Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

It's looking really good!

My trailer is so light that it can't be weighed by itself on the CAT scale at the local T/A truck stop. The minimum weight is 1000 lbs. Luckily, someone who knew what they were doing came back from break and had me position the truck and trailer on the scales so that the truck was weighed as the steer axle and the trailer as the drive axle. When we did this the trailer weighed in at 980 lbs. I checked the tongue weight using a bathroom scale at home and it is 185 lbs. My 4 cylinder tow vehicle doesn't know it is back there.

I took it to the DMV and after about 40 minutes, receipts, forms and inspection, I have a title and it is registered with plate and tags.

So it is official, I have a small travel trailer!

Wow, that came out much lighter than it would appear! With all of the extra built in features and utilities, plus the size, I would have thought that it would have weighed more.

Makes me that much more optimistic about where TPCE will land. Thanks for sharing.

980 pounds! That's awesome. Good job!

Mike...

mikeschn wrote:980 pounds! That's awesome. Good job!

Mike...

Mike, I know you have built more than a few. How does this compare with similar size trailers as far as weight?

Similar sized trailers are 1200 to 1500 pounds.

Mike...

NMM , You’ve done Very Well !!!

I just had a look back at NMM's trailer frame, and judging by the number of full tube xmbrs and over wheel outriggers I'm going to assume that the empty trailer weighs more or about the same as mine that has less steel but heavier running gear (472 lbs).

Having reread the above post I'm thinking that they did not uncouple on the scale, and that the 980 lbs is just the axle weight. Add the tongue weight back in and you get a more reasonable sounding 1165 lbs overall. Still very admirable for all the features that have been incorporated. If that is correct, the tongue weight works out to be about 16/ct.

Great job!

KcStudly,

After thinking about it over night, I still don't really know what to think on the weight. If it was over a 1000 lbs then it should have registered when I uncoupled from it and left it on the scale alone. Unless the steer axle section of the scale had a min weight of 1000 lbs but the drive axle could measure lower? It's just weird. I don't know what to think.

The scale itself is on the back part of the lot at the T/A stop and you have to talk to the people who are running it through a call box and everything they say sounds like the teacher from the Peanuts cartoons. So I wish I could have more easily communicated with them to ensure I got a good weight. These are also the people running the registers so they are busy helping customers. Not ideal.

Anyway.... I'm going to say it weighs about 1000 lbs. I'm pushing it around with a trailer dolly from harbor freight without a problem. Even up the drive way.

My first criteria was to build a trailer that was a pleasure to tow and I figured keeping it light enough to handle by hand and having a somewhat aerodynamic shape and full size car tires would go a long way towards meeting that goal. I haven't towed it about 50 mph yet but now that I have tags, I can take it out and see what happens at 65-70 mph.

Great build and that weight is outstanding

That is great! And I don't doubt the weight. Mine loaded came in at 1340#. I love your design!

dave

When you consider that the scales at a truck stop are probably designed for loads ranging to upwards of 100k lbs, that calibrated instruments, like scales, are generally most accurate in the middle of their ranges, and that 1 to 2/ct accuracy is fairly normal (not sure about for legal purposes, if this means greater accuracy is called for), then even if you consider that it is really three scales, not one, one might consider a 300 lb variance to be acceptable.

33k x .01 = 330 lbs

Just spit balling here, but it makes sense that the scales probably aren't as accurate as we would like them to be for our purposes.

Nice job! It looks great. I like it's simplicity and practicality. Plus it looks good.

This was one freakin great build!.. we have been thinking on what we are going to build (we picked up a trashed out popup to use) and the wife has made up my mind. We are going with this type of build... well I will be going with this type of build. So I will be stealing all of your ideas.

Updates and the first trip report.....

Unhappy with not knowing my exact dry weight, I took it to Rocky Mountain Stone here in Abq and used their scale. The sell stone by the pound. You pull on the scale and get a first weight, load up and weigh again and they charge you the difference. It weighs 1150 lbs unhitched and 960 lbs hitched. That gives me a tongue weight of 190 lbs which is just a tad over 16%. I was shooting for error on the heavier side of 10-15% so I am pretty happy.

We took our first trip on Aug 6th which is the one year anniversary of the start of construction. We towed it up into the Jemez mountains near Los Alamos. We camped at 8800 ft and to get there we had to go up several steep hills. It towed like a dream. I towed it as fast as 70 mph but mostly I prefer to do 65 on the highways when I am towing anything.

The windows worked really well they provided plenty of ventilation. It was so nice to sleep in the cool, dark and quiet of national forest. We started a list of customizations that we would like. A hook for a towel here, a small shelf there, etc. Let's get to the pictures....


My wife made cushions but wrapping egg crate foam in fabric and using hot glue to hold the seams together. It was actually a measure of last minute desperation because we were trying to get out of town to go camping. They have help up amazingly well. If they keep holding up, I don't see a reason to change them. I like the fabric. It looks like leather but it is very soft cloth. The cushions that make up the seat back have imprinted designs but they don't show up in the picture.


I decided to use flexible magnets to hold the screens for the windows in place. First I cut and glued a strip of magnet all around the window frame. Then I placed the screen on top and added another magnet to sandwich the screen material. It works wonderfully.


I made the shelf lips so that they were attached to the shelf by a single screw. This turned out to be a good thing because they were way too tall. Here is the shorter and much better version of the shelf lip.


My wife made a curtain for the face of the galley counter. It easily slides out of the way and it helps to tidy up the appearance. Most of the time camping it is slid to the side with the sink.


Welcome mat stores perfectly inside the door during travel. I wish I could say I planned that but it was just luck.


I installed a rear view camera. It really blends in with the bumper. It makes it so much nicer to back up and it eliminates the blind spot. I chose a wired camera because I didn't want to worry about interference issues. I'll try to get a shot of the screen in the cab of the truck next time I am hooked up. So far that has been $65 well spent.

Speaking of money well spent......

For lighting we bought this $30 LED lantern from Walmart. It puts out 500 lumens on high and that is actually too much for the trailer. Luckily, it is dimmable. I was going to hard wire lights into the trailer but the lantern works so well that I don't see the point. Plus you can take it off the hook and take it outside. It's the best $30 I have spent in a while. You should get one just to have around. It's a great light and the bang for your buck is hard to beat.

Not pictured is the spare tire rack that slides into one of the receivers on the back of the trailer. I'm working on getting the numbers together for time to build and total cost. I'll post those as well as parting thoughts on the project soon.