The Carney Trailer

[Sharpie]

Well like most I have been a long time lurker and have enjoyed most of the builds that have come along the past couple of years. It's been interesting to see all the cool ideas that people come up with, many I have stolen by the way. To give a little background in to why my trailer is called "The Carney Trailer", starts years ago when my uncle purchased the trailer in a construction/heavy equipment auction for next to nothing. I think he was the only one who even bid on it. It then sat in his yard for a while and when he decided to start getting rid of his collection of junk I told him I wanted it to build a cooking/expo trailer, and I became the new owner of the very rough looking trailer. I kept it at his yard for a while until he told me it was gone or it was going to be scrapped. So I loaded up the wife and we headed to Brownsville for a weekend at the beach and on the way back home we'd bring the trailer with us. Sunday evening we go to hook up the trailer and even though the frame looked a little rough I figured it could make the 2.5hr trip home. We aired up the tires and took off. From the very beginning it was awkward to say the least. The original owner had welded railroad track to the tongue to obviously try to up the tongue weight but this did not help at all in its current state. The trailer would periodically fish tail, bob up and down and had some of the worst body roll I have ever seen. To the point that my wife didn't even want to be in the truck attached to it, and thus the name "Carney Trailer" was born. Like most she couldn't see the potential in the ugly duckling and due to the anxiety of being attached to it and knowing that I was to blame for it, I guess calling it names made her feel better. The trip was going "swell" until about 40 minutes into the trip when the passenger tire decides to disintegrate. This is now 9pm on a Sunday nite. I get the tire off and drive like a mad man to all the tire places that I know of to get a replacement but they are all closed except for this one little tire shop that, thank god, was open for some weird reason at this time. I should have brought the driver side tire with me but it looked OK, so I left it. Bad Idea Stupid! We get another 40 miles down the road and about two miles past the border check point the driver side goes. Damn! I can't do anything and all I can think of is now I have to leave the coolest cooking/expo trailer on the side of the road and come back for it in the morning. I was sure it was going to be stolen or towed. The next morning I get a new tire put on the drivers rim and head out there. WOOHOO, still there. Finally get it back to the apartment and the build begins..... well, two years later it does. This pic is how it sat when I first got it. Thought I had at least a side shot but can't find it.



These are how the frame looked. I should have crawled underneath it before pulling it home, some of these are worse than what I could see.













This is the body off the frame in the garage at the start of the build, and with the tires/wheels it will be sitting on.



My buddy and I bought all five rubi rims from some guy in Victoria. I got three and all he needed was two for his trailer. This is all I've got for tonite. Time to sleep. Got more pics and updates coming.

 

[Semi-Hex]

Is she still mad at you? I think you have your work cut out for you. Great story.

 

[Sharpie]

LOL. She's still very bitter. Thanks, I do believe that you are correct, I do have my work cut out for me. Im doing a lot of things to this trailer that are brand new to me. Such as trailing arms, air bags, electrical, aluminum welding..... I'm very excited about what will come of it and what I am going to learn. It has taken too long to get to this point and I hope that by starting my thread it will help me keep my head in the game.

 

[Sharpie]

I have only seen a couple of these bodies on expo and everyone of the threads has been timed out for quite some time now. It is a Pierce, all aluminum, service truck body originally on the back of a 1/4 ton truck. I may be wrong on the 1/4 ton thing but it doesn't seem big enough to have gone on a 1/2 ton.



It has a single lift up door on the passenger side, a "clam shell" set of doors on the drivers side and barn doors on the back.







Not sure why I can't get the back door pic to rotate but I give up. The inside dimensions are not big enough for two people to sleep inside so I won't be turning any of the interior into sleeping quarters, but I will have a large RTT on a rack on top. The inside will compose of a kitchen area with swing and slide out cooking area and counter with sink. The other side will house the air, water, electrical and generator, essentially the heart of the system. The back doors will open to a slide out drawer that will be the area for fridge, chairs, etc. The water tank will be underneath between the frame rails. There will be a two foot section in front of the trailer box (part of the frame) that will house the batteries and propane tanks. With that being the gist of things on to the frame.

I have decided to go with independent trailing arms with bags so that I can adjust the height on and off road and more importantly when at camp. I want to be able to drop the trailer as far down as possible to make the kitchen as ergonomic as possible. I know this type of suspension is a little advanced but if I'm going to learn might as well make it a trailer. Ive had a lot of fun watching the other builds on here that utilized this type of suspension and think that my design (mostly pieced together from others) will be just as good. The frame from tongue back is 2x4 as well as all the suspension tie points. The arms were made from 2x2 tube and various parts purchased from RuffStuff 4x4, DIY4x, AirBagIt and Thorbros. The following are various stages of the frame and suspension build.













Sorry I don't have more in between pics but I can't seem to find them. I am limited to 10 pics per post so more to come. Thanks.

 

[Sharpie]

The following are the weldable bushings I used, air bags, spacer so I could use the unmolested jeep wheels and tabs for mounting the arms. The second pic is the mounts for the bags that I later decided to only use half of.

 

[Sharpie]

This is as far as I have gotten so far. My next move is to place the bag mounts and start working on the front and tongue of the trailer. Really want to test the frame out on the road to see how well/bad it works, can't wait. Updates to come.

 

[Sharpie]

To those, if there are any watching, who have used trailing arms before, where are the weaknesses in the arms or mounts? I can't see any on the axle side unless there is something that simply shears or breaks off, but what about the mount side? Should I be concerned about anything? Should I weld a strap from the arm around the bushing tube to the other side of the arm? I have gusseted my mounts but nothing has been done to the arms besides welding the arm to the bushing tube. Am I overthinking this? I have overbuilt everything on this so far. It's a bad habit. Let me know what you all think, thanks.

 

[1store]

Great looking build. Did I miss where you got the air bags from

 

[Sharpie]

The bags are from airbagit.com. I believe they were the 2700 or 2500 lb bags. The dominators. Their website is quirky but the guys that answer are helpful. They have a total of 7-7.5 inch movement I believe from empty to full. They were buy two get two free, so I now have two spares just in case.

 

[Sharpie]

Finally got some more work done over the weekend and long nights so far this week. The bag mounts are on. Following pics show me almost done with welding the top half of the bag to arm mount and top bag to frame mount.




These pics are the final product, finally off the big yellow jack stands after who knows how long. I reinstalled the hubs before dropping the frame down on the short jack stands.




I then installed the bags with temporary plumbing to make sure everything works right. I was so excited last night about having finally gotten to this point. I even took videos but I can't seem to get those to upload. Any suggestions? Next step is to get the hub spacers on, slide it under the body and then put the tires on. Can't wait!

 

[PCO6]

Not sure how I missed this one but ... nice job! That box has a lot of potential and it's nice to see a good frame going under it ... not to mention better tires. :smiley_drive:

 

[Sharpie]

Thanks. I have a lot of ideas for the inside which seem to change all the time but I can't wait until I get to begin on that part. The frame is just about done and I will be pulling the body off again soon in order to strip the many coats of paint it has received over the years. I'm looking forward to getting to weld aluminum for the first time as well. I'd like to be ready for camping season this fall but only time will tell.

 

[DanCooper]

Don't worry, plenty of people are watching this build. Your welding and fabricating skills are beyond awesome, and that frame is hell for stout. I, too, look forward to seeing the body on the frame with the wheels under it. That was, for me, a very exciting moment and milepost on the road to completion.

Great job, keep at it and please keep posting photos of your progress.

 

[Sharpie]

Thanks for the kind words. Sadly I haven't been able to work on it much lately due to a home remodel, but I hope to get some work done this weekend. The wife is actually looking forward to helping me get the old paint layers off too. I hope the product I bought works well enough. Ill keep you all posted.