Making a trailer out of a Festiva

[RitzyFestiva]

So my son and I picked up a 91 Festiva that had been previously rebuilt and had another accident, so this has become a parts car of sorts. My son wants to do a fuel injected engine swap into his trusty 'ole Blue' and use other parts as necessary. Well I started thinking about how possible it might be to take a saw-all to the remnant of the car just after the doors and turn the rear into a small trailer. I saw one on eBay once and thought this might be a realistic project. I have no idea where to begin or how to plan it out. Any ideas are surely welcome.

The body is solid from the windshield back. We swapped the rear hatch out as it had the factory wiper. We swapped all the plugs from his his to the wreck so as to maintain the "weather proof" ability of the car. I have an idea on how to start but putting some sort of sheet metal across the opening is the trick. I want to plan it all out so when we do decide to go on it, it will not be a "forever" project. I have a small arc welder so this would be a great way to learn to weld as well. Any suggestions on how to seal up the open end as well as making/fabricating and installing the tow end would be huge as well. So all of you aspiring engineers, get out your slide rules and help a guy out! Any and all help will be credited in the write up along with photos. Thanks

[SrrTalkalot]

i say just cut the front, and keep it from the firewall back, strip the interior, and it would make a decent sized trailer, be even more fun if you get into racing festivas or something like that

[TominMO]

If you did that, the wheels would be to far back in relation to the whole trailer, and you would have a very heavy tongue weight. Better to cut it at the B-piller, i.e. behind the door.

[RitzyFestiva]

i say just cut the front, and keep it from the firewall back, strip the interior, and it would make a decent sized trailer, be even more fun if you get into racing festivas or something like that

That would be an interesting method but I think that may be too much weight forward and would make it a bit impractical to tow with a light car such as my Festy.

[Larry Hampton]

Depends on what you're hauling. Before I cut my teal car up, I considered cutting the car in front of the windshield and making a trailer for hauling camping equipment. Put my chuckbox over the rear axle and use the front doors for tents and sleeping bags, I was going to use a boat trailer front end to go up under the floor then Z it at the firewall and put my spare on the tongue to cover up the ugly firewall.

[RitzyFestiva]

If you did that, the wheels would be to far back in relation to the whole trailer, and you would have a very heavy tongue weight. Better to cut it at the B-piller, i.e. behind the door.

I would tend to agree with your evaluation TominMO, as you can see from my reply to SrrTalkalot, I would agree to cut the body at the B pillar but retain the B pillar. My only issue here is how do I close the front and make it look nice? I did have a thought to cutting the top metal from say a full size van and then trying to shape it a bit to fit the opening. Figure out a way to fair the edges in, weld it in place to seal it up and then use body filler? Maybe use some sort of square tubing to make the tongue?

[RitzyFestiva]

Depends on what you're hauling. Before I cut my teal car up, I considered cutting the car in front of the windshield and making a trailer for hauling camping equipment. Put my chuckbox over the rear axle and use the front doors for tents and sleeping bags, I was going to use a boat trailer front end to go up under the floor then Z it at the firewall and put my spare on the tongue to cover up the ugly firewall.

Yes it would depend on what you are hauling. this is planned to be for general hauling so it could end up being camping stuff, or what ever needs to be hauled. My main concern is tongue weight as well as overall weight. I plan on using this behind my Festy and depending on the overall weight I might consider pulling behind my Goldwing. I know you can get quite a bit in this little guy's back so with the rear seats removed there would be some decent space and using the hatch would allow some decent sized cargo to be hauled.

[Spike]

Gauge_half_inch did this with a Festiva, cut at the B-pillar, and put on a fiberglass covering (I think it was fiberglass). Very light tongue weight, you could literally use your index finger to lift the tongue!

There's pictures of it on here somewhere.