IHI

I ruled out sheet vinyl before i ever bought this thing, everybody i know with it hates it, slippery as heck when wet-so when we get rained out and people are running in and out it gets slick, same with trying to drive your car in, smokie burnout time on your ramp unless your carrying enough momentum to get inside, which is hairey driving into the box. Not to mention they do stain when oil drips on them, and the hot tires at the end of the day when you pull it in and let it sit will loosen the top coat and eventually make it start to peel. Other guys say do the 12x12 self sticks but you and i have both seen enough of that garbage to know what will hapen in a short amount of time..theire argument is if a tile gets stained/ripped/curls, you can replace just that section...but i would'nt I have a hard time even considering throwing those peel and sticks in the garbage as i have more respect for trash than that LMFAO!!!!

I stopped at our local Sherwin Williams store since alot of our local painting contractors get all their stuff there and the place is pretty respected for all types of floor/wall covering adbvise and products. I took in pictures of what i had, explained what i wanted and we all decided the epoxy was the way to go. Since i have pre existing oil stained plywood, I'm going to pwr wash and degrease as much as i can to lift it out as much as possible, then let it dry.

In the store they have a wood filler of sorts...it's like jb weld material that will bind all sorts of different materials together like a glue on steroids, but it still sandable and paintable. I'm going to use that in each plywood floor joint from side to side so the floor will essentially become 1 large sheet of plywood and the normal twisting these things go through in transport wont allow the epoxy to crack.

Once the filler in down/dry/sanded smooth sherwin williams makes a primer block...kind of like KILTZ but supposedly better..and @ $68/gal it better be, but 1 gallong should be plenty for our floors. The stuff is meant/designed to cover up grafiti and adheres to wax, grease, leaf, graphite, etc...all the stuff normal paint/primers dont stick too, so with my oil stained floor it's a must and will work perfectly.

Once it's all primed and dried, I'm going to use the brand of 2 part epoxy paint they carry. I want black so i may see if they can customer order a box. $94 for everything, and it even comes with the shark skin grit you mix right into the expoxy so it will give the entire floor a non skid surface. They showed me their restroom that had the sharkskin mixed in and i was impressed, the grit is soooo tiny you cannot see it, but it's very tacky as far as traction goes, and they said it's very easy to sweep clean, nothing hangs up since that was my other concern, so i'm sold on that for the floor, fold down door/ramp. I'm still uncertain if i'll bother with the speckle flake since i think it may look cheesey unless i could get a gray/charcoal gray fleck, then I'd probably use it, but i still have to see if i can even get it in black...all they stocked was gray and pewter. The only major downfall is it cna only be applied when surface temp and ambient temp will remain between 60-90*F so I have a bit before i can do it.

Once the floor has been epoxied I'm going to find out where the cars sweet spot is in the trailer and have some aluminum diamond plate pads made so i can screw them down where the tires will sit in transport so the hot rubber will not try to lift the surface/epoxy...it should'nt anyways, but i'm not taking the chance since soo much prep and money will go into this for a hopefully bullet proof finish.

They did have regualr porch floor paints, but the guys said sure it's cheaper, but with the chemicals in the stuff we use for cars-brake fluid, brake clean, oils, that the normal paints will not hold up and will bubble up/peel once a harsh chemical hits it whereas the epoxy is designed to be tough as nails...and that was the final decided factor pushing to to go with epoxy.

Finally starting to melt snow around here and we're hanging in the 30-40* range, so sometimes soon i hope to get to working on it..i still have to pull the 3rd memeber and get the new gear put in...not enough time and we're starting to pick up a bit with work, so we'll see.

Josh

Stephen 87 IROC

Cube van is a good tow vehicle but really needs a good engine. My old boss had one as a service truck with an old 7.3L mechanical non turbo engine. The truck had a hard time just pulling itself out of a ditch.

I was thinking of even looking for an older plain diesel van, not cube, to use as a tow vehicle. They're cheaper than a pickup truck and will do the job just as well.

tireburnin

If I were outfitting from nothing, I would put in a bunch of D rings. You never know what size car will be in the trailer or where you want to strap the car down. Ebay is a great place for straps, d rings, etrack etc. They sell trailer outfitting parts cheap on there.

My trailer didn't come with a generator compartment so I built cabinets for everything. I had the front L shaped cabinets from the factory and built the gas/nitrous/misc holder. Most of my cabinets are stuffed with plastic tupperwear style containers to organize everything. The containers do a good job of keeping everything in place.

IHI

Stephen, i run a 89 E350 7.3 IDI cube van for my main tool shed for work, for that purpose it's fine, i've towed my open trailer with my car to the track with it before, and it's less than impressive to say the least...fuel milage is actually astounding, it weighs in at just under 11,000lbs, no overdrive and averages 14mph, so for a big heavy brick I've been impressed, and it's never dipped below 12mpg while towing my trailer with a full load of lumber, but for this type of purpose, it would'nt work. I talked with a freind of mine this afternoon, he has a 88 cube van with living arrangements, new 460, good shape for $3800, but i dunno, still think I'm going to hold out and pick up a used RV...in light of fuel prices, i can only imagine the market to be flooded, sales to be stagnet, and a huuuge buyers market for people like me looking to cash in on other's misfortunes.

MD, think i'd forgo the rubber mat flooring...sure it'd be nice, but it's heavy once you figure how much your going to have. The regular trailer fllor mats for our purposes would be excellent, but i priced out many and $1040.00 was the cheapest i found kind finding that out pricing awnings too.

1SlowFormula

How many times have you done a full weekend at the track? I have a shower and sink in mine and we take a blowup mattress, I also have a spare crock pot that we keep in it for those long weekends. The front section has a devider and when the car is in the trailer and backed all the way up to the door the devider can close, but if the car is in transport position I have to leave the devider open, but we can fit in there and sleep comfortably...

Here are pics of mine http://www.1slowformula.com/trailer

IHI

Sweet set up, that's what I'm talking about for setting up mine, cept i'm debating on the shower and WILL have a potty in there...long weekends at far away tracks...even my home track gives me the ******* when nature calls and i'm not able to just open a truck door to hide if ya know what i mean LOL!!
Where do they have the water heater hidden for the shower? under the cabinets?
electric of propane?
how many gallon is the water heater and how long does it last before getting cold?
I like the fresh water tank on the nose idea, my generator is too big to fit on the nose so that would make a perfect moutning place for it as it's wasted space anyhow, did the tank come with a petcock to drain once the weekend is over? or do you just have to pump it out?

How big of a grey water tank do you have or do they just have it so it drains on the ground since it's just gray water and not sewage? i've found a couple vendors that i can get tanks to fit under the trailer for black and gray water, but i have another idea for my black holding tank, so if we do install a shower i'd like some sort of holding tank in case we're on cement, i dont need 10 gallons of soapey water drainging all over..as in normal pit area's too with all the kids running around...it'd be kinda nasty LOL!!

The Engineer

Everything looks really nice, but you didn't mention the "cold beer" carrying capacity of the trailer!

WD

1SlowFormula

Yeah so teh water heater was one of the casulties of gettign a ued trailer, the previous owner forgot to drain it and it froze and split. I have not replaced it yet but found this to do so: http://www.members.tripod.com/nccamper/id16.htm

As for the freshwater storage, there is a petcock at the bottom end to drain as well as the spout on the front of the trailer just outside the area around the sink, I can hook a hose up directly to that and run freshwater in that way, and top off my freshwater tank, or close the valve on the freshater tank and use just the hose. The grey watter from the shower and sink just drain out below the trailer, and I never thougth about if I parked on concrete since most places are dirt and grass parking around here, so I should look into those, mind sharing what you found?

Also, I am getting a portable camping toilet with seperate fresh and black water tanks, I cant find the link to that right now...

1SlowFormula

Yeah Unfortunatly that is still the good old big a$$ cooler method right now...

mdacton

Wea re starting cabinets in the morning

I descided to go with the epoxy flooring also, after talking to several people. I have a sherwin williams account

I'm just doing a row across the top and bottom for now.....I didn't want to do the L type yet until I get my gold car (next month or so) I need to see how that fits and I carry a drum of fuel. Just leaving my generator in the truck for now and for sleeping etc inflatable matress. Toilet= bucket

I don't have kids or family so I can ruough it for a weekend no problem. We are just throwing something together for super chevy in a month. And have alot of stuff to do to both cars.

IHI

MD, when you go to pick up your epoxy, i am assuming they carry the same brand of stuff franchise wide, ask to see if they can order it in black. It's going to be a good month or so before i really dig in and start mine...waiting for good weather when our larger scale projects start so disposable income is, well, disposable LOL!! Buddy borrowed it tonight/tomorrow for cart racing, then i have to help bring my best bud back from Nebraska from a nasty split so he's gonn use it for a few weeks for storage until he gets a place, so it'll be at least a month before i go back to SW and pick up the filler/primer/epoxy but all they had in stock was gray and tan...that's not really working for me color wise so i want black so i can color match other componenets so it looks nicer naturally, and if SW cant get it, i can order it online, but would rather deal locally obviously.

I'm debating the shower, it would be awesom to have, just to have obviously, and i would look into a 5 gallon unit since your only going to get about 3/4 capacity of hot/warm water, and electrics cant keep up/recoup heat fast enough when compared to a propane, but just being able to run an extension cord and not having a flame would be ideal with all the fumes and such inside the box..could get explosive, so how that guy gets by with a 2 1/2 gallon unit, i dunno. Am almost wondering now if i should'nt get a big invertor, that way i can have hot water perculating going down the road too

HERE is a link to just one of the plastic holding tank sites i found, they can even custom make one for you if you'd like depending on floor joist layout. For the toilet, we bought a portable unit yrs ago, took it out of the box and you honestly better not have a butt biggger than a smurfs azz, otherwise your screwed...wee wee will not fit inside the bowl if your taking a dump...kinda like trying to sit on a cereal bowl, and we bought the biggest unit they made at that time. I have a post above somewhere about how i'm going to set mine up, just installing a regular toilet flange, and 4" PVC, then running a length of the 4" pvc down the trailer and installing a waste gate, basically just using the PVC pipe alone as the toilet holding tank, since it'll just be a poo bin, or femal pee bin....not a toilet set up for a 1-2 week camping trip, but will suffice for the standard 2-3 day events unless you eat lots of mexican and wash it down with alot of beer LOL!!!

Shower wise, to save on space, i'd probably do a corner pan that way i still have room for a toilet stall and cabinets and such. I'll just get a futon to use as our bed since the fold up trailer beds like we need start at $600 and go up from there depending if you use a single bed bunk bed style, or a fold down and out double bed set up..lots easier to use the futon for double duty IMO since it can be a couch during the day at bigger events when we're sitting for hours doing nothing and the newness of checking out the competition has long worn off.

mdacton

I will check for you on the black epoxy, I'm sure we can get it here any color you want within a day.

I'm going to do a dark grey or slate color I think, My cabinets are going to be a black melamine box with stainless brushed handles 4 doors on the bottom, 4 up top. And a laminated Black matrix top.....My pops runs a cabinet shop so Most of its leftovers....got $120 in it so far... Not fancy but its o.k. for a poor boy. The doors will all be overlayed and I ordered the catches from the haulmark place so they will be in tuesday.

IHI

LOL, you know the worst part, is my laziness...i could easily call my store, but figured so long as your goin there, just run it by them LOL!! but yeah, i assume they can get whatever i want, but only stock the common stuff...i mean how many guys want a black garage floor-probably nobody, but since this is a trailer, i dont much care, i want black.

Buddy called a little bit ago, the one that borrowed it for the weekend cart racing, he laughed and said your right, all the guys thought i was a bawler pulling a trailer like that for my little azzed go cart LOL!! kinda like when a toterhome and stacker roll into the track and lo and behold, 1 fuggin jr dragster inside I did find out the 4 inside 12v lights worked, and told him to plug it in when he got it home to make sure the flouresant lights worked too

mdacton

O.K so here is what I did yesterday.

Its a good start anyway...need to really get the golf cart and see how everything iis going to fit before I do anymore. Some under cab lights, and some organizing is going on this week to get things where they need to be. Also adding some more small stuff....and maybe start on the floor.

Also have some pitpal stuff on the way....

tireburnin

That's a nice job you did. What are the cabinets covered in? Laminate?

That black should hide the grease stains well. That's one thing I hate about an all white interior.