My Harbor Freight build

[Clayaway1]

Hello everyone! My name's Josh. I have been lurking this site for quite a while. I've studied most of the builds and poured through the miscellaneous subjects and tried to retain as much of the knowledge as possible. Well it is finally here. I finally bought me a HF 1720# trailer. I have it temp assembled as I am thinking of trying to stiffen it up a bit by adding some welds and reinforcements. Then she'll be painted black and I'll start the build. I am thinking of doing a 4x8 Benroy but maybe alter it a bit or suit it to my taste. I haven't decided on how I'm finishing the outside yet but I do have a profile picked out. I have a couple of pictures but I cannot for the life of me figure out how! I'll get em up as soon as I can
Josh

[KennethW]

When you bolt the floor down it will stiffen up the trailer. Know need to weld and brace. But I guess it would hurt.

[LDK]

Hi Josh

I also used the HF 1720 frame and I also had it welded. If you decide to weld just make small spot welds here and there because if you weld too long in one area of the frame, it may cause it to warp.
I also used 4 x 8 sheet aluminum for the outside skin. In my opinion aluminum is the best way.
Good luck on your build.

[Clayaway1]

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I'm not sure yet if I'm going to go through the trouble of welding it yet. Starting to seem like alot of extra work. What do you guys think? I know I'm going to attach the floor plywood with premium PL. That should help a bit. I also know that I am definitely going to beef up the tongue and hitch area. And I have to figure out how far I need to move the axle and in what direction. Have some people not moved it at all? How has it been?
Thanks
Josh

[Clayaway1]

Since I live 45 mins from where I have to build the tear at (my dads) I can't get out there until the weekend this week. I have been building a scale model of it to pass the time. If I can successfully upload the pics the following are where I am at so far. The model is balsa and is is really only accurate for the profile and shape. The last is the little side shop attached to the main shop area. Thats where I'll be building at.

[pjo129]

WOW! Your tv is as big as your camper.

I wouldn't worry about welding it. Once you attach the floor it will be rigid as all get out.

[Clayaway1]

He he he, actually I may have to scrub that design.... So I was staring at the trailer for what seemed like an hour on Saturday morning, and listening to my dad tell me his ideas about how I could do this or do that when I had a realization. I decided to forgo the welding and decided that I wanted to go 5 feet! So there I started building a deck out of pt 2x4's using PL premium and exterior screws. I used a spade bit to make sure the lumber sat flush on the frame. I also put a layer of 1/4 inch luan on it to fill in the area that you normally need to shim somehow.


Once I got everything built and squared up I took it all outside and gave everything two heavy coats of bedliner. I did the whole trailer and the top and bottom of my deck frame. Where the space between the 1/4 luans is that will get caulked with asphalt or something. I also drilled for pvc conduit in the floor for all the trailer lights. (not the tear, they will go through roof.)
Once everything was dry I used galvanized 4" carriage bolts with washers to bolt through the 2x4's to the trailer frame. I used 10 bolts. My uncle came down and gave me a bunch of scraps of 3" r15 foam so I started playing around with fitting the foam in, But at that point it was yesterday evening and I had put 2 solid days into the tear.
I must say, I am hooked! I can't wait for next payday to get the plywood to build the deck. However I have to put some time in at my uncles barn. His original barn burn't down a year ago and we are in the process of building a bigger better one. I am doing the cedar shake siding (I do a ton at work) and I'm halfway done. As soon as I finish that it's all tear time!

[Ron Dickey]

Welcome to the forum
Whow you are moving right along. Looks you have been learning while Lurking!!

Look like you are on the right coarse.
Benroy is Mike's favorite tear. When he started this forum that is what he had.
Ron

[rebapuck]

Jumping right in. Good for you.

Everything I read seems like 5ft is the way to go. You won't regret it.

[txcamper]

I did a very similar build and have been happy with it (5x8 on 4x8 HF trailer).

I did weld mine, but I did so because I wanted to over build and ultimately planned on a big axle and some off road articulation later in life.

Happy building, and great progress!!

[rand_98201]

Man you are really getting a good start.Im going to either redo an old standy trailer or build a 5x8 tear though mine will be on the NT trailer if I go the tear route.

[Clayaway1]

Ok so I got a bunch of work done this weekend. I was originally going to do some siding but I decided to wait and do that when I have no money for the tear...
On saturday I got to my dads at around 7:30 in the morning and got to work. I started with finishing all of the pvc piping for the trailer wiring and running some string for each light so I could pull it through later. I am still not sure what lights I am going to use as I don't think I'll use the Hf lights as they seem cheap lol. I'll decide on that later as well. I then filled all the remaining insulation areas in and got everything ready for cutting the floor. I decided to use 3/4 for the floor as I sometimes over build things and I wanted to keep the trailer as stiff as I could. The 3/4 maple ply I used got a healthy coat of bedliner on the bottom and after it dried it was PL'd to the frame and screwed down. Wow. I didn't even think I was going to work on it this weekend and by the end of saturday I had it floored and a temp 1/4 luan mock up of the side profile mounted!




I woke up sunday morning with a hankering to keep going and even though I had spent some money the day before I decided to go to the bix box store and get some 1/2 ply and some 5/4 x 6 x 8's to rip for spars. once I arrived at my dads shop I started by cleaning the area I work in a bit. Too cluttered. I find it makes me unable to concentrate as well as I'd like. Anyways, I went over some numbers and finaled the position of the doors on the template. I then screwed the two pieces of 1/2 together and traced the profile shape and layed out the door. I had the sheets good sides facing each other sandwiched to prevent blow out. So I crossed my fingers and began cutting. Success! After a bit of belt sanding to smoothin out the corners I unscrewed it and took a look. Wow. I couldn't believe how cool it looked to see it in person. I've only seen these online until then.
My next step was to use the cut offs as temp bracing for the walls and I also screwed blocks at the bottom of where the plywood would sit as a support. After bunch of PL and leveling and screws I have two outer walls up! I even had time to put in two temp spars on the top and 3 permanent spars on the front. I was super excited!! Just for info my walls are going to be the 1/2 inch outer with 1" insulation and 1" frame members and a 1/4 inch inner skin. I was also relieved to get a short return on an email. I emailed Frank Bear on the correct cut out size on the 26x32 doors after I had saw somewhere online to do 26 1/4 x 36 1/4 with a 3 5/16 radius on the corners. I decided to cut any ways and he got back to me same day and it was the right size! I am very happy with this weekends work.

[Junkboy999]

looking good Josh. I like the PVC wire runs. I seen a few people even run an extra unused PVC pipe from the front to the rear, just in case they later need to place in extra wires later on.

[Modstock]

Great job so far. You got a lot done in a short time. Mine is currently 4x8 but if I decide to re-build it years from now Im going the 5x8 route, maybe 9 ft just for giggles. Cant wait to see the rest of yur build .

[yesdog]

I may have missed something... what did you do about moving the axle? I'm using the same trailer for a 5x8 and have wondered about that as well. It seems to me (the way my trailer is put together) that the wheels are too far forward. Any input from folks?

Thanks,
Yesdog