Broke trailer kills vacation?

Ok so let this be a lesson to get a better inspection before you buy.

We began our grand vacation Friday evening. Made it as far as Valdosta, GA. Saturday we drove to Ellijay, GA to see a house my buddy built for a client. The house was built on the top of a mountain and had roads that no civil engineer would have ever approved they were so steep. Then we left there and went to his house in Dawsonville, GA. I got up Sunday morning and saw this:





So we finally got the trailer propped up, inspected it, and it looks like the frame snapped / broke through:



Thankfully I picked the best place for this to happen. My buddy has a great house and owns his own construction company. So he is having one of his welders come down and hopefully we can hit the road today.

But yeah I am feeling very very

painted metal. That is all I know. Dont know if its galvanized steel or aluminum or regular steel. I am will to bet that it is plain old steel. Welder should be here in a few minutes. So Im crossing my fingers and toes.

The biggest problem I see is putting the tongue assembly on the correct level / straightening out. Since I am not a welder I have no idea how hard that would be.

Oh and the welder is now 1 1/2 hours late

Yeah tell me about it. When we finally got it off the truck it started to roll back and then it hit the chocks. I so wanted the SOB to keep going over the edge of the mountain.

Anyways the welder is here. He said he can have the entire assembly done by this evening and it will run about $500.00. This is a good thing. My buddy's place is freaking awesome. He sits on top of a ridge that is about 100' wide. His house is about 350meters off the road. We have been fishing, 4 wheeling, the kids are having a blast in the woods. The house is magnificent. I feel like such a mooch. So I want out of here so bad its not even funny.

Well it just keeps getting better. Two of the welds are sandwiched between the frame and the bottom of the trailer, which is made of plywood. So cutting it with the blow torch is a no no. We're gonna try basically coping everything.

I actually made sure we packed all three before we hit the road. If it werent for the bend I would have tried this.

At the campground in Bryson City, NC. The new frame held up like a champ. Unfortunately we screwed up when building it. The way it is currently configured we cannot put in the poles to support one of the beds. Since only the two youngest ones are with us that is not a problem as they can sleep on the table / bed combo. However if I start farting up the place my wife is gonna get the dutch oven treatment from hell.

Next problem, when we built the custom frame we put the pulley assembly, used for lowering and raising the roof, too far forward. Thankfully I am in a camp ground and redneck engineering and neighborliness are the rule. So we managed a fix.





Lessons learned, hire a professional inspector when buying. The fixes can be fairly simple, but expensive. So it helps to have connections

My wife and the kids and I are loving this. I never knew campground vacationing could be so much fun. When we get home we are either going to put it up on blocks and spend the next 9 months rebuilding it from scratch or dump it on craigslist and upgrade. But Im telling you...if you havent done this type of vacationing / camping you are missing out on something.

Yep. Next problem. When we put the frame in place it restricted the swing on the door in the pic above. That door is the access for the toilet drain tank. Thankfully we havent been using it and that the camp grounds have bathrooms. Next hurdle is taking this sucker down Saturday morning and going over the Smokies into Pigeon, Forge, TN. Oh if only this POS would come flying off the hitch and go over a mountain. But I cant get that lucky.

Nice thing is that the kids hooked with other kids in the camp, are having a blast, and I am relaxing in the A/C

I'll rep you all when I get to a browser that will let me.

Bear; the current framing is 1" x 3" 1/8th. The welder I was working with said it should be 3/16th at a minimum. Thanks for the link and info. I will be looking at it hard and yet to convince "she who must be obeyed" that we don't need to thorw this one off a cliff and buy a brand new Coleman Niagra.

Yep I am at Tittywo... er Dollywood. When I meet Muad I will be sure to be wearing my blue wool suit though I fear that my 6th generation Floridian wife my decide to get uppity if Muad is in her corner.