The Project Begins

I showed the fellas at work the plans for a trailer similar to the one I'll build (I say similar, because I'll be designing as I go. Dangerous I know, but also adventurous), and one of my co-workers could not fathom me completing this project for under $1000. I considered that a challenge. I bought this trailer for one bottle of rum. I'd say I'm off to a good start. (also, for anyone still reading, those are my new wheel covers. Snazzy, yes?

This was (many years ago) a tent trailer. It looked pretty mangy on the outside, but underneath, the frame, axles, spindles, wheels etc. were all mint. Lights were pooched, but that was no surprise.

Inside, there were still some salvageable bits of furniture, hardware, an icebox, and some electrical components. While gutting it, we stripped away anything that looked like it could be useful. This is a common practise around my cousin's place (known henceforth as "Heavy Pedal Ranch").

This is what the gutted shell looked like. The plywood floor, unsurprisingly was rotten and of no use to us.

Here's Dwayne getting philosophical about removing the upper shell.

Once the gutting was finished, the bolts holding the floor and sheet metal shell on were removed with a cutoff wheel on the angle grinder.

Once the floor and sheet metal were removed, we were left with a frame approx 7.5' x 8'. To simplify construction of my utility/camper trailer design, I wanted the trailer to measure 4' x 8'. Since these are the dimensions of a standard sheet of plywood, this size of trailer would allow me to build a simple design with as little waste as possible. As tempting as it was to make things more roomy, I stuck to the 4'X8' plan, as I knew it would save a lot of money over the whole project.

So off came the ends of the horizontal beams and this is what was left. As you can see, the trailer at this stage doesn't have much substance to it.

Next, we did a little maintenance to the leveling jacks. Two of them had come apart, and all four desperately needed some lube. I had originally planned on just using a standard trailer frame to start this project, but now I'm rather glad I didn't. Not only did this frame come with corner jacks that'll really steady the camper, It also came with a bunch of decent camper hardware, and even better, the tongue can be modded to turn this into a tilt-deck trailer (which I intend to do).

The rigidity it had before had come from the entire structure of the tent camper, so without all the furniture and sheet metal holding it steady, the frame was like a big floppy noodle. Some bracing was in order.So, to make matters simple, I took the bits I had cut off the ends of the horizontal beams and welded them into the corners of the frame for oblique bracing.

I then took some 1" square tubing that Dwayne had sitting around and welded in two more horizontal beams, giving the trailer a total of 5. The plan was originally to use pieces of beam that had come off with the sheet metal, which were similar to the rest of the trailer's structure, but Dwayne wanted to keep them to make a rear bumper for the '38 chev pickup he's restoring.

Laura showed up and helped me weld in the crossbeams.

She started to get the hang of the mig welder rather quickly.

But she still hasn't gotten used to the slag falling on her arms.

She was very proud of this bead in particular.

Here's the frame at the end of the day. We started painting it the Heavy Pedal standard issue primer grey. I'll post some more photos when I've finished painting. I may even wait until I do the lights later this week.