The Deck

The trailer now has a deck! As soon as the paint was dry to the touch I went back out and installed the deck. I used 6 1/4" carriage bolts with washers, one on each corner and two along the centre line (through the beam that the tongue is bolted into). These were the only decent locations to bolt to, since most of the widthwise crossmembers are about 1/4" below the level of the deck, and I didn't feel like sticking shims in. I'm fairly confident that the 6 bolts will hold the deck on just fine.

So there's phase one finished. It went from a rotten old tent trailer that no one thought was any good, to a pretty dang nice looking light utility trailer in 5 days. I started working on it at about 2PM on Sunday, and during the week it was solely evenings, so this could easily be done in a weekend if you had the tools and parts at hand. And it only cost me...

Total Cost:

Last total: $172

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5/8" Pressure Treated Plywood Sheet: $55

Hardware: ~$4

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Subt: $59

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Total: $231

With taxes that comes to around..

$260

I just checked kijiji and ebrandon, and there are homemade trailers on there that look like scrap bits thrown together by a poorly-trained ape, which are selling for almost twice that.

like this

Paint

Laura and I propped the trailer up against the pole for the laundry line to make it easier to get under it to paint. I gave it a quick once-over with the wire brush on the drill to get rid of chipped paint and other crud stuck to the frame before we carried on with the paint. I'm not too worried about getting a really nice finish on the trailer, so I didn't go too overboard with the prep work. I masked off the wheels, lights, and the wires going to the taillights, because I think they'd look silly painted silver.

We then laid down another coat of primer (over the coat that was already covering the visible parts of the trailer), then two coats of silver-ish, semi-glossy paint, getting it right up into all the nooks and crannies in the undercarriage. It should now match my car somewhat. Not that I planned it that way, it was just the best colour that princess auto had to offer.

Total Costs:

Last total: $143

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4 Cans of spray paint: $6/ea

Masking tape: $5

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Subt: $29

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TOTAL: $172

More Wiring

Yesterday I went into town and picked up more supplies for the trailer. I got some wire loom (1/4 and 1/2") and some wire holders with rubber grommets. Most of the night was spent looming the wire, and bolting it into place. It was a fairly straightforward job.

I started at the front marker lights and worked my way back to the taillights, then up the tongue to the plug.

When we installed the lights, we left about a foot extra on each wire, so there's a lot of room to make slpices later, if the wire starts to wear. This excess was just folded over itself and bunched up in the wire loom, then taped to keep it from coming apart.

After looming all the wire, I was almost sad that the trailer would soon have a deck hiding all that nice looking wiring.

Here's a sneak peek at what the trailer will look like with the deck on. I picked up the lumber today for the deck and the rail sides. The deck is 5/8" pressure treated plywood. The rails will be made using the 2x4 and 1x6 pressure treated planks.

Next Step: Paint

Costs To Date: (not including wood, because it's not installed yet and thus the fat lady has not yet sung about that part of the project)

Prev Total: $125

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1/4" Loom - $5

1/2" Loom - $7

Wire Clamps - $6

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Subt: $18

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TOTAL: $143

Lights/Fenders

Back again, with a vengeance. This work was done on Monday and Tuesday night.

I went to Princess Auto and picked up some fenders, and a full trailer lighting kit that included tail/brake/signal lights, and two marker lights. I also got heatshrink, solder wire, and silicon grease for making the connections.

The fenders that I originally picked up didn't match. One was bent more steeply than the other, and had a sharper curve on the sides. I returned that one on tuesday and now they match quite well. They had to be spaced out about an inch from the frame of the trailer, so Dwayne and I welded some 1" square tubing in as a spacer. The fenders are each held on with 4 grade 8 hex bolts. They're very sturdy. I can walk on them and they don't budge.

We also started hooking up the lights. Above are the marker lights that came with the kit. All the lights in the kit are leds and are submersible (the diodes are moulded into clear plastic). Being a redneck, I couldn't resist buying two more sets of yellow marker lights, even through none at all are required by law for a trailer of this size.

As you probably guessed, all electriacl connections were twisted together, then soldered, covered in silicon grease to prevent corrosion, and heatshrink tubing was placed over top I also ran full ground wires back to the plug, as I'm not a believer in the "It'll ground through the hitch" theory, regardless of my apparent inability to keep my chains from dragging. I did split the ground at each light and ran one wire directly to the frame though, so each light is grounded to both the frame and the wiring harness. What can I say, with all the electrical gremlins I've been having the last few months with the VW, I can't be too cautious. Tow vehicle electrical systems (and trailer brakes) always seem to fail when you're going 100km/h around the side of a mountain at 2 am. In my limited experience.

Total Costs To Date:

I couldn't find the reciept, so I used the princess auto website to get prices.

Trailer - $27 (bottle of rum)

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Trailer lighting kit - $50 (on sale)

2 Marker Lights - $10 Each

Heatshrink - $10

Silicon Grease - $6-ish

Solder Wire - $12

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Subtotal - $98

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TOTAL $125

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.

The Goal

Ok, for those of you who were wondering, I'm posting some links to help you get an idea of what I'm trying to accomplish. I'm putting this blog together to document my progress in building my teardrop camper. I'm hoping that this will help someone else with a project of their own.

The best intro to teardrop trailers that I've found is this video of a drunk woman giving a tour of her brother's trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuDbk_Xm-c8

If you're looking at this on a DND computer, you probably have youtube disabled, so look at this instead:

http://www.samstoybox.com/teardrop/trailer_for_two.pdf