Casper's "I did a bad thing" micro off road camper build

Ahh nice! I found a overland trailer in VA beach for the unbelievable price of 2500$ that I really wanted. Damn house! Even came on 35s!

 

$2500 is a crazy rediculous stupid good deal

 

Looked like it was in really good shape

 

Woulda been really hard to pass on that he’ll if nothing else do a little work and flip it.

 

Remember you want it to be a little heavy in the tongue. It helps stabilize it going down the road.

https://youtu.be/i2fkOVHAC8Q

 

Oh no worries there when I get the steel box built for the tongue I’ll be adding a couple hundred pounds up there.

 

Spare tire relocation:

So with the tongue exstension and the storage box that will be going there I lost my mounting point for the spare tire. I pulled a little inspiration from a guy on the Tiger Moth FB page, how he had a fabricator mount his spare for him. He went with 2 I'm sticking with a single. If i need another it can go in the roof basket.

With the extra weight that's going on the front with the box and fridge I decided to mount the spare low and to the rear to give at least some off setting weight. I got some 3/16 plate and 2" square tubint and went to work.

First I cut a couple of 3/16 frame plates, drilled 4 holes in each to mount to the frame with 3/8 bolts, taper cut the bottom of the plates and 2" square holes for the tubing to go through. the frame plates were mounted to the frame in the rear 1 on each side of the frame and the bolt holes are straddling a frame cross member so the tubing will line up with the cross member. After mounting the frame plates I cut the tubing a little long and ran it through the frame plates, lined it up and tacked it in place. The vertical post was then plumbed and tacked in place.




I removed it from the camper and put it on a stand and welded everything solid, All the tubing was capped, and the outer corner was gussetted and boxed







The top of the vertical post was capped with angle and later cleaned up and holes drilled which will allow me to make a removeable table or shelf that will rest on the tire and can easily be removed and stowed for transport..


Everything was cleaned up, sprayed with etching primer, and sprayed with bedliner



I got it mounted to the frame everything lined up so far so good


I mounted the spare and didn't really like what I saw. Everything worked fine but the tire stuck out past the fender of the camper and well it just wasn't what I wanted.




Ok I'm a little anal about things but just not what I wanted. The tire was secure but I just didn't care for how far it stuck out. I measured the distance between the tire and the vertical post, removed the tire, removed the mount, cut 2" from the arm exstension that went from the vertical post to the mounting plate for the tire, welded everything solid, and remounted the assembly to the camper. This is what I get for thinking it was fine to repurpose the factory spare mount and use it with this bracket, it works now. When I remounted the spare it now contacts the vertical post, the wheel mounting plate, and is even with the fender. So, all ended up good just what happens when you think you can cut corners to save time.



Now on to building the tongue box but it's humid as crap outside so took a break

 

Good day playing! Spare tire mount done and got a good start on the box for the tongue

 

Dang son! Look at you go

Nice work Chris. You're definitely giving the new welder a workout!

 

Shit i cut and welded all 3 days last weekend then came home tonight and finished up a table project. The box itelf is done except the doors. The took forever to weld trying to take my time and not get the steel too hot.

 

Table:

I planned on makeing an extra table that would mount to the top of the vertical post on the spare tire mount. I had to get the tongue box mostly built so I could see just what size to build as it will be stowed on the box for transport.
It ended up being about 21.5x 25 I added some angle inside the box on the storage side to act as runners to slide the table into. The table itself just pins into the top of the post and rests on the tire.




Here t's sticking out of the top of the box so you can see where it goes. I figured it would be dead space anyway so may as well put it to use

 

Bathroom / shower:

So we got our start on our bathroom / shower today. Our Greenelephant utillitent!



So now we have a place to go to the bathroom and shower we just need the pottie and water source.


Slowly, we're getting there slowly. Good friends and good advice has been invaluable. As far as I'm concerned as soon as I finish the fridge storage box and get all that working and we get a pottie I'm ready to go boon docking if only for a weekend at this point.

 

Dude there is no insulation thats going to be a noisy tent!

 

Chris, Why was the choice to not use aluminum?

Steel has to add 200-400lbs of weight?

 

Ha ha yeah go in there and blow it up! It wouldn't be bad if just me and my wife, I'd probably be laughing, but if there were a group it could be embarrassing. Or just say fuck it and let 'er rip

 

I wouldn't hold back play by play reporting

 

between all the stuff I've made I should be around 400 pounds at most of aded weight. Cost was a big deterant as aluminum is far more exsspensive. Example, I got a piece of 1/8 aluminum diamond plate today to use as a sun deflector on top of the fridge box. It's cut the same size as the box 2'x4' at $145 so just the aluminum fo the 4 sides would have been $600 not to include all the other structural stuff and doors I'd have needed material for i could have had $1000 tied up just in materials for the box where with steel I got all the materials for all 3 projects including the piece of aluminum for around $600. Another main reason is I don't have the means to weld aluminum at this time it would have been another $800 for a spool gun and an Argon tank. I appreciate the idea of the weight savings I could have had building the box out of aluminum and never having to worry about rust but I also felt the steel would be more rugged when we get away from campgrounds. The tongue extension and spare tire mont pretty much had to be steel anyway. Bruce ya have to realize this camper is so light rt now I can easily pick the tongue up with 1 hand and move it around so adding a couple of hundred pounds up front hasn't worried me but is a driving factor to moving the spare and mounting system to the rear to offset some of that

 

LOL yeah I think the use of 2 of their senses would secure they knew what was happening

 

I didn't mean to be so long winded with that explanation but alot of thought went into this and that was about as concise as I could be

 

I kind of figured it was cost but I didn't realize how much and I was wondering about the tongue upgrade and tire relocate....

I get to put my welding skills to work tomorrow as I have do do some very small projects..... Hope I can make bacon and stack some coins still after 20 years.