All aluminum hard sided popup toy hauler

[coal_burner]

I have 2 bikes right now, The ZX14-R that i rode to the Sturgis rally (550 pounds), and the 1984 Goldwing Aspencade that i rode to Daytona (800 pounds)
There may be a 3rd, smaller, bike added in the next month or so (400 pounds).

Here's the current owner with my possible next off-road bike:

 

[OP827]

Cool bikes! I was wondering the need for a full width ramp vs. two narrow ramps, so now I get it. Thanks.

 

[coal_burner]

Yeah, putting my feet down on the ramp while slowly powering the bike up it is far less terrifying than riding up a 1 ft wide strip of ramp at speed.

 

[coal_burner]

Tiny bit of work done in the high winds yesterday. I now have a square frame for the liftable roof made out 1x2 rectangular aluminum tube.
When the wind eventually dies down, I'll be able to weld in some roof rafters every 24"

 

[coal_burner]

Time to buy more parts. Since I'm picking up 24ft long pieces in a 16ft trailer, my normal red elmo boxers flag is accompanied by a bright orange plastic bollard borrowed from work.

https://www.tnttt.com/media/20250606_153519-jpg.356224/full

 

[coal_burner]

Ok, trying that picture thing again.

 

[coal_burner]

I built some bowed roof trusses on 24 inch centers out of 1" square tube, and 1" flat stock, welding in little cut off bits of tube to maintain a consistent bow.

After that it's time to start sheeting the roof with aluminum.
One zillion holes drilled and clecos added, I'm all dry fit and ready to secure things permanently with silicone and closed-end rivets.

 

[DrewsBrews]

When I was building my A frame (tongue) trailer I found the most flex occurred right at the angle change between the A and when the rails straighten. The tongue forces would twist the rails outward at the top, inward at the bottom. I added a brace right at that angle the same height as the rail to tie the two angles together. This prevented the twisting. The difference was quite surprising in how it went from noodle to feeling like it could handle some weight.

So I'd suggest tieing that section together better as, from my experience, that small change will likely increase it's capacity quite a bit. Possibly preventing future cracking from repeated flexing.

 

[coal_burner]

Funny enough, that's kinda' in the plan.
The frontmost floor beams is welded to the top just a few inches forward of my frame rails welds, and there'll be a cross Member welded to the bottom of the A just bit forward of that to hold my air conditioner condenser.


I hadn't thought of the mode of flexure youre talking about when I was designing, but it makes perfect sense.

 

[coal_burner]

Welded on a bunch of 1x1 wall studs to the roof frame, and a base rail.

also welded in a bit of frame where the windows will fit.

 

[coal_burner]

Step number: next
Riveting .040 aluminum sheets to the upper walls frame.

The 8 ft lengths of aluminum sheet don't necessarily line up with the wall studs so sometimes I'll get some vertical rivet lines that are close to each other since some rivets are joining sheets, while others are holding sheets to frames.
Lots of clecos hold things together while I keep drilling rivet holes.

 

[coal_burner]

Another day, another couple panels of aluminum cut, drilled, and temporarily cleco'd in place

 

[coal_burner]

for the roof and outer panel walls I've moved from 1/8 standard rivets spaced at one and a quarter inch spacing, to these 3/16 closed end (water tight) rivets spaced 4" apart.
(Thanks to the commenter that mentioned these to me).

Before riveting, I'm running a thick bead of silicone on the frame along the line of rivets, getting a good amount of silicone around and in the rivet holes.

When the rivets squeeze the panels tight, a bit of silicone seeps out around each one.
That should make things good and water tight.

 

[coal_burner]

Riveted the 2 front cleco'd panels on last night.
Took half the clecos off a panel, bent it back, applied silicone, then riveted.

After the left half of a panel is riveted on, I remove the clecos from the right half and repeat the silicone and riveting process.

Now the front looks aerodynamic.

Note: I finished my first bag of 240 water tight rivets during today's progress.

 

[Tom&Shelly]

Looks great!

I remember a friend of Dad's using clecos to build an airplane back when I was a teenager. (They had just progressed from silk and dope by then!)

Tom

 

[coal_burner]

The last major wall section is now permanently mounted!

bending the aluminum around the 1" radius corners, and getting the clecos to hold it in place is a bit...exciting.
Every now and then a cleco will shoot ballistically out of its hole because that aluminum REALLY wants to straighten back out!

This last pic is of the corner framing before I ground it into a quarter round.

 

[coal_burner]

while waiting for a friend of a friend who owns an aluminum brake to get back into town, I'm experimenting with creating a piano hinge for the ramp.

So far i've burned through the steel hinge barrel in 3 places, and accidentally tack welded the the hinge pin to the barrel 4 times.

As soon as I get the hang of it I'll start from scratch with new material and make the hinge I put into actual use.
A hinge breaking while I have 900 pounds of motorcycle plus 250 pounds of rider on it would be a terrible thing.

 

[coal_burner]

I had a heavy duty 6ft piano hinge come in the mail, so i bolted that to a bunch of aluminum from the discount bin at my metal supplier to make a poor man's bending brake.

with this new toy, I was able to fold over the edges on my roof panels.

These panels are now on the roof and silicone and riveted in place.

Next step is to make a fiberglass fairing to connect the front of the bowed roof to the front wall of the camper.

 

[coal_burner]

building the fiberglass transition pied between the front wall and the roof started with a piece of 2" thick foam roof underlayment. I glued a separate piece of foam panel standing vertical to keep the original piece from sagging or bowing while I'm shaping the other side.

I used a bread knife to carve out the rough shape, then a belt sander to smooth things out and do final shaping.

running a sheet of 240 grit over everything very lightly by hand got rid of the few ridges left by the belt sander.

 

[coal_burner]

Here's the "after" pic of 3 layers of fiberglass epoxied over the top of the shaped foam.
I used painter's tape and wax paper to keep the epoxy from sticking everywhere I didn't want it.
The bricks (wrapped in wax paper) are set on the points that wanted to curl up.
Not seen is a 2x4 I have wedged underneath the center to prevent that part from sagging.