Completed

Wrapping Everything Up

Completed! Rewired the trailer light harness this morning. It worked before but it wasn't very organized. Second time around all the wiring is in flexible conduits with the ends sealed with self-fusing tape. I also attached a vehicle-side connector to the jack to plug the trailer-side connector into when not being towed to prevent water getting to the electrodes. Yesterday I put on the towing bar onto the vehicle, which was much more involved than it should have been. It seems that the access holes in the frame of the car are not as big as the towing bar designer thought. It was quick enough to widen it a bit with a saber saw, but fishing the bolts through the hollow frames was nontrivial. The towing bar is SAE Class I (200 lb tongue weight), and didn't flex at all as I jumped on the ball mount, so I'm quite happy with it. The wiring harness for the towing vehicle was a little more straightforward. I routed the connector down through the spare tire compartment and lashed it to the towing bar. Everything fit under the carpet of the trunk so it was all pretty tidy. The only thing left to do that I know of is to get it registered, which we are hoping to complete tomorrow. Although, I'm sure there will be some trouble-shooting along the way as well. Cheerio!

Galley Vent

 We are getting very close, just a few odds and ends left. One of those was the vent from the galley to the exterior. It has an interior butterfly vent make of 316 stainless, with an ABS louver vent on the exterior. This means that while the vent is open, rain will not enter through it and that the vent can be closed when underway.

Battery and Battery Holddown

We've had the battery for some time, but its installation has just been completed. After the tongue box and spare tire added significant weight to the front of the trailer, we decided to move the battery to the galley. This required running a 10ga wire down through the bottom of the trailer and along the frame to the tongue box. I'm still not happy about that, but it should be fine. The battery itself is 55 lbs. and it would be catastrophic if it started bouncing around without restraint. It is held in place by two massive pieces of purpleheart epoxied to the galley floor. The vertical piece above the battery is a cam with a turnbuckle to tighten. It is connected to a structural beam above. The flat plywood is to distribute the load and not crack the battery case. The leads from the battery go to the terminal block on one of the purpleheart cleats. The ground goes straight to the tongue box, while the positive goes through a 30A circuit breaker first.

Tongue Box Painting and Hardware

 The tongue box was painted with the same paint as the exterior of the trailer. The interior was given three coats of spar urethane to protect if from contents banging around inside and any UV. The hinge is a 30" brass piano hinge held down by 30 8-32 brass machine screws through bolted to the lid and the box itself. The seal around the edge is neoprene, and the lip of the box overlaps it by about 1" to protect it. The lid is held down by two elastic pull latches. They are at a bit of a strange angle but appear to hold quite well. The lock is on center and catches a piece of aluminum angle iron on the interior of the front of the box. To minimize any water coming through the hinge, it was laid over a strip of waterproof fabric. Lastly, I installed a small strip of aluminum to protect the rather delicate thermistor on the front of the charge controller.

Tongue Box Waterproofing

The tongue box has been attached! The edges adjacent to the trailer have thickened epoxy fillets to bare the load of the weight of the tongue box and its contents. The outer faces have 2-3 coats of epoxy, depending on the location. The interior has 2 coats of epoxy and several coats of spar urethane. The spare tire is also temporarily mounted on the side to figure out the bolt pattern and length. The tongue box is also proving itself to be pretty strong as well, it essentially hovers over the tongue so this is important if anything heavy is to be put in it. On this subject, the battery has been relocated to the galley to decrease the tongue weight a bit and make the trailer easier to handle. Also visible in the photo is the wires to the solar panel. I would have liked to internalize this but unfortunately this turned out to not be an option due to the size of the conduit. The wiring is marine grade and UV-stabilized so I don't predict any issues with it, it is just a bit of an eye-sore.

 

Roughing Out Tongue Box

 With the warm weather, I've been able to pull out the sheet of plywood for the tongue box and get busy. It was pretty hard to get the whole thing scribed to fit the front of the trailer because of the way the tongue box hangs off of the front and is not supported underneath. In the two pictures you can also see where I'm planning on putting the spare tire, although right now its just resting on some 4x4s. The tongue box has three drains/vent in the floor, one of which is visible in the second photo. The tongue box is also very structural: the plywood is 1/2" ACX, the joints have 1 1/2" cleats and the shape is very resistance to torsion from uneven loading, for example.