larger tear drops

BigDaveZJ

Adventurer
Who's built a larger tear drop that is still capable off the beaten path? I'm 6'5" and need a bit more space than most of the tear drops I've seen out there. Between myself, wife, and 2 90lb dogs we take up quite a bit of room. We have an M416 with RTT that we might replace with a homebuilt tear drop as I think it would be easier with the dogs. The mattress in our RTT is 71Wx94L and that seems to work quite well for us size wise.

My other concern with a TD is storage space. I like using the tub of our M416 for storage, and its usually pretty full on our longer trips. The sleeping area of a TD just seems like a lot of wasted space when in transit.
 

jonesw3

Adventurer
I built a teardrop type camper. I put the door in back instead of a galley, which gives much more room in the inside. I was able to put a full size mattress in it and still have almost 2ft of space to get in/ out of with having to get on the bed. I used a 5x8 utility trailer as the base.
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Alabama Overland
www.alabamaoverland.net



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Sikocycles

Adventurer
I'm in the same boat. I am designing one in SketchUp so it will for a queen mattress with some extra toe room. Mine will be 5x10
 

Curtis in Texas

Adventurer
I am currently building the body/box for mine.
It will be 4 feet tall when folded and 7.5 ft tall when opened up.
8 .5 feet long inside.
The sketch up is some else's work, but it's close enough to give you an idea. I will be using a tent with the bottom cut out for the top/roof.

The main difference between that drawing and mine will be mine is full width and longer. All storage compartments are built internally. But same open top tent, flip over sleeping area. Spare tire storage and entry door position.
The Kitchen will be at the rear in the true tear drop fashion.
But it will closely resemble the sketch up drawing.

The other picture shows the right side during the mock up stage I'm at now. The front and rear upper corners and entry door are not cut in yet. The beauty of this one will be the remote control steering of the IFS torsion bar suspension.
Remote steering is built and working.

I'll be doing a full write up here once I get it almost finished.
Expected completion by the end of the year.

Just my way of solving the internal height issue.
 

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lacofdfireman

Adventurer
I'm 6'5 and my boys and I built an OffRoad teardrop. I wouldn't trade mine for anything else. All the others I look at are just to small for my liking. My profile is 5'x10' and is OffRoad capable. Now I wouldn't be rock crawling with it but it will go off road well and we have taken it all kinds of places. Here's a pic of it. I have a build thread on here if ya wanna check it out.

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BigDaveZJ

Adventurer
I'm starting to think a tear drop that is large enough to be what I want it to be, would be way too large to take in the places we go. We've got a ZJ on 35's and a stock JKUR that could tow this thing, but the JK will only be stock for so long before it's on 35's or larger as well, and we'd want the trailer to be able to follow. I think we'll just need to make our M416 more livable.
 

FMF

Adventurer
Mine is a little on the bigger side. It has a queen size bed, bunk bed, refrigerator and a small vestibule in front of the bed. It's nice to be able to have a small bit of space inside that's not the bed. It does very well offroad and so far will go any place my Tacoma will go.

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Crush Jeep

Adventurer
My brother an I are in the middle of a build now, the bed will be a queen size bed with a galley in the back. Here's a few pictures of where we are now and the build is the bottom link on my signature block.
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Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society

Sb_Moto

Adventurer
Take a look at my build if you want. I had a similar problem, but only one dog. Ended up using the vnose for a dog sleeping area.

Ironically I am wanting to finish mine and sell it for a 416 style for my rtt.

Mainly because I boughy my rtt after I started the trailer build and we have been over the moon pleased with it. We just lack cargo room given a Tacoma short bed.
 

Sb_Moto

Adventurer
Not at all! I was just on my phone so its a headache to find the thread and come back and post.

One thing to keep in mind is track width that you want and work around that. I wanted the same as my Tacoma so I had to make the frame curve around the wheel wells. This gave 20+ inches of width around where my upper body will he while sleeping.
 

time4ajeep

New member
I am having a great time with this read. I too have been in the process of building a larger steel TD. Love the work and keep it up..... I will be following this thread
 
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