First Tear Drop Build, 54"x8' Slide on......

[Originalspacerob]

Good Day everyone,

My name is Rob and I am a new member of the forum, but a long time learker without an account by just google searching. I finally signed up for an account this past week to share with everyone a build that I started the beginning of March. It is about 90% built as I write this but wanted to start adding a little until it was completed. The ideas on here and other forums, blogs,and personal websites have helped me put my camper together. So I wanted to put something out there to help others when they decide to make one.
The search for a small camper started over 2 years ago when my wife and I started talking about camping in a pop up when we were younger with family. We really enjoyed it and were thinking it'd be great to do it again. We were thinking of something small and light that we could tow with my 2001 Ford Focus. In that time frame I also purchased a newer car, a 2011 Subaru Forester and it also has a greater towing capacity than the Focus. But we would still like the option to tow with the focus also since I still own that also. While searching for small light campers I came up with a lot of teardrops, many of them homemade and there were so many unique ideas. Over the last two years nothing happened besides some casual conversation about building one and some random searches, which sparked more conversation with no camper being built.

Building Begins
With the not so good winter for snowboarding on the east coast upon us and no immediate projects going on inside the house for the winter we decided to start building the tear drop in March 2016. I decided to stop snowboarding this year early since the conditions were not the greatest and put the money into making the tear drop for this summer, with the hopes of having the bugs worked out and do some winter camping with it as well as snowboard trips.

I had no drawings to go by and just a general plan in my head. So the build started with just that.
We already have an Aluma, aluminum trailer rated for 2000lbs that I use for hauling my motorcycles and for doing work around the house. It only weighs 300lbs with the bifold gate off. This gives me a good base to work with. I did not want to make this trailer dedicated to the tear drop so the idea was to make a slide on, slide off tear drop camper for the trailer. This way we can just store the teardrop on its "parking platform" in the back yard by the shed and still have use of Aluminum trailer. I also won't have to have another registered trailer in the yard. We will see if this will become and inconvenience or not as time goes on.
Here is the Aluma being used with the focus and the XR650L

Focus

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The next thing so do was pick up some material and start building a base that would serve as the foundation of the teardrop. We knew we wanted some storage below the floor but were not sure how much. I also wanted the ability for the tear drop to be able to be slid back 1.5'-2.0' on the trailer so that I could put an aluminum motorcycle carrier on the front of the trailer by the tongue to carry my dual sport. By sliding the trailer back the overall length of the trailer would now be 9.5'-10'. The weight of the galley would hopefully offset the extra weight of the 300 lb bike towards the front of the trailer reducing tongue weight. The heaviest art of the teardrop would be from the wheels back especially once it was overhanging the back of the trailer. This was all in theory since we had not even started building yet. The closest I could simulate this was take my 300lb lawn roller and put it in the trailer in the front by the tongue and then put my riding mower which weighs close to 550 lbs on after that. Sure enough, the rider balanced off the tongue weight of the 300 lb roller with it all the way to the back of the gate. So it appears this might be feasible. With nothing built yet and some ideas on the table I still have to figure out how I will make it easily removable. I have some ideas but will work on that as the build goes along. Time to get started.

This first part of the build was making the base. Since we wanted storage and I needed strength incase I slid back the trailer, we decided upon using three 2x10's as the main floor joist. The base would be 1/2 inch plywood and the top/floor would be furniture grade birch plywood. So that the camper could be slid on and off there were three pieces of composite decking added to the 1/2 inch plywood on the bottom to act as skids for the camper to slide on. Anytime I have used composite decking I am amazed at how easily it slides since it it mostly plastic.
With the base built it was time to come up with a profile of the walls. I sketched 3-4 arcs on the sheet of plywood and we chose the one that seemed to be the profile we liked. With the profile picked I cut one of the 1/4 inch ply's so that we could see what is looked like. It wasn't perfect so we changed the arcs a bit and found the profile we liked. The walls will be built with 1/4" plywood on the inside and outside and 1.5" of foam insulation in the living space, with 1x2's used as studs throughout. Here is a picture of the base and the walls.

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More to come. In the meantime I need to figure out what to do about the roofing and support.

[dogscats]

Great start .Any more pictures of the floor box

[dirtsailor2003]

Originally I had the same plans to build a removable pod to slide on and off a 6x10 flatbed that I have. Ultimately I decided that it was going to be too heavy. My existing trailer isn't light. Also the existing wheel wells weren't going to be ideal for side door placement. Scratched that idea and am now having a custom frame welded to suit my needs.

[Originalspacerob]

Great start .Any more pictures of the floor box

I was looking at my pictures from the start and I had a feeling some were missing. Below you will see some pictures of when the floor box was built. The holes in the side were to lighten the 2x10 Douglas fir. In reality I probably should have just bought 1x10 pine boards, but they seem to work well. The larger width made it easier to screw and a lot more surface area dor the construction adhesive to bond to under the plywood. The holes seems to strike up a lot of conversation. "you drilled all those", actually, my wife drilled most of them on the drill press while I was working on sanding the wood and started assembly.

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[Originalspacerob]

Originally I had the same plans to build a removable pod to slide on and off a 6x10 flatbed that I have. Ultimately I decided that it was going to be too heavy. My existing trailer isn't light. Also the existing wheel wells weren't going to be ideal for side door placement. Scratched that idea and am now having a custom frame welded to suit my needs.

Thank you for the reply dirtsailer. I originally thought I was going to have an issue also with the doors and the fenders. With the storage section below and the composite decking skids on the bottom it raised the doors up and over the fenders by about 2 inches. The doors will open all the way back to the side and over the fenders. It sure was a concern when I started. I don't know yet how easy it will be to slide it on the trailer. If it is hard to push I can always use a ratcheting winch to help if needed. So we will see. If ti becomes to cumbersome I will bail on the slide on and make or get a trailer to fasten it too. I have been rolling it around on dollys in the garage and it does not seem very hard to move yet.

[Originalspacerob]

I have a little bit of time this morning to post a little more on the teardrop build. Since the walls were up It was time to add the inside 1/4" birch plywood to close up the sides. When the sides were built one was cut to use as a template and the other three were stacked below and routered and sanded at the same time. This was my first time doing using a template with the router and it worked pretty well to get the sides even. The internal walls were screwed on and then the roof supports were cut and installed. Once the roof supports were installed it helped square everything up really nice.
In the pictures below you can also see the 1/4" birch plywood for the ceiling. This did not bend very well so I had to kerf cut the plywood to the first layer every 1" to get it to give me a nice bend. I could have used bending plywood and a few other options but wanted to use what the home improvement center had and was readily available. Once kerf'd it had no problem bending to the shape. I jsut had to be careful not to screw on the kerf lines or the screws would push thru. The ceiling was also glued in place with construction adhesive. I then ran a bead of adhesive down the sides of each ceailing support as well.
In the rear of the tear drop you can also see the counter/inner cabinet base installed. This one large piece of 1/2" plywood will serve as both and it acts as a nice support for the walls with it being a large piece screwed across 3' of the back of the teardrop. Underneath for support I made a lower wall made from 1x2 pine.The front half will be insulationed later since that is part of the living space.

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[Originalspacerob]

Galley
Time to build up the galley area some more before I start working on anything else. We had gone back and forth about a sink, the type of cabinets and storage. The final decision was to just make it simple and something that could be changed as needed. So we decided on sliding doors that can be removed, a storage area below the counter that was not split in two so we were not set in size with cooler length. Once we start packing and using the trailer we can add shelves or anything else we felt we needed. IN the picture you can see the hatches down below. The one on the left is where the battery and future inverter are going. On the right that one will be used for general storage.

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Internal storage and Cabinets

The inside of the trailer we wanted to keep the same theme as the outside. Keep it simple and not break things up with more shelves until we felt we needed them. The same style sliding doors were made for the cabinets inside as the galley. Small open shelf is on the bottom right and above that is where the AC goes. If the AC was ever taken out the spot could be used for storage and a door added.

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Air Conditioner Install

My wife and I wanted to add an air conditioner. I am not sure how often we will use it but it will be nice to have it there to take out the humidity and to cool down on those hot days. Both of us like it cool and sleep much better. Sleeping in the low 60's is best for us.
The first thing to do was find the air conditioner. I toyed around with the dog house ac with duct work, heat and dehumidifier. I didn't want to run ducts and the other part was I wanted an AC that was mounted in permanantly. When we pulled in somewhere to sleep after driving all day and if it was really hot I didn't want to have to set all that up. So the window AC made the most sense. I found one of the lighter Frigidaire units with the highest CEER rating I could find, and got it for half price on amazon. The CEER rating for the AC is 12.2 and it only draws 410w at 3.2A with a low voltage start to reduce start up loads on the equipment. We want to try and run it off of an inverter incase we don't a hookup.The AC is also very small at 15.25"deep x 12" high x 13" wide. The model of the AC is FFRE0533S1.
Now it was time to make the AC fit and see how I can get it to exhaust. When I first installed the AC I cut the hole in the side and ran it with the louvers on the side. I really didn't feel much exhaust escaping. Sure enough the AC shut itself down because it was just circulating hot air inside the cabinet even with the louvers. In this case I had to take two louvers from Home depot and mate them together so I had a separate intake and exhaust into the cabinet of the AC. I then made duct work for the exhaust on the AC so it will direct it out one side of the louver and into the other. The intake side of the louver will have a small filter on the inside to filter any air coming into the cabinet to keep dirt and such out. See pictures below for details. After the installation of the duct work and the intake and exhaust separation the AC worked fantastic. I place a heater in front of the AC to force it to run the compressor constantly and the cabinet did not get hot at all and all the exhaust heat was blown out the exhaust side of the lover. The heat also does not get sucked into the intake even with the louvers so close.

AC Duct

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Here is the ducts attached to the back of the AC and sealed with metal duct tape.

[Originalspacerob]

Exhaust Louver

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Here is a close up of the exhaust louver. I cut out the bottom of the louvers because there were other smaller louvers that reduced air flow as well as directed the air towards the intake. I will be installing screen to keep things out of there when it is not running. I also need to clean up where I cut the section out, this will be done upon final installation when the camper is painted.

Split in opening

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Here is a shot of the AC installed, you can see the exhaust duct with the adapter that seals against the louvers so no heat goes to the intake side.

Complete Louvers

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Attached louvers. The one on the right is a complete louver, the one on the left is a partial on that was attached with silicone to make 1.5 louvers. Exhaust is on left, intake on right.

[Originalspacerob]

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Lastly a shot of the connection in between the wall for the AC to show how it seals against the louver

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Ac installed from inside.

[Originalspacerob]

Coming next. Electrical layout and circuits.

[Originalspacerob]

Electrical

I wanted to put in as much electrical as I could whether I would use it or not. That way I would not have to add anything in the future. For my Main power distribution I purchased a WFCO 35A power panel. The nice thing about the solution is not only does it distribute 120V circuits and 12V circuits it also allows me to charge the battery when hooked to 120V power at a campsite or anywhere. To buy parts to build my own system it would cost way more than this unit. I got a great price on it at Amazon.
The pictures below will do a better job showing the electrical for the trailer than I can do in words.

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Here is the WFCO power distribution panel that is mounted in the right of the inside cabinets. I built a framed box to hold it and have a removable bottom and side for perfoming any work on the electrical system if needed. If the system ever failed I could bypass the circuits with the installed terminal blocks if needed.

Electrical Roof

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Here is a picture of the electrical running thru the roof of the trailer. To run the fan, lights, inside 120V and 12V plugs. On the left hand side you can see one wire that goes all the way to the front. That give me one outside plug that is 12V that is hooked to a switch in the sleeping area. This allows me to hook up any 12V device as an auxillary. The thought is to use it for a light mast that can be setup and extended to light up a camp area if off the beaten path or need light in an emergency.

Galley plugs

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This is looking at the Galley area showing the upper plugs. The plugs on either side closest to the walls are the 120V GFCI plugs and the iner ones will be used for 12V. One of the 12V on the left will also run the hatch lights.Below the counter top there is 120V and 12V plugs incase i need to power something below the cabinet like a 12V cooler or anything else that may fit in the space.

[Originalspacerob]

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12V and 120V boxes for the lower part of the galley from inside the camper. You can see insulation being installed on the left.

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Power from lower galley plugs. The red and black wires are 10AWG main feed wires from the battery to the distribution panel. There is a second set of red and black wires to run 120V to the panel from the inverter when installed. It was easier to run the wires now that later. They are tied up for now.

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Power on the passenger side of the trailer. The left power will be for interial and exterior light switches, the middle is for 12V power and the right one is 120V for the AC. on the drivers side of the trailer I will have the same except there will be a switch there for the Aux 12V in the front of the trailer. All the 120V plugs are GFCI rated.

In the end after doing all the running of the wire I stumbled across a build were someone did a trough and put all the wires in that under the interior cabinets. This distributed power to the galley and the inside of the trailer. That would have been a simpler solution and would make it easier to add wires later. So if I ever did it again I would probably do that. In the meantime I made sure I filled all the circuits on the WFCO unit. 6 12V circuits and 5 120V circuits just to make sure I didn't have to later.

[Originalspacerob]

Up Next Door install and sheathing the roof.

[KCStudly]

Tidy job wiring. Is the white wire solid core Romex or 2 lead stranded?

I've been meaning to ask, on each of your under floor storage lids I see 4 little fasteners or some such thing around the edges. What's the deal with those? Some sort of keeper or rubber bumper thing?

[dogscats]

Your move to slow . I plan to just look at my parts on the floor for a year or three. Thanks for the floor boxes pictures