Well,
After putting on a new trailing arm Dexter
Axle this past June, with the Sub frame added and all of that, the little Scamperoonie had leveled out with the Tacoma and the Tundra, so now no drop hitch required. An overall increase in height of about 4 1/2 inches.
I had 13 inches of ground clearance to the
axle center, and 24 inches of clearance under the rear of the trailer.
So....I put in a BASEMENT, really a basement in a
Scamp.
Made box with 5/8 Plywood sides, and a 3/4 OSB bottom, glued itwith epoxy and screwed it together, then wrapped the whole thing with 4 ounce
fiberglass cloth and put an extra layer of 20 ounce fabric on the bottom, and then three coats of
fiberglass epoxy resin from Raka Epoxy.
I then cut out the carpet, cut a hole in the floor just behind the step up behind the
axle, and glued with epoxy and screwed everything in place, then caulked it all tight just for good measure.
The outside finished dimensions were frame to frame 45 1/4 x 24 front to back and 12 inches high. This gave me almost a cavernous extra 7 1/2 plus extra cubic feet of storage in an easy to access location.
I chose 12 inches to allow milk jugs, milk crates and my charcoal grille to fit vertically in the basement.
This still allows me 12 inches of ground clearance, which I am going to put a metal skid plate on the bottom of the basement. Although it will likely never get hit, the Tug's clearance is only 8 1/2 to 9 inches at the lowest points. The old axle was about 6 inches clearance side to side, and although it got dinged a bit over the years, we never hung up in rough road conditions.
This basement storage is just the thing for this outfit, now we can put a lot of stuff like our chairs and cocktail table, the grille and charcoal out of the way when traveling, also a couple of milk crates with four gallon jugs of water where they will not freeze until it gets real, real cold. The
weight is right behind the axle, so very little impact on our Center of Gravity.
Garo
Casita
Linear Mode
