Skipping to the end

Well I'm embarrassed to see that it's been more than a year since my last post.  The good news is that the camper project is nearly done. It's usable and legal to pull on the road with license plates and title. The stuff left to do is mostly cosmetic. Since my last post I was able to get the trailer out of the garage and then attached the roof panels and installed the axle. Many other miscellaneous items were finished in time for a short weekend trip to a local state park last fall. Overall my wife and I both felt that the new trailer worked quite nicely and we look forward to more trips this year.  

Here are a few pictures and comments on the things that happened since the last posting.

The picture below is when I was rolling the camper assembly out of the garage.  I had about 6 inches of head room to spare.  Believe me, I was glad to see it finally out of the garage.  I know I lost sleep a few nights thinking about how this would work and in the end it rolled out very easy.  Notice that I have the SUV parked sideways in the driveway, just in case the whole camper would get away from me and roll down the driveway, which is pretty steep.  I could imagine the surprise on my neighbors faces as the camper rolled across the street and slammed into the curb.  Thankfully no such thing happened and all went real smooth.

 Below you see the first roof panel going up.  It was right about at this point that it did decide to rain a few drops.  Fortunately it ended quickly and there was nothing to mop up.

Below you see the axle going underneath. As it turns out I had to upgrade from the axle you see in this shot to a heavier one.  The reason is that the trailer ended up heavier than my non-engineer mind had intended it to be......about 600 pounds heavier. This bumped it over the safe load range of the axle you see in the picture, so I ended up buying a new axle online of a much heavier load rating.  I of course needed heavier duty tires too. Fortunately I already had the wheels and tires so the main expense was the new axle.

What a relief to finally have it all outside.  Also what a joy to get both stalls of the two car garage back again.

Below is the finished project (or nearly finished).  I'm pretty sure it's one of the ugliest campers you will ever see, but hey, it's clean and dry on the inside as well as warm and cozy on the cold nights and sports all the comforts of home.

 Here's a rear view. The hole above the window is where the window AC unit slides in.

Shown below is a top view where you can see the vents and skylights as well as all the roof panel seams.  Somewhere else in this blog I mentioned that there would be four skylights.  Not sure how I came up with that number, but three was what I actually installed. If I had to do it over again I think I'd have used a rubber roof instead of the aluminum.  I'm just nervous about all the seams and screws up there that only increase the potential of a leak some day. Oh well, it's too late now.  In the end if it does start to leak I suppose I can always rip off all the aluminum and install rubber but till then this will have to do. 

I discovered half way into the roofing project that butyl rubber caulk works much better than silicone for grabbing and sticking to the aluminum.  I used silicone for the seams on the side of the camper and now I wish I had used butyl on the whole thing.  

                                  

 

Here's a couple shots of the trailer on it's maiden voyage last fall to the local state park.

There are a few things left to do which includes...

• Installing an awning
• Install two external compartment hatch doors
• Installing a bathroom power vent
• Installing shades to cover the skylights
• Inventing and installing a better dinette table leg system.  We are currently using two steel pedestals and I hate the darn things. What a pain they are to set up and take down when converting from bed to table.  My hope is to devise some sort of scissor lift system using a charged cylinder (like you have in your office chair to raise and lower the height).
• There is also all the cosmetic stuff left to do on the inside, like trim and hole patching.  

As long as it's usable all of the above items can be put on the back burner for now.  So at this point I think I'm going to declare this blog finished. 

I hope you enjoyed reading along and perhaps I even inspired one or two of you to take on their own camper building project.  I'd love to hear from anyone who found this blog useful.

Blessings to you all!

Chris Raway