First off, thank you Sharon, Rick, Mike, Burke, Eagle (Louella, right?), James, Judy, StandUpGuy, and Pete for the kind words!
Sorry I haven't updated sooner, but things got a little busy. Right after the last update I got it out of the yard to get it weighed and get the hitch set up. I pulled it out of the yard with my old beater Blazer, much easier to manuever than the bigger pickup.
Took it around the block a few times, then disconnected it, gave it a bath and hooked it up to my pickup to head out:
First we took it down to the local RV dealer (who has helped us with ordering some parts). They really got a kick out of seeing it completed, and the owner even rounded up every employee (and a few customers) and gave them all a tour. Everybody loved it and had a million questions. That was cool.
Then we headed off to the closest truck stop to hit the CAT Scale. We weighed in at 2700 pounds.
I knew we were bound to wind up over my initial estimate, but I didn't expect to be 700 pounds over! I still can't figure out where all the weight came from!
This past Monday I ordered a replacement torsion axle for it with a 3500 lb rating. The axle we re-used from the pop-up was de-rated to something like 2700 lbs. The replacement axle cost $329 and should arrive within 2 weeks.
We wound up putting almost 100 miles on it the day we went to the scales, and it towed well. On Easter Sunday I "delivered" it to my brother, a 120 mile one-way trip, again it towed great with no problems. Well, until I got there and realized I left the trailer keys at home on the kitchen table!
And let me answer some questions..
Dmanrick wrote:Please let me know what it weighs.
2700 Total - 2400 Axle, 300 tongue.
bve wrote:Looking forward to some 'in the wild' photos... any ideas for a name yet?
Burke, he still hasn't mentioned anything to me. I know he's excited to get it striped and lettered, so he's going to have to come up with something sooner or later.
kelkins wrote:Also, a few questions:
How did you seal the top to the sides?
The roof overlaps the siding on all four sides and is sealed with butyl tape, various standard RV style aluminum extrusions, and Dicor self-leveling lap sealant. Very much the same as any commercial RV roof should be done. Dicor's web site has an easy to follow 1 or 2 page instruction sheet that I followed, it is worth checking out.
jelkins wrote:Did you use standard rv extrusion on the other seems?
Yep, all standard extrusions. Roof wise, the door side is gutter with awning rail, road side is just gutter, rear is wide leg corner trim, the front is flat trim. The 4 corners of the siding are overlapped and then covered with corner trim. Wide leg in the rear, short leg in the front. I eventually will redo the front 2 pieces because I dont like the way they bent up top.
rebapuck wrote:1- I'm pretty sure that, after seeing a bazillion pictures of your brother, I could pick him out of a lineup. Seems every picture of you had an arm in the way, or you were facing away. Let's see you!
There's only one picture of me in the whole build and I had a welding helmet on. I'm the only one who will stop and grab the camera to take pictures of stuff. If I left it up to my brother, there wouldn't have been a single picture of this build. The other guy who see half in the pictures from time to time is my father..
I'm also a little camera shy, but I'll probably show up in some gathering pictures by accident before long.
rebapuck wrote:2- In eight pages, I don't think you ever called your brother by his name. What is it?
His name is Chris.
StandUpGuy wrote:Man it is awesome. Really a lot of money spent on this project. Is there any savings over having bought a new trailer?
Something like $10 grand I'd say. He's "only" in this thing for about $4500 (plus the new axle, so closer to 5k). Yes, $5000 is a good chunk of change, but all things considered I don't think it was bad. He could have spent considerably less, and that was the initial plan (initial budget was $2k), but when he saw it could be nice, he upgraded a lot of things.
Another point of reference. The trailer we roughly modeled was the closest thing we could find to what he wanted. That model hasn't been made in 5 years and still goes over $10k on the used market. So, less than half the price, exactly what he wanted, and he gets to say "Yeah, I built that!"
- Frank
by StandUpGuy » Sat Apr 23, 2011 7:34 pm 
