Overland trailer build

[Robftw]

Hello Everyone,

This thread is going to highlight my overland trailer build based off the Dinoot Trailer.

These plans are based off the supplied dinoot frame plans, if i remember correctly this is 6" longer than a standard dinoot (more on why later) They're a little charred from the welding.. oops

I chose to build the frame out of 2" .120wall square tube

The spring brackets are from dinoot, they're pre-welded with minor assembly. I also picked up some axle tube spring mounts.

Im using a $90 harbor freight mig welder for this, didn't feel like driving 30 mins to my dads house every few days to build this thing with the good welders, Pardon the slag

I decided to purchase some of these Zip tie tabs from my friends at motobilt.com, they will come in handy with the trailer wiring & charging system later on

Close up

Here's the trailer sitting on wheels. I'm using a 2200lb axle. 71" hub face with 2" wide wheel spacers to convert over to JK wheel bolt pattern. Eventually i'd like to get a 3500lb axle with an 8x6.5 pattern so i can run the same wheel & tire combo as my jeep LJ (40" tires)

Picture of some misc. tabs i had cut for me by the guys at motobilt, the square and rectangle are for the trailer deck & rear stabilizer jacks. The large tie down handle will be used for holding the spare down & maybe some future storage options.

Heres a picture with everything mostly welded up, im really sorry this photo is blurry. I didn't notice it after i took the picture.

It shows off the 1/4" tongue plate i had CNC plasma cut by a friend.

I guess this would be a good point to show off my rear bumper situation, I run motobilt front & rear bumpers on my jeep. So naturally the curtains need to match the drapes. Also is a picture of an optima battery box made by motobilt. For $35 you cant go wrong!

This should wrap up the frame design, next post will have the decking, tongue box and hitch choices

 

[Robftw]

Alright i guess we'll start this part off with the articulating hitch. I'm cheap and resourceful so i didn't want to spend $250-$350 on name brand articulating hitches. Heres my take on it:

Going to use a harbor freight 4" Drop hitch, A Rod end from Barnes4wd & a lower link mount also from barnes4wd.

The Drop hitch was machined out 1-1/8" in order to fit a 7/8 ID brass bushing

The rod end will be plug welded inside the same 2x2 .120 wall square tube i built the trailer out of

I bought an 18" Receiver tube from harbor freight, cut 1/4" wide slits on all 4 sides and plug welded the sleeve onto my trailer tongue after i cut it down to my ideal length. Here's a good photo on how the rod end slides into the receiver now. You'll also see i used the extra lower rod end mount for my safety chains later on

photo of the completed assembly hooked up to my jeep

If you guys haven't noticed yet some of these pics might be a little bit out of order, it's because i didn't think to take pictures of certain things while i was putting the trailer together. These next few have the tongue box mounted and tie down's welded to the tongue plate. (this is why the trailer frame is 6" wider. This tongue plate will hold the box, spare tire, and it provides an area for my roll cage feet.

sitting pretty level with 29" tires

Everything seemed to work good, at that point i epoxy primed the entire frame, painted with black rust inhibitor paint & followed that up with a coating of herculiner on the "Wear areas"

This is the part where photographs might look out of place in the build timeline, Forgive me as im trying to keep these posts in "Sections" if you will.

Next up - Trailer deck

 

[Robftw]

Alright everyone, Per the dinoot instruction manual i decided to use 3/4" plywood for my deck. Because my axle is a full 71" hub face i won't be cutting into my trailers floor real estate = more room for activities

Lucky for me my basement is currently being gutted for renovations so i was able to work on this stuff down there while we had some freak weather here in buffalo. Went from mid 50s to 20s in a weekend..

Here's a photo of the general "Plan" i had for this...

I cut all of these out with my circular saw, pretty simple.

The deck is 58" x 52" so i had to cut the two 4x8 sheets down and wood glue / screw them together

The instructions call for some 1x3's in certain area's of the deck. They will line up with the square deck mounts i posted photos of above

Mixed up some saw dust + Wood glue, this is to help fill some cracks & screw holes. This is important so that the trailer deck stays super smooth.

Deck sanded smooth, notches cut out for the fiberglass panels

coated with cedar? water sealer.

I don't remember what coat this is, but i put 3 coatings of helmsman spar urethane on both sides of the deck. I lightly scuffed it with scotchbright pads between each coating.

I think this one might be right after the 3rd coat judging by how dark it is

water test

Alright so lets fastforward / go back in time to where i test fit the deck onto what was an un-painted trailer frame.

I used some spare 3/4" plywood to mock up how i wanted the tongue plate to sit (as seen above in a previous post)

And here's a picture of the tongue plate cut and placed on the trailer

I'm pretty sure at this point we're back in the present time with the photographs. I removed the trailer deck in preparation for rear jack stabilizers.

As you can tell the tongue box has been mounted. The battery box is inside the tongue box (Sorry no pics) and i am now getting my spare fuel mounts taken care of. Again i decided to go with motobilt, what can i say. They make a great product right here in the USA.

These jerry can mounts are awesome, they arrived as pictured. Nutserts pre-installed. Originally i wanted to mount these upright but i ran into a small issue with the tongue box lid hitting the jerry can.

Decided to mount the jerry can mounts on their "back" if you will

All painted up, you'll noticed i got the tongue jack welded in place too. Forgot to mention that earlier.

And here's the final photo for this week, i will start to work on the roll cage that's going to hold my roof top tent onto the trailer next weekend so stay tuned for that. You can see the roll cage feet in this photo.

 

[Robftw]

Reserved

 

[Robftw]

Reserved

 

[Robftw]

Reserved

 

[Lazy Eight Overland]

Looking good.... I might have missed it in the post, but I see duel swings on the back bumper, what are you going to attach there?

 

[Baipin]

Very fine work. The metal fabrication is both well designed and well executed!

 

[77TLCFJ40]

RobFTW,

Trailer is looking fantastic.

Could you please provide more details on your multi axis hitch parts? That is a genius solution. Like you, I would rather “build” one than buy one. Do you have a list of all the pieces you sourced for your hitch?

Thanks in advance!

 

[valthechef]

Great job, you're handy with a welder[emoji106][emoji106][emoji1132]