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Shop/garage trailer?

brocolocoli

Red Skull Member
Joined
May 21, 2020
Member Number
820
Messages
22
Loc
Washington
I have a project car that's been sitting under a tarp in a storage lot for years that I want to work on. Am I retarded for thinking I could just setup shop in a 8.5x24 or 28 10k cargo trailer until I accumulate enough cash to buy a real shop/land in a few years?

Car itself is 65" wide, inside the trailer is 96. 15 inches on each side seems like it could be enough to get my fat ass around it and do some work. Worst case push the rig to hug one side for extra room.

Car is 16 ft long so a 24ft trailer would leave about 6ft of working room up front after tool boxes/shelves are installed if it was butted up to the back door

Would a 3/4 plywood trailer floor even support jack stands without punching through? Car is maybe 2000 lbs wet so it's not like it's a 6000lb buggy with 4ds and d60s under it.

Tell me why this is a bad idea.
 
i mean its good for storage and small stuff, but its hard just to get in and out of a car in an enclosed trailer

let alone trying to pull a tire or slide on a creeper under it, just think if you need to get under the center of the car, you gotta go under the axle from front or back

some stuff might just not have enough room, like pulling an axle shaft

its not impossible but just alot of small headaches
 
This is the state it was in when I dragged it to where it's at, 5 years ago now. Where the fuck does time go?

Getting in and out would suck I agree but removing the doors would make it bearable? Maybe that's just me trying to convince myself.

Everything comes out the bottom or top, no real work is happening on the sides, at least nothing like pulling a axle shaft out.

Figuring if I get 2 birds stoned by fitting out a trailer that I'm going to need eventually anyways maybe I'll turn a wrench on it again before I'm 6 feet under.

If It was in a shitty white trash tarp barn I wouldn't even be considering this, but it's not.

1000001508.jpg
 
No way you'll be able to get work done on the sides of the car while it's in an enclosed trailer. In a pinch maybe, but definitely not something you'd want to do regularly. Think about the wheel wells of the trailer, they encroach a ton.
 
If you were a 60s European roadster enthusiast you might be able to make do in a 8' wide pup trailer but anything narrower or anything bigger and you'll hate working on the sides.

Measure how much your ass sticks out beside a car while you're comfortably do a brake job then reconsider if you like the idea.
 
I got kicked out of my first shop and I worked out of a semi trailer for a while. I used the trailer for storage and worked on stuff outside in a parking lot. I put the toolboxes on the back and just climbed up for parts. I don’t recommend working on stuff inside the trailer.
 
bad zuki said:
I got kicked out of my first shop and I worked out of a semi trailer for a while. I used the trailer for storage and worked on stuff outside in a parking lot. I put the toolboxes on the back and just climbed up for parts. I don’t recommend working on stuff inside the trailer.
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And a semi trailer would be way more spacious than a regular enclosed trailer too.
 
you'd be better off to buy a 12x20 'shed' and put it in your back yard. prices around here are @ the same money as the enclosed trailer you are talking about. and if you moved you can move the shed with.
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
No way you'll be able to get work done on the sides of the car while it's in an enclosed trailer. In a pinch maybe, but definitely not something you'd want to do regularly. Think about the wheel wells of the trailer, they encroach a ton.
Click to expand...
I’ve actually thought of this before when the zoning board came down on me (rightfully so I guess I’m notoriously slow at my projects)… as long as the trailer was registered and closed up most of the time they couldnt do anything about the unregistered vehicle inside. Maybe you could do fold out sides or a curtain trailer type roll up side. I just mounted a harbor freight winch in the nose and rolled the roller shell in and out to work on it
 
1716256007060.png

Id deal with one of these before I tried it in a trailer

just getting my sxs in and out of my widebody toy hauler, I typically send the kid to get in and out of it because it sucks, and she doesn't bother with the door, she goes through the window, or roll bar
 
SomeGuyFromOlympia said:
1716256007060.png

Id deal with one of these before I tried it in a trailer

just getting my sxs in and out of my widebody toy hauler, I typically send the kid to get in and out of it because it sucks, and she doesn't bother with the door, she goes through the window, or roll bar
Click to expand...
Was gonna say I have a 10 x 30 open sided carport with a steel roof, no way I would consider building a truck under it. Sure I can walk along the sides but it's too narrow to do any work along the sides.
If I was doing a carport it would have to be at least 15' wide.
 
Check the sqft allowed by the zoning board. Mine is 256 sf without a building permit or zoning. I’d get one of those white tents with roll up sides.
 
Zoning is pretty restricted, I can't put up anything over 200sf without a permit. On top of that nothing over 8ft tall and they want 10ft from the house and 5 ft from the property line and I only got 25ft to play with from the house to the line. I'll be squeezing a 20ft shipping container down in that spot but it's already pretty reserved for excess parts storage. Even if it wasn't I'd still be in the same boat with the 8ft width.

I'm only ever home maybe 3-4 months out of the year tops. between my brothers projects and mine we have too much shit for the place we're at. I'm tired of working on his junk and not my junk

I would say I'm probably at least 2 years out before I can get a decent place to actually have room to breathe.

Idea is the trailer sits in the storage spot I'm already paying for and I'd drag it home when I am there then drag it back to storage when I head out for work.
 
I can see doing it but it's less than ideal for sure. If you're small/limber enough there are worse places to work on shit. The thing I hate more than anything else on the couple trailers I inherited is climbing in and out of the fuckin' things.
 
Dethmachinefab said:
1000002489.jpg

Something like this might make it more tolerable.
Click to expand...

If they made ones that had a whole side open up, that might work. The ones like you've got pictured here are really just intended for the (car's) door to open, and aren't as wide as most car wheelbases. In my experience at least.

If OP could tolerate rolling a car back to get at the front wheel, forward to get at the rear, then turning it around to get at the other side wheel and tire, yeah it'd be way better than being inside the box trying to work on it.
 
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This was the camper we took to KOH. The side lifted up and had shade for a garage area. It was supposedly built like this, but for a robotics company to have a robot in the back and display it at trade shows.

NCM_0632.JPG


If you can work on it and roll it back inside, I still vote for just the car trailer and a pop up awning. Easy and the awning can stay in the trailer.
This is what my trailer shop looked like. Keep in mind, that is a samurai buggy. You couldn't walk past it with the 38's.

IMG_20150807_165013907.jpg
 
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