Thanks Saragato. I'll be on the hunt for a steel box up front as you suggest. Question on your rear flood lights: I was thinking of adding some - just tapping into the running lights and adding a weatherproof switch. How did you wire yours?
All of the sanding, grinding filling and more sanding is giving way to priming and more priming. I'm also filling a composition book with ideas - rack designs, wiring diagrams, water, fuel tank mounts and more.
Did the rear axle not have the parking brakes on it? If you had parking brakes on the axle you could easily put a parking brake lever on the tongue and not have to worry about the thing rolling off on an incline when you unhook.
If you are going to keep the rear axle back there it would be nice if the pumpkin were geared the same as your tow vehicle. (if it's the same axle) That way you are carrying a spare diff without taking up any space. Plus you'd have spare axles and drums.
I have an Isuzu Pickup bed trailer similar to yours only my rear overhang is a lot farther. I have been kicking around the idea of bobbing the rear of the bed off and making it the same distance as the front box.
But so far the only thing that's keeping from cutting it up is there are is probably some guy out there who need a replacement bed for his old Isuzu pickup. I kinda hate to cut up something that somebody else could use more than me. These extended cab beds are getting hard to find! Mine has no rust and very few dents. Even the Tail Gate works.
I have 7 trailers, of various sizes, so it's not going to kill me to help someone out.
But I like the concept of a pickup bed trailer. I have two. They make so much more sense than a full on pickup when you only need to haul stuff a half dozen times a year. It's nice to be able to send the Wife off to the Home Improvement Stores and Yard Sales in her 4 Runner and she's got room to get home that roll top desk she doesn't need without bugging me to come after it in my Big Dodge!
I like the black one too and your concept drawing looks like it will have a lot of practicle function built in.
I would have loved to scored that topper off you. I need some windows for my Cargo Trailer I'm converting into a camper toy hauler...........
Revised plan. Steel box. with waterproof shore power - surge strip inside for charging needs. Kayak x-bars lower to draft behind my 100. My yak will often live here too, making a good work height when the rig is sitting in my garage.
Well - the body has been wet-sanded and is ready for paint.
However, The big progress this weekend was sorting wiring and planning my harness. I ran a new 4-flat harness from the front through the frame rails to the back. This is a split harness so I have a brown (running light) lead down each side. It will use the OE connectors for the tail lights (you can see my labels). The lic plate lights and rear side markers (coming today from ebay) will be spliced in. All splices are looped, twisted, soldered (using my grandfathers soldering iron from waaay back) and sleeved w heat shrink. I attached the 4-flat ground in usual fashion to the frame up front. To ground OE lights, I've set up ground wires on each side of the frame. Everything will be wrapped in electrical tape. I've rewired probably a dozen boat trailers and campers. Never have I gone through so thoroughly as I am here. Not a single scotch-lock.
I also had to make a tool for raising and lowering the full size spare on the OE chain. I had some scrap steel tube. I ran a 1/4" bolt through one side, through 2 nuts inside the tube and out the other side then trimmed to to fit. I the epoxied the bolt and nuts in place from the inside. The tube was too fat to clear the OE access on the rear body. I made it long enough to work from underneath via a screwdriver through 2 holes. Yes - its long enough to clear the tire.
Borrowed a nice HVLP sprayer unit from a good pal today. This was my first experience spraying anything other than a rattle can. After thinning some Rustoleum about 9:1 (twice as much thinner as Rustoleum recommends) with mineral spirits & testing on some cardboard I went at it. After seeing some splatter, and not being able to rectify with the trigger adjustment, I thinned the paint further to about 3:1 and went along pretty satisfied. I put on 2 thin coats. Its been a perfect day and I almost shot on another light coat after 6 hours, but I'm going to be patient (again, unlike me), and let this dry well, wet-sand the whole thing and do a last coat right - probably at a 2:1 mix. So - sanding tomorrow, then Sunday's weather looks good for the final pass. I'm happy with it so far. I spent a lot of hours prepping, but I have to say - gloss black doesn't hide anything. Then again - as my wife reminded me - this thing is just a beater truck bed trailer. With the frame all painted, spare mounted, wiring all wrapped up and tested, it's coming together. My mind is racing with the thought of moving on to the "outfitting" portion of this project. For those wanting to try HVLP - its a lot cleaner than rattle-canning. I didn't have a layer of "dust" all over my garage when done. Just a little on my drop cloth. I didn't manage a single run, and I used less than half a quart of paint for these first 2 coats.
digging the 1st gen trailers.. because I'm making one too! haha. But I didnt extend the tongue for cargo because I didnt want it to be crazy heavy on the tongue. Im doing axle under leaf and want it to be the same height/tires as my pickup.
Is the tongue weight an issue for you guys? the storage on the tongue looks awfully tempting compared to just the bed space.
I may need to change my plans.. But concerned if I add the extra tongue weight with it not sitting low like the ones shown, i might be asking for trouble when parked at a campsite or somewhere. Already seems tricky without the weight
what do you guys think?
(It's a longbed first gen pickup bed, and back of frame. The frame is cut at the end of the bed and tongue extends the higher portion of frame, so it's a higher tongue than shown on your applications)
With a 30" spare in the stock location and a few tools in the box in my tongue - the tongue weight is est 70#. easy to move by hand. The thing tows great both empty and loaded. A lot of people thought I was nuts when I took this on. The end result is a great little trailer.
Thanks for the feedback.May have to change up my design then! Just can't put my spare on the tongue with the 10 gallons of gasoline if I do
Here is my temprary tongue setup. Using a trailer tongue bolted through the middle and end. Right below bed floor. I used a hitch tube in the center to use hitch tube stock for the final tongue. And if this temporary setup stayed any mount of time after tag and title I would use some plate of some kind to spread the load on the forward mounting spot. But it still seems sketchy to me..
But it'll tow like this with tow lights to get it weighed to get titled.
Then I'll change up something, the more I look at the tongue the more bastardized it feels/looks. I hope my buddy hasn't scraped the extra steel tool box yet.
(I wanted the single tube tongue for more room if I ever got in a sticky situation. But probably not worth it since it would be more for camping then wheeling.)
How hard are lift shackles to find/make for this thing on the cheap? I do not want to fool with doing a spring over. Would like to get 2" of lift the easy way - w 4 shackle bolts.
How hard are lift shackles to find/make for this thing on the cheap? I do not want to fool with doing a spring over. Would like to get 2" of lift the easy way - w 4 shackle bolts.
The problem with a shackle lift is that the shackle length needs to be roughly twice the lift height desired + their existing length. Once the shackles start to get that long they become unstable.
It would be better to space both the main spring mounts and the shackle hanger brackets down off the frame by 2"
For the work involved in that a SOA swap would be less work, though it would likely net you closer to 3" of lift or more.
Shackles should be cheap and easy to make or buy depending on your opinion of cheap. You may be able to do a spring over swap by buying a cheap 4x4 pickup rear axle and then you also have the same lug pattern as your truck. Depending on if that's enough of a benefit to justify the extra cost compared to simple shackle lift.
Checking this thread spurred my interest again and I started googling truck trailers. Came across someone wanting to lift their 2wd truck trailer as well. And they were planning on just flipping the axle upside down. You would have to plug the vent hole and make the drain hole into a new vent. Shop plumbing dept. or tap the fill cap. Should roll the same, I don't think you have oiling or coast side of gear concerns with it being a trailer as opposed to a drive axle.
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