Trailer


	Scrapheap Dave’s Mini Challenges.


	*Mini Trailer - An unplanned project*

For quite some time now I have had the desire to own a trailer made out of the back end of a Mini, however my Mini at the time could not have a tow bar and no progress was made. However, with the creation of my Mini Turbo I fitted a tow bar with the intention of one day buying a trailer.

As anyone who has looked at getting a trailer will know, they are quite sought after and any for sale are snapped up very quickly. This happened at Brooklands last year, I saw the perfect trailer, it was cheap but unfortunately I was one person too late and it went straight away. Somewhat disappointed one of our members Chris said he had a Mini I could cut up and turn into a trailer and we should discuss it at our pub meet.

Having done a little bit of research, various guides on the net hinted that it would only take 2 days to make a mini trailer.

The pub meet came and one thing led to another and the trailer project began with a posse of willing volunteers to help with the cutting.


	The Mini donor car at first glance looked a little rough and first impressions were unfortunately right, the giveaway was when trying to move the car it got stuck, this turned out to be a big chunk of floor had dropped off and wedged under the wheel !!, a sign of things to come....

It took much longer than anticipated to cut through the shell despite its rotten condition, most of the boot floor fell out and the sills just pulled off by hand.

The intention was to use the roof of the Mini to form a lid for the trailer that would hinge with gas struts.

I had a reasonable idea of what I wanted my trailer to look like when I started but due to the rotten nature of the shell I decided to cut further back near the rear wheels than originally planned.



		Willing Volunteer Shawn lends a hand .....

we got the half Mini home on the back of a truck and then the hard work began.

The shell had no strength and the first thing to do was replace all the rotten metal before any extra work could be done, hence a new floor and boot lip and numerous patches and strengthening bits. This took several weeks of effort that hadn’t been anticipated, plus of course more cost.

With the half Mini up to scratch, work could begin with the creation of the shape I wanted.

I planned to have a tapered cone a bit like a fibreglass one I had seen at many shows, this allows for a shorter towbar and more angle to turn the trailer I surmised.


	On to Part 2