Something else I collect. At the moment I have 7 that I have collected for virtually nothing and a few of them I was paid to haul off. All of the current frames are 1970s through 1980s camper frames that had junk campers on them when I obtained them. Some I grind and wire wheel the rust and old paint off of, weld some angle iron and square tube rails on, usually weld additional cross members between the existing ones , prime and paint and then put a oak floor on the deck and sell for $2500-$3500 depending on the length and how much additional steel I put into beefing them up. I do have to go to DMV and get a VIN# and Title for the *Homemade* trailer. They range from 14' up to 30' and I only do bumper pull hitches for ones I rebuild and sell. Others I just beef up put a oak floor on and cut the hitch off and put a pintle hitch on and use the on the farm for hay trailers. LOL I am lazy and it is a lot easier to stack hay 12' high on a trailer and back into a barn than to unload it and stack it in the barn. So today I spent most of the day dragging all of the trailer frames up to the shop to go over them and not what each one needed and whether it was a fix and sell quality, rig for hay quality or put the torch to and cut up for scrap metal. If the axles, springs and frame are in very good condition they are refurb and sell. If the springs and hangers are not broken or cracked but worn and the axles questionable they become hay, if the axles are bad and now and then you get one with a twisted frame or cracks starting up around the hitch and tongue... yeah those are scrap pile trailers. I have one 14' four 16' one 22 foot and one 28' now. All in very good condition structurally. I have hard time selling anything over 16' so I generally plan on keeping the longer ones for hay. I have built a few boxes on long ones and it is very time consuming and more money up front going into them than I want to spend. Just refurbing and beefing up a flat bed or railed utility trailer out of one takes about 2 days and are good rainy day jobs. So today I was thinking this might be something some of the other tree hangers might be interested in as a side income gig or just for a good cheap trailer. Here is what it cost in material for me to refurb one. 4 Tires (Assuming the original rims are serviceable) $560 on average Angle Iron for addition Cross Members $120 Lighting and wiring kit $70 A good brand of automotive primer $60 A good brand of automotive undercarriage pain (Hardened) $115 Replace those junk RV Jacks! $70-$100 Steel for uprights and rails if not doing a flatbed $225 If no saw mill and oak trees, but 2x6 quality treated lumber the length of the trailer $240 was what the last treated floor I did cost. Not going to get into the vin and title cost as that is wildly different from state to state been a few years since I put a vin and titled on here in il but then it was like $160 LOL probably double that now and more hoops. Total cost though averages around $1220 Total time investment 14-16 hours. 12' and 14' I sell for $2500 and 16' for $3000 and see $1700-$1800 profit from it. I have never had one sit on the local craiglist for sale for more than 48 hours before being sold and picked up..... Cash Only BTW. I keep a stock of angle iron and floor mesh on hand and tube and pins and if the buyer wants and weld together a big solid tail gate ramp that stands straight up or fold on over to the floor or a couple of detachable ramps for another $300 for the set of ramps or $500 for the big gate. I usually keep a couple of primed and painted gates and sets of ramps premade and sitting in the corner of the shop....... I use them on my own trailers as well Not bad profit for 2 days of side gig rainy day work. No way of getting around it being a used trailer BUT a good paint job, new tires, and new floor and attention to details like putting the side grinder to those rusty rims and a new coat of primer and white paint on them...... makes a huge difference in making the sale at the price you want. I also give a 6 month warranty on Frame, floor, Springs and spring hangers (Don't warranty springs hangers that get bent or broke from hitting things like high curbs LOL) Tire shop I use extends their warranty and service to the new owner. Those old camper frames are remarkable well built and solid Most of the shorter frames had 2.5k axles under the 10-14' the 16'- 28' were a bit squirrely in axles but ran 3k-6k The vast majority have almost no wear and tear on them as they spent 51 weeks of the year sitting in storage or in someones back yard springing leaks and rotting the floors and walls of the camper part out. Most of the campers of that era had aluminum skins and sub floors A trailer load of that skin and under floor has very good scrap yard value. They all had copper wiring strip it out burn it off and scrap it to! After that just unbolt the junk camper from the frame and push it off the side with a bucket tractor, then into a pile and cough I give a gas diesel mix and let it burn. LOL A LOT of the insulation of that time was nothing more than sheets of styrofoam. A few of the furnaces and appliances are occasionally worth salvaging but mostly only good for the scrap steel pile. I have never found a old rv water heater that could be saved. The ACs are about like the water heaters tubing is usually corroded through and the coolant long gone and the compressors rusted out. best to just cut the copper, aluminum and steel and sort to their respective scrap piles. Do take the windows out...... you really don't want all that broken glass laying around..... even if it does sound really cool when the tractor bucket is crushing it The potable water tanks are usually dry rotted and brittle and the black water tanks have dessicated fecal matter in them..... just burn them. The water pumps however are usually in mint condition. Hey what can I say side income from what can be scrapped and salvaged from the side income project. Not worth doing this is you have to go and buy a welder, A/O tanks and hardware, and the steel. But if you already have a shop set up with that stuff that sits until something needs welded and patched and you are a halfway decent welder and spray painter it might be a good way to make some extra scratch.
Funny you mention this. I've got a guy that has an old Hudson trailer,, it has the old mobile home style tires and rims ,,needs decking ,, most likely a light kit,, and paint. I can get the trailer for 300 bucks . Was at an old contractor buddy's lot the other day ,, he had 3 trailers ,, all needing different levels of work,, heavy duty trailers ,, I may see what he's going to do with them . The only problem I have with this venture is ,,, time . I'm already maxed out ,, can barely get done what I need to get done.
Even though I am mostly retired at this point, I still find myself being driven to start working those 16-20 hour days about this time of year..... Old habits are hard to break. April through October were the work till you drop months for me and then November through March I found myself with nothing to do or at least a whole lot less to do. So I started doing things like the trailers, building tables, chairs and benches. LOL you can only grease and oil the equipment so much So here I am now without having the get the warm season going work to do and have way too much free time on my hands. Also getting harder not to notice the build up trailers in one particular fence row. So here I am with them all pulled out and all of their to do and parts list made. My Electrician yesterday did not help since he also noticed the row of frames and asked when I was going to build him another job trailer. Did a custom one for him about 5 years ago with mounts for the spools of electric cable on the end cradles for 4 reload spools in the center over the wheels and big job box on the nose. So we designed his new trailer yesterday that is going to be kind of the same but different and geared toward his appliance and heat pump installs rather than disconnect box and main service installs. LOL Sloth should get a commission on this one since I invited the electrician out for beer and food to educate me on all of that RV AC Vac pump mini thing Sloth talked about in the container post Basically going to build the trailer for him at cost and he is going to hook me up with heat pump mini things installed on the containers and new house at cost. Sloth probably would have understood everything the lectrician was splaining to me but all I was hearing was ChinaGreek Blah Blah Blah.
Dam Im not good enough to build and sell the trailers but that leave the hay on the trailer for storage idea rocks.
I have built a few trailers, the last being my shop trailer. A serious mistake is not calculating the load it would be carrying. But who can know that 40 years in the future?
When I VIN and Title them I always rate them 5001 pounds and under. Most folks buy them for mowers, side by sides and 4 wheelers so weight is rarely a issue with the ones I sell.
Electrician picked his trailer this morning. Gonna be a few weeks before I can get started on it, just have to many other things going on right now. But this will give a idea of what I start with. Tires are always garbage on junkers. Rims are usually in very good condition. I will wire wheel the rims, the whole frame, the springs and hangers LOL finish cutting that gas pipe out Weld 4 more cross members on to it. This one has a pair of 4k axles so in theory it could hold 8,000 pounds max. I usually just buy the wheel wells and bolt them on. This one I will be welding together the wheel wells out of 1/4 in steel plate as there will be a big cabinet box welded to the wheel well for tool boxes, copper tubing and other expensive stuffs to be locked in. Front is going to have another box for the stick and wire welder, A/O tanks, hoses and tips and the back will have his big generator bolted down to a welded on steel plate. Figured it up that trailer and all loaded up will weigh in right at 3,800 pounds. This one is going to be a bit different than most I have done. He wants a Electric Jack and the 2" hitch replaced with a pintle Easy enough to do those upgrades. Just need to find the 4 days this one will take to get cleaned up and customized. Will take some pics of it as I work on it and when it is finished. The little trailer in the back is another old camper I did for myself. It started out life as one of those little micro hippy campers. Only 8 feet long and a singe 1.5K axle under it and not a very heavy frame. I added the rails and welded on a diamond floor. I drag it around behind the little kubota for general light stuff like brush or putting a few stacks of T post and rolls of fence on. Or if I need to to take a generator, torch or welder out where there is no power. Probably the most used trailer on the farm.
We're do you find the old camper frames ,, I've been wanting to build me a camper ,, and I sure as he'll don't want to pay what they're asking for them things these days. I don't need all that fancy , purty stuff they put in them . My last trailer I rebuilt ,, I bought a sheet of 3/16s expanded metal ,, cut it to width ,,, took the side grinder and scored a line across where I needed the bend for the fender to cover the front and rear of the tires .. It actually made a real nice fender , heavy duty ,,, I can plop my fat ass up on it and sit and it don't budge a bit . Edit ::: Just to add ,, where I scored the sheet for the fender ,, I ran a bead down that line to stiffen it back up.
Mostly on Craigslist, folks wanting someone to haul them off. Scrap yard I use get them dragged in now and then and will let me know they have a salvageable one (Buy those by weight and a bit over scrap price), word of mouth on others, sometimes I would run a junk campers wanted add on craigslist. And yep new camper prices crazy!
Here is one I recently dragged home.... literally LOL 3 of the 4 tires came apart making the turn onto the last 1.5 miles of my gravel road. They always have such good rubber on them The entire top is dropping down around the frame. A lot of these old Taurus Campers pop up around here. This one will have a frame identical to the one in the stripped pics for the electrician. I always gut them to see if it is possible to refurb it as a camper. Was not looking horrible until I got this stuff ripped out. Then the wall and floor rot was obvious. Most of that wood in the front crumbled in my hands....... it is a 1986 model and was used twice and then sat for 35 years. Old top blow A/C is like new, water pump pristine. Had hopes for the sunbeam stove but alas it had a leak right above it and everything inside was rusted to dust. I love the junk 16' taurus campers....... well their frames anyway. Never will understand why they used heavier good frames and then put a cheap junk top on them. These are about the easiest frames to work on and modify.
Here is one I bought 2 years ago. I ended up dropping $1,000 on it. BUT it was structurally in great shape with one corner leak and one 2x3' floor rot spot. The furnace had a major gas leak LOL emptied a 20# propane tank in less than 30 minutes. Stove and Oven had gas leaks as well. Hot water heater corroded beyond repair. Actual plumbing though in great shape. Potable water tank froze and ruptured at some point, black and grey water tanks both in good shape. So I pulled all of the junk built in table and couch out of the front, redid the electric, removed the full size bed and replaced it with a twin and now call it the Mike Cave LOL Since my Cabin has became a Government Field Office and I got slowly pushed out..... I pretty much live in the Mike Cave. Gets real old real fast..... Hearing "YOU CAN'T SEE THOSE FILES!" or "Go outside, you can't hear this phone call." So me and my two dogs moved to the Mike Cave.... Needless to say I have no been a big fan of the work from home orders. Rumor is Mrs. T5Rs work from home order is going to end Mid May Bright side is I had a Nice Camper to relocate to as the Cabin filled up with computers and cases files. Course I still get yelled at for revving tractor engines outside the Cabins front door when she is doing one of those conference calls LOL. But I do occasionally find something good or that can easily be made good for cheap. This one BTW is a 1996. Pic is at the campground I picked it up at.
