My attempt at an M1101 trailer build

fdklr

New member
I have seen many of the builds that folks have done on this site and there are quite a few craftsmen out there. I thought I would take a stab at building one as well. This may not be everyone's cup of tee but I am hoping it will work for me.

We have had issues getting our normal camper into many remote locations so I thought I would build something that would allow me to get a little deeper. I still however wanted to retain a very usable size that I could stand in, change clothes, room for 3. It isn't fully complete yet. I need to put in the floor, dress up the interior walls and ceiling.

The trailer started out as a normal M1101:
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I then built a sandwich floor out of 1/2" ACX plywood and 1" insulation to match the footprint of the trailer:
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Once Complete I test fit it into the trailer body:
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Now that I fit I utilize raptor liner to coat the entire underside:
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I then starter on the walls. I spent countless hours trying to decide on how tall I wanted it to be. In the end I decided on an interior height of 6'6". I know this may be less than ideal for what most would consider ideal for an off road ish trailer. I have pulled countless trailers all over the country so I am not too worried about the wind load and impacts. The tubing is aluminum, 1x1 with an 1/8" wall. In the end all vertical and corners were gusseted.

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The exterior plywood is 1/2" along with the rood and all the walls are fully insulated. The exterior sheeting was epoxied and screwed to the verticals.


Here are a couple pictures of the interior cabinets under construction:

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For the electrical I have a 1000W charge controller / inverter that is capable of supplying 55A of charge current to the battery. All the lighting is LED inside and out:

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For the exterior I decided on Filon. I was able to order it in 102" width and ordered the correct length I needed. All the sides and roof are coated in Filon. The corners are all epoxied, painted, then the Filon was applied. On top of the Filon is RV seam seal and then the RV corner molding sealed caulked and sealed.

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I made a door frame out of 2.5" x 3/8" angle aluminum with a 3/4" aluminum stop on the inside. The door is 1.5" solid which was glued up from from .75" sheets of multi-layer plywood. I wrapped the door in an aluminum frame as well and added a standard RV lock

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I just picked up the flooring today and I will be getting it installed over the weekend. If you have any questions or want to know what the heck was I thinking please drop me a note and will be happy to provide additional updates as I move this project towards completion.

Thanks for looking.
 

fdklr

New member
Yes, I will normally be pulling it with my 3500 crew cab long box diesel. With the height being 9'-6" it is still lower than my camper and horse trailer.

I run 35x12 R17 tires on my truck and the truck and trailer have matching bolt patterns. I have an extra set of rims and tires so I will be changing the trailer 37" tires to 35" so I reduce the number of spares I need to run.

The reason for being tall, it allow me 6'-4" to fully stand inside without having to be crouched over. It also allow me to build bunks on the passenger side of the trailer so that everyone has plenty of room for sleeping.

I have not taken it on a long pull yet. I hope to get it out on the interstate this weekend. I hope it is good, because I am planning on taking it to Wyoming at the end of next week.
 

fdklr

New member
I took it out for a test drive this weekend and it went well. I put about 100 miles on it from rough country roads to interstate and it pull just fine. The real test will happen next week when I take it to Wyoming.
 

fdklr

New member
The top rail of the trailer has threaded inserts. The bottom plate that rests on the top rail has holes drilled to align with those inserts. The camper is therefor bolted to the the trailer. I can access the bolt heads from the inside and are within the wall. All I have to do is remove the bolts and I can lift the box out of the trailer. I have 8 locations where the box bolts to the main trailer.
 

Dvaniwaarden11

New member
Reviving this thread. I like your build. do you still have it? Any updated pictures? Anything you would have done differently or does everything work great still?
i’m going to be following your build with some inspiration from other builds to make my own off-road camper.
 

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