Well…drug the trailer down to Mexico for an extended weekend and put the A/C unit to the test. Happy to report that everything went smoothly. It wasn’t too horribly hot, maybe 90-ish with some humidity. Didn’t really need to use the A/C as much as I thought I would. Hanging out in/around the campsite during the day there wasn’t much need as the ocean breeze felt pretty good in the shade. It was really nice to have in the morning, though. At sunrise that box started to heat up. Made sleeping in a couple extra hours enjoyable. Thought about sleeping with the ramp down and door open, but felt more comfortable, security-wise, with the doors all locked up tight.
Here it is all set up. I just ran an extension cord into the trailer through the hole where the old double-sided outlet was. I made a temporary removable patch-panel for traveling/storage.
20180607_192843 The hammock was fantastic in there. Back of the trailer faced south towards the ocean, so inside was always in the shade. With the ramp down and side door open a nice breeze flowed through. Naps happen.
20180608_114834 Night-time set-up. I kept the A/C box with the foam inserts for traveling and used it as a nightstand. Also took advantage of the shore power and extension cord for use with the air mattress and some LED rope lights, held up with a few magnetic hooks.
20180607_192940 Tried the Porta Potti out for the first time. Worked great, and didn’t stink up the trailer. At least nothing that I noticed over the sunblock, sweat, and ocean salt I brought into the equation.
My buddy tagged along with and crashed in a tent. He said it was actually a little chilly at night, but in the morning it heated up a bit. Here’s our site
20180610_112805 I think my next logical step on the trailer is to address the flooring. I’ve Googled multiple variations of “best cargo trailer floor” searches and read a bunch of threads from this site, to moto-cross, to drag car sites talking about what works best. A lot of opinions out there and think I’m going to go with some sort of epoxy/paint type coating with the flakes for added traction. I like the idea of having something oil/gas resistant for the quads and also ease of clean-up for anything else. Preparation seems to be key to success for those applications so thinking of throwing down a new layer of plywood over the original, since it’s already oil-stained in several spots. Using elevator bolts as the primary attachment method with some liquid nails thrown in for good measure to bond the two together, prevent squeeks and such? It looks like the trailer framework was built on top of the deck, so simply removal/replacement would be problematic/impractical. The ramp plywood is easily accessible, so replacing that with new shouldn’t be too hard. Hopefully. And since I’m in there I might as well work out a bracketry solution for a spare tire carrier for the outside of the ramp door. Should have plenty of clearance for the spare with the ramp down since I put the axle spring-over kits in.