The lil Draggin's draggable live-in

[LowTech]

There's been a little interest in my rig, and a suggestion to open up a thread so that questions can be asked, so here it is,

After 35 years of living in rigs I find that I prefer the truck and trailer combo. This is after having lived in most of the options and then some.
Having no need for speed and the desire to use roads that are often NOT considered roads by most (and often impassable to others), I've chosen the M35A2 (ex military) model of a medium duty 6x6 truck. It spent it's previous life as a radio truck w/ a comm box in the bed.

 

After removing the box (known as a "shelter") I did a few basic mods like changing tires to radials, moving my spare to the bed, adding a hoist for lifting, and mounting two water cans to my mud flaps.

   

Currently I'm putting most of my energy into building my live-in trailer, but . . . I do have a list of things already made up for future work on it. Things like a sleeper, rollcage, moving more stuff up and into the bed, etc. Over the next couple months I'll be doing a bunch of overhaul work on it to make it ready for draggin the trailer around long distance.

 

[simply lesa]

Thanks for sharing with the folks here... I bet that they might like to hear about or see some of your previous "homes"..... (another thread maybe?)

 

[MikeRuth]

Read a lot of your blog, very cool!

 

[LowTech]

Thanks for sharing with the folks here... I bet that they might like to hear about or see some of your previous "homes"..... (another thread maybe?)

That they might, but right now I'm involved w/ turning an empty box into a full time live-in trailer. That's going to be the main content of this thread. I was just giving back story so that it would make scense as to why I am using this trailer set up.
I'm also wanting to be spending more time working on the build than talking about it and if I talk about the other builds I'll be doing more talking than building.

I will post up a link to the build threads that I have done before this one.

LowTech's Rigs
Enjoy

 

[simply lesa]

Kewl gallery. Thanks for the link!

 

[LowTech]

The Trailer -

Having used my rigs and trailers to make some coins moving stuff around I was really wanting a good dual purpose trailer, one that I could live in as well as use it to move stuff about. Of course there was nothing out there that matched what I had in mind, and / or could afford. But that's my usual story

There happen to be very few military trailers actually made for the 2 1/2 ton truck that I have, most are made for the 5 ton and up.
A couple years of searching what was available, and researching what had been made, I decided I wanted one of the Bolster trailers that the military had been pushing out to the auction sites and a shelter/box of some sort to mount on it. A Bolster trailer is designed for the 5 tons and to carry things like pipes and telephone poles. Because of this it has no real floor, just 3 cross pieces to set such loads on. I knew what it weighed (a bit heavy @ 2 tons empty) and I'd never really seen one of these in person, just photos, but I knew somehow I would find a good way to mount the shelter to it. I also had to find a shelter B-)

After all that searching, and researching, I found a trailer in only a few months. It was one that someone had gotten to pull parts off of. Paying about scrap price I picked it up w/ only one axle on wheels, no brake units, and no accessory parts.

 

[LowTech]

Now I was on a search for wheels, tires, and a shelter.

I found a shelter finely. And not that far off, only 150 miles.
Now it was recovery time again. This time I was going to pick up the shelter and a 5th wheel that would someday be my new studio. The 5th wheel had been waiting at a friends place for just this moment.



Of course I didn't sit around waiting for wheels, we had some modifying to do on the trailer to mount a shelter.
First we torched off some bits that were of no use to me, and started adding channels to set the skids on.



After several attempts at finding a couple rims for the other axle (read 6 months), I had found one locally when I was picking a boneyard and now just needed 2, someone offered me 5 w/ the rubber on them. We worked a deal and I now had 3 spare rims.
For the first time I got to see it w/ all it's wheels on.

 

[LowTech]

Now it was time to move the shelter out of my truck and onto the trailer.

Another trip down to my metal working friend's place to finish up some small welds and then moving time. The plan was to “drag” (of course) the shelter out of the bed and straight onto the channels. We had a 10” -12” dif in height, but at least it was down.
I set the trailer and then backed up to it.



I'd already decided that the door was going to be front facing so that made it easy. A couple of come-a-longs and we proceeded to drag it out of the bed.



It sat perfectly into the channels.

I strapped it down and rolled back to base camp.

 

[akrvbob]

Very cool!
Bob

 

[sassypickins]

Smooth move! Look forward to seeing more.

You might enjoy this blog - it's my all-time fav:

Wothahellizat

Rob Gray did a fantastic documenting of his two builds that he and his wife lived and traveled in for many years in Australia.

 

[LowTech]

Smooth move! Look forward to seeing more.

You might enjoy this blog - it's my all-time fav:

Wothahellizat

Rob Gray did a fantastic documenting of his two builds that he and his wife lived and traveled in for many years in Australia.

Thanks, I have read his blogs in detail, . . . there's only so many of us crazy builders out there posting up our builds and we all tend to watch each other

 

[LowTech]

Back to stripping out the shelter,

 I figured that these interfaces on either side of the door would leave opening that would make good windows once I took them out.

  

And the ceiling needed the foam taken off.

 

[LowTech]

I also needed some standing space outside the door, so this got made out of some repurposed lumber.



Being that a bolster trailer is designed to expand in length when carrying long pipes, or poles, this deck will pull out another 5' if I decide to park up somewhere for awhile.

 

[Wabbit]

Lovin' it!

Are you comfortable with talking costs? If not, no worries. What mpg do you think you will get with this? Thnx!

 

[LowTech]

  I managed to pull both the units out by grinding off the rivets and hammering (tapping) my 5-way around the edges to separate it from the mil grade caulking. Now I'll be able to frame in some windows.




The foam was another matter. Tried the 5-way, and then a few other things, before settling on a flat bladed shovel, to “shave down” the foam. The glue was not coming off, time to regroup and talk to friends about how they would do it. Not that I would listen.

  

 

[LowTech]

Lovin' it!

Are you comfortable with talking costs? If not, no worries. What mpg do you think you will get with this? Thnx!

Cost, I picked up the truck for $2200, sold the shelter off the back so that I could put in new batts and some tires. Scored the trailer for scrap value at $400 and the new shelter for $800.
Last time I checked the She Beast (Tuff's truck, less aero than mine) was getting 8.5mpg. The Mil specs them out as getting 7 - 11. I'm pretty sure I get better than her's, but then we hit dirt and that drops down, not sure how much. I'm pretty bad at checking since we carry fuel and I don't measure how much is going into the tanks.

 

[anewbiewannabe]

This is awesome!

 

[LowTech]

 Back from hunting wildflowers in the Sonoran desert and in a rush to move this rig over there.



Finely finished stripping the foam off the ceiling and cleaned it out.



 The plan was to paint the walls before doing any build-in, . . . well, . . . don't really have time for that now 
Just going to frame some boxes up.

 I started w/ a water tank I stripped out of some Travel Trailer last year.



Made a small frame for it to sit on w/ edges to hold it in place.
 Then I framed up this box to sit over it w/ some extra storage room. The top is part of an old futon frame.
 Because I don't like building squares w/o some kind of triangle to keep it strong, I ran an angle on both sides. You can see it on the left side.



 Next will be to frame up a kitchen section.

 

[highdesertranger]

love it. highdesertranger

 

[masterplumber]

Looking good, We're expecting a late snow tonight here, but I imagine it's getting pretty warm out your way. Do you have any plans for addittional cooling, like a swamp cooler, or are you able to get enough cooling effect just with ventilation?