My Off Road Worthy 5x8 Camper Build

Congratulations!!!

 

Reading this thread was an experience. Highs and lows, a serious journey. Congratulations! and I am supremely jealous of the skill and craftsmanship that went into making that very basic utility trailer into a mean looking camper with serious utility.

 

Man, if y’all think building your own camper is a task…try having a kid! I’m tired guys…really tired.

No new trailer to share yet, still waiting and searching, but sold the GX due to this crazy used car market (got $7k over what I paid for it, which even covered the mods and two years of use) and jumped back into a 2021 Tacoma TRD OR DCLB so we can keep venturing.

Did a few basic mods, but keeping it chill for a while this time (kids are expensive).



Good news is, the daughter is definitely a fan of outdoors and adventures, so we’ll probably keep her and let her join in on exploring this beautiful world we live in.



Still trying to find the right trailer to fit our needs. Have rented a few, looked at a dozen in detail, have contemplated building another one (6x10 or something), going to a Four Wheel Camper slide in or buying a non-off roady cheap trailer and hauling to hell and back until it craps out.

Time will tell, but I’ll be back to share whatever route we go. I’m back in a Tacoma though, so wanted to check back in with you TW bros and say hey.

 

Finally an update for everyone, here’s our new camper that I surely plan to modify for a better use: 2019 Aliner Titanium 12



First improvements will be a longer tongue and lock-n-roll hitch and eventually new suspension. While it sits high, I hate the torsion axle setup and much prefer a good leaf spring setup with shocks (or maybe I’ll try a independent A arm style with coils and shocks).

 

Just FYI…

Sold the A-Liner (just never did grow to like it) and currently working towards acquiring a 6x10 cargo trailer to start a fresh build.

Stay tuned.

 

Any news on the new trailer?

 

We’ve got one ordered! We customized it as much as we could from the factory, so they said 6-8 weeks build time and I’m collecting parts in the mean time.

Boy have trailer prices skyrocketed since the last one we bought new 5 years ago!

It’s a 6x10 Impact Quake, shortened 8” in height, no side door, no vents, dual rear cargo doors (side opening), blackout trim and we asked for a custom axle, but they weren’t able to provide the one we wanted.

 

That's nice they were able to (willing to) make those modifications for you. Excited to see what you come up with on this build.

 

Torsion or…

 

The axle we’re after is a standard Dexter 3,500 lb, but with electric drum brakes and a 6x5.5 hub. They don’t sell one off the shelf like that (it steps up to a 7,000 lb axle for twice the money) but you can piece one together, so we’re opting to do that.

Concerning suspension, we’re going with the Jeep CJ-7 leaf springs and shocks again, like the last one.

I’ve experienced torsion axles/suspension and Timbren and in my experience, neither ride even close to as smooth as a well balanced (read: length and weight rating) leaf spring and shock setup.

The CJ7 setup has great manners for what we do, is cheap, offers enough articulation for us and the ground clearance isn’t an issue for us either (it’ll still have more ground clearance than my Tacoma).

I considered independent trailing arms with shocks and springs…but manufactured universal fit ones are expensive, hard to find stateside and required a lot of custom work. Custom ones would take too much time to build and test, so I bailed on that idea quick and defaulted back to what I know worked wonderfully for us last time.

 

Definitely, though we only have one guy in Colorado we can order through and he’s been less than stellar, but I’ve talked to the factory in Indiana and they’ve been good to talk to and we felt they’re charging reasonable prices for the custom bits.

Base trailer is ~$5,300
8” chop = $300
Delete side door and vents = Free, but no savings
Cargo rear doors = Free
Blackout trim = Last minute change I requested and haven’t got confirmation or price on yet.

Custom axle was going to be $350, but they cancelled that and we can do it for about $350 too and then sell the unused axle and 5 lug wheels for $250 easily.

 

Blackout trim came out to $572…which is the first price that feels ridiculous (outside of the base trailer price), but it’s powder coated aluminum, not just black plastic trim…so maybe it’s reasonable enough.

Total budget is roughly $11,000 (or so the wifey says) and we’re already ~$7,000 in on the trailer with no DIY mods, but it’ll be doable.

It won’t be a ‘budget build’ I guess, but there is a budget and it should be everything we need for a price that’s quite a bit cheaper than anything else that’s comparable at this time.

 

Can you just plastidip the non black parts? I mean to me order what you want but just a though 4 cans of $9 plastidip it’s pretty cheap.

 

Indeed that was an option I considered. Two main reasons I opted not to this time though:

Having built a few of these and choosing that route before, I believe the powder coating will hold up better, both to sun fade and rock chips.

There’s also the time factor…we’ve always been frugal on building these in the past and with a young kiddo at home now, we’ve been more interested in paying more for task/things that give us more quality family time.

Building the last trailer took a lot of time, time that consisted of loads of little tasks that add up to a lot of collective time. This one little item is insignificant, but it paired with lots of other little tasks does add up to weekends free with the family, and I currently value that more than a few hundred bucks here and there.

 

A month of delays and after 4 months all together, we have our custom 6x10 cargo trailer!




Work slows down this time of year, so I’m going to take a few days off here and there and try to get this thing built out for use (not entirely finished) before winter truly sets in here in Colorado.

Here’s the new build thread: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/my-off-road-worthy-6x10-cargo-trailer-camper-build.811153/