December 03 2014
I must have read through hours of threads on this trailer and I am thankful to all thread posters. It really helped me with my decision to bid on this great green iron!
Called ahead and found the staff and officers at Ft. Pickett VA to be of great help. When I arrived they also followed through with courtesy and respect and were of most help. Never did I get a feeling that I was not wanted or in their way.
Pulled the trailer out of the stack and proceeded to hook up the temporary tow lights purchased from Harbor Freight. Make sure you get the correct side placed before your start tying them down! Dummy me. The mag mounts worked fine but I still zip tied them down. On to the safety chain. Being as I had to use an extension to clear the spare tire on the Jeep, I knew from previous post that the safety chains would not be long enough. I purchased 4ft of 3/8 chain to thread through the safety hook up holes part of the Jeep hitch leaving the two ends available to hook to the existing trailer safety chains. I took some chain quick links to hook to the existing trailer safety chains. The trailer safety chain hooks were to big to hook to the puny 3/8 chain, hence the quick links. I did not see the need to test the parking or regular brakes as it was coming home with me regardless. I felt that this empty trailer was not too much to stop with the Jeep. I was more concerned about a stuck brake or bearing issues with a 75 mile tow ahead of me. Stopping often to check for heating issues and home I go with a uneventful trip.
Sure I had a Jeep full of tools, zip ties, electrical tester, bottle jack, 3lb hammer, gorilla tape and the like, but where I failed to realize is how screwed I would have been if I had to do some tire or bearing work. The girly man bottle jack would not have come close to what I would have needed to take a tire off this beast. I am not even sure if a farm-all jack would have done the job in the height department. So be sure to add a significant amount of cribbing to your pack list. You can see in the pictures how I was able to tackle the pintle height via a trip to Northern tool. The Jeep has shown a 12 inch riser with a bolt on pintle receiver.
Paperwork in Virginia requires a "Trip Permit" from the DMV to the tune of $5.00 and the rascals only make this good for 4 days! The folks at the base gave me a number to call for help with the titling of this trailer and I will be sure to continue the post on that and future findings as I progress this into my "Bug-Out" "Zombie killing platform"!