Tradgrans..trailer build. Its now is a pop top, We have a tent and AC

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Okay minor update.

We have running water, exterior lights all mounted and powered, and the thresh hold for the door is cut and bent. Bending 1/8 diamond plate to 120 degrees is a total night mare, all bent by hand. First cut a groove with a cut off wheel, anneal it, bend it some, cut the clearance for the bend that closed up, bend some more, wash rinse repeat until it gets to where to you want it.

The exterior lights are amber led running/clearance lights mounted on a piece of hdpe I cut at an angle and routed the edges, this aims the lights down at the ground. There is one on the rear, and road side and 2 on the curb side and with the down angle they are not in your face. I also installed a white light over the kitchen for cooking purposes. The amber lights give a perfect amount of light for around the trailer and not be blinding.

 

[high-and-dry]

Opps forgot the say, all the window and access doors are now permanently mounted and sealed with butyl tape.

Also the clearance lights on the front are on and the license plate is mounted and lite using the bolts with the led in them for the license plate light.

 

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Well I put the mattress in the trailer today. My older tuft and needle king size cut down to a queen, and a water proof mattress cover on it. The mattress cover is actually perfect, the top zips off so it will be easy to take off and wash. I dont know that I need a 10 inch mattress in a large tear drop, but its comfy.

I also had to make wood fillers to make the windows work, my walls are an inch thick and the windows where set up for 1.5 wall thickness. I plained down some 3/4 birch play to 9/16 so I have a nice clamping force to hold the windows tight. It also gives me wood to attached curtain rods to.

 

[jgaz]

Well I put the mattress in the trailer today. My older tuft and needle king size cut down to a queen, and a water proof mattress cover on it. The mattress cover is actually perfect, the top zips off so it will be easy to take off and wash. I dont know that I need a 10 inch mattress in a large tear drop, but its comfy.

I also had to make wood fillers to make the windows work, my walls are an inch thick and the windows where set up for 1.5 wall thickness. I plained down some 3/4 birch play to 9/16 so I have a nice clamping force to hold the windows tight. It also gives me wood to attached curtain rods to.

I like your layout especially the fact that you can sit on the bed to put on your boots.
And that you have space to put something inside the trailer but not on the bed

 

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I like your layout especially the fact that you can sit on the bed to put on your boots.
And that you have space to put something inside the trailer but not on the bed

Thanks. The "floor" area is 4 by 5 and there will be a 4 foot seat across the drivers side that half will lift to become a table, so one end will be a seat the other seat will be the bed frame with a small table in the middle. Basically a seat version of you typical trailer table/bed, the floor area will get smaller when that gets built.

The current inside height with the roof down is about 5'5", the fiance can stand with touching the roof with her head. I am 5'9" so with the roof down I cant stand up straight, but the roof will go up about a foot.

 

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Okay so I took the trailer to the dump to weigh it. Right now the water tank is empty, so thats 200 lbs or so of water, but I have 100 lbs of sand next to the water tank to compensate for that some. Also I have a spare strapped to the tongue which wont be there, but there will be some weight there in the form of 11 lb propane bottle, a 2x4 table, some diamond plate on the front of the body etc that is not there yet. I also need to built the rear seat, and put in the water heater ( over the axle ) and rear sink.

I expect now with a known weight I should have a dry weight of around 1900 lbs, then 200 lbs of water. Making the wet weight around 2100, my axle was built at 2200 lbs.

Now remember I have a 75 lb tuft and needle queen bed in it. So while I built for weight I am putting things in it that are heavy for what they are.

total weight with no water but 100 lbs of sand as it sits now 1880
tongue weight of 220 lbs.

I am thrilled by this weight for a 12 foot by 5.5 body with an inside height of 5'5" with a pop up that will give me another foot of height. Queen bed, short couch, standing room, a real mattress etc etc.

 

[high-and-dry]

Okay, couple of minor things and two bigger items.

The big items where I installed the diamond plate on the front to save the fiberglass from rocks. Part of that is also a bracket that my table slides down into. For now the table will be visible, but at some point the box That I need to make will hide most or all of it.

Also mounted up the weather proof box for the water heater, made the heat shield so I dont melt the box. The water heater is not really mounted yet, just checking the fit.

I also installed the out side power point, and finished up the removable counter that mounts on the wheel well. The counter is cut down bamboo cutting board so it can be used for that if needed, but not prefered

 

[stomperxj]

Looks good Scott

 

[highwest]

Hell yeah!

 

[billiebob]

okay to get a scale and help with the layout of stuff I built a luan side panel. Its just for scale planning at this point. There will be no wood in the frame or structure, just cabinets.

There are two pics with the truck, they are taken at slightly different angles and it makes the trailer look larger over all in one and shorter in the other. The body tip to tip is 12'4" in side height will be 5'3" actual side wall height out side is 5'8" with a pop up on the rear so I can stand up and for ventilation if needed. Also I dont have my axle yet so it probably will drop over all height a few inches . I also put on of the window frame on it to show window position by the bed. It does fit in the garage as is with 3 or 4 inches of clearance.

very cool shape !

 

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very cool shape !

Thanks but its basically a large grasshopper or sawtooth xl so I cant take credit.

 

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Okay, since its a little wet, cold, snowy etc outside. I started on things that can be done inside. I made the awning, its not complete yet, still needs a few stitches cleaned up, a little more reinforcing, but far enough to put it up to see how it looks. It attaches to a sail track on the pop up roof, so if the roof it up it will just be higher, it is 12 long, comes out 8 feet and is half a hexgon in shape. Its made from 1.1 oz silnylon, so light weight, and water proof, plus it packs down really small.

It covers basically the whole side, so you could cook, the window can be open etc, plenty of room.

 

[opp]

How are the edges holding up .I have Tony trailer design from his book cut and copy of a kit trailer cut out used 1.5 foam . Just hard to go from a skeleton frame .Thank you for taking the time to post. THE way you do it is a hell of lot faster after making panels less than a hour had Tonys cut out. The walls ,roof , bulkheads ready to glue. Just using a router and large bearing . to get the offset for the top panel to set in

 

[high-and-dry]

How are the edges holding up .I have Tony trailer design from his book cut and copy of a kit trailer cut out used 1.5 foam . Just hard to go from a skeleton frame .Thank you for taking the time to post. THE way you do it is a hell of lot faster after making panels less than a hour had Tonys cut out. The walls ,roof , bulkheads ready to glue. Just using a router and large bearing . to get the offset for the top panel to set in

Edges are fine, it got its madden voyage a couple of weeks ago, 400 miles each way to north carolina. Slept in it for 3 nights, everything worked except I changed a latch on the kitchen slide out door and it wont stay latched. I need to mod it slightly.

It towed great up to 80 mph once , most of the time I was cruising at 72-73 ( 70 mph zone and 1 am ) .

 

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I guess I should follow up to my last post.

Madden voyage, was a 800 mile round trip to a large paintball event in north caolina with over 800 players. It towed great with my 95 tacoma at an average highway speed of 72-73. The torque curve in the tacoma meant it towed better at the 72 mph than at 65, it just was not into the torgue curve of the tacoma until I got it just under 3k rpm.

I slept in it 3 nights, I used about 30 % of the battery in 3 days, and I had the inverter on for about 5 hours charging small electronics for people. I did have an inverter gen running a small electric heater when I slept, but did not charge the battery at all. I used about 5 gallons of water out of 25, mostly just doing dishes from cooking.

Everything worked as I expected, since it was sitting at the house being tested, opened closed, worked on etc. I did blow the main fuse at the house running the 1000 watt inverter running the heater on 900 watts just as a test. I replaced the fuse and ordered a breaker to replace it. I think it actually blew the fuse because it turned out I did not have the lugs on the fuse block tightened so I think it was just due to a not tight connection. But thats why I did tests like that.

I did have to give about 75 tours and explanations of how I built it due to so many questions. I had one guy ask me how much I would charge to build him one. I answered 25 to 30k depending on what he wanted for options. He took my phone number without even a blink.

Gas milage was just under 14 mpg at highway speeds and the truck normally gets about 18. So I lost 4 mpg towing it, so not too bad, for a 15 year old truck with 190k miles on it.