Off-road trailer

Although I try my best, I am not the type of person who can draw a plan and build something from a plan. Everything I build I create in my head and build it from there. So for those who might ask the question, Sorry, there are no plans I can share with you. If you read the whole story you will know exactly what I did, how big it is, what mistakes I made and how it turned out in the end.

Before I started I visited a couple of 4x4 shows, off-road trailer show rooms and looked at various trailers and camping sites. I gathered information like the general dimensions of the trailers, the wall thickness of the floor material and the side material, axles used and so on.

I started off building a frame with lip channel. The lip channel I used is 100mmx50mm with a wall thickness of 2.5mm. The frame you see below will be the floor of the trailer. It is 1.2 meters wide and 2 meters long. I had a look at various off-road trailers before I decided on the size. The width is easy, a standard sheet of metal is 1.2 m x 2.4 m. So in order not having to cut it on the length of the sheet, you just make your floor as wide as the sheet.

I also welded the extra pieces in the middle to prevent the floor from sagging. Those were off-cuts that was laying around. It is perlains of 75x74 with 3mm wall thickness.

Mistake No 1: Because this steel were off-cuts from a previous project they were painted. At the time it did not really matter to me. Later on, after I welded the floor on, I decided that I might want to Hot Dip Galvanize my trailer. Because these cross members was painted, I could not do so unless I sand blasted them. But then I would still have paint between the floor panel and the top of these beams.

I then strengthened the corners. Remember that this is an off-road trailer. I have seen what effect the constant vibration of driving thousands of kilometers of gravel road has on the metal So I decided to build it as strong as possible. After I finished I realized that I might have overdone it, but I would rather be safe than sorry.

To make these corner pieces is easy. I bought 100mm x 100mm x 5mm plates and cut it diagonally in half. Then you have your perfect 45 degree angle. I then just chopped off the little corner for the bottom plates to enable water and mud to flow through the opening in the corner.

Build your own off-road trailer