New guy from Milwaukee

[MacGyverF]

Hey everybody, stumbled upon this site (finally!) and I'm sure glad I did. It looks like there are a bunch of talented individuals here and a wealth of knowledge. I'm interested in purchasing a canned ham 'fixer upper' on the smaller side, 12-13' max to tow with my 1948 Dodge coupe. The Dodge has a flathead 6cyl with 3-on the tree, 4.10 gears. I'm willing to do any brake and suspension work necessary on the car to pull something with a nice vintage look to it. I'm really partial to campers with a rounded body styles that would look good with a big ol' fat fendered '48 Dodge; Aside from the old car hobby I also really dig motorcycles and have some oddballs there as well, but that's another story. I'm looking forward to learning from you all and if you happen to know of a pre-62 canned ham for sale in the Milwaukee area, shoot me a message.

[Gage]

How about a Teardrop? I know, not a Dodge but a Chrysler.

[TPMcGinty]

Welcome! I love the bike with the sidecar! Hopefully I will see you at one of the St. Croix Chapter Tearjerker gatherings. The St. Croix Chapter covers Wisconsin and Minnesota. A gathering is a great place to meet people that love to camp. One of our members has a 13' Scamp and she loves it.

[MacGyverF]

Gage, that's a great looking setup, is it yours? I'd be into a teardrop and was really my initial intent but the boss over-ruled me on that. I think the teardrop would be much more manageable behind the Dodge but she wants something with a little more headroom. I can't blame her for that. I'm thinking about towability but we do have a 90lb Doberman Pinscher who will be coming with us, and by the way she's talking, we'll likely have a second one before the summer is out. I can't imagine being real comfortable in a teardrop with two adults and one, possibly two, large dogs. That being said, I've seen quite a few teardrops that I really dig and would really enjoy building, time will tell where we end up.


Sarge is a real good shop dog, I'm sure he'll give me a hand with whatever we decide on.

Sarge, 2yr old, shop dog

sarge resize 600px.jpg (25.18 KiB) Viewed 1205 times

[MacGyverF]

Welcome! I love the bike with the sidecar! Hopefully I will see you at one of the St. Croix Chapter Tearjerker gatherings. The St. Croix Chapter covers Wisconsin and Minnesota. A gathering is a great place to meet people that love to camp. One of our members has a 13' Scamp and she loves it.

Tim,
Thanks for the heads up, sounds like a pretty cool group. I'll do some diggin around and look for your group. Any photos of your events posted anywhere?

[Junkboy999]

Welcome to the forums.

Love the wood shop assistant, and with proper safety equipment to-boot. Take you'r time and read through
some of the build logs. I’m sure you’ll find something that tickles your wifes fancy.

[gregp136]

Welcome to the group from West Allis. I built a teardrop and now looking for a classic to fix up to pull it.

Greg and Laurie

[bc toys]

Welcome to this great site of info, remember we love our PICS

[MacGyverF]

Welcome to the group from West Allis. I built a teardrop and now looking for a classic to fix up to pull it.

Greg and Laurie

Thanks Gregp136. Nice little teardrop you've got there. Do you have a build thread on it?

[MacGyverF]

Welcome to this great site of info, remember we love our PICS

I figured that was the case. All of the other forums I frequent really love photos as well so I thought I'd start off on the right foot and post a few with my intro. We always say, "Pics or it never happened!" when somebody is posting a story, ride report, build, etc, with text only.

[gregp136]

Hi,

yes, here is our build journal.

http://www.tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=34844

Laurie and Greg

[Ron Dickey]

welcome to the forum, What part of Milwaukee, I lived there 66-79 I liked the town Graduated from Custer High.and almost MATC. Lived on Lower east side mostly, also Brown Deer, Shorewood Use to work for the Boston Store. It is hard to have an old car there with out Rust. What does the bottom look like? I hope the trailer only went out in the summer. I remember the shock when I left Milwaukee and arrived at SF airport and saw lots of old trucks that were hard to find in Milwaukee. You should come see the car shows here those cars are like new.

So are you rebuilding that trailer or planning on a build of a TD?

Last time I went camping there was in Door county I drove my new 77 hornet sportabout up there and camped in a tent. sure is a pretty place, a na!!!


Ron Dickey
Los Osos, CA

[tearhead]

Welcome from Whitewater! Watch the Midwest section of the forum for Wisconsin and Illinois gatherings!
Friendly people!

We have a teardrop that we purchased but also aspire to renovate a canned ham. Always looking for ideas!

[Backroads4me]

Welcome from central Wisconsin! If you'd like, I'll keep an eye open around here for canned hams with For Sale signs. We've had paper mills, and other big time employers in this area severely reduce, or completely close up shop; and people have all kinds of recreational and other "toys" sitting on their front lawns "For Sale". Sometimes you find they didn't post them on Craigslist or in the want ads, and we just notice them in our travels. We've recently seen smaller trailers----(I'm always asking Bob to stop or slow down so we can take a look), I'll be darned if I can remember though, the location of the last one we saw---it was out of town).

As for big dogs, we tent camped and now teardrop camp with our two border collies, they sleep in the teardrop with us. Of course , it's handy that they are pretty well obedience trained and will stay were we drop them (at the foot of the bed---and no barks!). I sewed up bedding and curtains that was easily washable, without dog hair attracting texture, and bring dog cleanup supplies if they get into anything before bedtime. Put a moisture resistant bed pad on the mattress (which folds up and comes out of the TD for airing), and made a heavy denim duvet cover over that. Two identical sleeping bags to use separately or zip up together for coziness, and then some extra throws stored in the cabinets. It's do-able with dogs, but granted a lot of work keeping everything reasonably tidy and dog hair free.

My folks and brothers are/were Mopar people----love your classic car!

[MacGyverF]

welcome to the forum, What part of Milwaukee, I lived there 66-79 I liked the town Graduated from Custer High.and almost MATC. Lived on Lower east side mostly, also Brown Deer, Shorewood Use to work for the Boston Store. It is hard to have an old car there with out Rust. What does the bottom look like? I hope the trailer only went out in the summer. I remember the shock when I left Milwaukee and arrived at SF airport and saw lots of old trucks that were hard to find in Milwaukee. You should come see the car shows here those cars are like new.

So are you rebuilding that trailer or planning on a build of a TD?

Last time I went camping there was in Door county I drove my new 77 hornet sportabout up there and camped in a tent. sure is a pretty place, a na!!!


Ron Dickey
Los Osos, CA

Hey Ron,
We lived in Glendale, near the Bayshore/Shorewood area and prior to that in West Allis. We recently moved to Mequon out in the woods between Thiensville and Cedarburg and are loving it. The Dodge is a really solid car, I got lucky when I found it. It could use new inner rocker panels so I'll have to fab some up and weld them in soon but that's not a huge deal. The rest of the car is good to go; floors, frame, shock mount, are all solid. It still has the original driveline, flathead inline 6cyl, three on the tree, and 4.10 gears - I've had the car for quite a few years and it is mechanically sound.

Ya der, eh?! Door county sure is a pretty place to camp.