Smittybilt Scout Trailer Reviews?

rapca

New member
Absolutely.
The two outside adjustment on each torque arm are the camber adjustment. If you have a look at them, you can see that it will move the arm up and down due to stops welded on the top and bottom of the off camber disc. That adjustment will pivot the outside of the arm ( axle) up and down, which essentially controls the squat ( camber) of the axle.
The two inside adjustments does the same, but as the stops are welded front and rear will now pivot the arm ( or axle) front or rear, which then controls the toe ( pointing inward or outwards)
As you adjust them, they do affect each other a tiny bit, due to bushing wobble and such, so just check each other prior to tightening and after tightening of the nuts.

Hi all, after recently assembling my trailer it's ready to road test albeit I can't figure out how to adjust the trailer's camber and toe. I'm certain I've located the adjustment bolts on the outside and inside of the trailer arms, but I don't see measured change in the tire when adjusting the bolt. So far I've only tried the camber on the left side. Must the bolts be turned a specific direction (clockwise)? Should the nuts first be removed before adjusting the bolt? Should change be seen with slight movement of the bolt? Should there be a spot weld between the bolt and disc? Any advice on the topics is appreciated.
 

ebrabaek

Adventurer
Hi all, after recently assembling my trailer it's ready to road test albeit I can't figure out how to adjust the trailer's camber and toe. I'm certain I've located the adjustment bolts on the outside and inside of the trailer arms, but I don't see measured change in the tire when adjusting the bolt. So far I've only tried the camber on the left side. Must the bolts be turned a specific direction (clockwise)? Should the nuts first be removed before adjusting the bolt? Should change be seen with slight movement of the bolt? Should there be a spot weld between the bolt and disc? Any advice on the topics is appreciated.

The weld is normal. You can just loose the nut and as you turn the bolt the off center washer will force movement up/down/left/right of the center part of the bolt. You might not be able to see much until you wiggle the trailer a bit. I found that as you change the camber if the trailer was squatting you need to unload the suspension to get it to relax. I had a bit less than 2 deg camber that I could not get out. A local truck alignment shop said that was miniscule. I did use lasers and levels when I aligned mine.
 

trae

Adventurer
For the folks that have wired their trailers, what did you use for common ground? Can I just use the body of the trailer?


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ebrabaek

Adventurer
For the folks that have wired their trailers, what did you use for common ground? Can I just use the body of the trailer?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought about going that route as it would save quite a bit of wire with all the lights I had on mine throughout each compartment and the outside. In the end I decided not to. For no other reason that at each terminating point, I would have to drill and clean paint off, which in the end would take more time than just run two wires. Nothing wrong in either way.
 

Idahotroutslayer

New member
Newbie here and getting ready to take ownership of our first Smittybilt Scout. This is kind of a crazy question but checking to see if anyone has towed anything behind their trailer. We would like to haul our drift boat (overall weight of drift/boat trailer and tongue weight is minimal) behind the Scout. Of course we would need to run a better support from the front to rear but I’m nervous about potential load on suspension. Looking forward to hearing if anyone has done something similar or also please let me know if this sounds just plain ridiculous. Can’t wait to be exploring with our new trailer and getting our custom build started.
 

trae

Adventurer
Newbie here and getting ready to take ownership of our first Smittybilt Scout. This is kind of a crazy question but checking to see if anyone has towed anything behind their trailer. We would like to haul our drift boat (overall weight of drift/boat trailer and tongue weight is minimal) behind the Scout. Of course we would need to run a better support from the front to rear but I’m nervous about potential load on suspension. Looking forward to hearing if anyone has done something similar or also please let me know if this sounds just plain ridiculous. Can’t wait to be exploring with our new trailer and getting our custom build started.

The rear hitch point on my scout has "no more than 200lb" label. Not sure whether that makes towing anything behind it ok, but just a data point.
 

trae

Adventurer
I thought about going that route as it would save quite a bit of wire with all the lights I had on mine throughout each compartment and the outside. In the end I decided not to. For no other reason that at each terminating point, I would have to drill and clean paint off, which in the end would take more time than just run two wires. Nothing wrong in either way.
Do you have a fuse box installed somewhere? In the tongue box I assume?
 

Flatland_XJ

New member
I know I've been absent for a while. I finally got some issues resolved with my tongue weight. I had to completely rewire my trailer lights and move the electrical box back and mount them over the fenders.
 

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Flatland_XJ

New member
I have been working on one for the last year. It is the new model. The fit and parts were better than expected. Just been out fitting with electrical for fridge and solar. It is heavy and rugged. The 270 awing is now on it. I have some other photos if you are interested. Have not taken it our for a full shake down yet. Had plans to go to Moab in March.. and then things changed for everyone. I fabricated the rear bumper and swing. Wanted to get the spare to the back and have some fuel options.
Love that rear bumper setup. I need to do that too. I'm still working on my design for it.
 

trae

Adventurer
Finally managed to fit my fridge into the genny compartment. Required some surgery to the tray. Then I found out that I forgot to account for the bolts and riveted the tray to the slide. We’ll find out how well it works in a week or so. Next step, wire it properly.

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ebrabaek

Adventurer
Finally managed to fit my fridge into the genny compartment. Required some surgery to the tray. Then I found out that I forgot to account for the bolts and riveted the tray to the slide. We’ll find out how well it works in a week or so. Next step, wire it properly.

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My engel mu40 did not really get even warm when in there.... but have you considered the affect of covering half of the intake of your unit.
Not sure if it will be Ffected of that. You can just trim the bucket further if need be.
Looks great.
 

Pau Hana

Member
Ok. So after a shake down week long trip in Modoc, Shasta, and Siskiyou counties here in Northern California we were ready for the big one.

We started from our home in Northern California and explored Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Washington, and Oregon logging just over 4,800 miles. Lots of highway miles to get to the various NF's and NP's but also nearly 900 miles of dirt fire roads and backcountry 4x4 trails.
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The trailer towed great in all conditions. Dirt, dust, 85mph (65mph if anyone official asks) interstates, rain, hail, mud and stream crossings. It's a bit heavy so gas mileage was crushed at times but overall only lost a few MPG on average. We were towing with my '08 Tacoma TRD.

I was very pleased at the end of the trip to only have a sort list of things that I would add, adjust, remove, or fix. I have the same water setup Ebrabaek had on his trailer before he added the CF box. It worked out very well but I am seriously considering the Habitat OffRoad water tank. My tongue weight was just fine, no swaying, no rear end sag on the truck, and no issues towing at all. I do run Firestone air bags on the truck so that helps.

However, doing the math I could add the HOR water tank thus reducing my current water weight while at the same time shifting some of the weight towards the rear of the trailer, and cleaning up the trailer deck a bit. I would like to store a few lighter items on the tongue such as a couple chairs, tent annex, whatever. The problem then becomes dust.

So dust, we drove all over Hunt Mountain Road in the Bighorn NF. There was dust. A lot of it. There was some intrusion into the compartments of the SB but nothing that wasn't expected so not too bad. However, the added boxes from HF over the fenders got their fair share of the Bighorn mountain dust. One side is just cribbing and straps so no big deal but the other was our dry food pantry. Ugh. So I will be adding some better weather-stripping to those boxes. Driving during the bigger thunderstorms also allowed some (minimal) water intrusion into the pantry fender box. Luckily our boxes of dry pasta soaked up most of the water. So yes, better weather-stripping.

The last thing I will need to address is our battery system. I am running a Cigreen 60L 12v fridge in the main compartment and for whatever reason I could not get it to run off the 12v electrical I have set up. Everything else in the system runs great, water pump, chargers, LED's in cabinets and tent. So right before we left for the trip I ran an extension cord from the rear of the trailer, underneath, to the tongue and had about 4' that I could run to the power outlet in the truck bed. Worked great while driving (when I remembered to hit the switch in the cab to turn it on after getting fuel). During a short camp stay I would just fire up the truck everyone in a while and the temp would stay down. For a two or three day camp with no power I would buy a bag of ice, divide it into a few ziplocks so every thing didn't get wet and run the truck as I described for a short camp. Maybe the Engel is the way to go but they were not available before we left. ZADlRwnESwOlGKfzOMOx6Q.jpg

That worked and was fine, but I want it to work off the battery system. No need to haul the battery weight if you can't keep things cool while exploring during the day.

Oh, and the slide out stove. I would like to fabricate some sort of folding wind screen. And I need to add quick connects. Right now everything is flare and sets up quickly, but quick connects are cooler! Right?!

Anyway that is about it. Super fun trailer, lots of questions about it so met some cool folks. And even got to give cool waves to a couple Scout overs we passed on the road.

Thanks to all of you provided help while I was putting together our SB. Especially Ebrabaek for answering all my questions.
 

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