My Offroad Trailer

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TIMZTOY said:
what kind of drop leg is that ? who makes it, are they for sale if its a custome made piece ?
Click to expand...

The whole trailer was built from scratch. I can try to ask them about the drop leg. I would prefer something that has some sort of crank to adjust the height to ease getting it in and out of the hitch on the 4Runner. For now I just use my Hi-lift. Without cargo in the back of the trailer it is nose-heavy
 
I took the trailer out for 3 days to the Inyo mountains near Death Valley




Overall it towed well on and off road even though I've worried a little about the center of gravity being a bit high. I may still look into replacing those 2"+ lift leaf springs wih something else with less lift. I did have trouble pulling the trailer up a steep uphill with deep loose dirt. I think if my locker was working I'd have made it up. I had a short assist from another vehicle using a strap to get me up through the loose stuff. A vehicle similar to mine pulled his trailer up using his rear locker and made it fine. Coming home on the 405 freeway I had an unexpected chance to completely lock up the brakes at 55 MPH and I never knew it was behind me because it behaved well and stopped in a straight line. Glad I bought the Tekonsha brake controller!
 
Looks great with the 4Runner Jim...glad she "behaved" herself

Is it an option to do a "SUA" ? That would drop you at least 6"...and probably get a bit more level with the TV without having a big rise.

I put the Airlift 1000 bags in..what a pleasure!
 
Based on this concept drawing I've been working towards gathering the various parts

Along the way I decided that I needed backup lights. I've ordered some 6" oval white LED lights that will replace the current red brake/turn lights in the bumper. I am adding on some LED combination stop/turn lights with a red side marker.
Last night I mounted up the left side Blitz fuel can holder and the stop turn light. I am still waiting for delivery of the backup lights and Scepter fuel can holders.
Bunch of photos of the work....

New stoplight roughly in place compared to old oval stoplight
trailer1161.jpg

Fuel can holder with half size Scepter fuel can
trailer117.jpg

trailer1181.jpg

It was getting dark so the flash photos are not the best. Stoplight installed with fuel can holder
 
The new rear LED stop/turn lights are all wired up


I turned my attention to the overall electrical wiring, in particular what was in the nose box. There were no fuses or breakers of any sort and with two big batteries in there almost any short circuit would be cause for a meltdown. I also wanted to add a better solar panel controller with a current/voltage meter, a marine style battery charger and a relay to be able to switch on the new backup lights manually.

It took a bit to figure out how to mount the panel between the two big bolts that fasten the nose box and water tank together. I also wanted to avoid nuts on the back of the panel so I went with drilling and tapping all of the mounting holes. When I start a project I pull everything out and spread it out in the garage. It was cold enough last night that I set up a small heater too.



Here is the panel with all of the holes in it


And here is the panel with all of the components screwed down


I left space to add one more breaker to the left of the 100 Amp unit.


This setup will make it easy to add other items such as a two-way radio in the nose box.
 
Thats a nice set up. Theres nothing that bothers me more than sloppy wiring! Looking forward to the end result.
 
I've been working a lot on trying to finish the trailer wiring off this weekend.
I bored a big hole in the nose box for the fitting that holds the battery tender's AC plug

It is right below the two existing DC cig lighter sockets

Then I plugged in the new LED backup lights to see how they looked


 
Then back to working on the electrical panel and all of the wiring on it.
Started to fill it in.

Then set it into the nose box for a test fit.

Then took it back out to finish the wiring.

The wiring is solid but not as "pretty" as I'd like.
I'll have more pictures after I finish putting it into the nose box and connecting the trailer harness and other things to it.
 
About your latch problem.

It looks to me the base is nothing more than two back to back pieces of angle iron with an extra base lip at the bottom.
What if you took it apart and duplicated the two lower angle iron pieces and drilled the other holes exackly as they are, but added a small tab above that base lip to both pieces with a rounded edge for latch clearance below the pivot bolt. This tab would stick up between the latch. This would allow You to add a hole in the tab for a padlock on the oitside of the latch.

The small bottom brace could be either welded, bent into place with a hammer and vice or replaced with a simple bolt. (I suspect the base is used as a stop for the latch in the down position.)
I tried to draw one in Paint, but it won't upload the picture to my photobucket acccount to show what I'm talking about.
So I hope my diatribe made sense!

I'll work on uploading that Paint picture again.

Nice work on the electrical panel BTY. I like the entire trailer very much! Very clean. Been thinking about building a trailer a lot like this one for myself. I've already worked out a way to make it with bagged independant suspension with wireless remote control electric ram to make it steerable. ALready built that part.

Got a few other projects to finish before I can get serious with it and build the box.

Curtis
 
Nice Trailer Jim, Very High Tech and clean.
 
Thanks for the inout on the latches! It has given me some some new ways of looking for a solution.

Super Slow Rodeo said:
About your latch problem.

It looks to me the base is nothing more than two back to back pieces of angle iron with an extra base lip at the bottom.
What if you took it apart and duplicated the two lower angle iron pieces and drilled the other holes exackly as they are, but added a small tab above that base lip to both pieces with a rounded edge for latch clearance below the pivot bolt. This tab would stick up between the latch. This would allow You to add a hole in the tab for a padlock on the oitside of the latch.

The small bottom brace could be either welded, bent into place with a hammer and vice or replaced with a simple bolt. (I suspect the base is used as a stop for the latch in the down position.)
I tried to draw one in Paint, but it won't upload the picture to my photobucket acccount to show what I'm talking about.
So I hope my diatribe made sense!

I'll work on uploading that Paint picture again.

Nice work on the electrical panel BTY. I like the entire trailer very much! Very clean. Been thinking about building a trailer a lot like this one for myself. I've already worked out a way to make it with bagged independant suspension with wireless remote control electric ram to make it steerable. ALready built that part.

Got a few other projects to finish before I can get serious with it and build the box.

Curtis
Click to expand...
 
I managed to get quite a bit done today and installed the panel. I've reworked almost all of the wiring in the nose box

  1. Extended the trailer harness and wired it into the panel's main "input" terminal strip
  2. Built a new harness for the 7-pin trailer plug with larger guage wires for the power and ground inputs.
  3. Wired up the cig lighter sockets to the Blue Sea fuse box.
  4. Built new cables to parallel the two batteries and connect them to the panel.
  5. Hooked up the battery charger and tested it.
  6. Tested the solar charge controller.
Here is how the nose box looked when I picked the trailer up.
trailer004k.jpg


A few pictures taken as I worked on it all





No cables on the batteries yet


Now cabled


Solar charge controller works!


Cleaned up battery cabling
 
Complete and total awesomeness..!!

My only critic are the locknuts holding the board on, seem to just catch the plastic on the nut, any possible way to get 1/2" longer bolts?

Hate to see that purdy board come down and weld it self to the top of the batteries....that sure would be exciting...:beer:
 
titanpat57 said:
Complete and total awesomeness..!!

My only critic are the locknuts holding the board on, seem to just catch the plastic on the nut, any possible way to get 1/2" longer bolts?

Hate to see that purdy board come down and weld it self to the top of the batteries....that sure would be exciting...:beer:
Click to expand...

Thanks totally! :D

The nuts do seem pretty tight but I know what you mean. A rutted washboard road can work all sorts of mischief.

The bolts that the nuts are on are part of the stainless watertank and secure the nose box's back panel. There are still a couple of nuts behind my panel that could be removed and replaced with the appropriate sized spacer. I'll definitely look into that.

I'll also add that I want to put some sort of insulating cover over the batteries as I wouldn't want anything to get across the terminals.

I didn't grab any new pictures today but I found I had to add a diode across the relay's terminals as it produced a pretty good back EMF pulse that was upsetting the solar charge controller. The relay and switch allow me to turn on the backup lights without the truck around. I also routed the new wires for the new backup lights. I oversized them in case I want to add some brighter flood lights that pull more current.
 
This was another day where I have no pictures because it was dark when I packed things up. :frown: I finished up the wiring under the frame for the backup lights, break-away switch and the chassis ground and made all of the connections in the nose box. It is pretty fun to be able to toggle the backup lights on manually. :lol:

Next on the list are:

  1. new location for the license plate and its light
  2. orange side marker lights
  3. shorten up the overly long power cables for the inverter
  4. AT gas can holders
  5. mounting tube for the 16 foot telescoping aluminum antenna mast
  6. install Ikea LED light strips in the tent
  7. drip rail for the hinged side of the lid
  8. some way to mount my awning
As long as I get the license plate back on I am heading out for a test run this weekend. :bounce:
 
I wasted two hours last night when trying to troubleshoot why my new backup lights did not come on when the trailer was plugged into the truck. At least the panel and all my wiring were easily accessible for measurements.

Long story short, when you have eliminated all of the possible failure points, only the impossible ones remain. It was the stupid %@$#& connecting cable which had only 6 wires connecting the two 7 pin blade RV style plugs on both ends. No wire for the center pin.

After that I mounted up the license plate and its new LED illuminator. :D
 
Some updates and photos! I tried to finish all of this off before I took the trailer to Death Valley for 3 days

Before photo with a new "after" photo of the nose box.
trailer004k.jpg


After from roughly the same view angle


This is how I brought the backup light wires, breakaway switch wires and frame ground out of the nose box.


Wires under the trailer are run and inside split loom


This is all of the wires for the rear lights just before I sealed up the last bundle with self-sealing fusion tape


Cig lighter sockets rewired. Just below the battery tender inlet you can see the entry point for the wires that go out through the plastic elbow on the bottom of the nose box.


Various shots of labeling. These labels helped me out when I was troubleshooting!




Backup lights relay and switch. The relay just passes through the voltage from the truck. Flip the switch and local battery power is applied
 
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