mikE here.
I popped my head up in another thread, and was asked to share this as a new thread. Here it is.
As I rock crawl less, and just want to travel more I planned a family trip to CO and UT this summer. Being a Jeep guy, and now having two kids, the four of us in the TJ wasn't going to work. So, I decided to build a little trailer. The plans started out modest enough. A box, on wheels, to hold stuff. No water, no propane, no kitchen, just a 'trunk'. When we camp we don't enjoy cooking etc. We just eat easy and enjoy ourselves so all that stuff is not really needed. As I was starting it I found out about an old YJ tub I could have for $40 with the tailgate. Bought it and drug it home. The one corner was bent, and a front would need to be fashioned. I decided to try making a die to bend the metal to match the 3" radius of the tub. That worked and I was set to hack the tub apart and start a trailer. The more I looked, the more I realized I was making three of the four corners, and working around stuff to make it work. The whole trailer was going to be heavier than I had originally planned, and have less space. Being from the Rock buggy world, I've really learned how much weight makes life difficult.
So, I bought a couple sheets of 16ga, and made a box. Bent the round corners, filled in the top and bottom lips to make it look right, and used the wheelhouses from the YJ tub.(never do that again, more work than making from scratch) Turned out that filling in that top 'lip' was a major time sucking project. Looks nice now though.
The suspension is just solid axle leaf spring. I know it could be a lot more fancy, but this is a starting point. The tounge is built to be adjustable. I have forgotten the lengths already. I run it in the middle one on my road use. Trails might see the shortest setting.
Enough babble. Hope you enjoy the pics.
http://jeepshots.com/users/mike/trailer/
mikE(sorry, I do better with steel than computers, so I have no idea how to attach a pic)
I popped my head up in another thread, and was asked to share this as a new thread. Here it is.
As I rock crawl less, and just want to travel more I planned a family trip to CO and UT this summer. Being a Jeep guy, and now having two kids, the four of us in the TJ wasn't going to work. So, I decided to build a little trailer. The plans started out modest enough. A box, on wheels, to hold stuff. No water, no propane, no kitchen, just a 'trunk'. When we camp we don't enjoy cooking etc. We just eat easy and enjoy ourselves so all that stuff is not really needed. As I was starting it I found out about an old YJ tub I could have for $40 with the tailgate. Bought it and drug it home. The one corner was bent, and a front would need to be fashioned. I decided to try making a die to bend the metal to match the 3" radius of the tub. That worked and I was set to hack the tub apart and start a trailer. The more I looked, the more I realized I was making three of the four corners, and working around stuff to make it work. The whole trailer was going to be heavier than I had originally planned, and have less space. Being from the Rock buggy world, I've really learned how much weight makes life difficult.
So, I bought a couple sheets of 16ga, and made a box. Bent the round corners, filled in the top and bottom lips to make it look right, and used the wheelhouses from the YJ tub.(never do that again, more work than making from scratch) Turned out that filling in that top 'lip' was a major time sucking project. Looks nice now though.
The suspension is just solid axle leaf spring. I know it could be a lot more fancy, but this is a starting point. The tounge is built to be adjustable. I have forgotten the lengths already. I run it in the middle one on my road use. Trails might see the shortest setting.
Enough babble. Hope you enjoy the pics.
http://jeepshots.com/users/mike/trailer/
mikE(sorry, I do better with steel than computers, so I have no idea how to attach a pic)
