My wife and I have always been tent campers. We really never even considered the idea of owning a camper trailer of any kind… until we had kids. Now we have to have perfect weather, or the kids don’t sleep (which means we don’t sleep) and it’s a big enough hassle that we have only gotten out a handful of times in the past several years. Enter the tent trailer.
I never wanted a popup before because, well, I drive a Jeep for a reason and don’t want to take a paved road to the Camper World for the weekend. I’d seen off road popups before but frankly I can’t afford one. Then I saw some build here and particularly Atoyot’s build on Mud and was inspired to steal, uh I mean use his idea and build my own off road popup.
After watching the classifieds for months, I scored a sweet deal on a 1975…something. The title says travel trailer. I doesn’t list the make or model, but I think it’s a Rockwood based on the lift system, which was broken on the front, which may be why it was so cheap. We picked it up just before Christmas as a present for the family. I waited until now to post a build thread so I would actually have something to show. Unlike Atoyot’s, mine is slow going.
Some before pictures of the interior, mostly for my reference so I could put it back together right.
Broken front lift chain.
I was a slacker on before pictures of the exterior.
This is mostly stripped out.
I set a 33 next to the trailer to get a very rough idea of what I was looking at. The massive rear overhand had to go if I was going to do any kind of moderate wheeling with this thing.
Mockup of the new box shape (see duct tape lines).
Basically I was going to have to completely rebuild the box to get the shape I wanted, but that’s okay because it was built out of structural cardboard and wood paneling anyway. I jumped right into tearing it apart.
Water tank and rubbermaid tote wheelwell. Actually not a bad idea.
Found some sweet wiring. I hope this was the PO, not the factory.
Stripped down to the bare frame.
I was hoping to be able to reuse most of the frame, but that idea was gone as soon as I saw how it was made. The only thing I kept was the tongue.
One way my build differs from the others I looked at is that I wanted the farthest point out on all sides to be metal instead of wood (because I’m quite sure I’ll run this into something at some point). To accomplish this, I built the frame 1” wider than the outside of the box all the way around. The problem this created was that I had to build the box first. Once again I was a huge slacker on the pictures, so here is the mostly built frame and box (upside down).
I got a free 3500lb drop axle from a friend of mine, but it was way too wide; so I narrowed it to 61”.
Perches flipped to the other side of the axle. I can’t believe the amount of clearance this has with just 30” tires.
It was a great moment when I finally mounted the box on the frame.
More to come.
I never wanted a popup before because, well, I drive a Jeep for a reason and don’t want to take a paved road to the Camper World for the weekend. I’d seen off road popups before but frankly I can’t afford one. Then I saw some build here and particularly Atoyot’s build on Mud and was inspired to steal, uh I mean use his idea and build my own off road popup.
After watching the classifieds for months, I scored a sweet deal on a 1975…something. The title says travel trailer. I doesn’t list the make or model, but I think it’s a Rockwood based on the lift system, which was broken on the front, which may be why it was so cheap. We picked it up just before Christmas as a present for the family. I waited until now to post a build thread so I would actually have something to show. Unlike Atoyot’s, mine is slow going.
Some before pictures of the interior, mostly for my reference so I could put it back together right.
Broken front lift chain.
I was a slacker on before pictures of the exterior.
This is mostly stripped out.
I set a 33 next to the trailer to get a very rough idea of what I was looking at. The massive rear overhand had to go if I was going to do any kind of moderate wheeling with this thing.
Mockup of the new box shape (see duct tape lines).
Basically I was going to have to completely rebuild the box to get the shape I wanted, but that’s okay because it was built out of structural cardboard and wood paneling anyway. I jumped right into tearing it apart.
Water tank and rubbermaid tote wheelwell. Actually not a bad idea.
Found some sweet wiring. I hope this was the PO, not the factory.
Stripped down to the bare frame.
I was hoping to be able to reuse most of the frame, but that idea was gone as soon as I saw how it was made. The only thing I kept was the tongue.
One way my build differs from the others I looked at is that I wanted the farthest point out on all sides to be metal instead of wood (because I’m quite sure I’ll run this into something at some point). To accomplish this, I built the frame 1” wider than the outside of the box all the way around. The problem this created was that I had to build the box first. Once again I was a huge slacker on the pictures, so here is the mostly built frame and box (upside down).
I got a free 3500lb drop axle from a friend of mine, but it was way too wide; so I narrowed it to 61”.
Perches flipped to the other side of the axle. I can’t believe the amount of clearance this has with just 30” tires.
It was a great moment when I finally mounted the box on the frame.
More to come.
. I did frame in the galley and get a bunch of measurements for the benches and corner cabinet. The interior should come together pretty quickly next week when I get back.
