1956 Sears/JC Higgins

[Jon Vander Ark]

I bought this JC Higgins trailer last year off of Craigslist. I was looking for some sort of trailer to take back some mild dirt roads to build a basecamp and then go hunting/backpacking. This popped up for $100 and I figured if it was a bust I could get close to that just recycling it.

Now, a year later, I've put new tires on, cleaned up/repacked the hubs, replaced all the rusted hardware with stainless steel, and just finished painting and replacing the rest of the hardware. Next idea is to rewire the trailer to include lights in each storage compartment and a small battery system for recharging GPS and other camping electronics.

At any rate, I know most of the trailers on here are meant to go off the reservation, but if you're like me and just need a basecamp - the old Sears trailers are pretty nice!

After painting - putting on all the hardware..

Storage (FJ60 in the background is my next project - it'll be fitted for a 3b and new interior)

Fits a full size mattress neatly. The foam mattress is comfortable - especially after a long day!

I painted it to match my FJ..

Setup normally takes 2-3 minutes, but when you forget the poles at home, it takes a bit longer and ends up looking odd enough that I don't have any other pictures at the moment!

 

[stkybgr]

Your images are not showing up. I've been searching locally for a small trailer for the same reasons.

 

[tlin]

Problem fixed?

Images are showing up now. Looks great.

Any plans to go with bigger axle/tires or does the current setup satisfy your base camp needs?

 

[Jon Vander Ark]

At this point, it satisfies everything we need, partly because most the areas we want to get into are off limits to motorized vehicles. We went to Moab and toured Arches/Canyonlands this summer and that prompted a talk about bigger axle/tires. It looks like a larger setup would fit in pretty easily, but I don't know too much about what a swap would require; plus, I've already convinced her to let me do a frame-off resto-mod on my 60 starting two weeks from now.. I don't want to push my luck!

One of the best features is how light this trailer is. Fully loaded I can unhook it and run around with it. One of our first weekends using it, we found a nice site down a game trail that was too thin for our FJ.. We pulled the trailer in about a 1/4 mile up a decent hill without breaking a sweat!