My Off Road Worthy 6x10 Cargo Trailer Camper Build

Happy Mothers Day to all you mothers! Hope all the men spoiled your wife/mother a bunch today too.

We had started to go for a hike, but it started snowing and dumped 6” of wet slushy snow where we were headed, so had to turn around and crawl home down the mountains with a lot of out of towners who weren’t prepared for that. Didn’t get any good photos, because plans changed fast, but back in town it was a nice low cloud and rainy day, which is uncommon for us here in the “high desert”.

Just to rub it in some, here’s the view of what’s effectively our backyard.



Anyhow, it made a good excuse to finished up a few little things in prep for the first adventure. Namely the bedding for the kiddo.

I had just designed and planned for my daughter to sleep under the bed (like waist down would be tucked under there) but the wife didn’t like that idea and wanted a raised bed for her for now. So, with limited options, I came up with a simple board that bridges our bed and the front bench.



We have the tru-fold mattress from the last camper and had no use for it (it was a full size, we moved to a queen in this camper) so the wife helped disassemble it into individual sections from the three folding sections it was and we begun repurposing it as the custom shaped toddler bed and front bench cushions.



We’ll try this setup for now and when she outgrows it, we’ll switch to her going back under the bed (farthest away from the door) and go back to a full bench seat with padding. Its the size of a crib mattress…with one corner lopped off, so sheets and such will fit with a corner tucked under.



Here’s the moisture barrier platform under the mattress. Just raises the mattress up ~1/2” and has plenty of room for air to circulate to keep any moisture from building up under the mattress.

 

Love seeing the progress and thanks for some great ideas. I just finished building up my 6x10 for now. Keeping it simple to keep the dual purpose cargo trailer/camper. Fully insulated, wired for 120v, vinyl plank flooring and added 2 windows for some airflow. Just big enough for the wife and kids to camp out in and still haul around my dual sport, etc.

 

It’s been a couple weeks ago now, but caught up on life a bit and figured I’d come back to post a bit about our first trip.

We had tried to go to a really nice spot we’ve been to before, but trails were closed and we ended up wandering around a bit and found a good enough spot as the sun set.

Trailer towed well, the Tundra definitely makes towing more effortless compared to the Tacoma that does feel like it struggled (mainly just the gearing and weak rear suspension).

Nothing notable broke or jumped out as an issue after a rough ~50 miles towing off road. The zip tie holding the trailer brake cable to the axle broke…which was the only failure.

I did take note that we need a longer fire pit propane hose, we need more usable table space in the galley when we build out the kitchen pullout (to store opened dry food, toiletry bags, kid gear, etc). The heater worked perfectly, the light situation was near ideal for our needs…overall it’s marked as a success.

 

Haven’t had much time to dedicate to the trailer, but did carve out some time for a few things.

I finally bought some flooring and installed it. It’s just installed loose and floating, I’m going to see how bad it moves around with the temperature swings and off roading before I go back through and secure it.





Some of you might recall that I had an issue with sneaking the trailer beside my house and into the back yard. It’s a bit tight of a spot and this trailers wider that any previous ones I’ve stuffed back there. Add to that the new larger Tundra tow vehicle, and I was struggling with being delicate enough to back the trailer into the backyard without hitting the gutters on the side of the house.

I found an electric trailer dolly for a steal of a deal ($225) and made a few modifications to it so I could hook it up to the Lock-N-Roll coupler and use the trailer brakes on it.

I started by building a simple battery bracket to hold a small 12V battery (that was the trailers original break-away brake battery) so I could use the trailers brakes when moving it. I need a 7-pin extension now, before that’ll work, but that’s on its way.






Then I bought a short tube of 2” ID pipe and cut up some left over plate I had to fabricate a LNR mimicking coupler that’ll attach to the trailer.

This attachment slips over a 2” round post that’s meant to act as a quasi 2” ball for a common ball coupler.






Mostly a success…but the attachment needs modified so it doesn’t spin on the post and as you can see by the tire marks, the slight incline and weight of the trailer gave me some grip challenges. Going to need to see what I can do to improve on that (better tires, lower mount, etc).

 

It’s been a busy summer of traveling and events, so haven’t gone camping too much, but have gone a few times and the camper is doing great.




Only issues we’ve had is the self tapping screws holding the fenders on. On our last trip, several of them worked themselves loose or out completely.

I had planned to build some rock rails around the trailer and mount the fenders to those, but in the name of saving time, effort and weight, had talked myself out of it. With the new development, I decided a modified approach would split the difference yet give me sturdy fenders and a step to help reach and clean the solar panels.

Base framework built from 12 gauge, 1.5” square tube.



Added some expanded metal to the step platform that’ll be on the leading edge of the fender.



I didn’t grab a picture, but welded on two fender mounting tabs to each support so I could drill and bolt the actual fenders to the supports.

Drilled and bolted them through the trailer frame.





Really the only notable things I have left are the ceiling and the slide out kitchen. I’ll probably try to get to those later this fall.

 

I replaced the grade 5 bolts on the fender mounts (for mounts to the trailer frame, not fenders to the mounts) with larger 5/16” grade 8 bolts as the 1/4” grade 5 bolts were allowing a little flex when I stood on the fender mounts.

Figured I’d grab a quick photo of the fender mounting tabs I previously forgot to show:

 

Went for a quick little fall color weekend trip. Got pretty wet and cold and I do have to say, we’re really enjoying the Propex propane heater. It sips propane and does a great job of keeping us toasty.

New fender setup worked out well too.

 

I'll have to go back and check out the propex install. Getting ready to put one in our squaredrop.

What kind of fitting did you use to route the propane into the camper (bulkhead?)? I want to do that and then split through a manifold to fuel the stove, too.

 

I ran hard copper pipe through the floor in order to keep the regulator outside the living space. I ran a single hose directly from the tank to the regulator.



I, too, might plan to run a separate propane feed back to the rear of the trailer for cooking and plan to run a Y-splitter just before the heaters regulator and will route that line under the trailer frame to get to the rear.

I want to keep the connections inside the trailer to a minimum to avoid needless potential leak points. Also, while we’re on the topic, since it’s something I didn’t know before doing this, there’s specific thread sealant tape for gaseous/propane applications. Certain fittings are designed to use teflon tape and certain tapered gas connections are designed NOT to use tape.

Here’s what I used

$7 Vanguard Sealants Teflon Gas Pipe Thread Sealant - PTFE Yellow Teflon Tape for Gas Fittings - 260" Length Pipe Thread Tape 1/2" High Resistance Leak Prevention - Propane Thread Seal Tape

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075WD63MT

Here’s an overall shot of how I ran my fresh air intake and exhaust too.



I’m not running the “quiet” kit from Propex, which is the insulated air ducting for inside the camper and the muffler on the exhaust.

It’s not too loud at all, but I can see how certain people might want it. We can hear a little of the heater running at night, but it’s just a quiet sound of air moving. The exhaust is louder and has a burbling sound that’s maybe a little annoying, but we can’t hear it inside the trailer and can’t even hear it when we’re outside the camper but on the opposite side of where it is positioned. If you’re on the fence about the kit, it is easy to retrofit so I’d say it’s worth trying the setup without it and seeing if you think you’d prefer it before just purchasing it.

We’ve been on half a dozen trips, using the heater for 8-10 hours each trip, and still haven’t used but maybe 1/3rd of the 20 lb propane tank, keeping the cabin at 62-65 degrees.

One last piece of advice for the heater: find a small paper clip that fits into the small reset button on the heater controls and store it somewhere you know it can safely stay and get accessed. Our heater has been perfectly reliable the handful of times we’ve used it, but I do have a 3 year old who loves to push buttons (and we sometimes have bumped the buttons accidentally ourselves) and if the heater is turned ON without the gas turned on, it will try to ignite and fail and pop a trouble code. With that trouble code on, you then can’t get the heater to operate normally even with gas turned on. You’ll need the paper clip to reset the code and cycle the heater controls to get back to an operational state.

 

This is great! I had not considered keeping the regulator or the manifold on the outside - I think I will do that now. I've got a couple connections for the stove, but the tank is off if we're not actively using it.

Having the stove on a slide presents a couple challenges for plumbing.

 

Our cook top will be on a slide out drawer too (whenever I get around to making that finally), and I was planning on using something like this to manage the propane hose, or just hard mount it and leave a short 12” pigtail that’d need connected every time.

https://speedzone-web.com/products/...s-rt5ah9Il37fFsLNErKBk43oJpY858IaAqubEALw_wcB

 

Do you worry about the intake and exhaust hoses and the regulator getting covered in mud/dust/snow? Or is that area of the trailer in a "cleaner" zone of the trailer underside?

 

Concerning dust, it is about the cleanest area on the trailer, though definitely not dust free.

Generally I’m not too worried about mud and snow. Both the intake and exhaust at angle rearward and pitched down slightly. They shouldn’t get clogged with anything, though I’d definitely check them at camp before using the heater, if it has been that kind of trail.

 

As happens, we’ve been busy with life, raising a kid, spending time with family, working and traveling. I haven’t been working on finishing up the camper, though I’ve tinkered on a few little things.


That said, over Christmas break, the wife and kiddo went to visit with family and my father and I decided to make a point to spend some time together and do some winter Christmas camping.


We spent 4 days around Colorado, mainly the Buena Vista area, camping, fishing, exploring, freezing.


Elephant Rock




The Arkansas River




A little river fishing (with some failed attempts at fly fishing) and some improvised ice fishing.



We also found out that surprisingly, Colorado did once have huge redwood trees…and thanks to some volcanic mud flow, many of them has their trunks petrified.



The awning I had got damaged in the wind (set it up and a wind gust folded it over before I got to staking it down) so I found a new in box FSR 180 degree awning for a steal and installed it.



We got down to about 0-5 degrees at night and stayed plenty warm in the camper. Evenings were pretty bitter around the fire, but we managed and enjoyed our time together.



We explored some ghost towns, old mines and random trails.



We ended our trip at some hot springs to melt the chill away and headed home.

The trailer performed great, despite still not being finished. It was a great trip with dad.