T-4

[dlud]

My wife and I race bicycles and are spending the winter in a warmer state. We were looking at options to bring our luggage, three bikes and two dogs with our Honda CRV. We ultimately decided to buy a trailer, put a piece of plywood on it and put on mounts to secure our bikes. We then decided to add sides so we could throw some items into the trailer along with the bikes. We then thought it would be a good idea to put a tarp on the trailer to keep the bikes and stuff out of the weather. After thinking about it it seemed that a tarp would be pretty fragile so we thought we would put a top on it made of plywood with hinges. Then some friends told us about their idea to build a "teardrop." We weren't sure what they were talking about but after doing an internet search we stumbled on this forum and we were off and running. We decided on a 9' x 4' Grumman 2 profile skinned in aluminum. It has minimal cabinetry as it is primarily a bike/luggage transporter with a secondary purpose of allowing us to camp at out of the way bike races.

First, we bought a HF trailer off of Craigslist. Then we found four sheets of .030 4' x 12' aluminum from a local manufacturer (again off of Craigslist--$27/sheet).

Here is the HF trailer.

[Weirdnerd]

Nice job!...I am itching to make another one of that shape....how long have you been working on that project?

[dlud]

We started in August/September of this year.

[Gage]

Boy at first I thought you were maybe blowing smoke and then I went into your album. NICE job, especially in the time you have been building. A nice duel purpose teardrop.

[cuyeda]

Good job! Looking forward to seeing your luggage transporter loaded with gear, and bikes mounted inside.

[Miriam C.]

Great job! Now go somewhere and take us some pictures too please.

[vtx1029]

Nice looking trailer

Care to share your aluminum source?

[dlud]

It was a manufacturer in Mendota Heights (I don't recall the name) that had some surplus metal that it was getting rid of via craigslist.
You can also buy sheet aluminum from Discount Metals in Mpls.

[dlud]

We made the floor from 3/4" exterior plywood with the joists made of green treated lumber ripped down on the table saw to 1 1/2' thickness. We routed out for the bolts on the HF frame and added a mount for the spare tire.



We then sealed the bottom with roof cement/sealer.



The frame was painted black and floor structure then bolted to the frame after it was lengthened by 12" to take into account that we were building a 9' teardrop. The axle was also moved back on the frame by 12."