Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hello, Domo here. New user and first post. I'm in central VA and currently underway building a CTC. Been reading here for a bit and drew some inspiration from the site, so I figure that I'll shate what I have so far and what is to come.

We came out of a pop-up which I sold to buy a 7x16 TA Homesteader Patriot OHV trailer which I figured would be perfect platform to serve what I am aiming to do.

My current TV is a 16' 4Runner Trail. Not the best TV out there, but I am hoping to make it work and keep it light enough for my rig to haul. This in mind, I aim to make the camper a fully functional albiet simple/mostly dry poor mans toy hauler/tramper. The concept is that it will be climate controlled, comfortably sleep/feed 4 and provide an enclosed shower and toilet so that we don't have to use on bath houses while we are out and about.

I started by making a sketchup concept model to sell to the wife before spending a bunch of $$. It can be found here:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/ ... Conversion


Not all features in the conceptual design will be followed as some revisions have already been made since creating it. This is the shell from which I started. I am about half way through now. More posts/pics to follow..


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I started by adding an 15'x8' awning, then insulating the walls in sections while also cutting holes for windows.. 2 windows 18"x42", 1 window 12"x24"..

Side note, due to an order mix-up, I have a near complete 15'x8' awning for sale if anybody is interested (just need the awning tube)

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I did one side at a time due to needing to cut studs and potentially de-stabilizing the walls. Once insulated and set, i put plywood back up and skinned with luan which will be paonted in the future..

This is one side..

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Then I moved to the other wall for the other 18x42 and 12x24 windows, heat pump holes/bracing, Hot water on demand unit. I chose a 110v (through the wall) AC unit/heat pump for outside astetics. There will be more pics than words, but if you have any questions, hit me up and I'll do my best to answer.

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More from that wall.. added bathroom walls and rack to house/support AC unit. The shower stall came in while doing this. It looks heavy, but all tubing (minus window header tubing) is thin walled 16 gauge tubing.

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Then on to the hatch above the shower. Oh.. weight distributing hitch too.

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Mmmmm hmmmmm, I am liking what I am seeing here.
Domo arigato,

McDave

I made a tempalate for the kitchennette. As stated earlier, this will be a mostly dry camper and as simplistic as possible, while providing what I aim to get out of it. A majority of the time, we will be in a campground where water, maybe sewer is available. I was going to go the cassette toilet route, but decided on a marine toilet instead. I bought the largest that I could get to hopefully last us through a long weekend. The only waste that this trailer will have is grey water. If I cannot get away with just letting it flow to the ground (whats the diff between showering outside vs inside in regards to grey water). If need be though I figure that I can use a portable grey water container if any campground nazi's are patrolling.

Cabinets will house the water heater, electrical converter and battery. I will do upper and lower cabinets, along with a few extra cabinets spread around the trailer to create as much storage space as possible. I initially planned on doing an RV stove/oven and a fridge, but revised to an outdoor camp oven/stove combo (nobody wants me stinking up the camper cooking fish, etc, so cooking will mostly be outside) and a 150qt cooler to maximize food/frosty adult beverage storage space. The cooler will have a bench top on it to provide room for additional seating.

I was anticipating taking it on a preliminary maiden voyage to do a weekend dual-sport, but blew my back out picking up a generator the weekend before. It was sad cause I was all packed up and ready to go. In preperation I added a strapless wheel chock and also added a rear facing camera so I can keep an eye things.. oh well, unload and keep working..

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Still have to make a quick disconnect system for the chock, but that will be towards the end when some of the bigger fish have already been fried. Now we are at present day and I am installing my elevator bed. I picked up the materials to fur out and skin the ceiling as well. After installing the bed tracks, rails and trolleys I am getting some binding on the bed that I need to address this weekend. It does go completely up and down though, so hopefully it won't be too much a PITA. Oh.. started on the ceiling insulation as well.

I plan on finishing the bed platform by using some of my furring strips as planks on the bed. I have an 8" double bed mattress that will be going on top. Once the bed is complete (cables/pulleys added later), the ceiling is up and bathroom walls skinned, the inside is going to get painted. I plan to brake up some soffet material out of sheet metal to run down the top corners to allow a raceway for electrical wiring. I plan on using wall mounted conduit to feed the lights and electrical recepticles. This way I can add/delete as needed without fishing through the wall once their sealed up. (Really, my attention span is too short to properly plan ahead of time)

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More to see in the coming weeks. Thanks for looking.

Thanks for the compliment McDave!

Nice work there!

A question about your camera, looks wireless and monitor looks great. What kind is it?

Thanks! -Alice

Alice wrote:Nice work there!

A question about your camera, looks wireless and monitor looks great. What kind is it?

Thanks! -Alice

Hi Alice,

Yep, it's a wired/wireless camera. I set it up real quick like to get it ready for a ride and used the wireless medium for comms between camera and monitor. There is some static, but not unbearable as I can still see the buggers behind me pretty well. That said, it does come with an exterior magnet mount antenna for the monitor which I have not used yet. I imagine that will clear up the intermittent static as there will be a true line of sight between antennas and no metal to try and get around.

Here is the link for the camera. The majority are cheap and from China (trying to read/comprehend the install instructions make it obvious), so I went with one that disn't break the bank and had a decent set of reviews.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0754 ... UTF8&psc=1

- Mike

domoarigato, Howdy;

WOW, that's a lot of steel your putting in there, any idea how much it's adding to your gross weight?
I like the mini stove and oven, had a neighbor that had some problems with his, turned out to be the
regulator, something to do with metric v. US orifice size or something along those lines. Sorry, it's early
and it was 4 years ago.

Overall very impressive job you're doin' there , . Lookin' forword to seein'
more of your skilled work.

hank

I like how you did your ac unit. Any more pics of that? I’ve never installed one before and sort of struggling on how I should do it.

Joel.brian wrote:I like how you did your ac unit. Any more pics of that? I’ve never installed one before and sort of struggling on how I should do it.

Check out Karebru's post on Aiconditioners and Refridgerators also. He has a design using side vents. I also posted pics of my install in that thread. Between the three installs, you should get the idea how it needs to be done. There are several ways to do it. Some very creative ways depending on your space needs and desire for stealth, or adversion to cutting holes in the roof, or etc.. Iconfabul8's thread also has one of the best ramp door mounts I have seen. Very creative!

The good thing is that there are many ways to make it work and the AC can be sized right for the area to be cooled, and will allow you to keep your 14" hole in the roof for a Fantastic Fan or etc. which will get used alot.. probably more than the AC depending on time of year and location.

http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?p=1229057#p1229057




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