GTFO Camp Trailer
Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:57 am
As the story goes, back in the summer of 2019 our friends from the Wet Side showed up for a camping/wheeling weekend with what was, at the time, the coolest thing I had ever seen:
It was a tiny little camp trailer with some reasonable sized tires and a galley in the back for cooking bacon and making coffee, and it had a door on either side so you and the better half could both get out without disrupting the other. Sure I'd seen some teardrops and a few "expedition" style trailers that were comprised of various forms of boxes topped with roof top tents, but for some reason this very particular outfit really struck a chord with me and I had been pining for one ever since.
Fast forward to last weekend, after literally years of searching, luck was on my side and I was able to procure one of these little beauties just as the previous owner was beating off other would-be buyers with a stick. I had to take the afternoon off work and drive to Spokane, having bought it sight unseen based on a few blurry Craigslist pics and a quick phone conversation, but upon initial inspection it met all expectations and even exceeded a few of them:
She's a 2017 Forest River Flagstaff E-Pro 12RK, which is quite a mouthful considering it's diminutive size The previous owner had bought it brand new and used it to travel around the Northwest with his dog, but during COVID he ended up finding a new bride and she didn't particularly enjoy the fact that the trailer doesn't have a bathroom... So it sat for a year or so and he finally got tired of looking at it just sitting there. Score!
The first order of business was to reseal the roof vent, as the caulking was cracked out and would most certainly become a leak if not addressed:
With that handled, I spent a few minutes pondering the future use case and decided that the puny little 13" tires were the wrong answer. As luck would have it, this particular trailer already had a factory installed "lift kit" for the Torflex axle, meaning I could stuff a much larger tire and wheel package under there with literally no modifications. A quick tour of Craigslist netted some used 15" trailer wheels, and I had the boy use his muscles to drop them into the 30x9.5 BFG A/T's that had originally come on the blue LJ:
The last easy bolt on mod was a roof basket. Now I will openly admit that access to the roof basket, especially after a roughly 4" overall boost in height thanks to the new tires, isn't ideal. But, it was dirt cheap and I like the overall look it gives this little outfit. I made some little brackets to hang Quick Fist clamps so I can mount a shovel and an axe to aid in campfire duty, just to ensure I don't get cold at Starbucks:
It was a tiny little camp trailer with some reasonable sized tires and a galley in the back for cooking bacon and making coffee, and it had a door on either side so you and the better half could both get out without disrupting the other. Sure I'd seen some teardrops and a few "expedition" style trailers that were comprised of various forms of boxes topped with roof top tents, but for some reason this very particular outfit really struck a chord with me and I had been pining for one ever since.
Fast forward to last weekend, after literally years of searching, luck was on my side and I was able to procure one of these little beauties just as the previous owner was beating off other would-be buyers with a stick. I had to take the afternoon off work and drive to Spokane, having bought it sight unseen based on a few blurry Craigslist pics and a quick phone conversation, but upon initial inspection it met all expectations and even exceeded a few of them:
She's a 2017 Forest River Flagstaff E-Pro 12RK, which is quite a mouthful considering it's diminutive size The previous owner had bought it brand new and used it to travel around the Northwest with his dog, but during COVID he ended up finding a new bride and she didn't particularly enjoy the fact that the trailer doesn't have a bathroom... So it sat for a year or so and he finally got tired of looking at it just sitting there. Score!
The first order of business was to reseal the roof vent, as the caulking was cracked out and would most certainly become a leak if not addressed:
With that handled, I spent a few minutes pondering the future use case and decided that the puny little 13" tires were the wrong answer. As luck would have it, this particular trailer already had a factory installed "lift kit" for the Torflex axle, meaning I could stuff a much larger tire and wheel package under there with literally no modifications. A quick tour of Craigslist netted some used 15" trailer wheels, and I had the boy use his muscles to drop them into the 30x9.5 BFG A/T's that had originally come on the blue LJ:
The last easy bolt on mod was a roof basket. Now I will openly admit that access to the roof basket, especially after a roughly 4" overall boost in height thanks to the new tires, isn't ideal. But, it was dirt cheap and I like the overall look it gives this little outfit. I made some little brackets to hang Quick Fist clamps so I can mount a shovel and an axe to aid in campfire duty, just to ensure I don't get cold at Starbucks: