Building it Out
So far Shauna has been sharing her thoughts but I know some of you want some more nuts and bolts technical information about this adventure. I want to share how I decided to build out our camping rig with an enclosed trailer for extra space and a garage.
Our rig is a 2002 Ford F-250 with a 2007 Four Wheel Camper pop-up camper with no extras except a furnace. We use coolers and water jugs and cook outside. We’ve been camping like this for the last 11 years. It works out great for our style of camping but puts a crimp on multiple days in one spot if you want to explore an area outside a hiking or biking distance.
So was born the idea of the enclosed trailer and taking our 2006 Jeep Wrangler along and giving ourselves extra space for storage. I researched trailers and had decided to order one from GA. You know the place from the trader mags… inexpensive, all steel tube construction, and any combination of extras you could want. What we actually did was buy off the lot at Becks in St John, MI. We happened by there during their fall sale and bought a 24′ vee nose, 10,400 Lb. GVW car hauler in dark grey to match our pickup. It it steel framed, screwless aluminum exterior, has a 36″ RV side door, alloy wheels, and 10 ply tires. And it’s made by Legend Mfg. in Michigan. Buying local is a big win!
The truck needed some extras to help us live out of it and take it on some extraordinary side trips. We are planning on dropping the trailer and Jeep to drive the Dempster and Dalton Highways. This means moving gear to the pickup for two one-week excursions. It got a Yakima roof rack, new Cooper ST/MAXX tires, side bars, and mud flaps. The back seat came out and a custom shelving system went in based around giving Gus a platform at console level. This provided storage underneath his bed. An added back window shelf gained us a lot of storage up high in the back seat area. I also added two extra hitch receivers on the truck’s hitch. One is for the camper step so we don’t have to unhook the trailer each night and the other is for a spare tire mount to carry a second spare up these highways.
Mechanically, the truck is sound despite having 292k on the clock when we left. Fresh oil and filters and a good once over by our trusted mechanics at David’s Garage, Engineered Diesel, and Trans Service Plus gave us the warm, fuzzy feeling needed to embark on a trip like this with an old, but solid truck.
The build out began with laying out everything we wanted to bring along and start trying to get it all to fit. I bought wall mounts for four spare tires, two for the trailer and two for the truck. These are mounted two and two against the walls behind the axles. There is a tall steel cabinet against one wall. We mounted a base cabinet with countertop and three overhead cabinets donated by our friend Mark. I found a cool little two basin sink on CL and mounted that in the countertop. Gray water is collected in a five-gallon bucket under the sink. I installed an on demand hot water heater and a recycled RV water pump from Uncle Ken, and built a shower out of a galvanized tub and a hula hoop. The gray water drains to a bucket via a hose. A 100 Lb. propane tank provides gas for the hot water, a wall heater, and the camp stove via a custom manifold. This minimized our usage of the 1 Lb. cylinders.
I wanted to maximize space by storing things on the walls that wouldn’t interfere with the Jeep being in there. So camp chairs, the EZ Up, air tanks, fuel cans… all got dedicated space against the walls and on the fenders. Eye hooks, d-rings, ratchet straps, and bungees keep it all in place. I even mounted six milk crates on the wall for misc. things, and shelves made of pallet wood for shoes, bottles, and cans and the like. A pallet wood counter with garbage can and ‘junk drawer’ shelf is built-in next to the side door.
That is all practical storage but it still looked like a trailer inside and we wanted it to have a bit of a homey feel. Shauna took a bunch of pallet wood and painted/stained it. We took some old galvanized roofing material we got from Shauna’s brother Ryan and used that and the pallet wood to do some cool siding for the walls. Cousin Scott hooked us up with a 12′ section of vinyl flooring that has a hard wood flooring look to it. It made the place feel livable.
There is so much more detail on how this was all accomplished so if you have any questions, just ask and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.