Hey y'all, wife and I usually camp put out of the back of our SUV or Tent camping but with the addition of a dog & future baby the wife wants a little trailer.
I have always been partial to 14ft/16fy 80s trailers (pic) as I think they are a real bargain and we don't need anything fancy.
To future proof ourselves I want to be able to upgrade the suspension as we do like to do camping on public land (I also wfh so something I can work off grid with would be sick) but these tend to have trails/roads still (big hills but no obstacles really ) in the Canadian foothills/Rockies so something with a bit of ground clearance would be nice.
Can't afford a 40k “over landing” trailer.
Are we out to lunch on this? As anyone else done this already, are there guides already?
Any insight would be appreciated!
I took the same route, I’m a pretty handy guy and we loved the look of the old shastas so I found one that had been moderately restored and modernized and bought it as our first trailer.
I ended up having to partially gut it 3 separate times. I spent way more time working on it than camping in it, and I grew to loathe the thought of taking it out, just wondering what would go wrong next. and it was a small basic one just like you show.
For your situation, I would get a popup. Yeah, they’re kinda disposable, but they’re cheap and will get you out there NOW instead of constantly working on an old trailer.
I got a busted 1966 Scotsman for $300 10 years ago and spent about $1,500 over a year of fixing her up. Greatest investment of my life.
To be honest, I hope you aren’t serious.
This will require a MASSIVE amount of work to restore, as a first-time trailer? Unless you have the skills, tools, and space to work on it — find something else.
Is this in SoCal? If so please PM me. This looks like a trailer I gave away and disclosed information on to the person picking it up.
Have you looked at any molded fiberglass trailers? If maintained, they can last a long time. Boler, Trillium, Casita, Scamp, Bigfoot, Escape, and Oliver ($$), are some of the more popular brands.
There’s a fair number of vintage (70s, 80s, 90s) molded trailers out and about and still in great shape. Water is the biggest enemy of old trailers, and the molded fiberglass ones have a lot less trouble with leaks.
We bought one of these. Great shape. Went to add bunks and found rotten framing and a layer of dried dog food in the ceiling. Stanky. Wouldn’t have noticed if we didn’t pull it apart.
Typically, corrugated siding indicates wood framing and rot and instability. Flat fiber siding indicates aluminum framing – less to rot.
Suggestiom is to look at aluminum framing and seal that shit up once a year.
My first camper was an ‘86 tandem axle fleetwood wilderness Yukon…in 2018.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but restoring it a few years ago made me know exactly what I was looking for in every system across the new RV when I got a 2023 travel trailer.
I would focus on camping in one spot until everything is working well in the camper before you conquer roadworthiness. Most traveling camping trips involve driving away from the store that has all the shit you need, so fix most of it before you’re in BFE.
Source: Buying our first trailer
