4x4 North

I’ve been kicking ideas around, I’m not super happy with my rtt. It’s great for hard wheeling and spending the odd night in. That being said for trips I’m not into it. My gladiator is both too big and far too small all at the same time. Just starting this thread for others to talk about ideas they have.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to do and might have time for this winter is to build a medium sized tear drop style trailer. I want to be able to sit at a table and eat when weather is bad. Sleep a couple people comfortable. Maybe cool inside in a pinch. If I do a trailer, I’d like to set it up for steering the trailer axle. I’ve got 3 37” tires I’d use. I work at a place where I’ve got access to the machining/fabrication stuff needed. I was thinking of getting jl/jt inner c’s for compatibility of parts but I can’t seem to find c’s without the housing and they get expensive. It would be cheaper to use super duty stuff to make my axle from. The other issue is trying to utilize the hydraulic brakes as well. Just figuring out the hardware side before even worrying about the control stuff

Pre-SD D60 stuff is normally pretty cheap for used Cs and knuckles, you could even use TTB D50 stuff even if you wanted to be ultra poorboy, and as a trailer it's not going to see absurd loading. I have a pile of useless old style D44 stuff lying around too, and I bet lots of guys do, and again I can't really see you breaking it as a trailer.

I don't know if you'd want to use a basic surge brake coupler for the brakes. If you did, it would be easy, but you'd probably have to just lock them out if you were trying to do anything difficult as otherwise the brakes would be a pain. There is electric over hydraulic versions too, but they're fairly pricy, I was looking at them for use with a truck axle and decided that I would just go with surge brakes if I ever did it.

I’d love to do it just for the sake of doing it. I think if you used ttb stuff or early superduty stuff it would be cool. Other thing I thought is that if you left the inner axle in and attached a lock to it so it couldn’t turn , when you locked the hubs you’d have the ultimate parking brake.

Sold my rooftop tent tonight. So I need to do something else. Might take a stab at a quick and dirty trailer, try to keep the budget down, test out the balance and capability before I get too far down the road of building a good one.

Look for a used utility trailer as the starting point maybe?

I don't know if Snowracer still has his overlanding trailer. Maybe somebody finally bought it.