Slow Build in Oz

[MickinOz]

After 8 months of thinking and reading and looking, I've finally made a start.
Last night I did a quick 130 mile run after work and bought a trailer from a guy advertising on face book.
His son built it 4 years ago for his aluminium dinghy. The dinghy was sold with his Isuzu truck camper, so the trailer was surplus.
It came home with all the paper work, a VIN, and 3 months registration for about 1/4 of the price I'd been quoted for a custom made rolling chassis.
He swears he launched the dinghy three times, and it certainly looks like it has never seen salt water.
It is about 5'4" between the mudguards and about 8'6" long in the area that counts, and has single leaf @parabolic@ boat trailer springs.
Should be able to keep the promise to the missus about installing a full size queen bed mattress, and still have room at the rear for a fridge, etc.
Final decisions on style were waiting on seeing what sort of trailer I could find, so this weekend is decision time.
BenRoy? Classic?Off road square drop?

[TimC]

Welcome to the craziness Mick. I vote Benroy. Not sure my vote counts for much. I'm thinking that Aussie's are partial to the off road look, but what do I know?

Anyway, your original post about a place to crash when blutered... there's no better place than a teardrop. Just pour yourself in. Your in no condition to 1, climb steps, 2, navigate furnishings or 3, operate modern conveniences (plumbing, etc.).

Good luck on your build. I'm anxious to see your progress.

Tim

[edgeau]

Keeping promises to the better half is definitely wise! Mine loves 'her' teardrop. I am looking forward to seeing your build.
Is that trailer galvinized?

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[MickinOz]

I think it is just painted in cold galvanizing paint. It was hard to check in the dark.
I couldn't leave it there - $500 with 3 month's registration, and a signed transfer form, a two speed winch I could probably sell for $60, and 2 brand new crab rakes thrown in.
A new bolt together ezytrailer was about $1100 + registration. I was quoted $2500 for a custom built trailer to almost exactly the same design.

Just measured the main rails at 50mm x 70mm. Cross members are 50 x 50.
For the only nation that has set foot on the moon that is 2" x 2.75", and 2" x 2".

The rectangular section that would be the area of the camper body is 1410mm or 4' 8" wide, and 2600mm or 8' 6" long.

The frame is really strong. I will go to the rego office (DMV?) and transfer the rego (title?) to my name tomorrow.
Then I'm meeting a mate for lunch who happens to have a great big pile of galvanized steel angle. I will have a chat with him about liberating a few pieces to support the floor.
Then I'll have a chat with the missus, because if she is willing to settle for a full sized double bed (1370mm/ 4'6") I can just screw my sides to the frame rail with minimal effort.
I'm leaning toward Benroy shape. The kicker will be if I can easily get thin marine ply for bending.

[edgeau]

Sounds like a score

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[Squigie]

Looking forward to seeing how you proceed.
I think that if I had found a decent trailer to use, I probably wouldn't be building my frame.
But I have a lot of the material on hand, left over from another project (not everything needed, but a lot of it), I want to use Timbren suspension, and my local market is terrible for trailers. If it has wheels and rolls, it's $800+, no matter how terrible and rotten. (That's about AU$1,200 ... or something like 450 Llamatongues for the Kiwis and Canucks.)

Just measured the main rails at 50mm x 70mm. Cross members are 50 x 50.
For the only nation that has set foot on the moon that is 2" x 2.75", and 2" x 2".

Thanks for the translation and recognition.
I can do quick conversions in my head, but most Americans can't.
I always laugh to myself when someone goes on a rant about how backward Americans are, because we haven't converted to the "easier" metric system.
I always have the same question for them: "Do you have metric calendars and clocks?"
Which brings puzzled looks. (They do exist.)
..."'Cause if you can work with a Gregorian calendar and duodecimal time, you should be able to understand feet, inches, yards, fathoms, arshins, pounds, ounces, grains, carats, drams, gallons, quarts, pints, cups, spoons, bushels, bales, tons, smoots, hands, slugs, beard-seconds, oxtails, acre-feet, and yeets. Metric just makes people lazy."



(A little secret: The Apollo program operated with 'standard' units; but all of the telemetry and guidance was converted from metric. )

[MickinOz]

Of course, as a retired fire assayer, my personal favourite unit of measure is zolotniks per 100 poods.
edit: deleted my conversions, on the grounds that my heritage listed fire assaying textbooks and Wikipedia seem to disagree on w
hat a zolotnik and a pood weigh

[edgeau]

I always have the same question for them: "Do you have metric calendars and clocks?"
Which brings puzzled looks. (They do exist.)
..."'Cause if you can work with a Gregorian calendar and duodecimal time, you should be able to understand feet, inches, yards, fathoms, arshins, pounds, ounces, grains, carats, drams, gallons, quarts, pints, cups, spoons, bushels, bales, tons, smoots, hands, slugs, beard-seconds, oxtails, acre-feet, and yeets. Metric just makes people lazy."



(A little secret: The Apollo program operated with 'standard' units; but all of the telemetry and guidance was converted from metric. )

I like your sense of humour!

My favorite listed in my old field geologist manual was that there are 120 pounds to a hundred weight! But on metric that is not used in metric countries is that there are 6400 mils in a circle instead of 360 degrees. It really puzzles people why it isn't 1000 but there is a logical explanation. I'll save hijacking the build thread though.

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[Westy]

Hi Mick, good to see you take the first step. Whereabouts in SA are you? I have just been through there with my trailer in tow. Travelled 10,000 kms from WA to Canberra then back through Cobar, The Hillm Marree to William Creek (200 kms of dirt), Wm Creek to Coober Pedy (another 160 kms dirt), Coober Pedy to Yulara and across the Great Central Road (1200 kms+ dirt) and back to Bunbury in WA.

Trailer never missed a beat and handled the dirt very well with minimal dust ingress to the cabin and zero to the galley.

A thread of my build can be found here: https://caravanersforum.com/viewtopic.p ... t=teardrop and here: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=66879

Maybe there are a few ideas you can use.

One of the best things I ever did and really enjoyed doing it. I hope you get the same satisfaction.

Cheers Westy

[MickinOz]

Phew! Finally managed to log back in.
You guys may regret this. Most people reckon I write too much - except when I write project scopes at work, then they seem very happy that I leave nothing unsaid.
That same project focus means you will see a running commentary on costs.

Westy, you would have missed me by a few hundred miles - I'm in Port Pirie.

I just skimmed your build threads. Very interesting.
Is the CCA pine and the form-ply holding up OK?

I'm home with the dreaded man-flu. Must be bad, my (female) boss took one look from the other side of the office and sent me home.
While languishing in quarantine I called a few SA plywood sellers.
Even Duck Flat Wooden Boats said I was out of luck with regard to special ordering larger sheets than 8 x 5.
I wanted to apply some frame-less techniques I had in mind, but appears the answer is no.

I have had a closer look at the trailer I bought, especially in the light of reading that your frame is made of 3 and 4 mm thick steel.

The steel is 2.5mm thick 75 x 50 RHS on drawbar and main rails, 50mm square tube cross members. I measured 70 x 50 originally. Musta been somewhat taken with the drink.
I think I'm pretty right for what I want - mainly bitumen roads, some made gravel roads, no serious off road travelling.

Those bolt together 8 x 5 Easytrailers out of Melbourne (look like the US Ironton trailer) are sold as teardrop camper chassis and the draw bar is 65 x 50 x 2.7 mm C channel.
The main frames are 50 x 75 C channel.

I think my homemade trailer compares OK at less than half the price if freight and rego is factored in.
If I ever figure out the photo stuff I'll post some.

I am going to make a few chassis mods just the same.
1) I can remove 0.5m of draw bar with no structural changes. That will delete the winch post, winch and the v block post that captured the bow of the boat.

2) One area that is under done is the spring mounts, IMO. They are welded to separate pieces of angle iron that bolt to the main frame, so you can adjust the weight distribution by sliding the angle along the rail and bolting in the new spot. Typical Aussie boat trailer stuff but the execution is bad.
The angle iron is quite thin. My mate came good with two 1.2m lengths of 50 x 50 x 5 mm galvanised angle. The spring mounts will be the toughest thing on the whole trailer.
Any steel I weld in will be galvanised - even though the rest of the frame is mild steel with galvanising paint, any electrically connected metallic zinc coating will help protect the whole trailer.

3) Springs are as-new Al-Ko brand. Only 600 kg capacity when I googled the part numbers. May swap them out - cost will be about 70 dollars. It'll depend a little on what the final weight comes in like. It is currently sitting at 140kg before I remove the winch post and bilge boards and fit the heavier spring mounts.
I'd say the two will balance out. I'll have a good 3 speed winch to sell, so nearly cost neutral as well.

4) One of the reasons I skipped buying a bolt-together Easytrailer (apart from the bolts) was the tiny 12 inch wheels, with fairly light looking bearings.
So I bought a trailer with 10 inch wheels.
Still, new 13 x 4.5 Sunraysia style wheels with new 155 x 13 LT tyres are only $87 each delivered. That's two 13" wheels for the price I just got quoted for a single 10 inch spare!
Rims are zero off-set. Current wheels are 20mm positive offset. My measuring suggests that new wheels may just about fit right in without having to move the mudguards.

Bearings and hubs are proper conventional HT Holden hubs.
Well that's enough for one post, even from me.

[MickinOz]

I just went through my first post on the forum. Seems like back then I had a line on a supplier of 10 x 5 sheets. Sure wish I'd written that down somewhere.

[MickinOz]

Picture - I hope

[edgeau]

Picture worked. Looks like a good solid base to start.

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[Westy]

Hi Mick,
On my trip over to Canberra I passed by Port Pirie on my way to Crystal Brook, Renmark and, eventually, Canberra. Nice part of the country there.

The wall thickness of the tube on my trailer was determined by a 7x5 box trailer I had a few years ago. The chassis was 3mm and the draw bar 4mm, so I just copied it. I have about 70 kgs ball weight so I'm glad of the additional millimetre on the draw bar. Gives me peace of mind.

The CCA pine and form ply is holding up real well. There are no issues whatever (that I can see, anyway) and even though it added a bit of weight I'm happy with it as that extra weight is down low and adds to stability. I have been up to 125 kms/hr whilst passing a truck without a wobble or deviation.

I'm not an engineer so cannot comment on your frame sections but, if you are sticking to mainly bitumen, I guess it will be OK.

One advantage of a longer draw bar is the ease of reversing. A shorter draw bar makes reversing just that little bit more difficult so it might be worthwhile rethinking the removal of 500 mm.

Whatever you decide, ask forum members here as they have a wealth of knowledge and will readily share it if you run into a snag.

Best of luck Westy

[MickinOz]

Yeah I've always found my boat trailer easier to reverse than the 6 x 4 box trailer.
The distance from the towball to the centre of the axle, i.e. the distance between the two pivot points, is the determinant.
On this trailer the axle is way back, which I wanted because I'm looking at having the battery and water storage behind the axle, so she's a very slow turning trailer.
However, the overall length is more than I wanted. The draw bar must be close to 2 metres long.
I'd still have a long distance between pivots after I shortened it.

Having said that, I was looking at it today and decided it was easier to cut it off than it would be to stick it back on if I changed my mind.
It isn't on the critical path. By that I mean it could be done at any time without any impact on the progress of the build.
So I've decided to leave it and see what it all looks like after I've built the camper.

Struck a blow today - ordered a couple of 13 x 4.5 wheels with 155 70 LT tyres.
Tyres are rated at 600kg each. Design rules say trailer and load can't be more than the sum of the carrying capacity of the tyres, i.e. 1200kg in this case.
Since I'm planning on having no brakes, the trailer can not legally gross more than 750kg, so the new tyres will be more than adequate.
They are zero off-set, so I'm optimistic I'll not lose too much width between the rims either.