Crazy trailer ideas and designs
After using a 2nd trailer (I'm in NYC area using it now), I finally know what I want and what I want is so special that I now know that I can forget finding a used one and need to build one. Looks like several memebers are ready to buy trailers. I will call dreadnought to discuss further but there are a few special things I want that the "brain trust" here on POG might be able to chim in on.
I want a trailer at least as high as my coach. Why give up extra storage when the coach is already that high (12'3" in my case). I need a loft 3/4 of the way across to carry my goods with the other front 1/4 left for two bunks (up top loft like) for sleeping and a tiny kitchen, TV showre and head on the bottom part. I need at least 18" for a car or truck on the bottom with the front part (upper and lower two story living quarters remember) to be .............what ??? 6' at least even if your talking submarine quarters. (I'm looking for feedback here if 6' 2 story will work). I want this small living quarters for a driver I might hire from time to time is all. Not for us. I don't want a wall dividing the back from the front so that if I need to carry a car longer than 18' if would work and intrude into the living (camping) area a bit if necceesary. That puts me at 24' of interior space before you add the tongue I suppose. Maybe I could live with a couple feet shorter if it was laid out correctly. I just need to allow the car on the bottom to fit.
For the stacker portion, I don't need a full car lift. I need something like a dumb waiter. Something that can just lift 700 lbs up and down to the loft is all. I need easy track along the top loft to secure the items to the wall.
I was thinking of a design that would allow me to put a pick up truck inside in order to break away from the bus and use the truck to tow the trailer in and around NYC where I do a lot of business. I can't get the Prevost and a trailer through NY. Hence, the reason for concern about having enough stretch room for a larger vehicle on the bottom as the breakaway tow vehicle for picking up and dropping off gear from within the trailer (I'm really open to suggestions here on all of this). I was thinking that a design with a small lift on the very rear of the trailer might work well especially if it were to lift up far enough (past the loft line) in order to allow space for the cab of the truck to fit if the truck were to be backed in. This desigen would allow for more headroom in the loft area since the bottom half of the trailer would only need to be high enough to accomadate the bed of the truck (or my Porsche or VW Bug which are fairly short in height). I would carpet the upstairs loft and try to make enough headroom to bring customers in and let them see some of the gear. I haven't taken measurements yet of the height of a truck bed and I need to pick out the right truck to carry around the trailer which is a small as possible. Short bed .........maybe lower the suspension a tad if needed.......I'm not sure.
Now, one of the problems is the weight distribution of the truck being loaded in backwards is not ideal for the tounge weight and I don't want to have the trailer walking all over the road. Couple that with the fact that the payload up top in the loft (approx. 3,000 lbs) is going to be in the center of the trailer and not forward and it doesn't to much to compensate for weight distribution. If I carry forward with my nut brain idea to put convert the bus to run on Vegatable Oil and put the refinery and the holding tanks for the VO in the bed of the truck (posted this stuff prior) then that might go some distance to help with the weight distrubution assuming the tanks in the bed of the truck had fuel.
How much of this is junk and how much is worthy of pursuit. I got's to figure it all outs Mon.
Jeff