Tawàyama Safaris - Chuck Wagon

We felt we needed something 'extra' for all of the spill-over gear that we would want to take on longer expeditions, in addition to wanting a portable kitchen. We didn't feel we needed a full-on kitchen trailer, and we needed something more than just a utility trailer, so we created a sort of hybrid between the two.

The bed of the trailer was made from the rear bed of a Defender 110 pick-up that was shortened and a bulkhead made for the front section. Additional storage boxes were made out of aluminum and can carry goods and equipment that must stay clean. A gasketed lid keeps water and dust out for food and cooking equipment. Additional boxes were constructed to contain the batteries, wheel-chocks, recovery equipment and other odds and ends.

First and foremost about any equipment we build or use is that it must function in the extreme environments we place them into. The trailer is certainly no exception. Even though we won't be going absolutely crazy with the trailer off-road, it does need to perform just as well as the vehicles do.

One of the features of the Chuck Wagon is the ability to articulate indipendant of the tow vehicle. It's not designed to flip over, but with the towing ring and rotating pintle hitch, it can track right along behind the truck even in extremely uneven terrain.

A long trailer tongue ensures that the trailer tracks well behind the tow vehicle, and also gives ample room for when maneuvering and backing-up is required.

A frame from an 88-inch Land Rover was chopped in half, an A-frame was contstructed and we mounted a pintle hitch ring from a Sankey military trailer from England. We also have the matching pintle hitch mounted onto a reciever hitch that we can transfer from truck to truck. A nerf-bar was constructed to keep the trailer safe from rocks while traveling off road, and also provides a convenient place to mount the spare tire and a 5-gallon can of gasoline.

Equipped with dual Optima blue-top deep cycle marine batteries to supply power to twin ARB freezer/fridges, it also has a 6 gallon propane fuel tank mounted betweeen the frame rails under the bed. This trailer is designed to be our cooking trailer, or Chuck Wagon during extended trips.

Power to the trailer to charge the batteries is via a custom power cable with quick-release plugs from both the trailer and the tow vehicle. Each of our trucks has power cables and a corresponding power plug to the rear of the truck, so it is a simple matter of connecting the short 'jumper' cable to connect the tow vehicle to the trailer. Each of our tow vehicles has an upgraded alternator to be able to charge the trailer batteries while we are on the road.

The tires and rims from the trailer are the same type as the CrewCab, so that in the case of flats, we have 2 spare tires that can fit either the CrewCab or the Chuck Wagon. The entire frame has been hot-dipped galvanized for long life and extreme corrosion resistance.

Leaf springs from the rear of a 109 inch Land Rover have been used, and a custom axle was created to use Land Rover hubs, spindles and bearings, again keeping parts and spares identical to that of our other vehicles.

A custom hoop-set was made to support the custom soft-top that was made to our specification. We needed to be able to have access to all 4 sides of the trailer at once, so each side can be unfastened and folded up out of the way for acces to the freezer/fridges and other equipment that will be hauled in it. Again, one of the goals with the ChuckWagon was to make it appear as stock as was possible. The hoop-set was made by our fabricator who did the roll cage on our '53 Land Rover, and he also built the nerf-bar system on the front of the trailer. Replicating the factory hoopset in profile and dimensions, this hoopset was made out of stronger materials and was desgined to fit in the exact stock location.

Keeping the hoopset stock seems like a pretty insignificant detail, but not when you consider that the canvas top we had made for it came from over 2000 miles away and the builder of it had never laid eyes on the trailer.

I wanted it to duplicate the original factory softtop in every way, because the mounting points and dimensions for the top were in the original factory positions.

The softtop went right on without any problems and we're pretty happy with it. It needs one minor change, but other than that it's perfect.

The neatest feature of the softtop is that it was designed so that all four sides could be rolled up individually or all together. I needed to have access to all 4 sides of the trailer without taking the top off. This duplicates the original softtop features that Land Rover originally offered.

We had the interior of the bed RhinoLined to keep objects in the back from sliding around too much. You can see the permanently mounted ARB freezer/fridge units are on a rail system to keep them up off of the bed. It also allows easy access to them from each side of the trailer. We run one of them as a fridge and the other as a freezer on long trips. They are powered by two Optima batteries mounted in a seperate box.

The position of the ARB freezer/fridges and the height of the softtop allows the lids of the freezers lids to open completely. Great for loading and unloading food, and these babies can hold a lot!

The axle that was made is the exact width of a factory Land Rover axle. This allows the tires to track along perfectly behind whichever tow vehicle we use. The downside is that I need to put wheel-arches on the trailer so that we keep the sides clean. It's one of the last items to take care of before this custom piece is truly finished.