Stealth Trailer Build

**DrGonzo** · 07-28-2011, 12:00 PM

So a couple of you that are friends with me on Facebook have seen some pics of the progress of the trailer build I have been working on for the last couple of months. The progress has been slow due to work, the weather, planning my wedding, tracking down materials and of course money. So I guess I am at the point to actually start a thread on the whole build process up until now.

Many of you know that Hans at GZP was the first one to build one of these trailers. I loved the idea so much that I decided to tackle building one myself. All credit goes to Hans for initially tackling this and his original trailer helped me get through a bunch of hurdles I had when designing mine. If you are interested in getting a trailer for yourself, Hans at GZP does build these for anyone interested: http://www.3swarehouse.com/index.php...emart&Itemid=1

After building my Stealth TT I had pretty much an empty N/A frame at the house that made a good start for the build. This was the first Stealth I ever bought "10 years ago" and due to sentimental reason I couldn't send it off to the crusher.

Interior was gutted and installed in the TT

Phase one:

Break out the saw and cut the car in half as I am only using the rear end. Left enough of the lower frame so I could tie in the trailer tongue to the original Stealth frame.

I was really surprised how light the rear end was! I could wheel it around without much force. This is due to the positioning of the rear wheels as the fulcrum point.

The front end on the other hand was a nightmare to move around! I ended up filling the front end with all of the scrap parts I had that where junk and sent it off to the crusher. I ended up making some decent money off of the front clip which all went to buying steel for the trailer!

I cut out the floor of the trailer and framed it in using angle iron. tying in to the original frame of the car on the sides and rear. The doors were also cut and welded onto the trailer at this point. All internals of the doors were removed to save weight.

After all of the lower frame rails were done I started to work on framing in the front and adding in support frame rails. The upper most supports were just a test and I have come up with a different idea for those.

The longest wait was trying to get the steel I needed for the main center support beam for the tongue. Most of the steel I was able to track down locally but this particular piece I had to order offline. The main center bean was 2 3/4 X 2 /34 X 1/4 steel square tube. I needed something strong as I was doing a combination tongue where as Hans did an A-Frame tongue. The center beam runs about 12" under the Stealth drive shaft tunnel as is tied in to both the stock section of the car and the newly created frame. I used grade 8 bolts to bolt the beam to the Stealth rear Section along with welding it to make sure nothing broke free. Using 1/4 angle I tied the center beam and angled them back to the frame for horizontal support when turning, etc. when the center beam was attached I actually had the hitch holding it to the TT while I welded everything up. This helped me position the height and keep the trailer level with the car.

Currently with the trailer attached to the car it only dropped the rear end my 1/4 "Intrax Springs" I can jump up and down on the trailer tongue and the rear end does not bottom out and the exhaust does not hit the ground. With the wheels being so far back it should be able to balance a decent load without issues. Right now I am guessing the tongue load is about 90lbs "Best Guess". I need to actually get a weight on it to see how much more I can add without being concerned of exceeding the tongue weight.

**AdamVR4** · 07-28-2011, 12:09 PM

Are you planning to close the trailer and make it look finished?

**Hans@GZP** · 07-28-2011, 12:10 PM

I can't wait to see how this turns out. It's good to see how someone else would do it.

**DrGonzo** · 07-28-2011, 12:12 PM

Spent almost a month trying to track down sheet metal and finally found some. I was wanting to go with 18 gauge but had to settle on 20 gauge sheet metal as it was all that was available. I will just need to add in a couple more supports to stop the sheet metal from flexing but nothing major. The fun part was cutting the sheet metal to contour the shape of the doors and them actually welding them on. My welder works great on thick steel but is burning through the sheet metal is I try to lay a full bead. So I had to pretty much spot weld everything together. Which is holding just fine. The sheet metal is not for support but just the enclosure. I will be using Seam sealer on the inside to make everything water proof. Fiber resin will fill in the outside gaps along with body putty.

Wiring has also been completed. I ended up running a standard 4 prong trailer plug with an extra 10 gauge wire that I will use to power some other additional accessories later on down the road.

Right now I am spending my time getting the rest of the upper frame and sheet metal done which will take some time. I want to fashion a door on the upper part so I can access that part of the trailer without having to crawl through the hatch. I am working on a design to make sure the door is water tight and that I am able to tie in the side sheet metal without issues.