My Trailer Build

Ive wanted a small overland trailer for a long time. Between going to school and getting married and moving around over the last couple years I haven't been able to make that a reality. Im a decent hand at building things so I decided i would just build what I wanted. I jumped in with both feet and barely an idea of what I wanted. Now its been a over a year since I started this thing, and it has moved and changed a bunch, and I haven't used it yet, but i'm hoping to be up and camping this summer.

First things first; I don't always know what I'm doing, but my Dad always told me "fake it til you make it kid." I'm trying very hard to live up to this high standard, lol. So if something is wrong here its my fault, I didn't know any better but I gave it hell anyway.

 

I looked at a ton of trailers until I figured out a plan of attack and I started building...

 

I never got the tailgate to work the way i wanted it to. So I had to change that a couple times. Then I added some racks, the planned tent was to go in the middle.

 

Then my wifey got a great job out of state, and we ended up moving. So my trailer project became our mule. I found out just how small it really was, which is a great size for the intended purpose, but almost useless as a utility trailer.

Moving with the trailer also provided some incredible real world testing. I bent the axle and ruined a tire in the middle of the desert in northern AZ, that had to be fixed. It needed shocks, and my tailgate needed another rendition, and I needed to think about how it balanced.

Here she is at home in the AZ desert. Now dont worry I know thats a chebby (probably the most frustrating vehicle I have ever had the displeasure of being owned by) in front of the trailer, wifey owned that thing when we got hitched and has now repented and replaced that pile with a proper truck.

 

So after the move, I got situated in my new half garage. (Shared with my upstairs neighbor, which is not even close to ideal) I started fixing some of the problems and making some needed changes. She got a new axle, and shocks.



I'm currently finishing this tailgate kitchen, complete with stove faucet and collapsible sinks.



I made a folding rack for the tent. My tent has an annex below it and so I wanted it to deploy tall enough to use the annex, but stow low enough to travel well. This is my solution, really hope it works in real world use.

Stowed for travel.


Deployed for use.


Added stabilizers, on the tongue too.


And my tent, I had to open the box at work cuz I was super excited.

 

Lotsa updates here. I've been working non-stop to get this ready for the summer. So finally got it towable, and set up my tent rack system. And finally camped in it for a few nights! It was great! Got a couple little wrinkles to iron out, but overall I'm ridiculously happy to finally be using this seemingly endless project.

So a little photo dump here...

 

Looking good.

 

Neato.