Update time for this old thread.
I would say it’s damn rare that a project of mine actually works out exactly as envisioned and functions as well or better than my hopes when I started, but this is definitely one of them.
This thing has been dragged around behind the Postal (almost exclusively) everywhere from the Silver Lake Sand Dunes to Drummond Island to SEMA (then Seattle via California and home) and a pile of other trips and it just flat out works.
At SEMA ignited after the show.
NE CA just before the OR border where I camped near Crater Lake for the night on the way to my family to pick up my Uncle for a road trip in Seattle after SEMA.
on the way to our 4th of July campsite on Drummond Island.
The solar setup has kept up with a full fridge for a week of camping off the grid on Drummond over the 4th of July (which it will do again here soon) in a fairly wooded area where it only saw morning sun. The charge controller works great and I love the silly little Bluetooth battery status unit.
It pulls like a dream, even better with a little load in it. Never felt the need to go back and add shocks. The trailer brakes are just great and can easily be dialed up to lockup and where I feel them stopping the postal. I usually run them quite low.
The lights are great but the only finicky thing is the Bluetooth controller. It sometimes pops lights on randomly. I talked to the company and they have a new version that solves that issue, I just added a switch to kill all light power when I knew I didn’t want them. The phone app also sometimes doesn’t like to connect to the controller but I usually use the switches anyway.
The fridge slide has the lock on the first slide broken now and it’s not really meant for outdoor use, so rust is starting to pop on it here and there. I knew that going in but the drawer and cutting board setup were too cool not to use and it has just been awesome.
Camping up north in MI near Petoskey
The tent sleeps SO well and has been fantastic. The annex room only goes on for longer stays because it’s so unwieldy to deal with. I knew the tent wasn’t high enough to properly deploy the annex but that was a sacrifice for stability I knew I was making. Some spring clamps work well to gather up the extra wall fabric to minimize sagging and make the door easier to use.
The tongue box and wiring have held up and worked great. I deeply love my umbilicals because the wires look good as new where the trailer jack is showing the effect of the sun.
all the lights on, I’ve since added amber covers to the main scene lights on each corner and usually either the bed lights or rock lights are all we use. The USB extension cords running into the tent have been perfection.
I had Matt at Gr8tops make a “trailer jacket” out of his Jeep Jacket materials and that is brilliant. It’s been showing it’s age after windy winters outdoors here in MI but it’s still together.
The one thing I always wanted to do was add a proper propane tank for the stove. The little green disposable ones are a PITA. Thanks to the Colonel (our recent JKU buy) we had a nice two-burner stainless cooktop and small tank/mount. I got those on the trailer last night in time for the SOA National.
The trailer Jack’s mounting plate is way huge for the tongue and had started bending and causing the wheel to kick out at an uncomfortable angle. I fixed that by building a spacer that goes under the tongue and between the mounting plate and the backing channels that sandwich the tongue to hold it in place. The height of the trailer means the jack is almost entirely extended so it always has a little angle on it. Need to get a photo of the new setup. If I had a bigger welder I’d make a matching heavy plate to weld to the tongue with a couple gussets but my weenie little welder wouldn’t manage.
Got a picture of the spacer. Two pieces of steel strap with crosswise pieces of square tube on either end with my seriously questionable welds (that just hold things in place, not structural)
The only other issue is that I hit snow and salt in Montana coming back from Seattle and the trailer was iced over with salty slushy garbage. My quick paint job on the square tube and brackets didn’t hold up. Theneedremoved, cleaned and repainted more properly. Someday...