Rough surface camper dolly

Tractor Supply has a 12 in. Pneumatic Plate Caster rated 450lbs.

We need one of these! But, one that will roll on grass. The other day the yard was still damp from rain and now we have big ruts from dh truck. It would be great to unload right at the gate and then wheel the tc to the backyard spot.

Dang y'all are so smart!

To ease the effort, I would drop down a couple of 2x12's as "track" and use hard wheeled casters.

rtz549 wrote:
Get one of these and upgrade the castors for ones that will handle gravel:

http://www.riecotitan.com/products/camperdolly.php

That is similar to the one I built years ago except I used heavier angle iron and a homemade axle with left over spindles, with no suspension. I used a regular trailer jack on the front and the tires are as far back as I could get them. I put a sheet of 3/4" plywood down for the camper to set on. The tongue had a tube that went all the way down the middle for better support. The camper sat on it, on and off since the early 1970s. I will have to get better pictures since it is still in the back yard.

Get one of these and upgrade the castors for ones that will handle gravel:

http://www.riecotitan.com/products/camperdolly.php

National Caster (aka Service Caster Corp) has 12" pneumatic casters, 3.5" wide with 450 lbs. rating. They also have a 3" wide semi-pneumatic with a 850 lbs. rating. They offered good advice over the phone when I was trying to choose casters for my dolly

They have a 4 position lock option (every 90°) for their full swivel casters . Locking the front two, while leaving the two near the tow bar free, makes maneuvering much more controlled. I lock all the casters on the dolly to push it sideways. You can see an example of their position locks on the casters I chose in the photo below.



You can see the CURT Adjustable Tow Bar (#19745)
that I added to make manuvering it more controlled. My dolly was made to handle my 4,200 lb camper so it is a little bigger than what you need (scabbed 2x10; 2,000 lbs. capacity casters).



You can also see the Sea Dog 1/2" eye nuts I got fromFisheries Supply, a marine supply store. These are in each corner on the sides to make pulling the camper side ways easier. They were significantly less than an extra pair of Curt tow bar brackets.

Picture of wheeled frame I helped make about 40 years ago.


It has an axle, but no suspension. You don't need it to move the camper a short distance.

Just a suggestion..why not combine d3500ram and desertboy's ideas.
Use
http://www.castercity.com/eshop/10Expand.asp?ProductCode=9SF12x3-1/2-S&ReturnTo=../casterswnw.htm
and combine some of these under the old pickup bed or flat plinth? You can put 4 or 6 of these underneath and have both worlds, just trim away what you don't need so that it suits your needs.

I know what I would do. I would look for one of the old pickup bed trailers people make at home out of an old pickup bed and frame. I see them all the time for Couple hundred bucks. Then I would get me a good Bulldog hitch and weld it on. And a good heavy duty Jack that you use to raise or lower the tongue of the trailer and have that properly mounted with a heavy duty inflatable tire on bottom of jack. Now you have 3 tires. Depending how the camper is balanced you may even hook a big 4 wheeler on to it and raise the jack if you have enough weight in the back as not to over load the 4 wheeler with tongue weight. But this is a very versatile rough dolly, and its cheap and effective and safe. You can even pull it down the road if you want. I have seen these little home made trailers very cheap on craigslist.

I built one for when I had my pop- up... I called it "The Centipede."

I required pneumatic tires instead of steel casters so as to be able to roll it on a gravel driveway outside of the garage. I had to fit it through a door height of only 7'-0" so minimizing the dolly height was VERY critical.

I made it out of 2x and plywood and had about 2" to spare at the highest point on the camper.

One item to note: Place camper COG in the center of the dolly. This may not mean that the floor base of the camper is centered on the dolly. The camper may need to slide back of the dolly and have some of the rear of the camper hang off dolly platform.

It did OK on my garage floor... small pebbles were no issue, but when rolling it outside on gravel, I ripped a 4x8, 1/2" plywood sheet to lay down to make rolling easier.









Editted for speeling and too ad adishunal fotos.