Teardrop trailer build

[Dave Lehnert]

Anyone on here ever build a teardrop trailer? Looks like an interesting project. Most use a Harbor Freight trailer you see in the sale ads.

http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=6077

[Shawn Buonarosa]

I have never built one , but I have always wanted to. An old neighbor of mine when I was a kid was an absolute wizard at crafting these. It's strange given their size, they still have a cozy feel to them.

[Robert Meyer]

Check out the tiny travel and teardrop trailer forum using google

You will find many hours of enjoyable descriptions and information concerning small travel trailers. The level of craftsmanship on many of these is stunning. Makes me want to build one after I build my entertainment center, hutch, blanket chest, boat, etc.

[Dave Lehnert]

Check out the tiny travel and teardrop trailer forum using google

You will find many hours of enjoyable descriptions and information concerning small travel trailers. The level of craftsmanship on many of these is stunning. Makes me want to build one after I build my entertainment center, hutch, blanket chest, boat, etc.

I spent most of the day Sunday reading through that forum. I am not a big fan of camping but thought it would be a great project. Antique cars are huge around here. I go to a Cruz-in every Friday with a few hundred cars each week. Also have a huge car show called the Pumpkin Run each October on the east side of town. Would be a great show item at the car shows.

[Matt Meiser]

Why build a little one. This guy (http://www.chadsprojects.com/) built a whole 5th wheel RV. They camp at a campground we regularly visit. I've never gotten a chance to talk to the guy but from the outside it definitely doesn't look homemade.

[Gene Michael]

As a long time RV'er who does some of the maintenance: WOW!!! on the homemade fith wheel. There are so many things that are unique to an RV and so much detailed planning that would have to be done. Again, WOW!!! :D

Like the teardrop camper's looks, but how does one fit inside? Would like to see the interior layout.

[Robert Meyer]

Why build a little one. This guy (http://www.chadsprojects.com/) built a whole 5th wheel RV. They camp at a campground we regularly visit. I've never gotten a chance to talk to the guy but from the outside it definitely doesn't look homemade.
The point of a TTT (tiny travel trailer) or a teardrop trailer is to camp with a little more comfort than a sleeping tent provides. It is also much easier to pull easily without pouring hundreds of dollars down the gas tank. While I can appreciate the work that went into the huge 5th wheel trailer, I would never want to own, much less find a place to park, one. It's like pulling your house behind you. I have attached some sketches of a tiny travel trailer I want to build someday. It could be pulled behind my Tacoma and poke into out of the way places to explore for extended periods.

[Matt Meiser]

I can appreciate that. Pulling our new camper which is no where near that large drops my mileage from over 20 to about 11. Just beware that RV's are like woodworking. Very few of us buy small and never upgrade.

One thing I'd suggest is possibly ditching the bathroom. Our new camper has one and while it is really nice to have it does take up a fair amount of room in there. Also, while ours has probably double the square footage (square inchage?) of the one in your floor plan ours is really tight. Despite the fact that we have several inches of interior headroom, ours also has a skylight bubble over the shower which I need for headroom because the shower pan sits a few inches above the floor for plumbing clearance. Of course that means staying at campgrounds so you get a bathroom and shower. On the other hand it means not needing fresh, black and grey water tanks, a water heater, carrying an assortment of fresh water and sewer hoses, etc. And not having those reduces maintenance and weight. Our old camper was a popup and didn't have any of those things. In fact because it was so tight, we never cooked inside of it other than in the microwave. Not that we couldn't have but between cleaning up the space for the stove and the odors that would have gotten in there it would have been a pain so we always set up a camp stove outside. And of course usually outside you can just dump your dishwater on the ground. To get hot water we just heated a pot of it up and did dishes in a dishpan.

One other thing--do you have any idea what the tounge weight on that design will be? It looks like most of the weight is in front of the wheels.

I assume you know that these are commercially available. I'm not suggesting you go out and buy one, but finding a dealer and checking a couple out might give you some ideas. Checking out some of the bigger RV's might also give you some ideas.

[James Suzda]

If you want to check out some neat designs for teardrop campers check out these.
http://home.centurytel.net/edevold/]

[Robert Meyer]

Good points Matt. The bathroom really does add complication to a trailer, and most likely I will skip the shower and just provide an emergency port-potti. Most teardroppers like to keep their wheels from 30-35% of the total length of the cabin measured from the rear. They usually have more weight in the rear because they have an outside pop-up lid over a kitchen. My design has the wheels at 35% which allows me to have the door in front of the wheelwells. I may need to move it to 40% from the back but would then have a 24" or narrower door or reduced size of the front bunk. As in woodworking, designing small is often harder than designing large. Anyway, I want to build a boat (Redwing 18) before the trailer so I've time to kick around my design for several years.

[Pat Fitzsimmons]

building your camper may be the over riding consideration. However, I note manufactured units are very expensive for "what you get". I bought a used 17' Casita (all fiberglass) for $11,000. Self contained, 2,200 pounds. My Tundra tows it but mpg drops from 18.6 to 14+.

[Mike Henderson]

I notice in your design, Robert, that you designed the trailer to extend over the wheels. I wonder why the traditional teardrop trailer doesn't do that. Seems like you'd get a bit more room that way. Doesn't seem that it would be much more complex to build. Or is it?

Mike

[harry strasil]

I saw this homemade one and luckily had the camera with me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/odd/motorhome1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/odd/motorhome3.jpg

It could possibly be the FIRST Fifth Wheel rig.

I think the front part may have been an old Hearse.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

My buddy is building one from scratch in his garage....check this thread out on our forum....http://www.grossepointegothic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=215

There's 12 pages or so of pics during the build. Thomas is a good friend who actually worked with me for awhile back in 2005. He's doing a great job with it and should be ready to camp in it this winter!

[John Bailey]

I notice in your design, Robert, that you designed the trailer to extend over the wheels. I wonder why the traditional teardrop trailer doesn't do that. Seems like you'd get a bit more room that way. Doesn't seem that it would be much more complex to build. Or is it?

Mike

I think it might be a matter of looks. If it were me, I'd keep the wheels out because I like the looks. If space is the determining factor, I'm going with a different, more spacious design anyway.

John

[Robert Strebler]

I think it might be a matter of looks. If it were me, I'd keep the wheels out because I like the looks. If space is the determining factor, I'm going with a different, more spacious design anyway.

John

I think it's due to the small size of the trailer. Most Teardrops use the floor to place a mattress on. If the trailer is 5 feet wide, you can barely fit a queen sized mattress in there. If it is less, then you need a smaller mattress. If you put the wheel wells inside, it would severely limit the size of mattress you could place there.

[Dave Lehnert]

My buddy is building one from scratch in his garage....check this thread out on our forum....http://www.grossepointegothic.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=215

There's 12 pages or so of pics during the build. Thomas is a good friend who actually worked with me for awhile back in 2005. He's doing a great job with it and should be ready to camp in it this winter!

Thanks for the link. Looks helpful.

[Thomas E Miller]

I am the friend Kelly talked about, here's a couple of pics of my build. My choice in a teardrop is ease of storage, and towing. Mileage is super important as well, I want to have little or no towing hassles. I think you are camping, you don't need to bring your whole house with you. I want to travel the country and have a nice "Luxury Tent" already set up behind me for whereever I might decide to pull over. The teardrop is ideally suited for rural camping as you can hit the trails with it in tow where other RVs would fall apart. Given my desires, I can't see any choice but a teardrop for me.

It has a moonroof for watching the stars in bed, a galley kitchen, AC, cable TV DVD player, and most importantly my cooler ;)

http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0918.jpg


The interior is pretty much finished except for the face frames and building the doors.

http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0630.JPG
http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0899.JPG
http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0898.JPG

http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT1055.JPG
http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0898.JPG

Just for the underskin on it and next is skinning it with .040 black aluminum
http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT1176.JPG

Still need to build the doors and finish the hatch and it will be road workthy!
http://www.grossepointegothic.com/forums/PICT0924.JPG

[Dewey Torres]

Nice build Tom

[Karl Brogger]

I really hate threads like this. They get me thinking, which experience has taught me is expensive endevour.

I race small catamaran sailboats. The regatta's are typically Saturday & Sunday. I usually show Friday afternoon and get my boat set up, hang out, and shoot the breeze. Accommodations are usually a tent for Friday and Saturday night. Being cheap I rarely spring for a hotel. Now I'm thinking that I should build something like this and get a different trailer to mount it, and my boat on. I hate sleeping in a tent. I like having lights, maybe a little heater, and not getting wet. Some more space would be nice too.


Here's my boat:
http://a241.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/123/l_897c280ab86d7a32a6ac587aa7bc78f0.jpg

Here's kinda what I was thinking. I'd use a 4 place snowmobile trailer. I'm too lazy to build another custom trailer.

[John Bailey]

Nice first post Tom, and welcome to the creek. Can you tell me why all the tear drops I've seen have the wheels so far back? Seems like it would make the tongue weight pretty heavy. I thought it had to do with the door placement, but yours looks like there's plenty of room to move the wheels up.

Again, nice job.

John

[Dave Lehnert]

Tom, Thanks for posting. Hope you keep your build progress up to date. A lot of good info.
Did you have a set of plans for the build?

[Thomas E Miller]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys, Yes it has consumed me over this past year and is my biggest and most complex project to date, but I have loved every minute of it. I have Kelly to thank for helping me get in to woodworking, and I have the teardrops and tiny travel trailers forum to thank for helping me emmensely on the build.

Dave, as far as plans, I made my own plans starting from a profile from a 1947 Modernaire teardrop, and using some of the basic construction from the "Generic Benroy" Plans from the T & TTT site. They are completely free plans done by the founder of that site. I just picked what I wanted to use from that and other people's ideas along with a healthy dose of my own designs. Primarily the frame, axle, cabinetry, electrical, and AC implementation. The moon roof is a pretty unique shape. I always wondered why no one puts a skylight above your pillow so you can see the stars. I will be building a sliding cover to keep the sun out during the day as well, I have some interesting stuff to do with the face frames, when I get to the trim level. I have put my old fashioned pencil and pape plans on my site in a pdf doc, they are kind of outdated as plans have a tendency to change as the build dictates.

John, I believe the wheels are more toward the rear due to the galley in the rear, this is where the bulk of the wheight is. With the hatch, batteries, coolers, airconditioning, pots n pans, stove etc, back there, it centers the weight in just right. The wheels are actually centered over the main bulkhead that separates the cabin from the galley too. My tongue weight right now I would estimate around 60lbs. I do need to get a lower drop hitch for the truck though.

Thanks again, sorry to hijack this thread!

[Dave Lehnert]

No need to be sorry for a hijack. Exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks!

Funny about the skylight. That is one of the first things I thought of.
Know it is going to take some time for research and knowhow before I ever think of starting one.

With all my reading on the net I have noticed how much bigger and bigger the teardrops are getting to the point are they a teardrop?

Where has your source for parts been from? Like windows.

[Thomas E Miller]

Yeah the trend for alot of stuff is bigger and bigger, but it's all up to you. I never follow trends, make your own trend! There's alot of people still building the regular teardrop size. I wanted to stay with the classic profile and I only changed it from 4ft wide to 5 ft wide so I could put a queen size matress in it. I got the skylight and interior lights on eBay, and I will go there for the door windows too. There is a local trailer supply place here called Redneck Trailer, I got a custom built Dexter Torsion axle from them and will be getting the aluminum roof edge trim from them too. I got lucky on the aluminum sheets and found them on craigslist. I built the frame frm scratch just getting 2x2 1/8" steel tubing and having a friend weld it up for me. Lastly, I got the 4x10 sheets of 3/4" plywood for the walls (Not your typical orange box item) from Plywood CO of Ft. Worth. So I have gotten various things from different places.

[Kelly C. Hanna]

Thomas is very close to getting it all finished up....lookin' mighty good!

He and I share the no trendy thing....not our style to follow anyone!

[Tom Elgin]

I've seen Thomas' teardrop and it is even better looking in person. Since the date of the post, Thomas has completed his teardrop, adding fenders, completing the galley hatch and interior.

I am also building a teardrop and am about 2/3 of the way complete. Here are a few pictures:

http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=55448

http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=57064

http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=62152

[Craig McCormick]

I saw this homemade one and luckily had the camera with me.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/odd/motorhome1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v81/irnsrgn/odd/motorhome3.jpg

It could possibly be the FIRST Fifth Wheel rig.

I think the front part may have been an old Hearse.

Not homemade. It's a Curtis areocar (sp?) built by Curtis manufacturing. Was likely $8000 in the 1930's. The tow vehicle was custom made for each trailer.

[Craig McCormick]

I built a teardrop several years ago. You can check it out along with other trailers I have owned here. Www.vintagetrailersforsale.com

Azcraig