As I mentioned on my previous blog, storage is now becoming a big problem . It's amazing how much kit you accumulate once you start doing rallies. When I first started, I just rode to the show on my bike and parked it. Now years later, I turn up with a trailer with two bikes in it, and stay over for four nights, sleeping in the trailer. Now I have a gazebo, side curtains, ground sheet, carpet, sun umbrella, pegs, mallet etc. All of this takes up considerable room and it's time to find and answer.
So I took a look at the trailer and noticed that the box sat inside the wheel arches. It occurred to me that there was a lot of wasted room directly above the wheel arches. So I measured the largest item to be stored, which was the gazebo, and found that it would fit in this space. So I set about designing some aluminium side hoppers for both sides of the trailer.
It then occurred to me that this was an ideal chance to improve my kitchen area inside the trailer. Currently it had two problems. 1. I had originally designed it with the wash basin on the wrong side, as the side wall of the trailer stops you getting your face directly over it. 2. The small camping gas ring that I had fitted ran on small canisters of gas, which ran out very quickly. I decided that the answer was to design a front hopper too, that would fit on top of the trailer's "A" frame. This would allow me to carry a full size Butane gas bottle and I could then fit a proper gas ring that runs on Butane.
I then had a bad idea! If I made the hopper large enough, I could also fit a full size car battery in there and dispose of the small motorcycle battery that currently provides power for my interior lights etc. It did not occur to me at the time that putting electrics and gas in the same hopper was a dangerous idea. So if you are reading this don't do it.
So here you can see the side hoppers in place complete with piano hinged lids , locks and catches. Two of these have provided adequate space for the gazebo and all of the other items and they have not increased the overall width of the trailer. You can also spot, on the front corner of the hopper, a vertical light green strip. This is actually LED tape and lights up white and is connected to the trailer side lights. Also at the top and to the left of the LED strip, you can also spot a yellow LED repeater, which is connected to the trailer indicators.
So here is the completed front hopper, fixed to the "A" frame, again with a piano hinge and locks and catches.
Now I could make the new work surface and fit the new gas ring and move the wash basin over. Also at this point I decided that, as I now have a full sized car battery providing the power, I could now fit an electric water pump and proper tap and dispose of the hand pumped one that I had originally fitted.
Another simple addition was a small extractor fan to remove the fumes from the gas ring.
And a simple cover on the outside to stop the rain blowing in.
My trailer was now becoming quite comfy but also quite heavy, and this led me to the next decision.
The problem was that when I got to rallies, quite often the motorcycle section was positioned up against a wall or a hedge and in order for the trailer to be set up with the door towards the bikes and away from the hedge, the tow bar had to be at the hedge end and you can't tow up to a hedge at right angles. Also swinging around and pushing the trailer into place was not easy on grass particularly if the pitch is on a slope or damp. I found that I had to enlist the help of two or three other exhibitors to help me position the trailer. So I had to come up with an answer.
The answer came from my son-in-law, who runs some vintage horse boxes set up to sell coffee from them. In order to position his horse boxes he has "Motor Movers" fitted. Now these are expensive and cost him £800 each. But for a business it was worth it. But for a hobby this price was too steep for me. The answer came on Ebay. I found an old set of motor movers for sale for a caravan and managed to get them for £150.00. Now I had to get them to fit. The problem with a caravan is that the motors clamp to chassis members under the van and these have quite a bit of ground clearance. My trailer only has metal chassis members on the very outer edges and they are low to the ground. I took the trailer and my motor movers to my friend Colin, at Unit 2 Services, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and he suggested that we throw away all of the original mounting kit and make some new steel brackets that would hold the motors as high up as possible and then fix them to the chassis. Well, as you can see, it worked a treat. Now the only thing left was to wire them, however motor-movers demand a great deal of current and I was now sure that my car battery would not do the job. And this leads to the final modification.
I decided to have two more hoppers made, one to house a "leisure battery" and the other just to balance up the look of the trailer, and fit these at the front of the trailer on each side under the original hoppers. This allowed me to install a much bigger battery and also remove the original battery from the gas bottle hopper. Another plus was that I could now carry two gas bottles in the front hopper and it was now much safer.
Well the result was brilliant and I can now move the whole trailer, when disconnected from the car, into any position I like just using a hand held remote control.
More to come as the trailer continues to evolve.
You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com
Copyright 28.056.19 all rights reserved.
My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html
1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html
Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide
1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm
It then occurred to me that this was an ideal chance to improve my kitchen area inside the trailer. Currently it had two problems. 1. I had originally designed it with the wash basin on the wrong side, as the side wall of the trailer stops you getting your face directly over it. 2. The small camping gas ring that I had fitted ran on small canisters of gas, which ran out very quickly. I decided that the answer was to design a front hopper too, that would fit on top of the trailer's "A" frame. This would allow me to carry a full size Butane gas bottle and I could then fit a proper gas ring that runs on Butane. 
I then had a bad idea! If I made the hopper large enough, I could also fit a full size car battery in there and dispose of the small motorcycle battery that currently provides power for my interior lights etc. It did not occur to me at the time that putting electrics and gas in the same hopper was a dangerous idea. So if you are reading this don't do it. 
So here you can see the side hoppers in place complete with piano hinged lids , locks and catches. Two of these have provided adequate space for the gazebo and all of the other items and they have not increased the overall width of the trailer. You can also spot, on the front corner of the hopper, a vertical light green strip. This is actually LED tape and lights up white and is connected to the trailer side lights. Also at the top and to the left of the LED strip, you can also spot a yellow LED repeater, which is connected to the trailer indicators.So here is the completed front hopper, fixed to the "A" frame, again with a piano hinge and locks and catches.
Now I could make the new work surface and fit the new gas ring and move the wash basin over. Also at this point I decided that, as I now have a full sized car battery providing the power, I could now fit an electric water pump and proper tap and dispose of the hand pumped one that I had originally fitted.
Another simple addition was a small extractor fan to remove the fumes from the gas ring.
And a simple cover on the outside to stop the rain blowing in.
My trailer was now becoming quite comfy but also quite heavy, and this led me to the next decision.
The problem was that when I got to rallies, quite often the motorcycle section was positioned up against a wall or a hedge and in order for the trailer to be set up with the door towards the bikes and away from the hedge, the tow bar had to be at the hedge end and you can't tow up to a hedge at right angles. Also swinging around and pushing the trailer into place was not easy on grass particularly if the pitch is on a slope or damp. I found that I had to enlist the help of two or three other exhibitors to help me position the trailer. So I had to come up with an answer.
The answer came from my son-in-law, who runs some vintage horse boxes set up to sell coffee from them. In order to position his horse boxes he has "Motor Movers" fitted. Now these are expensive and cost him £800 each. But for a business it was worth it. But for a hobby this price was too steep for me. The answer came on Ebay. I found an old set of motor movers for sale for a caravan and managed to get them for £150.00. Now I had to get them to fit. The problem with a caravan is that the motors clamp to chassis members under the van and these have quite a bit of ground clearance. My trailer only has metal chassis members on the very outer edges and they are low to the ground. I took the trailer and my motor movers to my friend Colin, at Unit 2 Services, Ilkeston, Derbyshire, and he suggested that we throw away all of the original mounting kit and make some new steel brackets that would hold the motors as high up as possible and then fix them to the chassis. Well, as you can see, it worked a treat. Now the only thing left was to wire them, however motor-movers demand a great deal of current and I was now sure that my car battery would not do the job. And this leads to the final modification.
I decided to have two more hoppers made, one to house a "leisure battery" and the other just to balance up the look of the trailer, and fit these at the front of the trailer on each side under the original hoppers. This allowed me to install a much bigger battery and also remove the original battery from the gas bottle hopper. Another plus was that I could now carry two gas bottles in the front hopper and it was now much safer.Well the result was brilliant and I can now move the whole trailer, when disconnected from the car, into any position I like just using a hand held remote control.
More to come as the trailer continues to evolve.
You can contact me on hopcroftscoot@gmail.com
Copyright 28.056.19 all rights reserved.
My Other Blogs:
1961 BSA A10 Super Rocket Motorcycle:
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/before.html
1961 Ariel Arrow Super Sport Motorcycle :
http://60sclassicmotorbikes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/1961-aerial-golden-arrow-restoration.html
Miniature Land Rover Defender:
http://miniaturelandrover.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/1-miniature-land-rover-defender-idea.html?view=timeslide
1971 VW Karmann Ghia Convertible Car:
http://karmannghiarestoration.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/1-karmann-ghia-retoration-project.htm
