Elmo's Rough Road Toy Hauler

[BC Cargo]

When I put airbags on my 1997 Dodge Dakota the rear became bouncy...like the shocks had been removed but they had not. I later changed out the rear stock shocks to Heavy Duty ones and this cut the bounce in half...but still more than without the bags. The bags are a great idea if you don't need wheel articulation and have HD shocks. Also use separate air lines to fill the bags for different weight loads on each side of the trailer. This is also better for sway control not allowing the air to pass from bag to bag as the weight shifts in a corner.

[elmo_4_vt]

Not too much progress, but at least enough for a small update...

I've gotten the driver's side wall insulated and buttoned back up. Pull part of the passenger's side wall off and will hopefully have time this week.

Got my new 3500lb straight axle with electric brakes, parking brake, and 3" tube. The brakes might be upside down, but I can check that later since their not hooked up yet. Here it is installed. Not sure if I want to try and lower it or not... Not sure if I can really...






I also got the cabinet frames finished and some of the drawers. Picked them up from my Dad's basement and brought them home for some figuring.










Hopefully things are starting to make a little more sense to people as far as the layout... On the left hand side where it drops down towards the front (or the right hand side where it goes up towards the front) will be the bed area when it's folded down. When it's folded up, I'll be able to drive the bike in.

I also picked up a bunch of lights and a couple other goodies:








So it's coming along slowly... Once I get the insulation on the passenger side done, I can start making the plywood sides to mount the frames too and then it will hopefully really start looking like a camper. I'm down to a month before our first scheduled camp-out... Need to start moving a little quicker.

Don

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[Fung]

Looking nice! Can't wait to see more!

[pappaw]

Looking good, like the matching wheels to your tow rig.

Cheers: Jeff

[pete42]

that's starting to look what will end up being a good looking rig.
nice.

[pete42]

my first double darn it anyway.....

[Gadget Man]

Don
You've got my full attention, I'm very interested in how this will all come together.
I bet you drew your trailer out on graph paper 100 times before you bought anything. I know I did.

I love your KLR. my brother has a 2008 KLR, my first trip in my new Adventure Trailer will be with him out to the South Dakota Black Hills in May.
I hope to get his KLR and my 1997 BMW f-650 in my trailer.

Here is a picture of my BMW.



Gadget Man

[elmo_4_vt]

[quote="Gadget Man"Here is a picture of my BMW.



Gadget Man[/quote]

Nice looking bike... I've got to try one of those one day. It'd be neat to see the difference between what KLR and BMW and do with 650 CCs.

Don

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[elmo_4_vt]

Spent ALL day outside working on the trailer today... I'd like to spend tomorrow out there and hold of a progress report until then, but it looks like tomorrow is going to be wash in these parts, so I'll just throw out what I have now...

Got all the ceiling pieces buttoned up with the 1" of insulation between the metal framing, 1/2" strips the other way with another 1/2" of foam insulation. Then put some Birch, pre-finished 1/4" ply. Also got the 4 ceiling lights installed and wiring pulled back to where the switches will be. More on that in the picture descriptions.

I also got the cabinet frames all put together and mounted about 75%. Hopefully I'll have time to get the rest of that done this week after work if I can keep from spending 12 hours a day there.

On with the pictures:

The ceiling actually went up last weekend:




Started by cutting most of the cabinet sides... I used 1/2", 5 ply Maple, with 1 side pre-finished. Got a great price on it from a local plywood wholesale shop. Cool thing is the also said the could get 5x8 and also said 5x10 ACX were available. Could be cool for the Tear Drop crowd.




Then I got all of the ply connected to the frames. I used biscuits and nails, but might go back and put some bracing on the back side for some extra support. Not sure how biscuits and some trim nails will hold up on rough roads.






I waited a few hours for the glue to partially set, then I started securing everything down to the floor... Which unfortunately wasn't very level, nor square with the walls. Not a huge deal, I guess I'll just have to get some trim to close the gaps and hide the shims I had to use to keep everything tight.








I was hoping to get the motorcycle loaded in, but didn't get time. I hope it fits!

The next are just some shots of where the kitchen will sit eventually and the bed platform.






And the overall...





Let me know what you think... I should be able to have front bulkhead that separates the storage from the sleeping area and the beds done in another half days work... Hopefully. I have one more weekend before it's first camping trip, and we're going one way or another. It doesn't look promising that I'll get all the drawers and DC system in by then, but we'll see.

Don

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[elmo_4_vt]

Well, I made some good progress this weekend after spending most of both days hammering away... Not too many pictures. I find that because the space is so small, the details don't photograph all that well. I need to bring a friend over with a fish-eye lens so I can get some better quality shots of the interior.

Friday I got rid of the factory birds nest in the tongue wiring junction box and installed a nice unit that has a 7 pin junction box and fuses. I hooked up the trailer brakes and the charging wire from the truck to the trailer battery.



[ATTACH=CONFIG]98522[/ATTACH]


I also got the folding part of the bed installed with a piece of 1x2 Maple on the front edge for strength and the front wall up that separates the "living area" from the storage area. (this only shows the first part of the wall)




Got the rest of the 1x2 Maple frame on the counter area completed and one of the drawers installed underneath. Also got the foam bed we bought from IKEA and opened that up so it can inflate as it comes vacuum sealed and rolled up pretty tightly in a thick plastic bag.








Here is a picture of the kitchen area now that everything is closed in. I still need to build the kitchen of course, but it will be as wide as the camper (just under 6' long plus an 3' extension on a drawer slide) and ride in and out of this opening on roller-blade wheels. The wheels will ride in channels I'll place on the floor and supported on one side by the trailer (it won't come all the way out) and on the far side by some adjustable, folding table legs.




Here is a picture of the storage area in the front of the camper. This is where all the supplies/chairs/EZ-up/etc. will go. I'm also going to put a sealed container in there for a 20lb propane tank and it's where I'll connect to shore power and fill the water tank.




I also got the all the wiring temporarily hooked up to a battery and the switch panel (except for one outside light). I wanted to get the whole electrical panel installed, but I just didn't have time and didn't have all the materials I needed. This will have to suffice. I'll just bring a standard battery charger with me in case I run the cheapy battery down. Once I have more time I'm going to install a second battery and a 40amp Weaco converter to keep things charged.




That's it... It's pretty much campable, and just in time since we're leaving Thursday after work for it's maiden voyage to a local state park with friends.

Before Thursday I want to:

- Install the rest of the drawers
- Hang the curtains my wife is sewing as I type
- Wire up the one light I forgot about on the drivers side (a small light for the bathroom tent)
- Install a couple 12V outlets for the ARB fridge, charging phones, and little LED lights I got.
- Mount the travel straps for the ARB (if I can remember where I put them)
- Make the bed and Pack things up.
- Check to make sure the generator is working, just in case

After it's first camping trip I'll still have a lot of work to do:

- Trim almost everything with quarter round
- Put up all the 1/4" white and Baltic Birch bead board on the walls and behind the bottom cabinet frames
- Install the Weaco converter and the 120VAC wiring
- Install the two exterior electrical hatches, one on each side for passing wires through
- Install the heater

The lists are more for me... Hope I'm not boring too many people. If I don't write it down I'll be up all night thinking about it.

The next pictures will be from camping!! :wings:

Don

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[elmo_4_vt]

Speaking of the trailer brakes... I've never had a new trailer brake setup before. They always already been on my other trailers (boat and 6x12 equipment trailer) and they seem to work better than the ones on this trailer.

After I hooked up the brakes, I took it for a spin, and will max current going to the brakes, I could feel it slowing the truck down, but not all that much. Is it normal for new brakes to have a run in time? I took it around the block manually activating the brakes at full force and I didn't really have that much more stopping power then when I started. They were REALLY hot and smelled like they were cooking. Is this normal on new brakes?

I haven't, and probably won't have time to take them apart before I leave. I just didn't know if I should set them on low for the trip and check them when I get back, disconnect them entirely, or keep trying to run them in by senting the unit on high, or bypassing with max power.

Any insight would be appreciated..

Don

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[8ball_99]

If you push the button the the brake control while going down the road you should differently feel the trailer brakes. With a single axle trailer it probably won't feel like your slamming on the brakes though. Doesn't matter if the trailer is new or not they pretty much work the same from day one until they need serviced. I would not ride around constantly riding the brakes trying to break them in. All your doing is wearing them out! Hard to say if you have an issue or exactly what the issue is just by them not feeling very strong. Could be as simple as a bad connection or your brake controller needing replaced

[elmo_4_vt]

Thanks for the reply... The brake controller is good. I just used it on my other trailer last week and I can lock them up if I'm unloaded and not careful. I'm also pretty confident in my wiring. I'll have to pull things apart and adjust them. I figured they'd do that from the factory since the axle came assembled, but I'd be good to check things over anyway.

Don

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[elmo_4_vt]

I haven't updated this thread in a while, so I thought I would post up a couple pictures of where things stand currently. I'm trying to finish a few things off before camping season starts again next month. I still have a lot to do to make it "finished", but on the positive side, we camped about 6 times last year and I love it. Very comfortable and I've taken it on some nice trails to more remote areas. On with the pictures:

The first thing I wanted to get done this year was the pull out kitchen. I wanted a quick setup time, and hopefully this will go a long way towards that end.

So orginally, I wanted to do something very close to this (from the first post of this thread):




This was the CAD drawing I came up with:




This is where it will be sliding into (and out of):




Because of the height of my trailer, the top of the slide out cabinet would have been about 3'-10". This is obviously too high to comfortably use, and would have required us to either stand on a stool to use, or figure out some way to lower a pretty heavy box out of the trailer each time we wanted to use it. Since I wasn't able to figure that part out and didn't want to rely on a stool, I though I'd work on a way to bring the base down another way.

Here are the newest CAD plans that will bring the working surfaces down to just under 3':




And the plans for the cuts for the first two sheets of plywood... I had about 1.5 sheets of nicer 1/2" Maple veneer and one sheet of 1/2 ACX pine. I think that will be enough plus a couple scrap 1x6 for making corner braces and such.




Spend about 6 hours today and got most of it done... It will have a Formica veneer on all the top surfaces, and as you can see from the drawing above, the sink area will fold up onto the stove area for sliding into the trailer. Still trying to figure out what the best slide mechanism will be... But I think I'm just going to go with oak or Maple runners on the cabinet sliding on some sort of plastic board channel mounted to the trailer. That may not last forever, but will give me more strength than trying to make wheels work. Anyway, on with the pictures... Sorry they're not more clear. Once I get it out of my parents basement, I'll get something better.

First pic is just the face and starting to cut out the openings. There will be various types of doors on the different openings:




Got the main section mostly done except for the bottom of the lower cabinets and some supports:




Then put together the folding cabinet for the sink and dry food storage. This is close to how it will look when folded up:




And unfolded:






Fast forward a couple weekends and this is the end result. Still have to putty the nail holes and varnish, but I should be getting it installed this weekend.










And a lot of sawdust under the table saw.




And a picture of the adjustable table legs I'll be using. One set on the fold out section, and one set on the main section.




This is the low-tech sliding mechanism that I came up with... Not perfect, but it should work well enough and be very robust. The bottom surface is 2x4 Trex hand-rail and I mounted a 1x2 Maple board on the bottom. I figure the plastic against the smoothly sanded hard-wood should be long lasting. It does slide very well, so I'm happy about that.






Other than that... I have the other interior drawers all installed, and am just about done the face frames. They got pushed down the list since the trailer was fully camp-able without them.




Installed a 10' awning from Fammia




Installed a rear bumper hitch and stabilizing jacks for off-camber areas. They also have the benefit of being able to completely lift it off the ground if needed for tire changing, etc.




And just used it a lot.




I'll hopefully get a lot of the little details buttoned up in the next couple weeks to make things look nicer. Hope you enjoyed the pictures of the progress though.

Don

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[Woodbutcher]

Great job, I like the way you think. Very well thought out!