allenfab's 95 Tacoma build

Yeah, that's a good thing. You never know what might happen when you get that far from home. In my case, which means it's a mental exercise, I still want to do a 12-14' cargo trailer camper conversion. I'm trying to figure out how to do that without having a 40' long trailer to carry the camper and the trail rig. I guess the easy solution would be to buy a cab & chassis 1 ton truck and put the cargo box on the back of it...or just buy a camper.

 

That’s a dream of mine too. Realistically, I’d like to find a camper shell for my ford so I can just sleep in it and keep my tools and stuff try and safe. Been looking for one, but not paying $1k+ for one

 

Well, that would work too, but me being an old fart, I want something I can stand up in...luckily I'm also a short shit so 6' of head room would be plenty for me...so I can stand up to get dressed and not have to crawl around on my tender knees to get in bed. Also there's A/C and heat to consider, lol. While looking at cargo trailer/camper conversions, there was one place that did them that had a rather novel idea. Rather than have a roof mounted typical camper A/C unit, they had a door in the side of the camper that opened down flat to the outside and you could just stuff one of those cheap 5000 BTU window unit A/Cs in the hole. Heating would just be a simple matter of a space heater.

The fun part about the cargo trailer is you could put solar panels on the roof and my old thought was a couple of golf cart batteries, but recently, I saw a video were guys were powering there trolling motor powered boat with a single Tesla battery block, which out lasts two deep cycle marine batteries both for useful charge and for number of charge cycles. It cost more upfront but saved money in the long term. Two Tesla battery blocks might run the A/C for the entire trip augmented by the solar panels.

 

You could just model off of what Dom has done with his small camper, just on a bigger scale. He’s got batteries, solar panels, but I think he mostly runs off a generator to save the batteries. I personally wouldn’t be concerned with heat or a/c there. Wheeling/camping in the fall/winter will make sleeping comfortable (I love the cold weather, and never use a heater in my house).

a small inverter generator would be useful though, quiet enough to run at night but still provide you with the power needed to stay cool/warm

 

I love the cold too, but I do like to be warm while getting dressed or getting out of the shower. Mom and I used to have a contest every year to see who broke down and turned on the heat first. I can remember a few times it was in the 40s inside the house. The A/C thing though...there have been a number of Fall Camp & Rides that A/C would be nice. Plus, if you have a trail rig with A/C and a camper with A/C...that opens up the way for summer trips.

I haven't really seen anything about Dom's camper.

 

Dom’s camper is a pretty slick setup. Has a small window AC. Ceramic heater. Solar, batteries and a whole storage kitchen setup in the back. Plus a full batwing awning.

 

Do a simple 24’ cargo trailer conversion if you don’t want a big gooseneck. Should leave you with room for the truck and a small sink and wet bath if you wanted in addition to space for a bed where the truck rides in transit. You can run a mini split ac or just a regular rooftop RV unit and a Buddy heater if it’s ever cold.

 

Bought this last week. Been looking for an ac/dc tig machine but this popped up for $600 and had maybe 3 stick rods welded with it so I couldn’t say no. Simple inverter dc stick and tig machine. It will be thrown in the truck on long wheeling trips For emergency repairs back at camp as it can run on 220v and 110v and run off my generator.

 

If you want some rods, I might be able to get you a bunch cheap or even free if you want to come to Tampa this Saturday. I plan to go be a vulture and pick the bones of my uncle's shop tomorrow. I plan on getting the MIG welder, what I think is a plasma cutter sitting beside it, a set of tanks and torches (you might could get a oxy/act torch setup stupid cheap too, I know we had a bunch of them on the trucks so there should be several sets. Not sure about the tanks) and every vise I can pry loose and carry. I think there might even be an XY table. I'm sure there's some other stuff too, like a bench grinder and he has a band saw, but the last time I saw it, it looked to be in a bit of rough shape. Could be just that it just needs a new band, and if that's all it is, I might snag it too. Of course, it's probably older than I am so finding a band to fit it might be why it's sitting there in disrepair. At any rate, I'm going to pillage everything I can.

There's also a big ass Miller stick welder (I'm taking like 2" maybe more square and probably 18" tall on a wheeled cart). It might be three phase so you might not could use it, but if you wanted it, you could probably get it cheap. But anyway, there's a whole ancient refrigerator full of welding rods. Only ones I know are in there are 6011s, but there might be others. 6011s are probably what you would want to use for trail repairs anyway.

 

Is he closing shop or something? I may be interested in a few various things

 

Yup. He's been in the process of selling off assets for months now. If you're interested, I can call him let him know you'd like to come have a look and see if there's anything you want. I've heard shit is disappearing fast though so sooner would probably be better. Assuming there's anything left after I finish, lol. I'm sure there will be. There's some stuff that I have to have and some stuff that I'd like to have but just don't have a place to put.

 

Hmm, might be able to make it over there Friday after work if not Saturday. I got a pile of tools I need to take to Frank’s anyway

 

Copy that. I'll see what I can set up. My aunt, his wife just passed away a couple weeks ago, so I'm not sure what he's got going on Friday, but I'm pretty sure he'll be free Saturday. Not sure what it's called but there one of those manual pedestals for removing a tire from a wheel I plan to acquire if I can.

 

10/4. Just let me know. Idk if I’m working Saturday yet but we can work something out

 

Copy that. What sort of time frame are we talking for Friday afternoon if we can swing that?

 

I get off at 2. So from 3 till whenever

 

Okay, that's definitely workable if he is going to be there.

Man, it's kinda sad in a way. That place has seen 4 generations of my family. At one time, before my grandfather retired, it had over 100 employees and three different divisions. I worked there every summer during high school and after school in my senior year. Before that I worked there during the summers mowing the grass since I was 12 or something. After my uncle took over though, he down-sized it to like 3 crews and closed up the other 2 divisions. I bailed and went to A&P school because I honestly didn't think there would be anything for me to run by the time it was my turn and I don't think I made the wrong call there. Before he decided to shut it down it was down to one crew with three guys and they didn't know if they would have work week to week.

On the other hand, if I had just had more imagination when I was a kid, I would have went to machinist and welding school, talked my grandfather into investing in the business, building me a fab shop on the property, hired some crusty experienced machinists that I could learn from (because everyone knows school only teaches you the theory which usually has squat to do with how things work IRL, lol) and I could have had that to run while raking in extra cash renting the rest of the property out, which I probably would have shared with the rest of the family. I would imagine I could have made a damn good living making custom axles out of 300M and all that and milling and machining other parts for off road vehicles, plus whatever mundane stuff that came in for fab work. I could have made a million by making a high pinion D60 drop-out third with a weldable steel axle housing. The down side to that though is I would be in the same position my uncle is now, and my other uncle in VA when he retired. They had no family to take over the business for them so they had to sell off the assets and close the doors, which in my VA uncle's case was a bitter pill to swallow since he built that company from the ground up and it had a damn good reputation.

 

Sad to see something like that close it’s doors that has been around for so long. What all did they do there?

 

It started off as a concrete company in Ohio. It's listed as my grandfather's place of employment on his WW2 draft card. Then it moved down here during or shortly after the war. When my great grandfather retired, my grandfather renamed it and we were a telephone contractor, placing conduit, building manholes, pulling cable, etc. We also did road boring (pushing casing pipe under roads) for various customers. I personally pushed three 30" pipes under the road in I think Winter Haven for Agrico so they could walk their dragline across the road. Did some work for TECO as well. Then things got a little tight in the late 70s and he started up an equipment rental division to rent out the equipment we weren't using and it eventually took off on it's own becoming a separate subsidiary. Then in the late 80s we added a splicing and aerial line division shortly before my grandfather retired.

 

Oh and BTW, I went over there and we're good for Friday afternoon. I'll admit there's not much left of interest. The stick welder is still there and it is a single phase 220 machine so if you're interested you can likely get it. He says there's not a lot of welding rods left and I didn't look, but he did say that it was mostly 6011s and he bought them not too long ago. He also said there were some oddball ones like for stainless steel. I think you should get the whole antique fridge to keep your rods in. Clean it up a bit and it'd be pretty cool. Said they used to have a light rigged up inside it to keep it warm and dry in there but it didn't work anymore.

Other than that, there's a pretty big A frame on wheels with a chain fall. It might be handy to have in case you ever want to pull the cab off your truck or pick up something heavy off your trailer or something like that.

I didn't get the MIG or the torches yet. They are mine, but he said I couldn't take them until they finished working for good.

One thing he does have that is very interesting but probably not of use to us is an enormous bench grinder (has like 12 or 14" stone wheels on it). Unfortunately that one is 3 phase 220.