smokinAMD
New member
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- Location
- St. Louis, MO
Hey all, I snagged up my M101A3 (at least that's what I assume it is) from Fort Riley, KS a few weeks ago, GL had it listed as an M101A2, but once I got there, I saw it was sitting on the 37" Hummer run flats, and had the lifting points on the side and 55" IIRC between the wheel wells.
Think I did fairly well, only cost me $385, the trailer itself is in decent / useable shape. It towed fine the 7 hour drive back home, brakes were working, didn't bounce around too much, wheel bearings didn't get hot, and it tracked fairly straight (more on that later). Anyways, when I drove out to get it, the only thing I brought with me were a set of magnetic tail lights (which worked great), neglected to bring any tools because I wasn't sure what I would need. Thankfully, everything worked out fine, it was a drama free ride back home, and oddly enough, I think I got better fuel economy with that beast behind me then I did driving out there, Probably because I kept to around 70mph versus periods of hitting 90mph.
Anyways, here it is a few minutes after I had brought it home.
I knew right off the bat, I needed to do a few things in order to make this thing more useable, first off, I needed to rewire it. I thought about using the normal tail lamp housings, but that just seemed like too much effort, so I snagged up a set of submersible LED trailer lights that came with a license plate bracket. Slightly useful since I planned on being legal and registering this thing. Cool part about these, is the bracket the stock lights mount on was the perfect size for the lights I bought.
Also, the standard jack was missing its crank handle / didn't go low enough to actually lower down onto my hitch, so I had to ditch that in favor of something with enough travel / a wheel to make it easier to move by hand. At the same time, I also replaced the safety chains with ones that actually reached my hitch properly / had enough slack for sharp turns.
While the 37" bead lock run flats are awesome, they are STINKING heavy, so off to the junkyard I went looking for some 8 lug chevy wheels. Found some 8 lug wheels on an old chevy van that looked perfect, and then I noticed they were actually late model Ford 3/4 ton truck steel wheels. Snagged them up for $40 with some crap tires, sadly the junkyard didn't have a way of dismounting the tires, and I didn't have any tire bars / spoons with me, so instead of paying $8 per steel wheel, I had to pay $20 each since they had a tire. Oh well, ran the tires up to my work, dismounted the tires, threw them in the scrap pile and took my wheels home to be cleaned up and painted. Few days later, I put on some matching tires for my FJ, 33" Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo 2's. This made the trailer a LOT easier to move by hand, and leveled it out quite a bit.
Now on to the fun stuff. While my brakes work, the parking brakes don't....at all, they either need to be adjusted, or the cables are just plain worn out. I really have no use for the parking brakes anyways, my trailer is parked in a flat garage, and if I ever take it off somewhere that isn't flat, that's what wheel chocks are for. Plus I'd rather just take the handles off to shave some weight / stop banging my knees into them. Well, in order to take them off properly, I know I'd need to pull the drum off. I managed to get the screws off on one side, however the other side doesn't seem to want to come out. Probably going to have to drill them / give them some heat. And for the side that they came out, the drum still doesn't want to come off, it moves a very small amount, but it's not coming off. I either need to give it some heat / a bigger hammer.
The other day while moving the trailer out of my garage by hand, I noticed the coupler / triangle the master cylinder sits on was moving around slightly from the frame. That's when I noticed that the top bolts were slightly loose, and the bottom 2 bolts were backed out about halfway. Whoops. That could have been ugly towing it at 70mph. Oh well, easy fix.
However, now onto the only real ugly part of the trailer. I noticed bringing it home that it looked like it was tracking about an inch or so further to the left, I didn't really think anything of it, since it was driving straight and not swaying around, thought it might have been my eyes playing tricks on me since the mirrors might not have been adjusted the same on my FJ, and it's not like we drive down the road sitting in the center of the vehicle. Well, that thought changed today when I was messing around with the brakes / tightening up the loose coupler mount.
That's when I noticed the frame was bent slightly. Not BAD, but more than a slight bend. I think it MIGHT be repairable, with a press and some heat, it should straighten back out and would bring the tracking back to center. My only concern is, how would that affect the strength of the frame? I mean realistically, that frame rail isn't that hard to replace, it's just the one bolt in the back that connects it to the frame under the box, and the 2 bolts that go to the front of it, in theory, if I could find another frame piece that's in good shape, I could just replace it.
Other than that, this thing is in great shape, could use some new data plates, since mine are completely faded, but not like that matters, since I managed to get this thing registered, I have a proper VIN number for it now, I don't technically even need the plate that has the serial number on it.
Think I did fairly well, only cost me $385, the trailer itself is in decent / useable shape. It towed fine the 7 hour drive back home, brakes were working, didn't bounce around too much, wheel bearings didn't get hot, and it tracked fairly straight (more on that later). Anyways, when I drove out to get it, the only thing I brought with me were a set of magnetic tail lights (which worked great), neglected to bring any tools because I wasn't sure what I would need. Thankfully, everything worked out fine, it was a drama free ride back home, and oddly enough, I think I got better fuel economy with that beast behind me then I did driving out there, Probably because I kept to around 70mph versus periods of hitting 90mph.
Anyways, here it is a few minutes after I had brought it home.
I knew right off the bat, I needed to do a few things in order to make this thing more useable, first off, I needed to rewire it. I thought about using the normal tail lamp housings, but that just seemed like too much effort, so I snagged up a set of submersible LED trailer lights that came with a license plate bracket. Slightly useful since I planned on being legal and registering this thing. Cool part about these, is the bracket the stock lights mount on was the perfect size for the lights I bought.
Also, the standard jack was missing its crank handle / didn't go low enough to actually lower down onto my hitch, so I had to ditch that in favor of something with enough travel / a wheel to make it easier to move by hand. At the same time, I also replaced the safety chains with ones that actually reached my hitch properly / had enough slack for sharp turns.
While the 37" bead lock run flats are awesome, they are STINKING heavy, so off to the junkyard I went looking for some 8 lug chevy wheels. Found some 8 lug wheels on an old chevy van that looked perfect, and then I noticed they were actually late model Ford 3/4 ton truck steel wheels. Snagged them up for $40 with some crap tires, sadly the junkyard didn't have a way of dismounting the tires, and I didn't have any tire bars / spoons with me, so instead of paying $8 per steel wheel, I had to pay $20 each since they had a tire. Oh well, ran the tires up to my work, dismounted the tires, threw them in the scrap pile and took my wheels home to be cleaned up and painted. Few days later, I put on some matching tires for my FJ, 33" Bridgestone Dueler AT Revo 2's. This made the trailer a LOT easier to move by hand, and leveled it out quite a bit.
Now on to the fun stuff. While my brakes work, the parking brakes don't....at all, they either need to be adjusted, or the cables are just plain worn out. I really have no use for the parking brakes anyways, my trailer is parked in a flat garage, and if I ever take it off somewhere that isn't flat, that's what wheel chocks are for. Plus I'd rather just take the handles off to shave some weight / stop banging my knees into them. Well, in order to take them off properly, I know I'd need to pull the drum off. I managed to get the screws off on one side, however the other side doesn't seem to want to come out. Probably going to have to drill them / give them some heat. And for the side that they came out, the drum still doesn't want to come off, it moves a very small amount, but it's not coming off. I either need to give it some heat / a bigger hammer.
The other day while moving the trailer out of my garage by hand, I noticed the coupler / triangle the master cylinder sits on was moving around slightly from the frame. That's when I noticed that the top bolts were slightly loose, and the bottom 2 bolts were backed out about halfway. Whoops. That could have been ugly towing it at 70mph. Oh well, easy fix.
However, now onto the only real ugly part of the trailer. I noticed bringing it home that it looked like it was tracking about an inch or so further to the left, I didn't really think anything of it, since it was driving straight and not swaying around, thought it might have been my eyes playing tricks on me since the mirrors might not have been adjusted the same on my FJ, and it's not like we drive down the road sitting in the center of the vehicle. Well, that thought changed today when I was messing around with the brakes / tightening up the loose coupler mount.
That's when I noticed the frame was bent slightly. Not BAD, but more than a slight bend. I think it MIGHT be repairable, with a press and some heat, it should straighten back out and would bring the tracking back to center. My only concern is, how would that affect the strength of the frame? I mean realistically, that frame rail isn't that hard to replace, it's just the one bolt in the back that connects it to the frame under the box, and the 2 bolts that go to the front of it, in theory, if I could find another frame piece that's in good shape, I could just replace it.
Other than that, this thing is in great shape, could use some new data plates, since mine are completely faded, but not like that matters, since I managed to get this thing registered, I have a proper VIN number for it now, I don't technically even need the plate that has the serial number on it.
