Hey, I read the entire thread!
Now to start absorbing build threads. I feel like I know some of the people here. I confess that a few times I was all ready to contribute, then looked at the post date and had to remind myself “that was years ago!”
I’m 65 (how did THAT happen? Inside every old man is a young man - wondering what the h#@* happened), Hydroelectric Operator in the great Pacific NorthWET, hope to retire very soon (45 years is far too long). We’ve been wanting a very light and minimal teardrop, the “hard tent” concept, something we could tow with a 9th generation 5 speed Corolla (we have two). Wrote Andy Herrick a letter in January (for youngsters, that’s a thing you do on actual paper, then put in an envelope with a stamp on it).
No reply. In the meantime, we saw Road Toad by Camp Inn, and wondered how they could hit that incredible weight of 400 lbs. Other than vague reference to “modern composite construction,” they don’t say.
Recently, family needs hit our reserves, so the only way we’re getting a teardrop anytime soon is to build it. I was raised rural, know tools, had to fake several skills during 25 years as a shoestring budget landlord. We just scrapped a 1988 Jayco 806 pop up, so I have a frame. Looked at the Dexter torsion axle on it, thought I’d prefer different hub spacing, learned those axles only last 15-20 years or less, and this one is 31. So an axle is on the list, too.
I was going to turn the Jayco frame into a flatbed suitable for hauling a riding mower (but not much more). Now I’m thinking a foamie I can set onto the flatbed or remove when not camping. We’ve decided we want five wide, and the short “RV Queen” mattress. I was thinking something like GPW’s first build, a box with sloped ends. I sketched a half scale outline on our blackboard (painted onto the kitchen/dining room wall when we decided to home school the kids). Then I looked again at that frame, thought about the very most I could do, given a bit of fabrication with the welder I bought at Montgomery Ward in 1981. I might be able to go ten long instead of eight. Hmmm.... Door on each side, and one in back.
My wife, Kathleen, says she does not want a galley because she’ll spatter a lot of grease with her ketogenic cooking (which helped her reverse diabetes then beat stage three breast cancer), and she does not want that inside the camper. Give her a two burner Coleman and a folding table. We want this camper to be extremely basic. But when I mentioned the possibility of occasionally pulling it behind our modified WJ Jeep, up old logging roads, she suggested swapping wheels & tires. That got me to measuring and scheming. With the right wheel adapters, and assuming the wheels are outboard of the camper box, I could conceivably run the 25” Corolla wheels/tires on the highway (only carry one spare), then swap to the 33” wheels/tires of the lifted Jeep (again only carrying one spare) for the occasional offroad adventure.
Well, I’ve run on long enough. I want to do this as much as possible with only foam, fabric and glue (and yes the HD here in western Washington carries 2” foam.
Lane
Life is too short not to be happy.
by linuxmanxxx » Wed Mar 20, 2019 12:12 pm 
