Tear Drop Newbie Thinking Off Road

[suzieq5133]

Hi All,

I've been lurking for the past month and have found this forum incredibly helpful! I'm in the planning and design phase of my teardrop and am thinking about making a woody (probably with the big woody camper design). My spouse and I love the outdoors and it would be really cool to make our teardrop off road capable (we have a wrangler too!), but I'm a little worried that I may jump into teardrop building too fast (I don't have much wood working experience but plan to take it nice and slow with other small projects).

I was most likely going to get the 5x8 northern tool trailer and saw some people have used the Timbren axeless suspension to give the trailer off road capability. This would be cool but adds quite a bit of an additional cost to the project. So here are a couple of questions

1. Has anyone used this axel system with a northern tool trailer? It seems like it just bolts on....
2. Was it a hard install?
3. Can you upgrade the axel after you build the trailer?

Thanks in advance for the comments!

[Shadow Catcher]

If you are looking for serious off road You probably need to think serious heavy duty, take a look at http://adventuretrailers.com/

[suzieq5133]

Thanks Shadow...I did see this site and they certainly have really nice off road campers. I think that you may be right if I wanted something "serious" that it's more cost effective (and probably more durable) to buy one. But I still want the experience of building one! So maybe I'll just stick to building an on-road camper.

[tony.latham]

You can build better and cheaper.

I'm beginning to wonder what people mean by an off-road camper. There's few places that I'm aware that one can just take off in a motorized vehicle in a truly off road situation.

We sometimes tow on USFS and BLM roads that are steep, rocky and rutted. Five mile an hour roads. Four wheel drive stuff but they are still open legal roads.

The only time we're really off-road is when it's time to park and camp and it's close to the road.

[glenpinpat]

I have a timbren axle on my offroad squaretop I am process of building. This is now build #3. I have only used the trailer twice and both times for about 500miles per trip. It handled the roads very well including some very bad Michigan interstates that really shakes my other teardrop. I drove over several washboards and never even felt them. I do not know if you can upgrade once installed but they are very easy to install. I had them installed in about 2 hours with a hammer drill. My frame is custom built and very heavy duty.

[Shadow Catcher]

I am a firm believer in plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery. There is no reason you can not build your own trailer but frame and suspension needs to be a good bit more robust than what you are likely to find pre-made. Have the frame fabbed for you and add a Flexride axle http://www.ucfamerica.com/flexiride.html. The Flexride torsion is adjustable.