Cargo Trailer Spruce Up

[Blown F-150]

Little bit’s being ordered here and there. Lots of the 12v wiring came in and the first “big” purchase, the battery. 100ah Lithium Iron battery that is self heating. I think it will do pretty well for my needs.


Next up will be attempting to pull the plywood from the inside. If I can get it out, I’ll get the windows, fan and insulation foam to get things really started.


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[Blown F-150]

I was able to pull the inside panels off the front. It wasn’t too bad. Grabbed some insulation and pick up some checker plate later this week. I should be able to fix my boo-boo this weekend and then move on from there.


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[Blown F-150]

Windows came in today. I guess I’m going to have to start doing some actual work on it now, lol.


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[Kitzy]

So we are in our off season at work so we have all of our trailers in for inspection.  Like I mentioned before I think, mine needed a bunch of warranty work done.  Well they’ve had it for weeks now and when I called to ask about it, they told me the manufacturer doesn’t want to send them any parts because it means they will have less parts to manufacture new trailers.  Haha.  Awesome.  Dealership actually sent a guy out to Indiana to pick up the parts himself. 

The trailer I picked up today had three cracked outriggers on the frame.  That’s probably the third trailer like that. 

Hopefully yours is built better than all of ours. 


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[Blown F-150]

That’s brutal!

I’m not seeing anything super special about how this thing is built, but the brand is well rated. Time will tell I guess.

I picked up a 8ft awning to bolt to the side of it and the checker plate to fix my boo boo on the front. Hopefully I can spend a little bit of time on it this weekend. I’m trying to get the quad stuff done, but distractions everywhere are slowing that effort down.


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[Blown F-150]

Started ripping the plywood off the inside. They were not messing around with the nails, many took the heads off trying to pull them out.

The plan is to mock up some of the lights and items that I plan on installing next. It’s going to get cold here again, so not sure when I’ll spend some more time on it.





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[Kitzy]

What’s the plan for the ceiling?  I assume there wasn’t any wood up there.  Atleast I haven’t seen one with it yet.  But if you’re insulating then I imagine you want to do something about that. 


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[Blown F-150]

I’m going to try and do 2” insulation on the ceiling, then some simple wood strapping that will let me put some kind of wood finishing panels. Pine Tongue and groove seems to be fairly cheep (for wood prices anyway). Then I could just clear stain it or something.

We’ll see how ambitious I actually am once I start with getting the insulation in.


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[Kitzy]

So you’re going to build the ceiling down some then?  That square tubing isn’t 2” is it?  You could always use a lighter 1/8” (3mm) plywood and attach it right to the cross bars.  And if you do the ceiling before the walls, the walls can butt up against it and help hold up the edges.  What does the top of the roof look like?  I was thinking coating it with the stuff they use on campers and RVs would help reduce that oven affect trailers get when sunlight is blasting down on top of the metal panels. 

By the way, no word on my trailer yet.  I don’t even know if they ever got the parts for it since my boss returned from his vacation and I’ve left all of that to him now.  It was supposed to be completed last Monday. 


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[Blown F-150]

I think they are just 1” square tubing that’s a little thicker walled. I was thinking I could just cut out the insulation where the tubes are, but may just do two layers of 1” thick insulation. 2” is actually cheaper, so was thinking how I could use it instead.

I’ll be putting the sheeting back over the insulation on the walls, but then would like to finish it with something. It’s just a cargo trailer, so I’m trying to temper my expectations around what it “could” look like with some nicer materials.


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[Blown F-150]

The roof is just sheet aluminum, so it would probably be smart to cover it with something like the RV guys do.


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[Kitzy]

So I have no faith in screws in trailers.  I think you said you’re going back with nails but regardless, I don’t trust any of it long term.  You could always rip 2x4s down to 2x2 (real measurements would be 1 1/2” by 2”)  and bolt through the wood and the cross tubes essentially giving you the 2” drop you need for the insulation.  The bolts will never come undone and you can then use wood screws and attach plywood to the ripped 2x2s and it should hold no problem.  My work trailer is getting bolts everywhere that fails next time. 

What got me thinking about the outside of the roof is our trailers get so hot you can’t touch them in the summer. And when I should to load truck when I was younger those trucks were awful.  Anything to reflect that heat back off of it would be great and what better than what they use on RVs.


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[Blown F-150]

I’ve been doing some looking and will likely be doing screws. We’ll see how it goes as I’ll probably put less miles on mine in a year vs. one of your company trailers in a week.


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[Kitzy]

I do t know what’s going on with my work trailer but the completion date is now March 2nd.  Apparently the parts still aren’t in.  I guess be careful with your trailer not to break anything that you may need to order.  It might not be available.


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[Blown F-150]

That sucks, but I've heard the same around here. A couple guys were bitching that they couldn't even get a set of leaf's.