Home built toy hauler
Has anyone thought about building your own toy hauler?? With all the talk about tiny houses on wheels I think a project of a toy hauler on a 40ft gooseneck hotshot trailer would be interesting, tandem...
Forum Discussion
valhalla360 wrote:
If you have some special need not served by a production model or just like to take on projects...go for it.
The idea that mass produced units are junk is mostly a misunderstanding of design requirements. Our rig is 20yrs old and while it does require some maintenance, nothing crazy. Otherwise, it's perfectly functional and no reason we couldn't keep her going pretty much forever.
Most of the maintenance items by the way are in the mechanical systems (fridge, air/con, plumbing, etc...). You will have all those same systems on a home built rig and they will have similar maintenance requirements.
If you think you can make a one off unit cheaper, better and with decent resale value, you are fooling yourself. Most of the tiny houses I've seen are really meant to sit in one spot being massively overweight and not really designed for much highway use.
Agreed that most older units are probably better than the new ones. I visit a few model specific forums and read constantly about issues people are having with the newer units. I've been to a few factories and I've seen how they throw them together and I find it hard to think that someone with some decent mech skills couldn't build one to handle travel on the roads. To begin with the platform of a gooseneck trailer designed to haul heavy loads is way better than any 5th wheel frame that Lippert builds! Can't imagine anybody arguing with that comment! Lol. When you walk up to a 5th wheel frame and put you hand on it, and can push it sideways and make it continue to sway side to side after you've let got of it....You won't do that with a gooseneck trailer. Anyway it was just an idea I was throwing out there.
