Jim, I built one myself, set me back about $6000 i think.... not including the trailer or RTT.
Camper Trailer Slideshow by debruiser | Photobucket
That's what I made. Your welcome to come round and have a look if that helps you.
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Jim, I built one myself, set me back about $6000 i think.... not including the trailer or RTT.
Camper Trailer Slideshow by debruiser | Photobucket
That's what I made. Your welcome to come round and have a look if that helps you.
I purchased an off-road hard floor camper, new for under $6K just over a year ago, it is a Chinese import and assembled here in Australia.
Now all the purists (who have probably never looked at my camper will say it is a POS).
It has a fully Galvanised chassis, electric brakes, LED tail lights, handbrake, solid axle/shocks, Leaf (7) springs with military wrap on shackles, springs sit on top of axle for more ground clearance. 70 L water tank w/electric pump, slide out kitchen with 4 burner gas stove, sink with tap, all stainless steel, 3 new 15" Sunraysia rims and tyres w/Toyota bolt pattern.
All of the chassis/drawbar welds look good to me, a mate who was a boilermaker could find no faults with the construction, the draw bar is bolt on which extends almost back to the axle with 6x 1/2" bolts.
the body panels are alloy/foam/alloy plating with alloy checkerplate on corners and edges, slide out compartment on drivers side (opposite) the kitchen has a battery, a charger and some switches.
All of the rubber seals are auto style (double pinch) with seals on the body and doors, never leaked the seal between the hard floor and the camper body is a triple lipped rubber seal.
A large alloy checkerplate tool/storage box sits on the draw bar, along with 9Kg. gas bottle holder and Jerry can holder, Spare tyre, rock shield and winch for winding the hard floor back.
Canvas is Ripstop type and is adequate, nothing too fancy, comes with a full annex, walls and wind breaks and floor, full set of poles (very heavy).
It is exactly the same body width as my Disco and the wheel track is the same, only weighs 760kgs.
The bed is a 6" spring type mattress, Queen size, this mattress weighs around 40kg and is too wide, very hard to fit sheets and bedding, we gave ours to Vinnies and replaced it with a Dunlopillo 6" foam which much more comfortable and only weighs about 15kgs. and about 6" narrower.
This Chinese manufactured trailer is imported with all the camper bodies in 1 container and all the drawbars, axles and tyres in another, I'd estimate they (importer) could bring in 40 camper trailers in 2 contaniers.
A mate of mine bought the exact same trailer as mine except for, nice alloy wheels, some fancy good looking transfers on the sides and a better battery/charging setup. This bloke has confirmed that his "OZZIE" built trailer is identical to mine except for the shiny items mentioned above.
He paid $26,000 for his, now I have seen many, many ads hawking my trailer as Australian made and charging over $20,000 for something that was imported from China in BULK for about $3K each, Tarting them up and making a horrendous profit on them.
So if you want a good trailer assembled here in OZ for around < $10K,have a look at a hard floor Chinese camper, sleeps 2 to 4 adults in the bed (if your kinky) 2 kids (or more) on the hard floor section and God knows how many in the annex, Good Luck, Regards Frank.
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If you type "luke sutton" into youtube, he has a spec sheet video on his trailer. Complete with standard inclusions such as alko running gear with electric brakes, ozhitch, and his full DPOR kitchen.
No fridge, I care to note before someone more negative does.
Quality trailers hold their value. We're on our second Follow Me Camper which is a WA brand. For us the advantage of going with a locally built trailer was being able to work out exactly what we wanted. George made changes to their standard design and built it how we wanted rather than giving us a list of options and having to pick from the list.
Our first trailer was $24,000 which we traded back to them for $18,000 when we upgraded 2 years later. The one we have now cost $43,000 but is top of the range and had extras built in.
For example, we have a boat loader which can carry our fishing kayaks and bikes. During construction we changed how we wanted the boat trailer to be carried on the front after seeing something George had done on another trailer. He made up a mesh rack to sit on the front drawbar which I tie my boat trailer to.
We came up with an idea for turning the clothing drawer with crates into 2 separate drawers which is now a standard option on our model.
The primary reason for our upgrade was we got fed up with carrying and assembling camp cupboards for our kitchen gear and the jigsaw puzzle of fitting crates into the trailer.
Our current model has slide out kitchen with gas plumbed, slide out drawers above the kitchen for pots and pans and a large slide next to it which we currently carry 2 crates on it. We have lockers all around the outside of the trailer and you'd be surprise at how much can fit in the lockers. I was able to just about empty my toolbox on the old camper.
We paid a premium for our trailer but we intend to keep it for a long time and camping has never been so much fun. For an overnight stop we can pull in and within 15minutes have the tent up and dinner cooking.
My advice is work out how you want to camp and how much fiddling around you are prepared to do each day to set up camp if you are touring.
I bought something similar in a hard floor camper. It looks like a similar layout to a Kimberly camper from 10 years ago. Except these are new. Galvanised box section chassis with quality welds, butterfly coil dual shock suspension, electric drum brakes, slide out kitchen and fridge slide, dual wheel carrier, new coopers tyres on alloy rims. The father in law is a mechanical drafty. He was impressed with it. Weighs under 900kg.
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