quote:

Originally posted by TJL:
there is a sh!t ton of welding on that hog, how much wire did you go thru?

it looks friggin sweet though. you should pimp it around town and see if you can interest some richy wheelers into buying it or a clone off of you.

The answer to your first question surprised even me. When I was about 75% through my axle swap I bought a new 30lb spool of wire for my welder. I finished that off on Tuesday night this week and had to send Amber to get me a 10lb spool so I could finish what I was working on. A 30-35 lb spool usually lasts me about a year, I burned through this one in just over a month.

There are companies that make trailers similar to this one. With all the options I built into mine it would probably run you $5-6K. If I could guarantee that I could sell 2 or 3 a month I'd probably quit my job, get a nice break and sheer and do this full time.
I'd have a tough time selling them the way I built it though, every single body panel is warped badly due to the long seam welds. I'd have to spot weld and seal all the seams to make it pretty enough to sell for that kind of cash. I'm probably going to have about $2K into the trailer when I'm done. The base price on the "chaser" that was my inspiration (a box on an axle, you provide the wheels) is $3K.

I'm just going to post a crapload of pictures now to get this thread caught up to where I am on the trailer.

I skinned the front and built the framework for the top about a week and a half ago.



Then I skinned the top and installed the tailgate:



Built a roofrack and a rack for the gas cans:



Made a door for the faucet area:



Painted and Herculinered the inside of the trailer:



Then I painted and Herculinered the top:



Put foam in the tailgate and welded on the inner skin (the entire ice chest area will have 1" of foam insulation around it):




Saturday I did bodywork and primer:


Sunday morning I sprayed the top coat:


We let the paint harden for about half a day and masked it off to do the rest of the detail work with semi-gloss black and black Herculiner. I think it looks awesome, but the paint is way too shiny.





We also managed to get the "trunk" painted on Saturday while we were waiting for the primer to harden.


I've got a few more things to do before I can take it to get the inspections done for title and registration. I'm hoping to do that on Wednesday.

Wow...that thing is too damn pretty to be pulling on the trail. Did you do the roll on herculiner? or do you have the equpiment to spray it.

ok, I'd like to go ahead and place and order for one... only mine needs to be 'red brawn' to match the truck...

very nice work on the trailer, bro! outstanding

Very nice!!!
Lator....

quote:

Originally posted by System-F:
Wow...that thing is too damn pretty to be pulling on the trail. Did you do the roll on herculiner? or do you have the equpiment to spray it.

I tried to spray the Herculiner but it didn't work right with the gun I bought. It was all rolled on.

Like I said.

crAZy (8) mad fab skillz.

Do you have bostaff skills too?

luuuuucky.

The only other improvements you could make:

- Add some gas struts to the doors on the top to allow easy opening & self support of the doors.

- Do you have a drain inside? If water does get in, might be handy to have a drain plug like they use on boats to let it out quickly.

- Any plans on fitting trailer brakes to it?

Looks fantastic though. Now I want to make one!

quote:

Originally posted by datz510:
The only other improvements you could make:

- Add some gas struts to the doors on the top to allow easy opening & self support of the doors.

- Do you have a drain inside? If water does get in, might be handy to have a drain plug like they use on boats to let it out quickly.

- Any plans on fitting trailer brakes to it?

Looks fantastic though. Now I want to make one!

I plan on doing the gas struts later, really I'm just out of time and doing the prop rod with pins on the top and bottom was easy and secure. I will probably add gas struts later.

I've already thought about the drain too. That's something I'll add later. There were quite a few modifications that were scrapped due to lack of time.
We're planning on doing some cargo netting inside to keep stuff from flying around in the trailer, not sure if that will get done before the run or not.

The trailer fully loaded should only be about 1500 lbs so trailer brakes shouldn't be necessary. The only time I think they might be nice is on offroad hill decents. I plan on testing that out next weekend so I'm not surprised on the run.

If you're going to make one, make sure you have more than 5 weeks to complete the project.... This was a ridiculous race against the clock. All because Andy had to break my front axle. I planned on starting the trailer around Christmas, but I had to fix the truck first.

That looks awesome. But will it survive?

It needs a bumper dumper, just in case. And rock lights.

Only time the trailer seems scary to me is on steep descents....The coves and part of Edwards Park loop are the only places I'd be concerned about that. Coves mostly.

Rock lights as well as lights under the top are in the plans, but won't happen before the run. It's got a port-a-potty on it so the bumper dumper is covered.

Steep descents worry me too. I'll be testing it this weekend with John out at the coves. I'm going to fill all the tanks and take it out for a test run. That should be within a couple hundred pounds of the weight I'll have in it on the run. If it's scary on the descents then I won't do them on the run. I'm not worried about Edwards Park, there isn't anything too steep there.

The run is all about kicking back for me, I'm so beat up from working on this trailer I just want to camp and relax. I've run the coves a billion times so if I just skip over them and meet you at the campsite it will be OK.

Is it too late to add brakes?

I could add brakes at any time, but it's too late to order the parts I need to do it and get them installed before the run. Plus wiring them up to work properly in a situation like that would be crazy.

I may try to figure out something later. The only time I can see that I would need them is on steep loose surface descents. In that situation I'm not using the brakes at all in the truck, I'm just in 4 low engine braking. Electronic brake controllers aren't designed to work that way. Basically I would just need a way to manually apply a set braking pressure before descending a hill. There's nothing off the shelf that's going to give me that so there's no way it will make it on before the run.

I'm still not done with the trailer, I'm hoping to be done by Saturday. That leaves me a week to get the truck and all my camping equipment ready to go. I have time to finish the electrical, get it registered and do the plumbing. Any other modifications to the trailer will have to happen after the run.

Need to engineer an electric braking system to allow an electronically modulated ABS for hill descents. That'd be tricky!