Enclosed trailers

[alwaysFlOoReD]

More plates, more tires, more batteries, more insurance...

True, the insurance might be the killer. But trailers need plates, trailer tires aren't cheap. Battery... Meh, it's a buck fifty.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

A box van? I have an old Grumman aluminum bodied van with Chevy running gear. It has 16' usable space in the back. It was a SnapOn van at one time. Some are much longer.

I thought about that too but again...the city. Ive already got 4 vehicles here lol. And like @85_Ranger4x4 said tags, insurance, keeping it running, etc. MI has permanant trailer plates...buy it once its good for life.

 

[Rick W]

No time or desire to put something together yourself?

The drop trailer on the Road Ranger started life as the frame and brake axle from a pop-up camper. The pop-up part was gone when I bought it for $200. I beefed up the frame a little bit and made it a double axle which I moved to the back, and I’ve hauled over 6000 pounds with it although I wouldn’t recommend doing it often. If I had a need to do so, that wouldn’t have taken much more work when I was doing it.

Around here, you can pick up used double axle mobile home frames with 3500 pound brake axles for less than $1000, all the time. You can pick up 20 foot travel trailer frames with two axles, at least one with brakes, for under $500. The travel trailer frames are lighter duty, but they’re easily modified, and the major part of the work is already done. It’s easy to find the travel trailer frames with a title. Sometimes that’s harder to do with the mobile home frames.

From there, you can frame it in and put an Aluminum skin on it for not too much money, then you can brace it or thicken the roof or whatever for not too much money more.

As you know, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Would you consider doing something like that? It takes you more time, but you’re probably talking about having 1000 or $1500 in total. If you focused on it, it’s probably a tour a project total.

And, afterthought, you could buy the stuff and hire some labor to build it if you know how to do that kind of thing.

My two cents, hope it helps

 

[rusty ol ranger]

No time or desire to put something together yourself?

The drop trailer on the Road Ranger started life as the frame and brake axle from a pop-up camper. The pop-up part was gone when I bought it for $200. I beefed up the frame a little bit and made it a double axle which I moved to the back, and I’ve hauled over 6000 pounds with it although I wouldn’t recommend doing it often. If I had a need to do so, that wouldn’t have taken much more work when I was doing it.

Around here, you can pick up used double axle mobile home frames with 3500 pound brake axles for less than $1000, all the time. You can pick up 20 foot travel trailer frames with two axles, at least one with brakes, for under $500. The travel trailer frames are lighter duty, but they’re easily modified, and the major part of the work is already done. It’s easy to find the travel trailer frames with a title. Sometimes that’s harder to do with the mobile home frames.

From there, you can frame it in and put an Aluminum skin on it for not too much money, then you can brace it or thicken the roof or whatever for not too much money more.

As you know, I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Would you consider doing something like that? It takes you more time, but you’re probably talking about having 1000 or $1500 in total. If you focused on it, it’s probably a tour a project total.

And, afterthought, you could buy the stuff and hire some labor to build it if you know how to do that kind of thing.

My two cents, hope it helps

I dont really have the time or skill for something like that to be honest.

Kinda just want something i can use with minimal effort on my part.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I dont really have the time or skill for something like that to be honest.

Kinda just want something i can use with minimal effort on my part.

This is why I didn’t suggest my move for an enclosed trailer. I bought a Chevy box truck that someone took the motor with the intent to rip the cab off and make it a trailer. Best use for a Chevy. I had also thought about picking up like a mobile home trailer and drop the box from the box truck on it, but I was trying to use it as a mobile contractors workshop so deck height isn’t a huge deal.

 

[Heather’s94]

I actually kicked around the idea of a horse/stock trailer. If i could find a big enough, bumper pull one in good shape i still might...they seem to be built so much stouter. But im not real clear on how it would work fully enclosing the cutouts and making it not leak. Plus alot of them have that stupid non removable bar in the middle.

Bars unbolt, at least on horse trailers old enough to be affordable. And that old means surge brakes with a 1960s fruit jar master cylinder… The oilite bushing section at a REAL hardware store is required to fix the sliding tongue mechanism.

I towed our 60s model horse trailer from Buckley WA to Brighton TN in 2011. Rebuilt the sliding tongue, new deck boards, new tires, new brake lines. Plate expired in 1991…

 

[Heather’s94]

And Lisa used it behind Barney (94 2.3/5spd rcsb 2wd) to go pick up a Shetland pony around 2014. Still on the 1991 Alaska plate.
TN does not require a trailer plate, or lights, for daytime use…
Trucklette towed it just fine. The WA to TN move was behind a 1969 Dodge 2wd lwb half tonner.