|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Thinking of building a touring trailer: looking for parts
Hi all,
I've been thinking about building a decent cargo trailer for the purpose of long-distance touring. By long distance: well right now I've got the idea of a trip down the Barry Way from Jindabyne through to the Great Ocean Road. That idea is just "pipe dream" status right now. There's also the trips I do to assist in emergency communications for Brisbane Area WICEN, e.g. each year we go up to Imbil to run checkpoints for the International Rally of Queensland car rally as well as numerous horse endurance ride events, and one or two Bicycle Queensland events. So being able to do those without relying on someone else for transport would be good too. Intended terrain would be mostly "on-road", where "road" can vary from good quality bitumen through to state forest fire trails, etc. I have a Croozer cargo trailer which is mostly okay, but I'm concerned about a few things: - the wheels are a small less-common size and so getting tubes and tyres will be a pain. - it has a 30kg load limit: I'll want to carry water and food along with some camping gear. - my particular trailer is showing signs of wear and tear. I have a couple of bikes, but the one I have in mind to go touring with is a Giant Talon 29ER 0. I've upgraded the wheels on it and have the original stock 29" wheels it came with. I figured it would be a good idea if the new trailer I built, used compatible wheels, so that should disaster strike, I can swap things around and it saves on the number of spare tyres/tubes I need to carry. The 29" tyres should be easier to source too. Problem being: most of these type wheels are sold as a front/rear set. I know I can get them overseas individually (Wiggle were advertising a Shimano front wheel for around the $140 mark). Does anyone know places in Australia that sell 29" front-wheels at a reasonable price? Any places sell used wheels? On the actual trailer design, I've been fiddling around in OpenSCAD modelling various aspects. At the moment I'm thinking of doing it with box-section aluminium, as 20-25mm section is pretty common and seems to have quite a bit of strength. Joining the sections will be the challenge though: a good design here would be one that is reasonably robust, but can be fixed with a minimum of tools if things break. For this reason I'm looking at bolting the sections together. I note places like Bunnings sell 25mm section and a range of plastic joiners (QubeLock/Connect-IT brands): does anyone know how strong these are or know of where one can get aluminium equivalents? Anyone tried building something with this stuff for a mobile situation? |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
building a bike trailer | laran | Techniques | 31 | October 4th 09 02:03 AM |
building your own trailer? | Ablang | Techniques | 9 | June 1st 08 11:07 PM |
Composite parts building. | webhead[_2_] | Techniques | 19 | December 6th 07 01:29 PM |
Building a trailer/bike RV | Mark[_4_] | Techniques | 8 | September 29th 07 04:56 AM |
Touring with a trailer | Pinky | General | 8 | December 11th 05 03:18 PM |