Modern Buddy

So another one of my hobbies is camping. In fact, I'm in the process of building a small camper trailer that can also carry our scoots(I'll post pics when it's finished in the spring). Anyway, I'm a member of another forum devoted to these "teardrops and tiny trailers". I just found this thread this morning and thought you guys would get a kick out of the first pic.

Enjoy!



http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=34396

That was a fun read. Keep us posted on your trailer set-up.

Wow, what a great collection of images! The scooters, the trailers, the MC's... love em! The guy riding in a shirt and tie gave me a chuckle

[quote="jwarfield"]So another one of my hobbies is camping. In fact, I'm in the process of building a small camper trailer that can also carry our scoots(I'll post pics when it's finished in the spring). Anyway, I'm a member of another forum devoted to these "teardrops and tiny trailers". I just found this thread this morning and thought you guys would get a kick out of the first pic.

Enjoy!

AHA!!!! Your're a crossforum poster!!! Well so am I! Imagine my suprise to find another poster from my other favorite forum!

The husband and built our camper in 2006. We've pulled it from North Dakota to the Florida Keys and the next year to the giant redwoods of California. Our camper weighs 1000 lbs. So it is too much for a scooter to handle but it pulls really nice behind our 4 cylinder Chevy Malibu. It also works out nice to put my scooter and the husbands motorcycle in the bed of our truck and put the camper behind.

If you have any interest in small campers the mikenchell.com forums are the best. Great people who love to share building, restoring or buying ideas.


Our camper.




Our camper on the nightly news.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1GbeG4hKrU

I dream about building one of these one day. I love the concept. I want to do some scooter/motorcycle camping too.

My question about these is what do you use for the trailer base? It's got to be light, strong and larger wheels for highway use right?

Cool ole pictures

dakotamouse;
That is a fantastic camper; loved the news clip on you guys.

KCScooterDude wrote:My question about these is what do you use for the trailer base? It's got to be light, strong and larger wheels for highway use right?

While some people have the talent and equipment to weld their own frames a good many of us bought our frames. We got ours at a TSC this is a farm supply store. Ours has 11 inch tires and has a 4x8 bed. Makes for snug sleeping for two.

Take some time to explore the build forum. Go ahead and lurk if you like. You learn so much there. The fun thing about these trailers is they are yours! Build them the way YOU like. Big or small, kitchen or no kitchen. No two teardrops are the same.

rajron wrote:
dakotamouse;
That is a fantastic camper; loved the news clip on you guys.

Thanks, Rajron. The only downside to these campers, if you can call it that, is you better like people!

Everyone wants to know, "what is that!?"

When you stop for gas, or even a stop light you invite conversation.

Awesome. I've seen some very old video of a camping trailer on a Lambretta. I'll try to dig it up.

There are a lot of scooter trailer pics in some old threads here. My fave remains the PAV trailer and its replicas.

I see this rig every year at the Dayton Ohio rally. The Vespa somehow fits in the trailer but I've never seen the magic happen.

9 times out of 10 people buy their trailers from Harbor Freight, and at a pretty good price too. Usually around $300 or so. I bought mine from TSC and flipped the axle to allow 30" jeep wheels and tires. I also ripped the original tongue off and welded a longer, beefier one in its place and welded two scooter platforms to the top of the tongue. That way the scoots can go wherever we go and we have a clean comfy place to sack out no matter where we are!

jwarfield wrote:9 times out of 10 people buy their trailers from Harbor Freight, and at a pretty good price too. Usually around $300 or so. I bought mine from TSC and flipped the axle to allow 30" jeep wheels and tires. I also ripped the original tongue off and welded a longer, beefier one in its place and welded two scooter platforms to the top of the tongue. That way the scoots can go wherever we go and we have a clean comfy place to sack out no matter where we are!

Pics or links?!

You can't just tell us about your home made scooter trailer and not post these things... c'mon!

OK....OK....sorry to be a tease. Here's my new flickr page. I'll post more pics as I find them, not sure where they are........hmmmm.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29376583@N00/

jwarfield wrote:9 times out of 10 people buy their trailers from Harbor Freight, and at a pretty good price too. Usually around $300 or so. I bought mine from TSC and flipped the axle to allow 30" jeep wheels and tires. I also ripped the original tongue off and welded a longer, beefier one in its place and welded two scooter platforms to the top of the tongue. That way the scoots can go wherever we go and we have a clean comfy place to sack out no matter where we are!

I thought about a platform on the tongue for scooters, but what does that do to your tongue weight? I don't want to get over 1,500 pounds total (hopefully less) and keep the tongue weight as low as possible.

I thought about a platform on the tongue for scooters, but what does that do to your tongue weight?

Of course it increased the tongue weight but I added a full size steel ramp and spare tire to the back end of the trailer so it counter balanced the weight. Also, since I upgraded the wheel/tire combo from the whimpy 10 inch to the 30 in. version the trailer is now able to handle bigger payloads. I loaded the trailer up with 4 scooters (2 on the tongue and 2 in the trailer body) and towed them to Wilmington NC with no problems.

jwarfield wrote:OK....OK....sorry to be a tease. Here's my new flickr page. I'll post more pics as I find them, not sure where they are........hmmmm.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29376583@N00/

Cool stuff! Don't you just love pocket hole joints?

Don't you just love pocket hole joints?

It's the first time I had ever used one, and now I don't know how I got along without it! I picked it up from Rockler woodworking for like 10 bucks or so.

When we built ours we didn't have a pocket hole jig. Now, the husband does and he loves it. We did have a air nailer and that helped a lot.

dakotamouse wrote:When we built ours we didn't have a pocket hole jig. Now, the husband does and he loves it. We did have a air nailer and that helped a lot.

Is it from a kit? Do you just buy the plans from somewhere? It's really a beaut!

Thanks Eric, we used plans we purchased over the internet from a company called Kufflecreek. You can follow their instructions to the letter of the law or do what most do.....modify!

Everyone builds them different and they are all beauts.