Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Converting Cargo Trailers into TTTs

Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby hankaye » Fri Jun 15, 2018 10:23 am

jmanscotch, Howdy;

While actually taking a look at what Mr. back4more was referring to for his
ventilation question I nosed around the Wee Roll site and noticed some fenders
that they use for their version of an offroad (like yours better), here's the link;
http://www.weeroll.com/off-road
Maybe you can figure out something to fill your needs from their's.

hank
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby jmanscotch » Sat Jun 16, 2018 10:45 pm

hankaye wrote:jmanscotch, Howdy;

While actually taking a look at what Mr. back4more was referring to for his
ventilation question I nosed around the Wee Roll site and noticed some fenders
that they use for their version of an offroad (like yours better), here's the link;
http://www.weeroll.com/off-road
Maybe you can figure out something to fill your needs from their's.

hank


Nice, thanks for the link on those sir. I'm working through some ideas on the fender and might have an ideal I plan to explore....we'll see.

I welded on the three jack mounts and the safety chain hoop today.

Two side wind jacks for the rear and a top wind for the tongue. For the safety chain hoop, I just used an old axle U-bolt I had, cut off the threaded portion and welded it underneath the front of the receiver tube tongue.


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I also mounted the new tongue box and propane tank/holder.

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I finally got the floor in too. I used sub-floor sealant on the cross members and edges, set the floor in then screwed it down as well. I'm thinking the sub-floor sealant will help keep some water from migrating between the edges of the floor and the inside of the walls.

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I also finished caulking the roof, sides and doors. Not thrilled with my work on this, but it'll do its job so I'll deal with it for now.

Jake
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby hankaye » Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:58 am

jmanscotch, Howdy;

Nice, very nice. Commin' together piece by peace.

hank
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby McDave » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:25 am

Oh Yeah. Coming together real nice. ... :thumbsup: ...

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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby jmanscotch » Sun Jun 24, 2018 8:02 pm

First trip with the trailer was a success, though I did come back with a short list of improvements to make.



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My father and I packed up Friday morning and headed west, headed for the Pomeroy Lake, near the ghost town of St. Elmo, Colorado (or 30 miles SW of Buena Vista).



The trailer towed well across the Rockies, up and through a few 10,000 ft elevation mountain passes. The tongue weight did seem to be a bit on the heavy side, especially with the truck bed loaded down on top of it all, but that should get sorted out with the work yet to come on the trailer. Some lessons I learned are: big bumps and enough speed will make the trailer axle bottom out into the trailer frame, so I have to fix that. Second; I need to rethink mounting the awning. Maybe move it to the actual feet of the roof rack so it's sucked in another ~3 inches. A half dozen times, the trailer being off kilt or sliding down a rock, put it (the awning) as the most likely part of the trailer to hang up on a tree.



We aimed to do some gold panning, fly fishing and old mine exploring so once we neared St Elmo, we turn south to begin our 3,200 ft ascent up the north side of Pomeroy Mountain. The trail we took was the old mining path established first in the late 1800's, it was a winding and steep creep up a boulder laced tight trail carefully woven between trees, cliffs and across creeks...truly stunning, though at times, a little tight and sketchy for the trailer. We didn't stop in the tough sections to get any pics, but here's some from the bottom as we got started.



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*disclaimer: this last one is on the way down



About 1/2 mile from the summit (and just below tree line) we found a nice tucked away spot in the valley below the lake, which provided some wind protection and some soothing sounds from the cascading water streaming down past the camp site.



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Night view from camp



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We slept well, even considering the plethora of evidence that a bear was wandering the area we setup in. The trailer leveled out nicely, slept comfortably with no excess noise even with no insulation in sight. Air flow was adequate inside and no mosquitoes were able to find their way in over night. I will admit it was a bit tight for two larger gentleman, as my father and I are, but should sleep my significant other and I well.



We woke up Saturday morning and immediately set our sights on some fishing at the lake above camp. We failed...horribly.



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Our first time fly fishing was a bust, but that's ok. The altitude began to take it toll and we headed back down a few thousand feet to wander the ole mine remnants.



Here's the Mary Murphy mine, circa 1902-ish



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I was caught using the abandoned outhouse



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More mine buildings and other dilapidated structures



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Some more general rambling around and exploring ensued. We found some more rivers/creeks to explore and try out luck with fishing some more...but the disappointment trend kept up.



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With that...I'm going to take a little while off from all things trailer. I need to tackle some other projects around the house as well as just devote some time to other life needs. I'll be back to finish the inside, the fenders and make some tweaks shortly...until then.



Jake
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby FlyBye » Sun Jun 24, 2018 9:58 pm

I loved the photos and your adventure story with your father. The photos are fabulous!... you can almost imagine yourself there enjoying scenery and even though the quarters might be tight with your dad in the trailer... embrace and enjoy every moment you can! Thanks for sharing your adventurous journey.
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby KTM_Guy » Sun Jun 24, 2018 10:17 pm

Looks like a great first trip. Did you stop and feed the chipmunks in St Elmo? We stop every time. :lol: I've never been up the way towards Handcock Pass, been to French's in Tin Cup a few times.

I was hoping to get my tear done to catch the fall colors in Colorado this year, but have had some set backs.

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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby hankaye » Mon Jun 25, 2018 8:58 am

jmanscotch, Howdy;

EXCELLENT!!! :thumbsup: , :thumbsup: !!!

Now that's a test drive! Good to see that you also had some outstanding
Dad time, that'll keep him grinnin' for a long time.

hank
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby rebar » Tue Jun 26, 2018 5:00 am

Thanks for the pictures and story.

My dad and I did something similar a long time ago and I wish he was still around to do it again..
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby jmanscotch » Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:27 am

Thanks gents. KTM_Guy: We didn't feed them, but we saw them in their masses running around!

As I get older, I appreciate more and more the time we get with our parents and as you've mentioned, it's times like these that I hope continue for as long as possible.

My father was born in Colorado, but my grandpas work took them to NE New Mexico and ultimately Texas over the years. He's had a long urning to move back to Colorado, but that's not in the cards for my parents and I'm thrilled to live here and give him both an excuse and avenue to get here now and again to do what it is he [we] truly enjoys.

Decided to check my dash cam and save a few videos from the trip. Unfortunately it had already loop recorded over the majority of the first of the trip, but I did have one short clip from pulling into camp the last day. Pointless video really, but here it is.

For anyone interested, I have the Spytec/Viofa A119 dash cam, with the GPS module, anti-glare lense and 64GB lexar SD card.

https://youtu.be/xIHQsvCmxr8
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby McDave » Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:56 pm

Well done, jmanscotch.
Very cool trailer and a very cool trip with your Dad. Hope you have many more. Thanks for documenting this build. Lots of good stuff here. Damn that's some beautiful country..

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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby hankaye » Tue Jul 03, 2018 7:03 pm

jmanscotch, Howdy;

Just checked out the video, get ya "Back Country Pinstripes" on the trailer?
Ya know it ain't broke in proper till it collects a few ... :)

hank
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby jmanscotch » Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:20 pm

hankaye wrote:jmanscotch, Howdy;

Just checked out the video, get ya "Back Country Pinstripes" on the trailer?
Ya know it ain't broke in proper till it collects a few ... :)

hank


You know it! Added a few more to my truck too...I swore I was going to give it a good buff this year to fix those, but ehh
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby jmanscotch » Sun Jul 08, 2018 7:38 pm

Things have been slow lately and with the dozen or so wildfires burning around Colorado right now, stage 3 fire bans have me putting some plans on the back burner and focusing on items that don't require any grinding or welding outdoors.

We have one 100,000+ acre fire burning right now because a guy had been cooking some meat in his yard and the coals caught the next day. Hundred of homes evacuated and dozens of homes already lost....so rightfully, local authorities are writing rather large financial reminders for anyone caught doing anything with a flame or spark outside...so I'm focusing on the interior right now.

Before getting started on interior work, I set out to fix one of the main things I found out on my trip with my father: bumpy roads and 30 MPH could convince the suspension to compress enough that the axle would bottom out on the trailer frame. I contemplated doing an axle flip, to gain the clearance needed, but that'd lift the trailer about 5-6 inches and that was just going to be too much.

Since I'm running an exact Jeep CJ-7 suspension, I decided to see what options I had for a lift kit for that chassis. I found some 2 inch lift shackles and based on what I observed, they'll work perfectly to give me clearance without going too high, all for a mere $40.

Before and after:

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One of the other things I noticed was the trailer seemed slightly tongue heavy on our trip, so I took some time to run to one of my companies facilities to use the truck scale there.

As the trailer sits now, it's 1,160 pounds, with a tongue weight of 220 pounds. So a little more than ideal. Batteries and a galley should help balance that nicely and get me closer to my goal of 10%.

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With that question answered, lets move onto the interior work.

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I went with 1" insulation, attached to the walls and roof with some silicone adhesive laid in vertical rows. My thinking here was if there were ever a leak, the vertical rows will allow moisture to roll down and out instead of having a spot to collect. The Gorilla glue will be used later. I also filled some of the odd-ball shapes in the front of the trailer with minimally expanding foam.

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Then onto the wonderful mess of cutting the foam insulation, white balls going everywhere and hours of measuring, cutting, fitting, gluing, taping....good fun.

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Next was the interior wood walls. I went with some 1/2 Maple. Cut the 4x8 sheet down to size, placed inside and traced the doorway so I could cut the hole there.

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I just used a pen to trace a rough duplicate of the inside edge of the door opening. On the interior of the door, there's finishing trim ring that'll be installed. It fits behind a 3/4 inch frame around the door opening. Thus the original trace of the door opening will need cut out about an 1 inch to give room for the trim ring to fit.

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Cutting complete.

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Mocked up to ensure proper fitment with the trim ring in place.

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Everything fit well, so sides were sanded and staining commenced. I let the lady pick the stain, she settled on a lighter color since it'll be close quarters. I believe it's called Puritine Pine, by MinWax. Two coats of that were applied. Tomorrow I'll finish it off with some clear gloss, water based, polyurethane and we'll get to installing it.

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No pictures right now, but while she was staining, I ran the wiring for the side porch lights, dome light and vent fan.

Jake
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Re: Off-Road Worthy 5x8 Conversion

Postby hankaye » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:12 pm

jmanscotch, Howdy;

Looks like a fine chunk of work you've done on that.

:thumbsup: , :thumbsup: .

hank
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