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My trailer renovation

4K views 12 replies 11 participants last post by  cajunbonnie 
#1 · (Edited)
I bought an enclosed trailer about a year and a half ago, with the intention of mostly using it for motorcycle trips, since to get to most ride locations from here it's a pretty decent drive on the highway. When I first got it, I had a few ideas of things I'd like to do, but really wasn't sure what to do and didn't find as much as I expected to online, so I figured I'd throw together a thread about what I'm doing with mine in the hopes that it'll be helpful to someone else at some point.

So, for starters, it's a 12' US Cargo Snomate trailer, about 5' tall inside and roughly 8' wide, 8' of its length is a rectangle, and the remaining 4' is a V-nose on the front. As the name implies, it's really a snowmobile trailer, so I've been trying to re-purpose it for motorcycles. I hope to get back into snowmobiling in the next couple years, and then I'll be trying to get it setup to accommodate both, but I expect motorcycle trips to continue to be the bulk of its usage.

Here's a few pics from when I bought it:






The first thing I did was ripped out the guides for the sled skis, and ended up pulling out the mats for the tracks. Since I ride with a number of friends with completely different styles of bikes, I was trying to figure out how I could best setup the trailer to be "flexible" for different bikes. I ended up using e-track, which is basically a long slotted track, with different tie down connectors that you can move from slot to slot. I added tracks running down each side of the trailer, as well as two down the center and two smaller ones up in the V-nose, so my tie down points are pretty much unlimited.

The cabinet you see in there fell down on one of the first trips after I'd put the etrack in (after looking at how the guy installed it, I'm shocked it stayed up there at all, but I got the impression the guy I bought the trailer from didn't use it that often, as he was keeping it at his neighbor's, and his neighbor had an even larger trailer, so I bet they used that more). I ended up with an extra length of etrack and couldn't figure out where to put it, so after it rattled around the bed of my truck for a while, I figured it'd be good to put it on one of the walls of the trailer and use it for storing the connectors/tie downs, since I got tired of kicking them around the floor when they weren't holding a bike in place.

Here's some pics of how I have it setup:




 
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#2 ·
So the e-track is a great setup, makes loading bikes very convenient and allows for a lot of variation, I can put the bikes wherever I want them based on the styles/sizes of bikes and whether I'm carrying one, two, or three. May be able to fit 4 in there if none of them have bags, might be trying that in the next couple weeks here.

Now, after a couple trips last year, I came to realize a couple other deficiencies. First off, the mats that were on the ramp stopped the tires from sliding down them, but the mats just bulged up underneath the tire and ripped themselves out, so that wasn't a good solution. After one mat had pulled itself up and I ripped the other one out to avoid that occurring again, I discovered that the wood is pretty freaking slippery. So, I recently bought some anti-slip coating, and covered the floor of the trailer and both ramps with that. Haven't loaded a bike yet to see how it works, but I notice a distinct improvement just walking on it, so I think this should be helpful. The coating I got was actually clear, and the wood looked pretty crappy, so I figured I should paint before putting the coating down. I went with a fairly light shade of gray, in the interest of (a) being able to find anything I drop on the floor, which likely would've been difficult with black, and (b) having the floor reflect some light, thinking that'd be helpful when trying to load/unload in the dark. Which brings me to the next problem I had to fix....

The lighting inside the trailer left a lot to be desired, there were two small dome lights in there, one in the front and one in the rear, and the front one came down on the same trip as the cabinet did. After a couple times of having to load/unload bikes in the dark and needing to leave the headlights on to see what we were doing, I decided it was time to add some lighting to the trailer.

I got some LED bars from superbrightleds.com, and installed them. I started off with just one, because I wasn't sure how much light they were going to provide, the LEDs I've worked with in the past had pretty narrow beam angles, so they're bright as heck, but only in about a 15-20 degree window, not really anything that'd be useful for lighting up a large space. The bar I got from superbrightleds uses LEDs with a 120 degree beam angle, and it worked great, so I ordered six more, and stuck them at various points in the trailer, two along the top of each of the outside walls, and then three along the center.

Here's some pics with the floor coating down and the lights installed:






While I was busy playing with lights and wiring, I thought it'd be nice to have a couple exterior lights when trying to load/unload in the dark as well. I had a couple driving lights that were behind the grill of my truck, but I'd recently added HIDs to the truck, so I really didn't need these in there anymore. I took them off and added them to the rear of the trailer, above the ramp and aiming down so the beams are centered about 5 feet after the ramp, and then wired them up independently of the interior lighting.







Hard to say how helpful the exterior lights will be at the moment, but I've got a couple trips upcoming in the next few months and I'll at least make a point of testing them. I may end up going a different route, as I'm not all that impressed with these right now, but I need to redo some of the wiring, as they're 55W driving lights, and I know the wiring I've got on there now isn't a big enough gauge for the load, so hopefully I'll get that done this weekend and we'll see if that makes a decent improvement or just makes me feel better.
 
#4 ·
I agree. That's a sweet set up. Put a tool box and a small work bench then you can post it on the "Show Us Your Shed" thread! Seriously. :)
 
#9 ·
Wow, I love the front door loading ramp. I have always wanted to try an anti-slip coating on wood trailer ramps. I’ve had rubber mats pull out as well, and diamond plate is slippery when wet and gets very hot when the sun hits it. Great work!
 
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