expedition (Overland) trailer build v2.0

[lacofdfireman]

Day 7,

Plan today is to do some wiring. Planning on running 2 interior LED RV style lights for the room and also a few 12v usb outlets for charging cell phones etc. Then on the exterior curbside a Door light and 2 flush mount LED’s. Also I’ll run my wiring for the fantastic fan while I’m at it.

In the rear galley I’ll run 2 more RV style LED’s and then I’ll have a couple USB outlets on my switch panel.

Here is a pic of some of the lights going in and the wiring. I did all my wiring with 16ga except for the fantastic fan which I ran 12ga.

Also I know there is wires ya going everywhere but they will be secured before I’m done I just want to make sure everything works before I get all the wires secured down. Few more pics of a few things we will be using.

Outside curbside lights.

Also I’m just planning on running a single deep cycle 12v battery for running all my stuff. If a tv is running it will have to be on generator power. So the single battery will be more than enough.





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[lacofdfireman]

Day 8

Today will be a short day but I’m planning on getting the interior insulated and the interior walls and roof in. For insulation I’m using 2”foam board

Easy enough.

For the interior walls I’m using 1/4” Baltic Birch

After the interior was finished we spent a bunch of time bonding s we holes and any voids or pockets we had in the wood on edges or seams etc. We got pretty good at figuring out how much bondo we could make before it gets to hard to work with. The bondo sets up quick so you can’t do very much at a time. It was trial and error to figure out the amount of hardner to mix into the bondo. To much hardner and it will setup before you even get a chance to apply any. Also it was sandable about an hour after application which was nice.


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[lacofdfireman]

Day 9

This morning we got out all the Orbital sanders and all got busy sanding bondo and the entire trailer and prepping it for the Raptor Liner which we are using for our exterior coat.

Lots of dust everywhere and so the blower got some use today.

After we got all the bondo sanded and all the trailer sanded we blew it off with the blower and swept all the other parts we could get to. Then we wheeled it into the backyard and prepped for Raptor liner. To do this we wiped down the entire trailer with wet towels to make sure all the dust was off the trailer and let dry.

Once dry we mixed the Raptor liner and started spraying.

We are going for a rough texture on this build. Hopefully that’s a good idea but I think we will like it. I’m super impressed with this Raptor liner.

We did 1 coat and it took approximately 5 bottles of the 8 we ordered. Bought the Raptor Liner through Amazon and it was about $200 and included the spray gun. Not to bad really. On our last build we put down an epoxy resin then used Valspar paint over the epoxy resin that was an outdoor paint that had some type of elasticity to it. It worked well but always seemed kind of soft like you could peel it up with your fingernail. This Raptor liner is rock hard when it dries. Takes about an hour to be dry to touch but about 2 days to fully cure.

The plan is from this point to build the wheel fenders which we have planned to sheetmetal the tops of. I’m so impressed with this Raptor liner I’m considering topping off the metal frame with 1/4” Baltic Birch and then just Raptor lining it. No reason it shouldn’t work or do you think that a bad idea? We’ve never welded sheet metal and don’t really have the correct tools for bending sheet metal either so it may just be easier to use wood.

After the fenders are built we can put on our final coats of Raptor liner. I’m also considering Raptor lining the window frames and door frame since we will be screwing these on from the exterior. Our walls are to wide for the window inside frames to work.


Well it’s off to work for me. Another fire has broke out in SoCal and Fire season will be kicking off shortly. So hopefully I can get home soon to make some more progress.

Any comments, questions, feedback on our build? Would love to hear from ya. Let us know what ya think.





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[lacofdfireman]

Day 10-15

Well I’ve got behind on updating this thread but we are basically finished with our build. We do have the rear galley to finish but as of a few days ago we got it registered and we can use it for camping. We really li’e how this ended up turning out. It will be a great little Overland trailer for us. It’s been a labor of love building this with many long days and lots of Father and Son time together coming up with ideas and things we want to do to it. Here are a few pics of the progress along the way. Pictures are better than words so I’ll let them do the talking.

We’ve never built fenders before. They aren’t perfect but I think they still worked out pretty well.

We also built a ladder to access the top where we will eventually have a RTT.

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[lacofdfireman]

We got a second coat of the Raptor liner on the exterior. This stuff is Amazing. I really like it a lot. When it dries its rock solid. Should provided years of abuse.

Our original plan was 2 tone color for the trailer. We had planned on a black base with a primer grey bottom. I didn’t go high enough on my tape line and got some overspray which was a total bummer. This texture is super hard to tape to so I hate the thought of having to now go back and redo the black Raptor liner. We couldn’t get the blue painters tape to stick at all. The green Frog tape worked best. Even the Frog tape struggled to adverse to the Raptor liner.

After the two tone paint and since my son and I are both Firemen we decided a Thin Red Line would be appropriate. I think it turned out great. We did get a few bleed spots that went under the tape that will have to be fixed though. And the red on grey line didn’t look as sharp as the grey on black. But we aren’t striving for perfection so it will be good.

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[lacofdfireman]

As far as interior goes I had just planned on carpeting the entire thing. My wife will make some window treatments, covers etc but for now it’s just all carpeted. I actually like the all carpet inside. Plus it covers up any gaps etc that I may or may not have had.

We also found a 8” full mattress at Costco for $200 that was on closeout that will be just perfect for this build.

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[lacofdfireman]

So as of today this is where it stands. We can camp in it now but need to finish the rear galley. Not exactly sure what all we want to do back there. Most likely will do some peel and stick linoleum type covering over the wood. Just not sure how it’s going to hold up in the extreme heat. We will get temps in the 100+ range during the summer months and I’m concerned that they will either come unstuck or maybe even shrink? Just not sure what to do back there yet.

Also we are going to cut our tongue length down. To much to give length I think. What’s your opinion. I’m sure we can cut it back 2-3 feet possibly.

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[jgaz]

Nice job! I really like the two tone paint job.

 

[ITTOG]

That thing is awesome. I love the paint job.

I would definitely shorten it but definitely don't go too short. I recently bought a trailer with a very short tongue and it is weird. It changes your angles and makes you have to slow down a lot.

Can you provide more info on the fan and the RV lights. What is so special about both and are they on Amazon.

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[lacofdfireman]

The fan is just your basic Fantastic Fan with the reverse speed option. Doesn’t have the remote control though but I figure it’s not needed since you can easily reach the switches and turn it on or off or switch fan direction to either push air out or pull air in. Bought at camping world. They cost around $200

The lights are just standard LED Interior RV lights bought from Amazon. They cost about $8-10 each I believe.


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[mulze22]

This build and your previous build look great. If you don't mind me asking how much does one of these builds cost and how many build hours for you guys?

 

[krick3tt]

As was said, don't make the tongue too short, might cause problems with tight turns. If it doesn't hang up going down and up at trails then it will most likely be OK.
The red stripe sort of goes with the red dots at the Jeep hubs.

 

[lacofdfireman]

As was said, don't make the tongue too short, might cause problems with tight turns. If it doesn't hang up going down and up at trails then it will most likely be OK.
The red stripe sort of goes with the red dots at the Jeep hubs.

Thanks for the reply. Both my son and I are Firemen. So the red stripe also has to do with our job. We call it the thin red line. It’s a Fireman thing. After using the trailer a nights we’ve decided we like the tongue length.


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[lacofdfireman]

This build and your previous build look great. If you don't mind me asking how much does one of these builds cost and how many build hours for you guys?

Thanks for your reply. We have really enjoyed making these. I’d say all in on this current trailer we are around $3500 for everything. On our previous trailer I think we were about a grand above this one. Our last on had a front A/C unit though. We didn’t think it was necessary with this one though because we rarely used the
other one so we just didn’t do it on this one.

Also as far as build hours I’m not real positive but I think we were around 15-20 days of actually building on these trailers. This last one was probably 5 days faster than the first though. Also this is 2 people working in it most days for probably and average of 5-8hrs per day each.


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[mulze22]

Thanks for your reply. We have really enjoyed making these. I’d say all in on this current trailer we are around $3500 for everything. On our previous trailer I think we were about a grand above this one. Our last on had a front A/C unit though. We didn’t think it was necessary with this one though because we rarely used the
other one so we just didn’t do it on this one.

Also as far as build hours I’m not real positive but I think we were around 15-20 days of actually building on these trailers. This last one was probably 5 days faster than the first though. Also this is 2 people working in it most days for probably and average of 5-8hrs per day each.


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Though I'm unfamiliar with DIY costs for a trailer that seems like a great price point. Thanks for the information.