Putting the cart before the horse?

[dmckruit]

Anybody try building the teardrop body before the trailer arrives yet? My trailer is backordered until the middle of August. I have some time off coming up and was anxious to get started. I figured I could build the floor and the walls and frame in the roof, then lift and place the body on the trailer once it arrives. I do not plan on cutting wheel wells into the floor.

Anybody forsee any problems with this method?

[starleen2]

ever try to remove a frame from a truck - then you know the logistics of of having to raise a body at least three to four feet in the air to get the frame out then reverse to get the frame back in - and this is with factory positioned mounting holes. I'm not saying that it couldn't be done but the headache and time factor will be huge. Not to mention that getting the wheel cutouts placement right. Just seems like a lot of unnessary work for a matter of a few weeks. August is not that far away. My suggestion is to go ahard and get the wall profiles made and ready to mount to the floor

[swissarmygirl]

I had most of my cabin done before I got my trailer.
I actually built on an old queen size bed frame. It had wheels so I could push it around the garage if needed and it kept it up off the floor.
Once we got the trailer and had it put together, Honeyman lifted the front end of the cabin, while I pushed the trailer underneath. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I thought for sure we would need about 6 guys and a whole lot of beer. Turns out, we just needed a little muscle and a lot of brains.

[Sam I am]

The bed frame idea sounds great! That should work well.

[johnb]

Depending on your design it could be easy or problematic. I'm building a tdrop with the wheels outside the base so it is just a square box sitting on the frame. I built the two separate and then dropped the box onto the frame - as SwissArmyGirl says the trick is to raise the cabin up, glide the frame underneath and then drop it back down. My six year old son and I did this with a few saw horses and a couple 2x6's. No need for lots of muscle.

John

[asianflava]

I built my body before the trailer. It made more sense to me, not as much initial cash outlay and I had more room to work in the garage. For the most part, I built mine in one bay of my 3-car garage. There were 2 immobile cars in the other bays.

I didn't have to raise the body that high, it was on jackstands at their tallest setting (small jackstands not the big ones). I rolled the trailer frame underneath by taking the wheels off and rolling it on it's hubs. The axle had no brakes and it was a custom frame, so your mileage may vary.