TD behind a Samurai???

[PhilipG]

Hello to all. My name is Philip. I have RVed with nearly everything and am currently a part time/full timer who uses a Lance 12' Truck Camper for work travel and fun. I have my beloved Suzuki Samurai and love to go off road, BUT, I have lost a lot of joy for the tent and air mattress thing. ( I do that when bicycle touring). So, Towing rated at 1000 lb-and that was 21 years ago. I want to go off road, up in the mountains. Usually just one person, could be two grown-ups and a dog. I don't weld but maybe could get some help. Slow is just fine with me, I DO drive a 60 horsepower vehicle. I would also l much rather NOT use th hatch back approach and put kitchen inside. when it is nice I can always move outside. Coffee, at sunrise, in the rain, better be inside accessible. Thanks for your experience and information. PG

www.dataman.cc/philip for bike touring info

[bobhenry]

Phil I think we all missed you somehow. I am towing a
5x10x5 tall with 108 h.p. Scion xb and it handles it but
I am not comfortable with long interstate trips with the
combination. It does have an automatic which is a strike
against it. I think a 5 speed would be preferable. You
are wanting a standie behind a 6o h.p. tow vehicle. This
is going to take some magic I'm afraid. A couple of the
guys are using a explorer style trailer (small box trailer
with tent style top). Better load up a utility trailer with
about 1100 lbs of rock and see how it tows because this
is the weight area you will be in with a standie.
You said mountains does that mean bears?
nylon and canvas usually won't stop a nosey bear. All we
have in Indiana are pesky racoons to worry about. Let us
know a little more and we will all jump on the band wagon
and try and help. Good luck


Bob[img]http://www.tnttt.com/gallery/image.php?image_id=32265[img][/img]

[bobhenry]

Course there's always a way !!

[PhilipG]

HI folks, and thanks for the reply. I loved the pics. The car looks almost like an Izetta but I seem to remember them as three wheelers. I was pretty sure that what I want and what I can have aren't on the same page. I will settle for a lot less to get past the "joys" of tent camping. I Want to be able to drive up into the mountains, New Mexico or Colo usually, go off road and keep going. After all these years with other types of RVs, including five years full timing in a 35' fifth wheel, I just don't care too much for Campgrounds. Plus, I travel for my living and stay in them when I am working. So, back to the drawing board. I would settle for : fully enclosed, a Fantastic Fan and some way to access the food. I really don't get too excited about the rear kitchen stuff. I have stood in the rain on cross country bike rides, and even with cover it is less than charming. Why can't it be a fully closed rear and access the stuff from inside? I will have to find a design that will come out around 500 to six hundred pounds dry to be comfortable towing it. My car IS 21 years old...

[jeep_bluetj]

Frankly, it's not the age or horsepower of the Samurai that's important. It's the wheelbase and the weight. Sami's have such a short wheelbase _any_ trailer tends to push them around a bit. Keep your trailer well under 1K lbs, and you'll be fine with a sami. More than that, and sideways at stoplights is your future.

Sami's are GREAT vehicles. Wish I had one. But you need to realize it's really short and light. Brakes on the trailer would give a increased comfort range up to about 1.5K lbs for the trailer. But then, a sami wouldn't be able to go uphill at more than 20 mph or so. Drop a 20r4 in there, and you'll be fine.

[PhilipG]

I think you are correct on the electric brakes. I am thinking of the 600 pound and down range. By the way, I am not receiving any emails to let me know folks have posted a reply on this thread. I have the correct box checked but nothing ever happens. Did I mess something? Thanks, folks, Philip

[Gerdo]

If you keep it simple and don't over build, like I did, you should be able to build a light TD. Since you are looking at a solo TD, small is easier. As far as cooking inside? You could have a flip down shelf for small cooking and go with a conventional galley out back. I think haveing a complete galley inside would be difficult to use. Somethiing to remember is that a small space will fill with fumes from cooking FAST. You would have to have all of your doors and windows open which would allow bad weather into your sleeping area. I think this would be worse than the galley out back. The galley out back has the hatch for a rain cover. I have even attached tarps to the hatch when weather was blowing sideways. It is really convient to have a galley that you open, cook, do some minor cleanup and then close.

Brakes may seem like overkill but it'll keep a small setup like yours straight at stops.

[Gerdo]

You could do a fold down galley wall like the Wazat. Click on the gallery and look for the shot of the galley. This would give you the convience of a galley and the ability to do some minor cooking from inside.

[angib]

It sounds like you want a Weferlinger LC9-200 - a tiny trailer built in the DDR (East Germany) to be towed by Trabants which are half the weight and half the power of a Samurai!



Day and night layouts:



The body is 78" long by 65" wide by 78" high overall - but that's really too high for the Samurai, so build it lower to make it easier to tow at today's speeds. The impressive bit is that the Weferlinger weighed just 550lb unloaded. You can visit this Weferlinger site though it is all in German:
http://www.weferlinger.de

Really this is quite like Steve Wolverton's Puffin and you should look through his build saga/photos. One important thing to change would be to make the bed longitudinal, as then you can make the trailer much narrower and that makes it much easier to tow with low power.

Andrew

[brian_bp]

Great image, bobhenry!

The car looks almost like an Izetta but I seem to remember them as three wheelers...

Yes, it looks like an Isetta... presumably a BMW Isetta 300 built in Germany, which had about one-quarter of the Samurai's power. The scary part is the mountainous region in which it is shown.

As I recall, and as the Wikipedia article clarifies, the original design was to have been a three-wheeler, but almost all were made (by more than one company) as four-wheelers with that bizarre ultra-narrow rear track.

In an amusing repeat of history, the Smart fortwo (the closest thing to an Isetta-style microcar you can buy in North America) had a narrower rear track initially, but (like the Isetta's change from three wheels to four) was widened in rear track to keep it upright in the actual production version!

[bobhenry]

http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/bmw600.html

I think this is the model but a different year. Note the wider rear stance than the Isetta.

[jagular7]

There are not a whole lot of options you can look at Phillip. For starters, does the Sami have a stock driveline? How big a tire? Mods for offroad, etc. Biggest affect on that 60hp is the flat brick windshield as well as weight. I would strongly suggest that you get a proper hitch frame for the Sami rather than use the stock bar. Rust is another problem with Samis.

Are you looking for something to build or commercially buy? How many people to sleep?

Motorcycle tent campers (like a Helite) would probably suffice for what you need. Many have a way of expanding with canvas to cover/enclose a kitchen area or an entrance to the sleep area.
Another option could be a box/cargo trailer with a roof top tent (rtt). Check out our very own tent trailer builder Scott with his design. Although RTT are basically a raised tent off the ground, you will still need to get out to make your coffee.
You could look at putting together a flat bed trailer and adding a Wildernest truck camper top (they aren't currently in business) or a Flip-Pac or a truck bed slide in pop-up, ie Livin'Lite. The truck bed shells have a flip top for a sleeping area.
Wildernest flips sideways


There is actually a Wildernest on Ebay really cheap right now in southern MO. Ebay Link

FlipPac flips front to back.


Livin'Lite slide in weighs 400#, and its size is basically 4' wide and 7' long.



Then there are the smaller pop-ups of the late 60s/early 70s. You didn't mention where you are at nor is it in the profile (bike site shows you everywhere), but in the KC CL, there is a Nimrod type camper for $600.



These also could be pulled by a motorcycle.

What got pulled by VWs (bugs and vans), was the Puck. Its wood floor, alumunim walls with fiberglass cap. Also small in size and weight.


Then there are plenty of ideas and models in Europe that would probably suffice. Those posted already, the Smart camper, etc.

Smartcamper

[brian_bp]

http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/bmw600.html

I think this is the model but a different year. Note the wider rear stance than the Isetta.

According to various sources, the 600 is the bigger, later, and much less successful model... yes, it has a more conventional rear track, but basically the same front as the 300. Still a lousy tow vehicle!

[brian_bp]

...What got pulled by VWs (bugs and vans), was the Puck. Its wood floor, alumunim walls with fiberglass cap. Also small in size and weight...

The Puck is still around (in production). The aluminum walls are steel-framed. I don't think that they were ever commercially imported to North America; nevertheless, they are sporadically available used. It is quite close in dimensions - both length/width and weight - to some of the smaller moulded fiberglass travel trailers, which might be considered "tiny travel trailers". The Compact (discussed here occasionally) would be an example.

The smallest current stand-up production moulded fiberglass travel trailer of which I am aware is the design currently sold as the Little Joe.

[brian_bp]

...Another option could be a box/cargo trailer with a roof top tent (rtt). Check out our very own tent trailer builder Scott with his design. Although RTT are basically a raised tent off the ground, you will still need to get out to make your coffee...

If there's any doubt about the Suzuki Samauri handling one of these units on a trailer, I note from the current edition of our local auto club magazine (AMA's Westworld) that there is a team who ran a London (England) to Ulaanbaatar (Mongolia) rally in a one-litre 3-cylinder Suzuki Swift (badged as a Geo Metro) with one of these on the roof - see Mongol Rally.