Mobile base camp build

Arya Ebrahimi

Adventurer
In case anyone wants to see this in person, it will be at Overland Expo East this weekend.

Unfortunately I will not be there myself. My brother is bringing it down behind his '13 JKUR

I have not touched it since the last pictures in this thread, so it is still very rough around the edges but it's functional. One of these days I will get around to cleaning it up, painting it, and finishing out some of the finer details that I had/have planned for it.
 

silvrzuki77

explorer
If I wasnt on the west coast I would! You gave me a ton of great ideas for my tent trailer build. What did you end up doing for the airline setup?
 

Arya Ebrahimi

Adventurer
If I wasnt on the west coast I would! You gave me a ton of great ideas for my tent trailer build. What did you end up doing for the airline setup?

Glad to know this thread has helped others. For the airlines, if you look at post #81 you will see two toggle switches mounted vertically at the top of the switch panel in the "mechanical closet." Those are actual air switches, they are solely pneumatic and have no electrical components whatsoever. They have 3 ports on the back, input/output/discharge. The input port connects to the tank/compressors, the output goes to the respective bag, and the discharge port vents to atmosphere. If you push the switch up, the compressed air moves from the tank into the respective bag raising the suspension until you let go of the switch or the pressures equalize. If you push the switch down, it releases air from the bag to the discharge port, effectively lowering the suspension. That's it. It's a very KISS system, but it has worked flawlessly from day one. I usually only mess with the height of the trailer when we're making or breaking camp, so having to open up the cabinet to access the switches isn't a big deal.

If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. I hadn't really messed with the trailer in over a year, but when my brother asked to borrow it I had to spend a couple days prepping it(I had robbed the fridge and some other misc items from it over time) and setting his truck up to tow it(added 7-pin plug and brake controller). Working on it really got me interested in finishing it again, so hopefully I will find the time sooner rather than later to get back to working on it and maybe even using it! :p
 

silvrzuki77

explorer
Thanks that helps! I take it you have a shut off for a preset pressure? Yup I used a ton of your suspension ideas or copied! Trying to do the same thing and dump the air at camp to make it easier to enter. Thanks for the inspiration!
 

Arya Ebrahimi

Adventurer
Yes to the pressure switch. The trigger for the relays for the compressors are wired in series through a pressure switch and a regular toggle switch. That way I can turn them off whenever I want, or I can let them shut off when the tank reaches the preset pressure(I don't recall the rating of the switch I used, might be on 100/off 150, or on 125/off 175).

The switches came from www.suicidedoors.com which has since changed to www.thorbros.com Here is a link to the actual switch on their website: http://thorbros.com/air-management/valves/14-manual-2-way-paddle-valve
 

Arya Ebrahimi

Adventurer
Cool to see some people are still interested. I'll post some pics and details when we get back from our trip.

We left July 2nd and we return home on Monday. We've been to South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah along with all of the various states in between home and the west. We're in Moab currently, getting ready for the long haul back east.
 

Arya Ebrahimi

Adventurer
Figured I'd throw up some pics since we've been back for a couple of weeks now. Life has a way of whisking you from one activity to another without a moment's breath in between. We're expecting our first child in October, and it has been all hands on deck since we got back.

Anyway, back to the trailer.

The first and major objective of this overhaul was to get the trailer finished. That may sound funny in a build thread that started 5 or 6 years ago, but unfortunately it's the truth. The trailer had been made functional long ago, but it was never truly finished. So with that in mind, I set out to paint the thing from top to bottom. The frame had been left in raw steel since it's maiden voyage in August of 2011. We(my dad and brother helped a lot!) started by blowing everything apart with a full tear down. Then we prepped and prepped and prepped and prepped until everything was ready for paint. Altogether it took about 2 weeks of nights and weekends to get the thing into primer and a full day and a half of many many thin coats of finish paint to get it done. All in all as part of the painting tear down/reassembly process, I ended up revamping the air system a bit, replacing the airbags due to dryrot, cleaning up a bit of the wiring, and giving it a new floor.

Finish painting in progress:
20160630_070828.jpg

A pic from the road showing it finished:
20160704_133227[1].jpg

The other major objective was to transform the "kitchen" cabinet from a simple box to throw stuff in, into a useful organized space with a place for everything. To that end I added a drop down shelf to utilize the 4" of "wasted space" in the ceiling of the cabinet, and a drawer to allow layered storage in the lower portion of the compartment. We also added some LED lighting for both the kitchen and fridge compartments. The LEDs are magnetized and on whips, so they can be relocated outside of the cabinet for area lighting or concentrated in one area for better task lighting.

Kitchen compartment with shelf in up position and drawer retracted. You can also see the paper towel holder on the right.
20160701_144646[1].jpg

Kitchen with the shelf in the down position and drawer extended. In order to reach the lowest level of storage you have to reach behind the drawer into the bottom of the cabinet. It's a mild inconvenience, but it's better than letting that 3" of height go to waste.
20160701_144713[1].jpg

Here is a closeup of the latch mechanism for the drop down shelf. It's just 2 gate latches strategically placed with a bit of luck mixed in.
20160627_213354.jpg
20160627_213418.jpg

Kitchen fully stocked with the lights on.
20160717_210120[1].jpg

That summarizes the major updates that we made to the trailer in the recent past. If anyone would like more info on anything, please feel free.

Thanks for reading!
 

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