Thread: My camper trailer build - a different approach?

Harlie,
thats some great work. You promised a trailer project many moons ago and have certainly delivered.

I love Al fabrication and think that it is the perfect product for camper construction... and as you have found the price differential between Al and steel has now narrowed such that high cost isnt the issue it used to be!

I totally agree on your 50mm ball hitch, leaf spring and even wheel justifications. What bearings are you running. Tojo 1.5T parralells?

Im not sure what you end use will be, and I know the chassis is finished, but from my experience of trailers (boat and box) up on the Cape, and having to fix many of them... Id like to see gussetting in all the major 100x50 corners. Fatigue cracks through the welds due to torsional stresses may crack your chassis corners despite the subframe stiffeners? I like using 50x25x3 RHS for gussets, usually a length 150mm or so each corner. It takes a good bead and is super stiff. Triangulation and all that.

Anyways. Fantastic project, keep it up! Cant wait to see your boat carrier design.

S

Originally Posted by 2_door

nice work harlie. even if you go over budget, you are still getting a great camper for the money, imagine what it would be worth to buy one finished

which camper top are you going to use?

watching with interest

Thanks Mark
I had one of the big camper manufacturers price this up and with the boat system (which they really did not want to make – too much thought required) they quoted a little over 22k and that was all steel...

I have purchased the tents from a business in Bundaberg – they are imported units but he offered a lot of inclusions and extras that (at the time) were not available with a lot of local products let alone the other imported tents. He also had heaps of design differences to the others – They even look different to the other imports. We drove up and had a look, already looked at heaps and heaps of imported units and visited nearly every local manufacturer We continued to look at tents before finally driving back up with box trailer in tow to bring 2 back home. The quality of these tents is excellent and with design features not even found on a lot of local units it was a clear winner for us – He even made the top tauno cover an extra 100 higher in the sides for me so we can carry extra stuff on the bed. The only down side I can see could come from the imported canvas but at $2000 compared with over 8k for the equivalent tent made locally I figure it’s a risk worth taking.

Originally Posted by roverrescue

Harlie,
thats some great work. You promised a trailer project many moons ago and have certainly delivered.

I love Al fabrication and think that it is the perfect product for camper construction... and as you have found the price differential between Al and steel has now narrowed such that high cost isnt the issue it used to be!

I totally agree on your 50mm ball hitch, leaf spring and even wheel justifications. What bearings are you running. Tojo 1.5T parralells?

Im not sure what you end use will be, and I know the chassis is finished, but from my experience of trailers (boat and box) up on the Cape, and having to fix many of them... Id like to see gussetting in all the major 100x50 corners. Fatigue cracks through the welds due to torsional stresses may crack your chassis corners despite the subframe stiffeners? I like using 50x25x3 RHS for gussets, usually a length 150mm or so each corner. It takes a good bead and is super stiff. Triangulation and all that.

Anyways. Fantastic project, keep it up! Cant wait to see your boat carrier design.

S

Parallel - Yes they are – slimline kit would result in a lower overall capacity especially with 16” wheels. My capacity would actually be 1600kg currently if 14” wheels were used...

Gussetting - That’s an interesting point you have, however I don’t think (actually I’m told) that it will be an issue for us – you would be amazed at how strong the Ally structure is and they will be working together.

Our intended use is Fraser / Moreton / Stradie Islands (with boat) and the occasional run along Birdsville / Strez tracks (and similar - without a boat) but it will mainly see sealed roads or sand – not even any dirt into 1770 now. So it’s not going to get the work out you are seeing.

While we were looking at (100s) of campers initially I never observed a chassis frame as you describe – actually didn’t see many 100mm deep frames for that matter – I do understand exactly what you saying and we'll have a look at this – thanks for your input.

Top project , doing an excellent job. Noting a few of your ideas.
For the last 6 mths I've also been working on a "different" designed trailer.
Got it rego'd last week but still need to add a few bits eg water tanks , fridge box etc. When all finished will post pics with comments.

Thanks harlie for your thread. Im looking to trailers now to build and have already had the same idea (steel chassis/alloy body). I also like the way theres loads of compartments, but still keeping a main area so that it can be used as a standard trailer if needed.

Cheers,

Excellent thread & great photos.

What equipment are you using for the Aluminium welding?

I have a UniMig (210) and BIL has a MigOMag (280) and the plan was to have one set up for mild and the other for Aluminium. The big one has problems sometimes with the wire feed on the soft Alli wire. I’ve never had an issue with alli wire and the UniMig so it was going to be the Alli welder for this - unfortunately we found that the UniMig has a gas leak (I run it gasless usually so I only need to get a cylinder for projects like this) so we are changing wire & gas in the big one. I will look at it once we are finished, was not going to pull a welder apart mid project especially when we have two excellent units..

So for the Alli we are using a MigOMag 280 & straight Argon gas.

Very neat work, congrats
Are you selling the drawings and material list?