NEWBIE

[FNEES]

Hi all, from Lisbon Maine. My wife Cindy and I (Ed) have loved camping for many years. Recently we discovered teardrops and fell in love witih the simplicity of them...
We just bought an old coleman 8ft popup today and hope to turn it into something like a teardrop... lol..
Any advise is greatly appreciated....
TKS ED Stacey

[mikeschn]

Hi Ed,

Welcome to the forum.

Do you weld? If so, my first piece of advice is to make that trailer smaller. As Miriam will tell you, a popup trailer is BIG!!!

Mike...

[madjack]

Ed, welcome to the board...there have quite a few popup frames used in TD construction...a suggestion...if the camper is usable/sellable, you might be better off selling it and buying a trailer frame from Harbor Freight, RedTrailers or TSC...rehabing the popup, into a usable td frame is pretty good project in itself...
madjack

[Miriam C.]

Hi Ed,

Welcome to the forum.

Do you weld? If so, my first piece of advice is to make that trailer smaller. As Miriam will tell you, a popup trailer is BIG!!!

Mike...

Welcome Ed,
Big is the word. Mine is 76" wide and only 8' long. I got a wild hair and decided to have curves. Now if I had made the floor 10 ft long this would have worked out great. I put an extra foot front and back to the profile and it is great. But BIG. It cost almost 3 times as much to make a wide tear as a normal one. And you have seams to deal with. Figure that out first.

First thing~ check to see if the frame is level. Check the diagonals too. The frame is going to be heavy so weigh it and keep it in mind.
Make sure you can get tires that accept highway mph and enough weight.
Keep windows normal inspite of the big sides.

When I saw a normal 5' teardrop and actually got in the Escape hatch I realized how big mine was. My husband loves every inch and has helped because he had to. I can't reach across my camper to put screws in.

Most important~ build what you want and look at the other big TTT's here. Then try to see a normal one. You may be supprised at how comffyy they are. See my build at the url below.

Enjoy