A New Trailer for the Ratbag ...

Looking awesome! Such an amazing difference, I bet you are really happy with the end result.

Best regards,

Thanks, S2 .

It has come together very well, all things considered.

Had I made the sides 500 mm initially, I would not have been able to fit the OzTrail 6 tent. The OzTrail 7 is too big and too heavy/awkward for me to erect by myself, even under perfect conditions.

The downside of the 300 mm sides is that the fridge will have to travel in the car with me, either in the cargo area, or (more likely) on the back seat. However, being in air conditioned comfort won't hurt the efficiency of an evaporative system fridge ... :iconwink: :lol:.

That's about the only difference, apart from the fact that the 6 is about 40 Kgs lighter than the 7, and the front awning in particular is manageable by one (moderately decrepit) person - me ... Ditto for the "sun room".

I am greatly looking forward to hitting the road, whenever that might be. Currently planning to head for Sydney around 24-26 April, then on to Brisbane around the 29 April to 2-3 May. One day for each stage.

Wow what a difference
You've done one hell of a great job transforming it Ratbag
Well done mate

Regards
Mr Turbo

Thanks, Mr T.

Next time you see it, it will be having a trailer tent fitted to it ... :biggrin: .

Where's your first sleep?

That is looking seriously good RB !!

Gidday S2 & HC

Scooby2 said:

Where's your first sleep?

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Probably not until somewhere like Dirranbandi around the end of May, early June!!

havachat said:

That is looking seriously good RB !!

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Thanks, HC. It's been a very long journey, but finally all coming together ... :ebiggrin: :biggrin:.

I only hope that my enjoyment of it is as good as the anticipation, planning and execution!! :iconwink:.

It will be awesome RB. Nothing like a plan finally coming together! Have been very busy myself "building" another work vehicle. A lot of running around and worrying that the end result will actually work.... Here's hoping!

Best tip I can give you re: your first sleep. Be sure to remember to take your pillow from home AND a spare sheet. Then, if its too hot and a random mozzie decides that you are it's feast for the night, you can hide under the sheet and actually get some sleep

Thanks, S2. Both good tips.

Other than setting it up at KTC under their watchful eyes to make certain that I do it correctly, I plan to set it up in my brother's back yard when I get to Brisbane and then water it down to season the canvas, particularly the seams.

Will probably be staying with them for around 4-5 weeks, but will go and visit other friends at the Sunshine Coast, Oakey, etc. Might even go camping up at the Bunya Mountains NP during that time ... :iconwink:.

I'm not used to the idea of "sheets" and such like when camping, but the camper trailer will make all this much more civilised :lol:. I'm more a "sleeping bag with steel capped work boots for slippers" type to date :biggrin:.

Time to think about breaking out the cravats and claret in the Waterford crystal wine goblets, I guess ... :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Good luck with speccing and building the new work vehicle.

What a sweet build! I have enjoyed following the progress of "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear"...remarkable transformation...and I suspect much more personally satisfying than just plunking down thousands on a new rig...
I hope you have the trip of a lifetime and please document the journey with plenty of pics...Congratulations on a job "well done" !

Gidday TW

twowings said:

What a sweet build!

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Thank you, Kind Sir ... :biggrin:

I have enjoyed following the progress of "making a silk purse out of a sow's ear"...remarkable transformation...and I suspect much more personally satisfying than just plunking down thousands on a new rig...

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Glad that you have enjoyed following my (extremely protracted ... ) progress towards the final solution .

I am also more than staggered looking at the picture taken at the very start some two years ago, and how it looks today. Lots of hard work by Jimi and his workers. Nothing was too much trouble. Very reasonable prices, all things considered.

The design, re-wiring, new lights and purchasing of some extra bits at the right time and price are all my own fault (work ... ). I also did a lot of re-painting after they hit it with the spray gun. A lot of bits needed some scraping back and re-doing, even though they knocked off many of the big lumps of rust, I paid considerable attention to the fiddly bits and corners that they didn't do well; nor were they paid to do that sort of job!

So now it looks a bit Leopard-ish ... :rotfl:.

Replacing the tail lights with LED ones was triggered by one indicator being iffy last week, and not being able to disassemble either of the existing ones. This in turn triggered the effective re-wiring. I went over all the crappy, dodgy work that I and others have done over the last 30 years and made it good. Peeled off ALL the insulation tape everywhere. Re-soldered over half the joins. Any that got re-soldered also got treated to heat-shrink after checking about 50 times that everything worked.

As you rightly said, a new trailer loses the memories that are attached irrevocably to my old trailer. I moved myself from Adelaide to Melbourne using it over 30 years ago. It took 7 trips, IIRC. We just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary a few days ago . I am fond of my old trailer, albeit that most of it isn't there any more! There is enough of the original left so that I can still think of it as the same trailer ... Funny how we become attached to inanimate objects, but we do.

I hope you have the trip of a lifetime and please document the journey with plenty of pics...

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Hopefully it will be the first of many ... :ebiggrin: . But at my age and in my condition, I need to be able to just stop and rest up sometimes. The camper trailer tent means that I can do this in a modicum of comfort, without having to get down to ground level every time I want to have a little lie down ... . Too bloody hard getting back up from ground level these days .

I have to back up and erase a stack of about 24 GB of CF cards for my cameras between now and when I leave. Might even buy another couple of 8 GB SanDisk cards. While travelling, I back up onto my laptop's HDD, and also onto my 'travelling' external HDD I have for this sole purpose.

I still haven't finished processing the photos I took on my last trip to Brisbane just before I traded in Roo1 on Roo2 ...

Congratulations on a job "well done" !

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Thank you again.
It's been fun and frustrating at various times. I think I finally have the right solution for me. Hopefully so.

BTW, it helps if you put your approximate location in your poster's profile ...

Today I riveted SS wire tie-down eyes to my 20L water and fuel jerry cans that will ride in the panniers on the trailer. A MUCH harder job than it sounds! The positioning has to be just right so that:

1) The rivets cannot be drilled out when the padlock is in place.

2) The padlock can be fitted and removed ... this really does help things along ... :iconwink:.

3) The padlock both locks the cap of the jerry can shut, and goes through the end loop of a security cable that secures the jerry can to the frame of the trailer. This prevents theft/pollution of both fuel and water, as well as theft of the jerry cans themselves.

Apart from making up a couple of security cables, everything that will be attached to or part of the trailer is at least locked down. Even the spare and jockey wheel are locked to each other and the frame of the trailer with a security cable.

Nothing will deter a serious criminal, but one can hopefully make it much harder for them, and seriously deter opportunistic, casual thievery.

One can but try ... :iconwink: :iconwink:.

Gidday Folks

The other little jobs I have been doing involve (hopefully ... ) final preparation of my trailer for its first real outing ... :iconwink:.

The tool box I bought for the draw bar is really nicely made, except for one or two things ... The end handles are not stainless steel (! all the other fittings are ); and the recessed, folding locking handle fills up with water at every available opportunity.

The first I can do little about, and really doesn't concern me, as they will almost never be used.

The second is irritating, even though it doesn't (can't ... ) leak into the tool box.
I can do something about this, and have.

Being a great advocate of the "sewer pipe and ice cream container lid" school of cobbling stuff together, I have made a cover for the lock using a 2L ice cream container lid as a starting point.

I cut the external lip off the lid, leaving it with a single lip that forms a 'drip' around the lock. This makes it hard for water to either blow under it, or seep in around the sides. So far, not a drop of water has penetrated.

The problem is easy to see here:



And the solution here:





Note that the two SS rivets are actually outside the internal lip of the lower part of the box, so cannot leak into the box.

I made the "hinge" in the lid by bashing it a bit with a single-jack sledge on a big bit of channel section steel I use for an anvil. I'm not sure how long the hinge will last, but ice cream container lids are made of stern stuff! I have used them to make slip rings around the pleated skirt of our pool cleaner. So far there has been no sign of wear after nearly 9 months. The OEM slip rings have a life expectancy of less than this ... .

One should leave the plasticised label on the ice cream container lid. The best off the rack ice cream around (IMHO) is Bulla, made by Regal in Colac. The containers themselves are rubbish, but the lids are very tough!

I have also made up most of the security cables I need, and primed and painted the bottom of my WWII 20L Jerry can. Will do the top over the next few days when the bottom has hardened fully.

Jerry can lock point:



Expanding tow ball security lock:



This works by winding the split ball out into the ball hitch with an Allen key so that it cannot be removed. The lock is then inserted into the hole that gives access to the Allen key, blocking access to it.

I take the further precaution of locking the hitch handle so that it cannot be raised:



Of course, nothing will deter a determined thief, but one can make it very hard for the casual thief, and harder for the determined crook.

If things aren't locked down, they will be stolen. If they are locked down, there is a reasonable chance of keeping them ... :iconwink: :lol:.

Gidday Folks

I have moved all the posts to do with the fitting of my trailer tent from here to a separate thread here:

https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=5644

as this part of the continuation of my trailer saga is really quite separate from the re-design and re-build discussed in this current thread. Not sure about this, and may move it back later ... .

Some factors in designing a camper trailer (Part 1)

Gidday Folks

Maybe I should distil some of the factors I took into account when re-building my trailer here, as they are all buried in this thread somewhere ...

1) Rims and tyres had to be interchangeable with those on my towing vehicle. Wheel nuts too. According to a mate who is ex-SAS, this isn't even optional, but compulsory. I agree. If all else fails, I can take the roof basket out of the trailer bed where it normally lives, chuck all food, fuel, water and functional tyres in and on the car, ditch the trailer and run for home - or wherever! This automatically gives me up to four spare wheels for the car.

2) The track of the new axle and tyres had to be as near as possible to the track of my tug. It is about 1450 mm in both cases now.

3) Physical balance. Even with my old '68 LC towing a tandem axle horse float, it helped immensely if the loaded trailer had the optimum tow ball weight for the vehicle. In the case of the Subaru Forester, this cannot exceed about 80 Kgs; 75 Kgs for the N/A models. I aim to achieve around 40-50 Kgs on the ball when fully loaded, and this is achievable. Currently with both rear panniers with full 20L Jerry cans, spare, toolbox full of some fairly heavy crap and the tent fitted, the tow ball weight is 62 Kgs. This is with nothing at all in the trailer bed.

4) Towing balance. This trailer has always towed straight and true at all speeds. Some don't ... It also needs balance under braking and the ability to handle some fairly rough off-road use, without being ridiculous about it. Apart from highlighting the cactus condition of my rear struts on a test run up around Gembrook and the Bunyip SP (including Halifax "Road", both ways ... ). This was done prior to fitting the tent, but otherwise fully loaded, with 80 Kgs on the tow ball. Handled it like a lamb, and so did the car. Halifax "Road" drops about 60m over around 190-210 m and then rises again over s slightly longer distance. This is the 'easy' direction. The road had just been graded (made it harder, not easier), and was slightly damp. I have discussed this test trip here:

https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=5436

I had done this road before without the trailer, so had some idea of what to expect. Both car and trailer handled it all superbly. Then I had to have my shagged rear struts/springs replaced ...

5) Weight. I wanted to keep both unladen and laden weight to a minimum, consistent with my aims of being able to tour comfortably for up to 4-6 weeks at a time. The trailer without tent and nothing except spare, empty tool box, lid and jockey wheel weighs about 310 Kgs (Original weight quoted was WRONG -140 Kgs- This weight was the result of a bad weigh in).
Recent (17 Jan 2015) weigh in with all recent mods and CT tent fitted was 460 Kgs unladen. That's with 215/60 16" tyres on 6.5x16" steel rims, and a 40x40 mm solid axle. With recent modifications and the tent fitted (100 Kgs) , but with no other weight, this takes it to 460 Kgs. Maximum towing weight for my car is 750 Kgs (un-braked). Even with 2x20L, plus 3x10L Jerry cans, roof basket, second general purpose battery, winch and other recovery gear, etc, this is highly unlikely to get over about 700 Kgs, full loaded. Well within the abilities of the vehicle.

6) Height - Overall and lip to ground:

Overall height: Having towed a tandem, dual horse float more miles than I care to contemplate, I wanted something that's the same height as the bottom of the rear window of my Forester, approximately.

It is exactly that height to the top of the travelling cover.

Lip to ground height: Every trailer tent is designed for a specific trailer top to ground height. Make sure that the trailer you are building or modifying is going to be within the limits for the tent you are proposing to fit onto it! Usually, but not always, the tent will have tolerances of ±50 mm. I reckon that I could have got away with my trailer being another 20 mm higher, but that would be stretching things, literally and figuratively! The OzTrail Camper 6 is designed for a nominal lip to ground height of 850 mm, and my trailer is 890 mm at all four corners when set dead level. The tent fits like a proctologist's finger, thank goodness!

7) The draw bar. Jimi reckoned it would probably never break, but if it did, it's the one part of a trailer that can render it completely useless, and is difficult, if not impossible, to repair in the field. Reinforced 50x50 mm structural box that was 30+ y.o. was replaced with 75x50x3 mm, with lots of reinforcing, both crosswise and back to the trailer chassis frame down the centre line with 40x40 mm heavy angle iron.

8) Double lock nuts on all the axle hanger U-bolts.

(Continued in next post ... )

Some factors in designing a camper trailer (Part 2)

(Continued from previous post ... )

9) Use "standard" trailer tapered roller wheel bearings. They are available almost everywhere. This necessarily implies that your axle is also standard, so a new one is dead easy to order if it gets busted. The KISS principle applies to everything. Keep it simple and as robust as is rational!

10) Reliable electrics. As mentioned before, everyone and their dog had had a go at these over 30+ years, me included. I replaced the rear lights with LEDs for about $10 more for the pair than to replace the old ones (festoon bulb type). Fixed the wiring loom. I still have to wire up the trailer for 12V supply from both the vehicle and secondary battery pack so that I can connect either. The second battery pack's a tiddler - about 17 AH, but has outputs and inputs for everything, and should provide me with everything I need. I have a separate 16V 4.5A charger for my laptop, and the car comes with three x power outlets - 2x 10A and 1x 15A. My car fridge is a 3-way (about $125 off RRP at Repco), so will only be running on 12V when on the hoof. On 240V with the thermostat set on a bit over half, it will hold at between -2 and +2°C - better than our house fridge. It has to travel on the back seat anyway, due to its size, and the size of my car and trailer ... Other than those things, all the lighting will be LED. Most of it using rechargeable AA batteries. Basically, I don't need to carry a small power station with me.

11) A decent jockey wheel. It's amazing how much easier it is for these old, buggered bones to manoeuvre a trailer around when it's got a decent jockey wheel. Didn't have to be flash, just better than those really horrible, crappy things that seem to come standard on everything to this day! I have put up with the one on mine since I bought the trailer in 1981 ... No more! Repco had a sale on, and were selling the $90-100 ones for $49. Done.

12) Some "proper" wheel chocks. Ditto, at Repco, half price.

13) Trailer/tent Security. A whole lot of security cables, with a couple of packs of keyed alike locks. I sprung for a big Kincrome cable swaging tool to make these up to length. Won't stop anyone serious packing a 36V angle grinder or 3 foot bolt cutters, but will deter petty larceny while one is having lunch, or a twinkle ... I have security cables and locks fitted to both the external 20L Jerry cans lids as well. I have cables that lock the wheels to the trailer, and stop them from turning. An expanding ball type lock for the hitch.

14) Above all, it all has to be able to be manhandled by this silly old fart (SOFA member for years ... ), as I will almost always be travelling alone. I was originally going to buy the OzTrail Camper 7 tent, until I realised that there was no way I could unfurl or furl it by myself!

15) Personal security.
a) Any SOFA member (or anyone else, FTM) who travels this great land of ours without taking a decent phone that has as good coverage as these devices can get is being foolish. My SWMBO's Samsung Galaxy S4 (4G, etc) gets a 2-3 bar signal in our living room. My Blackberry Torch 9810 gets a 5 bar signal next to it; and down at the Telstra shop, none of their "blue tick" phones could manage better than a 4 bar signal, when the BB was pulling in a 5 bar signal. Nuff said.
b) The next part of this is fitting a decent 5W in car UHF CB, and having 2x 2W hand held units to go with it.
c) The most important part was buying a Spot Messenger (Generation 3) and a tracking plan. If someone has got to go and collect my worthless remains from somewhere, please don't let it cost $250,000! Put that money to some other good use. Just send out the Divvy van, and chuck my body in a body bag in the back. I am quite sanguine about all this. I would rather think of some kids in an isolated Aboriginal community having something useful like classrooms or a swimming pool than wasting the dough on trying to find me.
d) Next cab off the rank is a high visibility safety jacket. Mine is rated day/night and wet/dry. Make sure that it is rated for all these things.
e) I always carry wool blankets in the car; and plenty of warm clothing and water.
f) A copy of the WA Police Academy booklet Aids to Survival.
g) 'Paper' maps in the form of detailed touring guides (Hema seem to be good - RACV members get a discount off these when bought at an RACV shop). Most of us cannot afford a collection of the 1:250,000 series maps, let alone the 1:25,000 or 1:10,000 series!

16) AND: Don't forget to insure it ... Both trailer AND contents.

Just aggregating my thoughts on the subject FWIW.

Again, from the fitting of my tent to the trailer onwards, see this link:

https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=5644

Nice work Ratbag - you have thought of everything. These things can get disheartening sometimes when trying to build to your own design and you want everything to be perfect. In the end all the agony & perseverance pays off.

It's a little bit like one of those projects on Grand Designs but on wheels. Looks bloody awesome!

Thanks very much for those thoughts, Tweak.

It has been downright gruelling at times, and sometimes very disheartening - as anyone who has followed this through all my trials and tribulations with it will realise!

So far, the cost for trailer repairs and modifications, tent (with the sun room), extras (fridge, jockey wheel, chassis stands, swaging tool with cables & locks, battery box with battery, and all those sorts of things is around the $5,000 mark. There looks to be about another $500 to spend, AFAICS. Maybe a bit less.

When I looked at "cheapies" that started at around $23,000 new, and $12,000+ s/h to achieve much the same outcome, I figured that I would run to around the $6,000 mark before I started to panic! I don't need a camp kitchen. A folding table with washing up bowls for dishes and me is all that I really need, and I already had them. Ditto, I have all the other camping stuff already.

Having said that, I have seen some really good off-road camper trailer units for $3,000-4,000 s/h. However, they ALL fail the first test (would have to change the wheels, hubs and axle - then the tent would be too short ... ); and probably the second as well (track the same as my car; and ditto for the weight, width and height requirements).

It really depends on how fussy one is. I figured that I already had a trailer that could be made to fit those requirements, and had scrap value only in its original condition in 2012, if truth be told.

I am starting to feel really happy with the outcome/s that everyone involved has contributed to, including members of this forum. And I have this aversion to spending $70-110 a night for accommodation that's not as good in many ways!

BTW, have you got your struts back in OK?

If I were better with tools and engineering I'd do the same. Keeping the budget (and tow ball weight) low is challenging but fun. Looking forward to you telling us about your first night camping in it.

Yep, the struts are in!

Gidday Tweak

The way to get better is to do some of it ... :lol:.
None of us is born knowing how to do these things! I was taught basic arc and oxy welding by our property manager/s and mechanics. I then bought a couple of books on each subject and taught myself from there on.

Truth be told, I have barely picked up a spanner in all this rebuild. I used my faltering brain to work it all out as best I could, then got MTS to make the axle etc and bought the 'blanks' for the new front and rear gates from them too.

Jimi at Jimi Built Trailers did almost all the fabrication work.

I have just bought a small arc welder. Haven't had one for over 30 years. I hope I can remember how to weld! I still remember the first time I struck an arc! Apart from scaring me sh!tless, I was in awe of the raw power unleashed, as I am to this day still.

You can buy a small arc welder (Ozito 140A - $98) and a decent welding helmet (again Ozito - $18.50). They give you one with the welder, but it's not worth a pinch of pelican poop). Also get a decent chipping hammer (I forgot ... ), and some 2.5 mm welding rods (packet of 25 costs about $5).

The 'proper' welding mask also doubles as a safety shield when using an angle grinder or circular saw with metal/stone cutting discs (blades). These things are seriously dangerous, as a Surgeon mate has described to me in graphic detail after doing the surgical repairs! Angle grinders in particular ...

ALWAYS, use the mask with the welding glass flicked up when chipping away the slag. This is dangerous too.

This equips you to weld mild steel up to 6 mm (theoretically speaking - I have made load bearing welds joining two halves of an 8x4" RSJ for a 6.8 m span with a welder almost identical to this new one). If you know how to prepare pieces for welding, you can weld material up to about 10-12 mm thick using this very basic equipment.

In addition to the actual welding gear, you also need a metal cutting wheel for a power saw so that you can cut stuff to size easily. A decent sanding disk doesn't go astray.

Neither does a good bench grinder. I still have and use a 150mm bench grinder that I've had for the last 40 years. One needs a coarse grinding wheel on one end, and a very fine one on the other.

Lots of old sheets to protect plants, cars, etc from over-spray. A bit of flat tin sheet to work on so that one doesn't ruin the finish on one's driveway or paving doing the minor bits and pieces.

It is not necessary to have a vast workshop, equipped with every conceivable tool, to be able to do lots of things! Much as most of us would like such a thing.

The most important tool that one requires is the bit of "wetware" inside one's skull! Of course, a desire to learn how to do stuff helps, as does wanting to actually do them.