Well, here goes another cargo trailer build thread. Sorry this is so long winded but I wanted to give some background. I've lurked on here for a couple of years so I guess it's my turn to contribute to this excellent site. My needs are a little different than a lot of people's build so, hopefully mine can contribute in a little different way. My build is because I needed a toy hauler/ATV long term storage trailer. We started looking at toy haulers and I quickly became alarmed at the outrageous prices that even the cheapest (even USED units) commanded. Worse yet was that the build quality in the lower priced units is so obviously terrible. My wife and I were growing very dissappointed until we met up with a couple, while at a RZR rally, that had a 14 x 7 cargo trailer that they used to haul their Polaris RZR in. They had a blow up mattress in it with only a porta-pooper and a folding table with a microwave on it and a couple of coolers on the floor.
EUREKA! Problem solved! I figured that we could do something very similar but even more "finished out" and we'd have us a toyhauler! So, 10 minutes of Googling and I began to see that this might be fun and even rewarding. Very early on I found this site, TNTTT, and I was hooked! I'd like to say thanks to all the folks that have contributed their time to publish such helpful works on this site, I have gleaned MUCH knowledge on this site. This leads me to the "it's my turn" to contribute.
OK, so the hunt is on for a trailer, at first I was going for the same size as our ATV friend's (14 x 7) but some quick calculations determinded that if we were serious about this being a camper/toy hauler then we'd need to step it up to 16 x 8.5 or so. I have imposed 2 major qualifications for this build, 1.) it HAD to be a "budget" build and 2.) I needed to keep the building material light if I wanted the overall unit to remain relatively light weight.
Since finding a nice used one proved fruitless, we settled on a custom unit from Hurricane Cargo (now Husky Cargo) in Fitzgerald Georgia. It was ready within 2-3 weeks so we drove from our home in NW Louisiana to go pick it up. I was very pleased with the trailer and it was exactly as I had requested except for the v-nose (more on that in a minute) and also, they installed the dovetail flooring in the rear when I asked for it to be removed, not a big deal, it makes the rear ramp door a little taller.
The base model 16 x 8.5 was $3430, it was only $200 more to make it 18' so I figured I'd better get it, because if I didn't get it I'd regret not having that additional 2'. We also wanted a little more headroom (and ramp door entrance height for our RZR) so we paid $180 ($10/ft) for 6" extra height bringing it to a toal of 7' interior height. We also paid $10/foot extra to have the floor done in pressure treated 3/4" plywood and $10/foot for the next thicker outer skin (.024 to .030 thickness). We also wanted a sharper v-nose, thinking that it may help with fuel. The standard was 2' v-nose and it was $180 to upgrade to 3' and, much to our surprise, when we picked it up they had made it a 4' v-nose, this makes for a perfect 90 degree corner up front....much easier when we eventually install the shower stall up there
Add a spare tire for $100 and we're up to $4450. They had an optional "upgrade" package that had extra chrome and a couple other doo-dads but the really important thing was the screwless outer skin and the one piece aluminum roof (as opposed to the 8' sections of galvalume roofing), this package was only $200 extra so I figured, go for it. If you've kept up with the math (and if my math is right) we got all of this for $4650 rigged and ready to roll.OK, so we get it home....wow, this thing is HUGE. Way bigger than the original 14L x 7W x 6.5H that we started out with in mind. It barely fit in our driveway! So let the build begin! .....So.... a year passes and nothing has happened, everytime we go on fourwheeling trips we stay at cabins or motels so, there hasn't been a real need to get this thing done. And, since my RZR fits in the back of my truck...well, the build just got pushed to the back burner. Finally, last fall I saw another friend who did a conversion and that lit the spark again, so since November 2013 I've been putting time in it here and there. This is our build to date:
This is why I was able to put it off so long.
Here it is, hogging up my driveway. BTW, notice the REALLY tiny camper in fron of it, it's a motorcycle popup that we used to pull behind out Goldwing.
I won't bore you with minor details, there are enough excellent builds threads on TNTTT that cover the details of what I did. One thing that I did do though was to pull down one section of the plywood wall at a time, insulate behind it then put the plywood right back up before going to the next sheet of plywood. I did this because I didn't want to remove ALL of the plywood and the trailer looses some of it's rigidity and possibly flex or bow just enough that the screws wouldn't realign in the holes that they came out of. It worked out for me, I only had to redrill 5-6 holes and that was only because the holes were stripped out.
Starting to put up the new interior. That's the 34" X 48" wainscot from Home Depot on the bottom, about $15 each. I think that this is about the most expensive build item so far. The white panel board above the wainscot is about $14 per 4 X 8 sheet, it's only 3/16" thick so it's fairly light weight.
Next is ceiling time! Same 3/4" Styrofoam insulation up top (or is it 1"? I can't remember) for about $15 per 4 X 8 sheet. Cover the insulation up with 1/8" 4 X 8 luan sheets at about $12.50 per sheet.
Gotta kill a snake every now and then. I left my tape measure in my house so I walked over to the door and looked down and this SOB was scootin' right in front of my door! I don't have a problem with snakes, as long as they stay away from my house. It's hard to really tell but this cotton mouth was almost 5' long and as big around as my wrist. Shovels ROCK! lol!
OK, more in just a little bit, have to go feed the dog....
MIKE
