Building a DIY Overlanding Trailer: Tips and Advice?

[Foxtrot Whiskey]

My brother just stopped by and is thinking about building his own overlanding trailer from scratch, and wanted my opinion.

For those who have done it, what tips and advice do you have? Curious did you use one of those Harbor Freight trailers as a base? What materials and designs worked best for you, and what would you do differently next time?

 

[smritte]

How are your fabrication skills and what do you want it to do?

I've built four that were mine and helped build several others. My teardrop is the first of its kind and the other three were open box type,

Not a fan of the harbor freight chassis. The first one I built was on a similar platform. Small axle, no way to add brakes and a light frame. A bit too flimsy for me. Most of the over priced off-road trailers on the market were built wrong in my opinion. What you have is people building a "trailer" and putting dirt tires on it. Street trailers are built with short stiff springs. Off road you want longer smooth riding springs that have some travel to eat up the dirt bumps. Oh shocks are a must.

I could build anything in the way of suspension. here's my teardrop suspension. My M-100 (box) is similar)
The teardrop weighs around #2000.
I run a solid dexter #3500 axle with brakes and a park brake (all my trailers will now have a park brake). My springs are early CJ7 rear with a 4" lift (very common spring) I also run air bags incase I load the crap out of it. My shocks are early lowered, VW bug "kingpin". My axles are centered in my chassis. My tongue length is measured to give the same turning radius as my tow rig. The trailers follow my foot print exactly. I run about #50 tongue weight.
New modern axles cone slightly towed in and some positive camber. This lessens the amount of tongue weight needed and the pull great. If you buy a used chassis to build, it may not have this. Now you need to add tongue weight.

Things to do diffrent? if I remade my teardrop, it would be lighter. My box trailer is going to be rebuilt this summer. The only thing that's changing is the addition of a park brake and diffrent lug pattern to match my Toyotas.