hello, new to the site, trailer questions

[dancam]

Hi guys, I have driven a small car for 9 years trying to get good fuel mileage. I read things on this site, but figured I had learned most of the basics and I have never been interested in the 'more extreme' side of shutting the car off, aero mods, wiper/alternator deletion. I appreciated what I learned here but never felt a need to join until now. I joined this site now because I plan to buy a 5x10 trailer, turn it into a camper to live in and tow it across Canada with my car and the rest of my family in the summer of 2017. That would be a 2 year old, a 4 year old, my wife and I for 3 months and 31,000km. I was looking at how to build the trailer aerodynamically as that obviously makes a massive difference in fuel mileage and noticed several threads were from this site. I am a member of several other forums (which are not helpful for how to build a trailer) and I know what its like to have someone new come and ask all sorts of 'dumb' or 'newbie' questions without searching.
I am sure there are more on this site, but there are a couple reasons I cannot spend a ton of time searching. One is that when using this forum on my really old computer all the ads and videos slow my computer down almost to a crawl. I can't get much actual searching done. Trying to search on my old, small 'smartphone' takes forever too. Then I need to get the plans made for this pretty quick and get the trailer built this summer, I need the winter to work on the car that will do the towing. Bunch of other stuff like being busy at home and our 1 year old just had open heart surgery and all that. So. After saying all that-basically im sorry but please help- here is what I am hoping you guys can help me with: could you post links to threads on how to build a smaller camping trailer, how to make a trailer aerodynamic, how to make it cheap, how to use canvas to make a 'tent trailer' with a hard top and bottom and canvas in the middle? I would appreciate it very much. In the next few days i can post my plans in greater detail here if anyone is interested. A basic summary is: I want to keep the total weight of the trailer and contents to 1700 pounds. Our gear will be 700-1000 pounds. (I realize thats a tall order for a 5x10 trailer). I want to keep the hight of the trailer when closed the same as the roofline of my hatchback, but when it opens its tall enough to stand in. We plan to sleep in it. Here are a few photos. Any help would be much appreciated. Once I have the trailer figured out I will be looking on here more for fuel economy tips while towing but thats a few months off yet. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Edit: never mind, apparently I cannot post my drawings until I have 5 posts to the forum.

[oil pan 4]

What kind of car do you have?
For a car that can pull 1700lb you better have something like a crown vic. Not many cars are up to pulling that much trailer long distance. Mid size and full size typically top out at 1,000lb. Econo boxes top out any where from a bike rack to 500lb typically.
A car is going to have a class 1 hitch, up to 2,000lb and tongue weight up to 200lb. That is maximum. The real limit is decided by the vehicle manufacturer and is a lot less.

This is my post about buying a trailer instead of a pickup but is not to the scope of your intended use.
Buy a trailer (instead of a pickup truck) - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com

Then I build some trailers out of junk I had laying around.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post515107
Kind of like what you might be thinking maybe?
One of them was a 5x10.

Here is a new one I must have missed.
Project: Aero Trailer for TDi - Fuel Economy, Hypermiling, EcoModding News and Forum - EcoModder.com

This trailer, how are you going to build it?
Can you weld?
If welds don't kind of look like this leave the trailer building to the professionals.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ild-33370.html
I find the bolt together trailers to be seriously lacking structurally.

Do you know how to service wheel bearings?
If you buy any kind of used trailer its likely going to beat beyond being road worthy and I always find the bearings and spindles to be shot on old neglected trailers.

This is what can go wrong:
Trailer fail pics - Page 7