Father/Son Tear Build

[jgrote]

Mr Matt, thanks for the offer, and I will probably take you up on that. I will probably do a "build day" once the walls are both cut out and ready to be stood up. Getting everything up, in place, and square is so much easier when there are lots of sets of hands. If everything goes as planned, that will probably be in March or April. But you know what they say about plans. So after a good night's sleep, I can't help but post my design for your scrutiny. Let me know what you guys think!

You can make out the roof vent toward the rear of the top, and the little hash marks are where there will be a "moonroof" I want to be able to see the stars when camping, so there will be something clear up there. I'm not sure what the material will be yet. Other than that, you get a basic layout of the galley a little shelf up front, but no doors or windows yet. My son really wants a round door. They're not hugely practical, but since when has that ever stopped me from doing something.

[jonw]

Here's an idea for a round door: see if you can get a door from a commercial washing machine from a junkyard. It will already have hinges on it and a gasket, and a window

[jgrote]

I got to toy with the build a little bit today, thanks to an early day at work. I only had about an hour and a half, but you take what you can get, right? Since I'm not "fully welding" the trailer, I decided what would be the strategic spots that would keep it flat and square. I'm fully welding all 8 corners of the two halves, than I'll stitch weld a few spots where the halves sit on the axle supports. I see no need to weld the full length of that. I'm not welding in the cross supports because they may move when I decide where my water tank will be going. I'm going to need to order that soon! Anyway, enjoy my terrible, yet strong, welds. Remember though, none of these have been dressed yet. They will be ground down a bit, and I will get rid of all the bumps from patching holes.

[jgrote]

I hope to have a bit of time this weekend to finish up the trailer. I need to finish welding and figure out my removable tongue idea. I also need to order my water tank if I am going to put it under the floor. It's a bit easier to mount it now than it will be after the floor is in place. I will also be painting the trailer, probably with bedliner. Today, HF finally sent me my new seals, so packing the bearings is on the agenda too. It took them 15 days to get here, but they made it! I gotta give them props for sending them out with no more proof that they were bad than just my word. Anyway:

[jgrote]

I think I'm finally done modifying the trailer. It is assembled. The bearings are repacked. It is welded and ground down. Now all I have left is to paint it. I'm not looking forward to sanding the inside of the frame though. Do you have any pointers? Hopefully it will be time for the floor in the next week or two.

[jgrote]

Nothing picture worthy to post, but the trailer is upside down and without wheels right now. We sanded it until it turned pink, and primed all the welds. Tomorrow we plan on having the whole thing painted with bedliner. We are trying the Harbor Freight bedliner. (because it was cheap and so am I) A gallon was on sale today for $35. It comes in spray cans too so it will be easy to touch up later.

[jgrote]

Got a little bit more done this weekend. I am rushing to get the painting done, as winter is coming soon. Paint doesn't dry too well in 30 degree weather. I am painting the trailer with H.F. bed liner. It was on sale this weekend for $45. It also comes in spray paint for touch ups. For the price, I am very happy with the product. I still have a second coat to do on the top and tongue, but it looks pretty good as is. And if you're curious, no, I'm not painting all the little nooks and crannies inside the c-channel. My only reason for painting at all is because I welded it up. I had to cover all the welds and places where the papint burnt off. All visible parts will be bed linered. Here's a couple of pics for all who care.

[jgrote]

So it's been a while since doing anything to the trailer. I ran out of time while painting and did not get the second coat on the top of the trailer. But this weekend it should be warm enough to finish up!:worship: Then I will move it out of the basement and back to the garage. After that, I just need to put it together and get it legal. Here's a question for the masses out there; is there anyone in CO that built a TD on a HF chassis? When tagging your trailer, did you have to get it inspected? HF told me a I will need to, but I've read elsewhere that they don't need to be. I'd like to hold off getting a tag for it until it's a bit closer to done, but don't want to run into any issues with them questioning the "camper" status of it.

[jgrote]

It's been a while since I've had the gumption to work on the trailer, but this weekend it finally warmed up enough to get everything out of the basement and back into the garage. There is still quite a bit of ice in front of the house, so carrying the frame into the garage was a bit scary. First thing I did was put the trailer back together. No problems, as expected. Then I went to mount my replacement receiver to the tongue and found out that the one HF carries on the shelf is slightly different than the one that comes with the trailer. This made a 5 minute job take almost an hour. Next up was mounting the front wheel. I have seen many mounted the way the instructions said to, but I don't like having the wheel way off to one side. IMO the wheel belongs in the middle of the tongue. This made the next 5 minute job take a bit more than an hour. Better yet, tomorrow I have to blow it all back apart so I can paint it. Since I know that the wheel isn't the most robust thing HF sells, I didn't want to weld it directly to the trailer, and I wanted to make all of my mounting brackets with leftovers from the trailer or whatever came with the wheel; more to show that it can be done than anything else. My top bracket is made from one of the pieces of angle iron I cut off the trailer since it won't be folding up ever again, and the 2 bottom brackets are parts of the pieces that have the casters on them for rolling around when folded. All the hardware used were leftovers from the trailer. Now onto the pics....



You will notice here that the bottom brackets don't sit completely flush. I plan to drill holes through where you can see the "F" and "R" on the bottom brackets. These holes will line up with the bolts for the top bracket. Then I will use long bolts and spacers to really strengthen things up. Overkill, maybe. But why not; it will cost an extra $3 and 10 more minutes.

[KCStudly]

Cool.

What's that door from that is leaning in the corner of your garage? A hot rod?

[jgrote]

It's just a piece of wall art. I was at the Turkey Run in Daytona a few years ago and Scratch was there striping. I bought the door in the swap meet and had Scratch do a little striping and paint my kid's name on it. I also have a pretty cool tailgate with knockoff of an Ed Roth rat fink. I'll try to snap some pics later.

[KCStudly]

That would be kool! Thanks.

[jgrote]

Here's a couple pics of some of the crap I've collected. Both the tailgate and the door are too far gone to use, but they make nice wall art. The cabinet is a ~1950's dental cabinet. A client gave it to me in exchange for carrying it down a flight of stairs. It weighs about 300lbs..

[KCStudly]

Kool.

[jgrote]

The frame is finished! Sometimes I wish I could just leave well enough alone. I have read many builds on here that used the same HF trailer as me, but did not go through all the crap I decided to. Welded, painted, modified tongue wheel; that's good enough. Hopefully the whole build doesn't go this way...