We needed a Heavy Duty Off-Road trailer to carry all our equipment to shows, competitions and the odd expedition. After looking around to see what was available we realised we were not going to get much change out of £2,000 for what we needed and some trailers we looked at were over £10,000!!

So with a limited budget we set out to build our own. This is what happened next:

At the Old Sodbury Sortout last October we saw a strange trailer chassis for sale. It was loaded onto another trailer along with a load of other parts so we could not really get a good look at it. The seller told us it was the chassis from a Rapier Missile Launcher. It had all the electrics in place, independent coil suspension, NATO hitch, quick release wheels and four good stabilisers. At first glance it looked just like a chassis from a SANKEY type trailer but with coils rather than leaf springs.

It was exactly what we needed and at just £120 it seemed to be a bargain so we arranged a date to visit the seller near Bristol to collect our trophy. We couldn't take it on the day as the suspension is usually secured to the body and as there was no body the coil springs just hung down loose and was not towable.

When we got there to collect it we were surprised just how big the thing was and how heavy it was. Undeterred we loaded the chassis onto the back of a pickup with a fork lift along with three good wheels with new 7.50x16 tyres and drove it home. When we got there we realised we had no way of getting it off the pick up. Our only solution was to tie a rope to the chassis and a telegraph pole and drive the pick up away, thus dropping it to the ground. Not exactly the most delicate of way to do it but the only solution we could come up with at the time.

After spending a few weeks deciding what exactly we wanted to do with it - and deciding if we had bought the right thing or not - Our first priority was to sort out how we were going to tow it. Originally designed to be towed behind a bedford Army Truck or Land-Rover 101 the hitch sat about 250mm too high for our 110 and Discovery.

FIRST JOB was to straighten the chassis.

THE STRAIGHTENED CHASSIS

NEXT we decided that the four stabilisers were really total overkill for what we were going to need so they were removed, along with all the other bits we did not need.

SOME OF THE BITS WE TOOK OFF

NEXT we needed to sort out a way to secure the coil springs. Originally these were bolted to the side of the body which was no wider than the chassis itself. We wanted to find a way of securing the suspension so that it did not need to be fixed to the body, that way we would not be restricted on what type of body we needed and could also build it out of lighter weight aluminium.

The solution we came up with is not exactly conventional and took many hours of scratching heads to come up with but it works very well and is totally self contained on the chassis. This allows us to have a separate body fixed to the chassis that can be removed if required and still leave the trailer towable.

THESE PICTURES SHOW THE SUSPENSION STILL IN THE 'DEVELOPMENT' STAGE

THIS SET UP GIVES US AT LEAST 50mm OF SUSPENSION TRAVEL BEFORE HITTING THE RUBBER BUMP STOPS

Click Here For Other stages of the Trailer Build