RV to cargo/tiny travel trailer combo

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RV to cargo/tiny travel trailer combo

Postby Brushtrooper » Tue Jan 15, 2019 12:03 am

My wife and I own an antique/collectible store and we often travel around our home state and neighboring states looking for treasures. I have been trying to come up with a way to combine my love of camping along with our business. In our travels we often hit up estate/garage sales along with flea markets etc. So the ideal trailer will have a bed/bathroom,small stove, microwave, ac/heat, plus storage. Then it needs to be small enough to maneuver through some down town areas and leave at campgrounds. I have a 12’ Cargo but I often fill it up on trips. So looking at traditional toy haulers and that is over budget. I do have a nice older 23’ 5th wheel that could fit the bill with modifications. the biggest mod would be to install either a ramp door or barn doors at rear to load furniture/cargo. The front part would be easily modified for our overnight needs. Does anyone have any ideas or links to a project that is similar in scope for what I need? The daunting part is to open up the rear to install the large door. Pretty sure I can handle the metal fabrication, but I have never took a task such as this with adding doors. Thoughts?
Staying in motel rooms is nice but does eat into the overhead, trying cut corners
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Re: RV to cargo/tiny travel trailer combo

Postby pchast » Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:18 pm

It seems your balance/tongue weight will vary quite a bit with
the changes in your load. Have you considered how you would
adjust for that and the handling of the trailer?
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Re: RV to cargo/tiny travel trailer combo

Postby Brushtrooper » Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:24 pm

This trailer is a fifth wheel so it is more foregiving for load balance and weight distribution. My biggest challenge will be making a ramp door and making it look right. I most likely will farm that out to a fabrication shop if I go forward with this project.
It really makes more sense to just get a longer cargo trailer and incorporate many of the techniques on this forum to create sleeping quarters. I have been reading many of the build projects shared here. I wish I had the carpentry skills many have on this forum. Lots of great builds, ideas and techniques shared here.
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Re: RV to cargo/tiny travel trailer combo

Postby fishboat » Wed Mar 06, 2019 10:05 pm

I think an equal challenge to building the rear door and have it look good will be building the structure in the trailer to support the mass of the door(s) themselves. RVs have a long history of being built as light as possible. If you open up the back end of the fifth wheel you may, or may not, find structure in there capable of supporting the weight of the door(s). If you open the rear up and don't find much to build off of..you then have an open RV that needs repair..could be lots of work to end up where you started.

I'd find a used enclosed trailer and build it out as needed...it'll have residual value when you're done with it. A modified fifth wheel probably won't have much value when you want to move it someday.
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