plus it looks badass. haha.

 

Wow, 1,600lbs empty, that is pretty lite. keep up the good work man.

 

Nice work.
Looks impressive should take a beating.
Is there an interior plan ?

 

Can't wait to see this thing done!

 

I would love to see this when its done. Does the guy live in Riverside County? Or is that just where your working on it (Temecula)?

 

id love a smaller version of this for me... giving me ideas...

 

When you can I would like to see a picture of the top lifted.

This is a great build!

 

The plan was to keep it as light as possible. Once it rolled out it only had 60 lbs of tongue weight. Needless to say, we tipped it a few times while inside working. Messes with your head when the world starts moving under you...haha

Thanks! Yeah, the owner will be finishing that tough. I was only contracted to build the chassis and body.

It looks awesome. I haven't seen it with interior yet though. The owner lives on the east coast. I built this at my shop in AZ back in 2010.

I thought about building me one on the smaller scale. Its very expensive to build even on a small scale.

Thanks! I have a few of the finished trailer on a trail and with the top lifted. Those photos are coming.

 

Another angle of the windows.




The door turned out to be tricky. Lots of weird angles.






A better shot of the lower rear section

 

On to the upper roof section. Following the same bending technique we form the outer roof supports and weld in place.




Supports and lower tubing welded on.




Cross bar and window tubing are welded on then set on the main body.




The other side is then built. Then both sides are connected together.

 

After all the major parts are welded we hook the trailer to the truck. We drive over to a flat part of the yard to see how it looks. Then take measurements to for the air bag setup for proper ride height.

 

The upper roof section is pulled off and set on the floor. Its skinning time.




We start at the rear. The end sections have to be pre-bent by hand to fit the curve. We attached the skin with 3M's VHB tape. This was a very tedious process and no room for error. The VHB tape is super strong and once it touches, there's no pulling it off. The VHB tape was used in place of rivets. Rivets would take a long time to install, plus are another place to leak.






The rest of the sheets were laid over each other. This made all the seams face rearward. So during movement water and dust will roll over the seams and keep going.

 

Inside view.



Rear kick-up skin was cut and bent.

 

Woah, coming along eh?

 

i see the hitch coupler is just bolted into the tube, was that permanent?

 

Awesome work!

 

Before getting to far ahead, some steel work needs to be finished. The step is filled in with 3/16inch plate.




The front section is given a 3/16 inch gusset since the base step frame is only 1/8inch thick.




Corner marker lights are given 1/4 inch guards.




As well as the brake lights.




The tongue is given 1/4 inch plate reinforcements where the 2x4 tubing is welded together.

 

On to air bags. I spent a while to figure out the geometry in CAD for the suspension. I wanted to make sure the air bags didn't overextend, compress too much or tear from the axle swinging forward. Then I had a neighboring shop cut the parts out with their PlasmaCam. Upper and lower air bag plates are then fastened to the air bags.




Shock mount/reinforcing brackets are tacked on lower air bag plate.




A 2x4 section of chassis tubing is welded on to attach upper plate of air bag.




Upper shock tabs are welded on to chassis and gussets are welded on upper air bag plate.




After everything is tacked in place air bags and shocks are removed for final welding. The shock used is just temporary. The shocks ordered didn't arrive in time, so we used some cheap ones that were the same length.

 

Looks great!

You look like Mark Zuckerberg though.

 

Thanks!

Not so much....

 

A little bit. lol But actually he looks like you since your older.

Do you get deals on DOM? What about square? I need about 80 feet for something I am building.

 

dam your a little guy.

i should just get ya to build my truck, im sure it would be perfect.

 

I will be commenting on this in a while. Just saving it for now.

 

dammit! Stop teasing! Post the pics!

 

You do great work dude
Good job on the build.