To Recap 10 days to build a teardrop for me and my wife, $500 budget. Anything I can steal from the house and put back in the same condition is fair game (thinking mattress and window air conditioner). Anything I can find in the garage is also fair game.
Looks like there's a lot of work to be done so on to Day 1 (all thumbnails are clickable for full size images):
Knowing a guy could easily spend the entire budget on a trailer frame I chose instead to spend ZERO- that's right FREE trailer.
How does one go about getting a free trailer? Easy, let friends & family know about your crazy ideas to build a teardrop and wait for someone to pump you full of misinformation so you will haul away their steaming pile. Oh and bring some spare wire...
Turns out the coupler on this bad boy is 1 7/8 and all my stuff is 2" so there's a little work to do there. On the plus side it tows great at 40kph as long as you have a friend to keep their foot on the coupling.
And I'm now the second owner of a 1965 Eaton True Line Campmaster!
After that it was time to peel back the decaying tarps and see what was hiding inside...
Turns out there was a bunch of household vapor barrier under the decayed tarp and it kept everything in pretty good shape- folded out the wings and look at that there is a VERY smelly canvas top in there. At this point I was almost thinking just set up the top and go camping, but as it turns out there are some holes and it seems to have shrunk several sizes as it's no where near a fit. Still pretty cool so thats in a corner airing out.
Back to those wings... I'm looking at them and seeing a pair of 5 foot long piano hinges and a couple chunks of really solid 3x6 plywood hidden under a couple layers of bad paint... off they come and into the 'keep' pile
Allright, that was cool but now lets look under it an see the business end of this thing: 1000lb axel 8 inch tires OH YEAH thats the good stuff...
Lets bust out the tape measure:
inch and a half by 3 inch box steel frame fore and aft rails 46 1/2 inches apart... 46.5 + 2 sheets of 3/4 ply= 48 inches... mighty convenient. Down side is its only 6 feet long with kinda a stumpy tongue. Of course we could just unbolt the tongue ( 2 inch C-channel).
Another interesting tidbit- I've read several teardrop builds where a sub frame was built under the floor to attach to the frame. The folks at T. Eaton Co. Limited seemed to think 24 rivets were adequate to secure the 3/4 plywood floor to the frame of this trailer, and it turns out the trailer is still around a decade after one of our national treasures closed its doors for good. (For the americans wiki EATONS ) It seems to me this is alot easier method of construction, and if I get 45 years out of the trailer I think I could be satisfied with that. A few minutes with a drill and off comes her skirt.
Unfortunately at this point in time my wife went to bed so the quantity of pictures dropped off significantly. So no pics of carrying out the 6x6 box or the initial frame cleanup. After sitting back and squinting for a while I decided the trailer was too high so a quick axle flip was in order... by midnight I was pretty happy with the first days progress and this is what we are left with:
On deck for day 2- During the day: Decide on body style & dimensions
In the evening: Stretch frame to 8 feet, swap to 2" coupler, inspect and maintain axles & hubs, and sleep more than I did on day 1.
