8.5x31 Toy hauler build

[Jraoffroad]

Hey all, new here. This will be my 3rd go at this type trailer so I think I finally know what I want/need this to be. I've gotten a lot of idea's from here so I figured I would join to do a build thread. Much of this will be copied from my thread on a SXS forum. I will try to edit it to apply to the crowd here. I has been a busy year and progress very slow.

After looking for months, there was nothing out there that fit my needs. I will add that horse trailers with living quarters came the closest. My needs are simple. Well built, 5k capacity, 20 ft of garage, bathroom, not over 30ft long, efficient for off grid camping and capable of getting in the places our hobbies take us with out getting damaged. After working with a local dealer for a week or so I placed an order on 4/24/19. Trailer build was supposed to start the 5/22 and take 5 days. They didn't start until 6/2.

I ended up ordering a United XLTV slant nose. It was ordered 2ft longer than the standard max length, 28' of square box with a 3' vee nose, 8.5' wide and 1' off extra height bringing it to a total inside height of 7'6". I had the 5200lbs drop axle swapped to 6k straight axles giving it 4 inches of lift and 18" of ground clearance. They wouldn't go to 7k axles or move them back any farther even though they are building this on the same 8" I beam double frame they use up to 21k capacity. I have them rating it at 9990 capacity to avoid any potential CDL issues. It will have about 8k of actual payload and 5k on paper so 1 4cyl based crawler or 2 SXS should not be an issue for it. It should be less than 5k empty before adding the LQ.

I'm going to build out the inside as follows. Bathroom front right, bunks on the left and a wall 22' from the tail. Kitchen will be on the cargo side of the wall with no lower cabinets to get the most cargo room. This will allow use of beds and bath while loaded en route to riding and allow use of a small enough main AC unit to run off a Honda 1000w gen. Heat will be a diesel fired heater. No holding tanks or windows. Fresh water will be a portable tank in the truck bed and gray will be a portable tank. Composting toilet at some point.

[Jraoffroad]

The trailer came in Friday 6/14/19. About 3 weeks behind schedule. They had to special order the skin sheeting and ordered too little. When they ordered the other sheets the paint didn't match so they had to make a third order and reskin the complete trailer. The dealer is throwing in a spare tire for my trouble. It looks pretty good, the only issue I see is few dings on the nose/

I picked it up Sat, 6/21. Dealer cut me a deal I couldn't pass for a wheel upgrade to make up the stone dings on the nose. $200 off their normal upgrade price, plus free lug nuts and center caps. That made it $400 plus my factory tires for a set they wanted $1400 plus lug nuts and caps. I'm not sure how I feel about alloys on a trailer, but these things seemed pretty well made, even have steel inserts for the lugs to tighten on. And the look way better on it.

I didn't bother leveling it out on the truck as I'm less then a mile from the dealer.





I got the floor stained with PPG solid stain in the cargo area.

[Jraoffroad]

Now on to the entry door. It opened and closed very stiff. I noticed this at the dealer and they said it was pretty common and would loosing up pretty quick. I think he was correct, it's improving real fast after I fixed the other issues. When I went to close up the night before the temps had dropped into the 50's and now the door was so stiff it was flexing the wall to the point a creasing it and the top and bottom corners were being pulled about 1/4 inch from the door seal. I decided to figure out the problem before taking it to the dealer.

Seems like a lot of hinges to me. Looking online it seems 2 is standard, 3 the HD option.



After much experimenting and examination I figured out 5 issues. The top and bottom hinge overlapped the door frame, causing them to twist when opening. The hinges were not all exactly the same, they are the same hinge but must have built on different machines. The height to the door was a little taller off the body then these hinges are designed for. This probably would be ok after the weather stripping packed down. There was a little misalignment between them. And lastly there were 5 of them. Remove any 2 and it was a huge improvement.

So after all this and coming with options to fix the problem and knowing what a dealer could do/would do, I decided to fix this myself. Cost me about $25 to make sure it was fixed in way I am happy with, sometimes that is better then warranty. I decided 2 hinges needed to go, the remaining 3 needed to match a closely as possible and be in line with each other. I found 3 of the hinges matched perfect and the remaining 2 matched each other. Almost as if hinges are sold in matching sets of 2 or 3. The 3 middle hinges lined up pretty well, kinda like they were meant to be there. So it was easy to decide witch ones were leaving. This solved 4 of the 5 problems. Now on to the height issue and solving the new problem of hiding the eight holes from the removed hinges. A 1/8x2x78 piece of aluminium bar stock under the hinges took care of 4 holes and the height issue. This is when I found the reason for the two extra hinges. They had stripped the body bolts on the top hinge. So they added one above it to take the load and one below the bottom to make it match. A couple of nut certs would have been a quick easy fix that would have worked, but thats too easy. I'm just putting lock nuts inside the wall as I have to take it down anyway and it will be much more secure. 4 bolts fixed the holes in the door.

I may put some diamond plate on the bottom of the door to hide imprint of the hinge.

[Jraoffroad]

Found a deal on CL. 82 pcs of 1x14.5x58 Foamular 150 for $150, about a $200 savings and will fit my wall studs will no cutting.
Wood for steps and 2 sheets of 1.5" Foamular 150 for the ramp gate from HomeDepot.


I built some steps. They are two pcs to make them easy to move. Found out the hard they need to sit on some pcs of wood to be stable on gravel. The top step will be flipped when transported to use as a storage box and the lower fits in the trailer step well for quick access.



I pulled the ramp apart and insulated it. One side at a time to keep it stable and square. While I was in there I put Nylocks on the latch bolts so they can't just be be unbolted to gain access. They had security bolts in them, but now that everyone has the bits they are worthless.



I needed the gate done to paint it. I used one of the deck restore products for the traction. Never again. This stuff is like trying to paint with mashed potatoes. I used a whole gallon on one coat on the gate, couldn't use the extra texture roller because it wouldn't spread at all, it took almost 2 hours to this 8x8 area, it makes a hell of a mess and I'm not happy with the finish. I did figure out it works better if you brush it on then go over with a roller right away, but not in time to do me any good on the main gate.


With the trailer being late and July fast approaching I decided the AC needed to move way up on the list of things to do. Like from about number 5 to now. It wont cool the whole thing down much but if it can knock down the humidity that will be great. Jumping ahead that far in my plan required a lot of marking and figuring out how to do it with out the framing it was going in done. It will a bit of a pain to work around it, but better then the heat.

I built the part of the bunk frame and screwed it to the floor where it needs be and marked the frame and cross members in the area it's going. That let me see the room I had to work with. I need 300 sq inches of vent. I got close and know what I need to change to get it all, then I just need to make the enclosure.

I got a little more done on the AC enclosure and I'm hoping to have it running by the weekend. I also figured out where the Shore power wiring is going to come in and drilled a hole there to run a cord through for temporary power inside.


I got the AC enclosure mostly done. It still needs sealed but I'm waiting to make sure it works as planned. When it's done it will be covered inside with ice guard or something similar to water proof it. These pics show the idea a little better, intake on front side and exhaust at rear. Both vent through the floor as well as a drain line. They are divided in the enclosure with a foam wall and under the trailer by the 8" tall frame. The bottom right in first pic where the foam is wedged in for now is where the electrical plug will go for the unit.





Covers on.


I let it run for about an hour and you feel the difference in the humidity.

[Jraoffroad]

I mounted the side door porch light that needs to be up for the insulation to go in above the door. I didn't want to mount it as high as I did but had to so the drip edge didn't block the light. Pretty happy with the light. Small and plenty bright with out being too bright.

[featherliteCT1]

Looking great! You are making great progress in a short period of time.

[Jraoffroad]

Looking great! You are making great progress in a short period of time.

I wish that was the case. I'm just getting this caught up. The progress posted so far is over a months time. This summer and fall had a lot going on and I dont think I've touched it 2 weeks.

[brianjonesphoto]

I mounted the side door porch light that needs to be up for the insulation to go in above the door. I didn't want to mount it as high as I did but had to so the drip edge didn't block the light. Pretty happy with the light. Small and plenty bright with out being too bright.

Any more details on this light? Looks like a great solution.

[Jraoffroad]

Sure. It's a RecPro RV Porch Light with Black Cover 1.25" x 8" , about $14 off Ebay or Amazon. It uses a mounting screw at each end and the wires come out the back dead center. Few more pics I had.

[Jraoffroad]

I found several places there are 2 layers of skin on it. Looks like they tried but couldn't remove the first skin that the panel colors didn't match so they just went over it. I'm not sure if thats good or bad. Double should be stronger but could lead to other problems down the road. It's impossible to tell how much of it is double by just looking. I'm going to make the dealer aware of it and see if they can get United to up the warranty on the skin. I could only see when the had cut or ripped the inner layer.




I also found a major air leak. The way they built the V nose was water tight but left about 75 sq inches open for air flow. It may have been by design, but was not helping in my case.


I've also been improving on the wiring as I go. It was ok at best. To many scotch locks for me and I want to be able to get to the wiring in the future. At least they left plenty of slack.



I got a chance to put up 2 of the lights I plan on using earlier this week. They are temporary right now in the factory locations. Much brighter. There will be 5 of these when it's done.

[Jraoffroad]

I found something when I pulled down the left wall I should have caught earlier. One of these things is not like the other.



They had it the first time, but missed it on the reskin.


I got some insulation up on left wall, almost done with the walls.

[Jraoffroad]

I've gotten to do some work on this thing, but I haven't had a camera for awhile. The missing light is repaired, all the insulation is finally done, the drop ceiling in the living quarters is done and the first ceiling panel is up, the wall is framed between the LQ and garage and has some sheeting on it.I have 1 inch of foamular 500 in the walls, 1.5 inches of R tech in the ceiling with a reflective barrier above it with a 1/2 inch air gap between the barrier and the roof and the living quarters has an additional inch of foamular under the R tech.