Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Ok, looking for thoughts on this trailer design. Sorry for the questionable file; I have installed Google Sketchup and played with it a bit, but not enough to do any serious modeling - paintbrush tends to do it for most of my rough sketches.



Basically, a 7' trailer with a little more of the shape like a Midget or other standy. I'm looking for an extremely light-weight trailer. I'm using a HF 40" x 48" trailer as the base, trimmed down and with a longer tongue. There will have to be wheel wells intruding somewhat into the body, but hopefully mostly covered up by part of the mattress.

My primary goal is to have something I can bug out in for an overnight camping trip, or a short trip with my wife. I've got a Scotty 15' for longer trips (next project - fixing that up). I'm used to camping in small lightweight tents - I used to backpack and currently camp out of my Yarisor Pacific Coast.

One odd thing that has come up - the deflection on the springs of my trailer is extremely low. The trailer is rated at 860 lbs. I put the axle over the springs to bring the body down and now have about 3.75" between the axle and the frame. However, putting around 750 lbs of water weight on the trailer (5 x 18 gallon tubs filled to capacity) the axle only deflects an additional 7/8". I can't imagine that I'll ever push it past 2" deflection at this point, which is good for the wheel wells. I'm also considering getting rid of one of the leaves (there are two per side) and adding a single shock absorber in the middle of the axle (or is it better to put it on the side even if I only want one?) However, at this point I'm aiming for simplicity with options kept open.

HenryB

Is it the weigh or the impact that causes the spring to deflect. I thought as you do that the springs could never be overloade. I also left the stock fenders in place to help protect the floor. Here is the results and my axle was in stock position under the springs.



A loud boom at 60 miles an hour indicates you have finally cut clear thru the tire. I went to the smaller 8" tires from a 12" for enough clearance.

Ouch! That second picture - the mounting point for those fenders is bolts that stick down to the tire? That's probably a big design flaw right there. The little trailer I have already has the 8" tires. The fenders mount to the frame from the side - the top is smooth. My plan is to have there be hard stops on the axle before the tire can contact anything - probably bump stops like on a truck frame.

For right now, though, I guess I'll leave the leaves in! My worry is that the hard suspension will shake things to pieces, although with all the gravel roads around here, I at least have a chance to do some testing before hitting the smooth strips of highway.

HenryB