Operation adventure trailer

Hi Guys! Ive got a bit of an opportunity here, Im curious for your input on if its a good idea.

In short, Im the happy recipient of a very rough but free 85 F150 with a 302 and an auto trans, 2wd. Its rough. Its been parked for atleast 15 years, the body is bad, all of the emissions equipment is severely hacked, body damage on the passenger side. Lots of open holes on the engine.

However... the bed is pretty good! Its got a hard plastic bed liner that seems to have completely prevented any water from reaching the inside of the bed. There is one pretty good ding on the passenger side but otherwise its really straight.

Here is roughly what I want to do:
-Engine +trans get sold to someone with interest in rebuilding them
-straight portions of the front clip get sold (or kept if they are panels my bronco has rust in)
- various engine bay parts, maybe the ac portion of the fire wall, interior components and anything else I (or you!) Can use get pulled out.
-cab and front suspension get sold for scrap (severely rusted cab corners and probably floor pans. Its not a good cab)
-turn the rear into a truck bed trailer. Its an 8' bed.

Here is why I want to do all of that:
Id like to have something functionally similar to a tear drop camper. After looking at what they weigh (and cost for that matter) I think I can put a camper shell on a truck bed trailer and end up with something that doesnt weigh significantly more, but does cost significantly less. The bronco is a great adventure vehicle with one or two people and an open bed in the back for storage. However, with 4 people (including rear seat) or a pack of dogs (which live at my house) it becomes tight. A compact trailer would allow me to use the bronco to take larger groups (siblings trips, friends, etc) on longer trips. I think I can get an enclosed and water tight truck bed trailer for free by selling parts from the truck to offset the cost of buying a used camper shell and new tires. The interior... that'll be up to me.  I also tend to think a truck bed trailer based option would hold up better to off pavement use vs. a stick built teardrop.

In my dream world where everything goes to plan, It would have a truck bed tool box on the tongue for holding camping gear and propane bottles. A platform in the bed, mattress on top and a slot between the wheel wells for a table, rifle cases, fishing rods, or any other 8' items you might need. most any mattress would leave about 1.5' of open space at the tailgate end for coolers, luggage, or whatever. Extended plans might include a generator, AC, an awning, kayak racks on the roof, or who knows what.

Notable problems:
- clearly, this is a lot of work
- Im afraid the finished product will weigh more than I want to tow with the bronco
- center of gravity / tongue weight: with an 8' bed Im not worried about having too little tongue weigh but having too much is a real possibility. Especially with a bed box on the front. I could go aluminum or plastic on the box, but Im not sure how much that matters here.

Here is a photo of the bed for refernece:


Im not committed here. I certainly dont have to start into this.

Initially I thought this was a slam dunk plan because of all of the space and sleeping room but Im beginning to question the total weight and the tongue weight issue. I guess I could always fab/buy/find a lighter chassis to put the bed on but Im not sure that solves my tongue weight issue. Maybe it would be better to start with a short wheel base bed.

Im all ears.

I think it is doable.  And I don't think it would be terribly heavy.  I'm going to guess the bed weighs 400# as a friend of mine and I carried one and I was in my late 60's at the time.  (He was much younger and bigger, cut you can't carry the right side of the bed from the left side.)  An F150 frame won't be terribly heavy either, and a camper shell can be aluminum or fiberglass, so not too heavy.

The adventure trailers I've seen have long tongues, so you will have to think about whether you want to vee the frame in the front or use another material that might be lighter.  But the axle looks to be slightly to the rear of center of the bed, so you could put a toolbox on the front to give yourself some tongue weight.  And you'll want to remove some leaves from the springs to soften things up.

To save weight you could look at replacing the axle with a trailer axle.  Those 8.8 or 9" axles are pretty heavy given the size of the bearings, differential, load carrying capacity, brakes, etc.

Personally, I don't think you have a lot to lose.  I'd give it a go.  

well i had the exact same idea during the covid break. i had access to a 94 f150 4wd that a buddy got for parts and we split up all the parts. he was going to scrap the rest so i said that ill take it. we scrapped the cab shell and the rest became other stuff. anyway I cut the frame and formed a typical v from the frame added a coupler, wires and had a trailer. Mrs ann said that was a very redneck thing to do. the core idea was to build a pull behind pop up camper that would be a match my 93 flareside.
here is what I learned.
our favorite trucks suck when they have to go without the stabilization from the front axle!
I took this trailer loaded with a 5.0, aod,9' rear axle assembly, engine stand, and buckets of misc. parts to central NC behind my 86 f150. this thing followed me looking like one of those children's toy ducks with the offset wheels. 50 mph was when I got uncomfortable. that was the longest trip to there I have ever taken.
narrow frame, inboard shocks and one central mount at the front is not good. currently it is at my property doing firewood duty. but I have not given up on the idea just too many other irons at this time

I haven't seen one of these in many years here in the north east. But I suppose that's because most of them have rusted away.

A mattress is 80" (or 6'8"") so you're looking at 16" left in an 8' bed.

And I tend to agree with Gary. Consider finding a trailer axle that will fit your 5 on 5.5 lug pattern.
Much lighter than a differential and electric brakes FTW!

The bed itself looks solid and straight.
It wouldn't take much to add a coupler, safety chains, pivoting jack and wiring harness.
I completely redid my buddy Theo's landscape trailer for under $200 a few years back with my little flux welder.
(Granted this was Horrid Fate, but the quality seemed plenty safe)

Aluminum caps are a darn sight lighter than fiberglass. And while they may not be as attractive they are available in 'high rise' configuration with doors instead of having a hatch on pistons that you need to raise before you lower the gate.
For us contractors this makes it a lot easier to access whatever might be buried inside.

Thanks Guys, its always good to be able to bounce a plan like this off of other folks as a sanity check. removing leaves from the spring pack and swapping to a proper trailer axle would both be great ideas for weight savings and improving how the trailer tows Im sure. I hadnt considered the idea that the aluminum toppers weigh a lot less. thanks Jim! I dont have a brake controller in the bronco, but given that I have the stock brake set up and the vehicle probably only weights 3800 pounds, it would be a good idea.

my best guess is that the finished product comes in around 1500 pounds, give or take 10%. that sounds heavy until you see what a tear drop weighs.

Wow Matt - the toy duck comparison conjures up a vivid image. That doesnt sound like a fun ride at all. Is it an 8' bed, or a short bed? Did it have all of the factory leaves in the spring pack? from the little bit of research Ive done, it seems like it can be hard to impossible to get positive tongue weight on a trailer made from a short bed without making the nose really long and adding something heavy like a toolbox on the front. that's certainly good info to have. how would you say your 86 did with towing and stopping that load? its probably pretty close in terms of weight and driveline configuration to the bronco.

this little project is atleast a few weeks out. Ill need to get my dads F450 and trailer to pull the 85' from its current home and get it to my house. I also need to come up with a lifting strategy for the drive line, cab, and the front portion of the frame/suspension. Im pretty much just a guy with a driveway. no gantry. My buddy has an engine hoist that may be capable of pulling the engine/transmission as a mated pair if we pull it straight out through the front clip instead of up and over. perhaps with 2 people the cab wont be that heavy. I can borrow a home made gantry system we built to move an 1800lb gun safe once.. it is designed with the legs at different lengths so one leg can stand in the flat bed and the other on the ground. it would probably need some modification to work well here.

Several thoughts.  First, pulling the cab isn't too bad - if the mount bolts come loose.  But that's not always the case, so you may have to cut them.  Then jack up the cab, somehow dealing with the wiring, roll the existing frame/bed combo out from under and roll another trailer under it to take to the scrapper.

Second, I really think the trailer axle idea, with electric brakes, would be great.  However, you could leave the current rear axle under it long enough to test it, and if you still want to reduce the weight and add brakes you could then change out the axle.  But bear in mind that the rear axle on that truck may have bad bearings or stuck brakes, and if you start rebuilding it you can easily be looking at the all-up cost of a new trailer axle and electric brakes.  And yes, there are electric/hydraulic trailer masters that would allow you to use the rear brakes that are on the truck, but by the time you buy one of those and rebuild the surely-bad brakes you could have bought an electric brake package.  Been there, done that and will never do it again.  And changing out the axle won't change the weight distribution.

Speaking of that, if it weighs 1500 then you'll need between 150 and 225 lbs of tongue weight to fit in the 10 - 15% guideline.  Other than the frame sticking out in front, the thing will be fairly well balanced.  And the more frame you have sticking out the less tongue weight you'll get when you load the trailer up due to geometry.

I'll guess an aluminum toolbox weighs around 50 lbs, so it seems reasonable to think that you could add one to the tongue and a reasonable amount of tools or equipment in it and come in w/in guidelines.

Also be mindful that with a single axle you'll probably want some swing down props or a pair of jack stands to put under the rear as you climb in and out of your trailer.

mine is a short bed, so fore and aft are pretty well centered like a see-saw. so i added the a frame tongue which countered a lot of the weight balance then I welded the top as a floor with diamond plate. thinking a good place for a spare, propane bottle ,tool box etc. even still I had loaded the heaviest in first with a lot against the front wall. tail loading a truck makes the steering less positive and will certainly affect a trailer even more. the one thing that was decent was the tongue load.
i imagine the trailer made with an aluminum topper will be as streamlined looking with a bronco as you can get . certainly if you manage to match the lift. all matching wheels and tires. that's the same plan I had only was thinking pop up using a fiberglass flat top if not a tent made to fit a ford short bed. but I was not thinking very off road.

Jim and Gary,
All good thoughts and ideas. I dont think I would spend the time to try and make the factory brakes work. It will either go sans brakes or will use something on an aftermarket axle.

Matt,
Thanks. Thats a great data point. For what it's worth, I dont do any "serious" "off roading" i just thought this would hold up better to pot holes and washboard.