Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Looking for plans for a REMOVABLE Teardrop...If they ever existed.

Reason being I have a very expensive all aluminum Featherlite
trailer, that I still need to use for its intended purpose. The trailer
has a completely unobstructed 4' 6" wide by 8' 0" deck. After looking
at a few plans, I thought maybe someone had already made a
removable one. My trailer is a model #1683 Featherlite if you care
to look at their web site.

It's not for a tear, but rather for a flat bottom, that we use a similar trailer. We winch an approximately 1000# boat on to it and then when it's on the launch ramp and tilted it can easily be pushed off by one person. The only addition to the trailer was indoor/outdoor carpeting. The same should work for a teardrop trailer.

An Ol Timer wrote:It's not for a tear, but rather for a flat bottom, that we use a similar trailer. We winch an approximately 1000# boat on to it and then when it's on the launch ramp and tilted it can easily be pushed off by one person. The only addition to the trailer was indoor/outdoor carpeting. The same should work for a teardrop trailer.

I'm not sure if your pulling my leg or not...? I had actually planned
to have a bracket of some sort (removable) on each corner to jack
it up a few inches, set it on stands and slide the trailer out from under.

Welcome aboard Bad4Fun. Somewhere in here there are pictures of exactly what you are looking at doing. If you have a browse through the various albums, you should find it. Maybe someone else can post a link to it for you. Whatever you decide to do, have fun doing it and keep us informed with pics. That's because Madjack just luv's da pics
Cheers
Paul

You have to remember that you have to have a method of getting it onto the trailer and then back off. We use a boat winch to get it on and then gravity with a little help to get it off. Also in your case you must have a stand of some sort that is equal in heigth to your trailer bed to use a method similar to this. We of course leave the boat on the trailer.

PaulC wrote:Welcome aboard Bad4Fun. Somewhere in here there are pictures of exactly what you are looking at doing. If you have a browse through the various albums, you should find it. Maybe someone else can post a link to it for you. Whatever you decide to do, have fun doing it and keep us informed with pics. That's because Madjack just luv's da pics
Cheers
Paul

Thanks for the tip...I'll start looking

The best example I can think of is Dan Jones cargo pod...

http://home.att.net/~daniel.v.jones/tea ... intro.html

Gage also posted a picture of a teardrop built on a standard trailer with walls, but I don't know if it was removable.

Have fun, and BTW, welcome to the forum!

Mike...

mikeschn wrote:The best example I can think of is Dan Jones cargo pod...

http://home.att.net/~daniel.v.jones/tea ... intro.html

Gage also posted a picture of a teardrop built on a standard trailer with walls, but I don't know if it was removable.

Have fun, and BTW, welcome to the forum!

Mike...

Thanks, Mike

I've been debating on such a camper to use with my 4x6 utility trailer. Whenever I was searching and found pics, I'd keep them. Now I'm not sure which computer they are on.
But, basicually, due to you having a flat bed to work with and no rails, a standard teardrop design would work. Unless you enclose the tires with the td, then you'll have to raise it enough to lift it off and clear the tires when pulling the trailer out from underneath.

Couple of things to consider when designing the camper. Weight shift. When most of the weight in a td is in the rear, you could design a stand to which you place the rear of the td into, then lift the front and stand it up at an angle to pull the trailer forward. This would keep the 'lifting' to a minimum. Next, as you may see, some tds sit lower in reference to the tires, whereas others higher. Again, to minimize 'lifting' effort, try to keep the top of the tires as close to the lower base of the camper.
Is the trailer to have a bed or is it going to be open? If there is a bed, think about contact between the td and the trailer bed. Can water sit, or can it drain? Can air get in between them to help dry out? A lot of slide-in campers are built on a rail to keep the base of the camper off the face of the pick-up beds. This helps drain the water out of the bed. With height consideration, you don't want to make it too high for climbing in/out.

There some considerations, some give/take, but think out a design, apply it in real life conditions, and see, if vitually, its possible.

I went the cheaper way by my standards and purchased a standard Pleasant Valley td/cargo. This will be the tester for me. Been out already this past weekend. The 4' wide is a 'little' bit on the small side.... My biggest hurdle is the storage placement. My fence gate is only 78" wide, so I need to keep the full width of the trailer to 66" minimum. That provide 6" to each side to hand push the trailer through the gate. My utility is 64" and the td is 66". I still haven't taken any pics just yet.

Jagular7,

You bring up a number of things that I have been wondering about. My
trailer does have a solid deck that has very short 1/8" ribs maybe 3/8"
apart, so full contact isn't a problem. There are however no drain holes,
these could be easily added.
The trailer has a 6" tall lip on the front and 2 1/2" on both sides. My thought was to build an aluminum frame that sits inside this lip, attaching the actual floor of the td to it, so there would never be any direct contact wood to floor. On that support frame maybe 3 or 4 runners with like? cutting board material so it would slide. Actually though, you make me think that if I just allow the td to be say 6" or even a foot longer, overhanging at the rear. Then to get it off, just drop the tongue down which would lift the rear, place supports at the rear then lift the front enough to slide the trailer out.

Maybe if you saw my trailer ( #1683 Featherlite ) photo in orig. post above. It's all aluminum and weighs 380lbs After I removed all the removable parts, i.e. ramp, sides, front I was surprised how heavy these pieces were.

Thank you all in advance for your help..