Build Your Own Travel Trailer

JRscooby wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:


"Landscape" trailer like this?


Yeah, forget about it.

Take a good hard look at the steel rail above the deck..

THAT is your "frame"..

If you cut it or remove it the entire trailer will sag over time.

Those trailers are built way to skimpy to build a RV on unless you want to spend a considerable amount of time and money revamping it with much heavier steel framing.

Have you ever paid much attention to the frame of a TT? We had a old one, wanted to build something on the frame. Pulled the appliances out, cut the bolts, and strapped the house to frame to haul to the dump. Thought we could just hoe the house off the frame, and take it back to shop. (We did that) When unstrapping we discovered the weight of house, without the stiffness of house bolted to frame was more than frame could handle.
We built the trailer we wanted, but only used the axles, suspension, and coupler...

:R

Your sarcasm has been noted..

Actually, YES, I HAVE "paid attention" to the frames of TTs. In fact I have studied a lot of trailer frame designs because my plan for my second TT WAS to build from scratch frame up..

My plans got changed when I happened on a deal of a lifetime on a TT at the length I was shooting for. $700 bought me a good I beam frame (not lighter boxed beam) with a good title, bunch of good windows, good 4 burner stove/oven (yeah just try to find one of those), brand new water heater, working furnace and working A/C, fridge was dead, good full surround bath tub (yeah, those ARE insanely expensive to buy and ship), good axles, brakes, propane tanks, good black, grey and fresh water tanks (yeah, those are insanely expensive and difficult to ship!). All told I gleened nearly $4K of reusable materials for my rebuild.

I however, SHOULD have just removed everything and demoed the box.

Demoing the interior takes considerable amount of time, I spent better than 3 months on that portion and then another 6 months of actual rebuild time, NINE MONTHS TOTAL. Ripping interior paneling out which IS not only GLUED to the studs it is also STAPLED to the studs, literally removed several thousand blasted staples.. Ripped up the vinyl flooring to fix the rot under it, yeah, it was GLUED not at just the perimeter, but the ENTIRE FLOOR!!!! Weeks of scrapping, scrubbing on my hands and knees!

"Hindsight" is 20/20, would of only taken an hr to demo the blasted mess and perhaps a couple of weeks building a new box.

What YOU did was wrong to start with, NEVER unbolt the "house" until you are ready to "scoop" it off the frame. The "house" by design ACTS as one huge truss and adds considerable amount of strength to the steel frame.

YOU should have cut the bolts at the dump, THEN push or better yet LIFT the house off the frame (pushing off can twist or tweak the now weakened frame).

Very few RVrs fully understand that to total strength of BOTH the steel frame AND the wooden house box combine to make a strong yet flexible structure.

Those cheap landscape trailers WILL make a horrible base for any "RV" unless you REWORK the frame CONSIDERABLY which WILL require a lot of heavier steel.. New steel prices are insane..

Now IF the OP is considering a heavy duty flatbed trailer with real I beams and has 2" deck boards then that IS a different critter than the cheap landscape trailers..

I also have a 18' heavy duty 10K GVWR flat bed trailer which CAN and is able to haul a full sized pickup truck up to 7500 lbs.. It IS a beast, weighing in at 2,400 lbs EMPTY.

Compare that to a cheap landscape trailer which might weigh in at 700-800 lbs..

Yeah, my 18ft trailer did cost me $3500 vs a cheap landscape trailer at $1000 but I can assure you a 7500 lb truck would simply squash the cheap landscape trailer..

After fully rebuilding two TTs, I can simply say that you ARE wasting a lot of your time in the demo stage of a used TT, creates a huge pile of junk scrap materials that for some folks may be impossible to get rid of (I was able to burn all of the rotted junk) and if one must pay to have hauled away just adds extra cost to something that was supposed to be done on the cheap.

Just trying to steer the OP away from a potential money pit mistake that they WILL regret down the road.

Don't ignore the foundation, going cheap on that will result in reworking and reworking and reworking..

But, hey carry on folks, MR "Scooby" your shot of sarcasm reminds me of why I rarely post on this forum any more..