My Off Road Worthy 6x10 Cargo Trailer Camper Build

Took some time today to wrap up the insulation. Still need to tape it in after finishing up the wiring and a few other things.

Quick tip: before you put the ceiling insulation in (and the wall insulation if you just have screwed in skins on the side walls) go through and caulk the roof/wall skins to the studs/cross supports. This helps prevent the wind from slapping the thin aluminum skin against the stud during the night while you sleep…a quick and cheap step to help keep the camper more quiet and enjoyable.




Finished the second coat of penetrating epoxy as well. Applied it very liberally and ensured I really soaked the recessed areas and imperfections in the OSB to get full coverage.



That’s it for now, headed off to New York for a little family trip and will finished electrical, install the flooring and begin some interior buildout when we return.

Cheers

 

Got a few more little items checked off the list.

Purchased some whatever-looked-decent-for-cheap sound deadening material from Amazon, enough to do the inside of the roof. About $100 for 72 square feet and that’s was enough for the ceiling and a few square feet to spare.

Install was straight forward, cut sheet to size, peel backing off, stick on and roll it out with a roller. Did it in sections so not to get too confused on which insulation panels went where.




I forgot to take a few more photos, but I also installed the new main trailer floor.

I’m going to try to avoid screwing the floor down…I don’t want to penetrate the epoxy sealed OSB with screws, so I opted to buy several more tubes of SikaFlex 221 (4 total to do the floor) and am trying out the ideal of just sealing the boards down with it. There’ll also be interior structure that’ll eventually hold the floor in place.

I lined the edges of the interior frame and all cross supports with the sealant. I also put a healthy bead between where each section of floor (three sections total, two joints) meet up with eachother and I sealed up some joints/crevices underneath, between the frame and the floor.

I plan to go back and cover the underside of the floor joints and connections to the framing with some “Sascho Big Stretch” acrylic latex caulking to help weathertight and airtight the areas.





Put some weights on the floor to help hold it down as the sealant dries.

I also went through and Sika insulation taped all the potential air breaks in the insulation. Two rolls ran out with a few dozen feet of the ceiling left yet…so will finished that up next.



I also installed a Noco standard 15A 120V plug in the front corner of the trailer. While we don’t plan to utilize 120V AC power in the trailer, I wanted the option the pass power into the trailer just in case we camped at a powered camp site and it’ll be a good option to plug in and power a battery tender.

 

Looking very good.

 

Happy Veterans Day and thank you to anyone here that’s served for our freedoms.

Had some time off today, thanks to you bad mama jamas, and decided to take the trailer for a little shakedown cruise, wash and weight it.

Before I even left, I notice an issue…the awning makes for very tight clearance between the trailer and the house as I exit the side yard.



Would be ok, except I don’t have a straight shot getting the trailer into the back yard, so there’s lots of turning the truck and trailer to sneak it back there and this just isn’t enough clearance.

Trimmed up the awning mounts and mounted them below the cross bars so I could tuck them in another ~3”.




Anyhow, back to the weight…took a trip to the job and used our scale to get a weight in…1860 lbs.



I was bummed, as that’s well over where I expected to be at this point and figured we’d be flirting with a final packed and wet weight of ~2,200. Tongue weight comes in at 240 lbs currently, which will be ok going forward.

Drove off the scales and realized they weren’t zeroed, so the weight was reading 300 lbs heavy! So we’re sitting at 1,560 lbs currently, which I can live with.

Ran some errands to get some miles in and grabbed an updated rig and trailer photo.




Got back home and started back in on wrapping up the wiring. I ran out of wire, again. I’m really bad at estimating the amount of wire I need, dare I say one more 100’ roll will finish it up. Here’s what 200’ of wiring looks like (not pictured is the undercarriage lights)….actually, as I’m typing this I’m realizing the 100’ rolls I’m buying might by 100’ of total wire, aka 50’ of black 14 gauge paired to 50’ of red 14 gauge…man that’d make me feel less crazy.




I moved on to installing the ceiling vent fan. The 14” square fan we ran last time was way too much air movement for this small of a trailer, so this time we’re trying the 6” MaxxAir fan meant for a shower in an RV.




Install went smooth, again used SikaFlex 221 to mount the fan in the hole, then a few of the supplied stainless screws to secure it tight.

Ordered a set of dirt cheap fenders ($35 each) from Recstuff.com and was pleasantly surprised at what showed up. The same basic oversized Jeep style fenders I got last time, they’re steel and 16 gauge. Got to painting them.





That’s all for now, waiting for more wiring then install the fenders and start building out the inside.

 

I’m debating heaters and wouldn’t mind some opinions or experiences.

Main debate I’m having is propane or diesel, specifically a Propex HS2000 or Webasto Air Top 2000. My main concern is reliability with use in cold conditions (sub 32 degrees) at altitudes of 9,000-11,000 feet.

I was leaning towards the Propex, as I already plan to carry propane and having some extra (two 20 lb bottles) between use for the stove, fire pit as well as the heater makes it seem better. My concerns are the cold temps the bottles (stored outside) would be subject to and how reliable the system would be in the high altitude cold.

Diesel seems to handle the cold better, but gives me long term concerns of the system sooting up and having running issues. I’ve read some can run off kerosene for a cleaner burn and to help avoid sooting up, but that eliminates one of the key pros in my mind for diesel, which is cheap (relative) and readily available energy dense diesel fuel.

Are my 0-32 degree cold weather concerns about propane valid or exaggerated?

Is diesel the better alternative because of that or is it just a different set of problems in terms of reliable operation?

 

We don’t camp in that cold of weather unfortunately. Standard most come with propane tanks and refills can be a simple exchange. Diesel makes me worry about safe storage of it too.

 

Took a little break, but have been working on things here and there.

Moving on to building out the inside, I installed furring strips on all the factory steel studs and begun hanging the ceiling.

I reused the original walls for the ceiling and bought new 1/2” thick walls.



To cut the holes for the windows and doors, I mocked the panel in place, traced the openings and then went back and measured the appropriate clearance from the traced line to what the trim will need to fit on the interior.




Ceiling and wall panels were glued to the furring strips with some standard construction adhesive and held in place with some brad nails. Ceiling panels did end up getting a few screws as they didn’t want to stay and I only had one spreader bar on hand to hold it up in spots. They’re screwed to the furring strips though, so no thermal bridging will occur.




I was originally going to do a painted white ceiling, but the wifey talked me into wood stained slats that run the length of the trailer. They’ll be spaced out 1/2-3/4 inch from each other, so a bit of ceiling will show through, so she wanted to go with a black background on the ceiling. We opted for a grey black, cracked pepper, as she felt the standard black was a bit boring.




To address the lack of studs and thus easy ability to mount wood to the slanted V-nose portion of the ceiling, I choose to go with an alcantara style headliner material and spray adhesive it in place. This upper portion of the v-nose will become a short upper cabinet area, so the alcantara will work nice as an interior backing to the cabinet space.





I also ran the wiring for solar panel's, I forgot this step when I put the ceiling in and thus had to install the wire pass through a bit more on the slanted v-nose than I would of preferred, cosmetically.



I’ve also decided to shorten the trailer tongue about 8 inches and modify the lock-n-roll hitch to be 4 inches closer to the truck. I debated on this a bit and decided the entire setup is just too long and the extra 12 inches I could take out of it would be worth the effort but still be a sweet spot for my wants/needs.

Hitch before and after I shoved it into the receiver further and drilled a new hole.



On the trailer side, I can’t really move the jack rearward more or it runs into the a-frame of the tongue when in its horizontal stored position, so I’m just going to cut 8 inches out between the jack mount and the coupler mount and move the coupler back and weld the safety chain mounts underneath the extended tongue tube. Haven’t done it yet, waiting for a part for my welder.

 

Have you thought about a removable tongue jack? You could mount the jack anywhere on the tongue if you don't have to worry about where the foot is when pivoted up.

I have removable jacks on my teardrop and utility trailer - they work well.

 

This one is a removable unit, though I hadn’t considered storing it remotely. I did run two removable jacks as stabilizers on my last trailer, they mounted on the rear bumper and were stored on the tongue…so that’s definitely a good idea in general. Making a storage mount for this jack would give me a bit more turning clearance on the tongue, so thanks for mentioning it as I may go that route.

Ultimately though, I can’t shorten the tongue too much as I want to keep the longer tongue for its benefits. If it wasn’t for the jacks location, I would probably take 10 inches out of the tongue length, while the jacks location limits me to 8 inches, so I’ll probably leave it where it is as that extra 2 inches isn’t worth the effort of cutting off and re-welding the mount…unless I find the trucks tailgate won’t open and clear the jack handle once all the shortening happens.

 

I have a tongue box on my teardrop, which is a great place to store the jack. My tongue is long enough so, even with the tongue box, I can turn 90* with the trailer attached. Very helpful when backing up/turning around off-road (and on-rode too.)

I also had to mount the jack farther back on the tongue to clear my tire swing out. A little tight, but all works well.

 

It’s the little details like that (building in the right clearances for your setup) that really make these DIY jobs worth it, IMO.

I’m not going to run a tongue box this time, space for one with the v-nose is limited and the sides will be propane tanks, so I’ll probably just run an extension off the propane tank mount and put an extra jack mount base there.

I do technically have room to move the jack rearward towards the trailer more, but I dislike having to raise the jack well past when it leaves the ground in order to swing the jack into the stored position, so I had intentionally selected the placement so even in a slightly nose down situation, as soon as the jack leaves the ground after coupling the trailer to the truck, I would have enough room to swing the jack to its stored position and clear everything. It’s a minor detail that really isn’t a huge concern, but I valued the idea and ran with it…having a remote storage location for the jack would definitely take that limitation off the situation and I’ll likely go that route if it seems needed after I find out about tailgate clearance.

Longer tongues for backing and turning around in tight places is 100% worth the extra length, I agree. When i had mine extended, it ended up a solid bit longer than the 3 foot extension I had planned (aka about 6 inches longer than planned) due to the welder placing it slightly long and the length of the locknroll coupler that I didn’t take into consideration) so shortening it 8 inches will just help fix that plus dial some fine tuning into the extension. The 4 inches out of the hitch on the truck was like problem-free fine tuning, makes the rig less long overall without any notable downsides (besides trailer jack to tailgate clearance).

The left/right pivot point on the locknroll hitch is further aft than most standard setups, so I can afford to loose some length and still get the truck 90* to the trailer and not have a bumper hit the a-frame section of the trailer even though it is wider than the tongue.

 

Recycled the door catches that used to live on the side of the trailer by the fenders and am using them to keep the doors open 90* to the back of the trailer.

The rear of the trailer will be a slide out kitchen on the driver side, gear storage in the middle and a cooler on a slide on the passenger side. These will all exist under the ~20” bed platform. There will be a vertical wall 7” into the back of the trailer, this is the headboard of the bed. I’ll put some storage on it.

Since the kitchen and cooler will slide straight out, I wanted to keep the doors opening only 90* to offer some wind protection to the slide outs and create a defined space that may have some accessory holders (towel holder, maybe a flip down prep table, etc).

I put the door stays in a place where the arms are secure by the rear door hinges when the doors are close. I’ll be welding in a flat stock diagonal support for the bottom of the door side mount.




I also decided to do a quick waterproof treatment on the rear door wood. I had some Thompson deck waterproofing clear sitting around and used it. The doors should only see light rain at times, so it should be enough to protect the wood.

 

Happy New Year!

Worked towards getting the bed platform in and the galley dividers below it installed.

Used 1.5” square boards to create side runners that would screw into the walls, then used pocket holes to secure dividers to the floor and to the bed platform (which is the original trailer floor).




The board across the front (near the side door) is just to ensure the dividers are lined up flush with eachother.




Also mocked up the cooler and slide.




Started making the front bench that’s going to be tucked into the V-nose of the trailer.



Would’ve got more done, but these cheap 1.5” square boards warp like crazy and the others I got are junk, so I need to go grab more before finishing up.

 

Love watching the progress, interested in doing something similar

 

So where are you sourcing your windows and other items like that from?

 

X2

 

The windows I got off eBay, something like $200 each. We had planned to go for some really nice ArticTerns, but those were $600 each (for a similar size) and I just struggled to justify that. These are the Dometic 800 x 350 mm Seitz S4 windows, which seem good though I did read of a few cracking issues with them. They’re readily available though so I pulled the trigger knowing I could find replacements and go through a few of them before spending $1,200+ on the ArticTerns.

The RV door I got locally off FB marketplace. A couple that worked at a local mega RV place and would strip good used parts off wrecked RVs.

The suspension is partially from a local Jeep junk yard, partially from 4WheelParts.

Most everything else is from Amazon or Home Depot/Lowes/Ace Hardware.

 

Thank you for the information. I’m enjoying following your build.

 

Thank you indeed. I have been thoroughly enjoying the progression you have made. I recently made a trailer similar to your first one to hold my RTT and am now letting the thought of making a different style rattle around in my head.

 

Another quick question for you.

I've noticed on all your trailer builds you go spring under on your suspension.

Is there any particular reason for this? I ask because going spring over would give more clearance (which was one reason why I went that way on mine) and it seems your builds are never overly top heavy... so I didn't think it was for the stability aspect. Plus you run shocks so I figured that settled the ride even more.

Just wanting to pick your brain and hopefully learn something as well as open my way of thinking.