ACO43
New member
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- Location
- Huntington Beach, CA
Finally picked up an M116A3 (Thanks DSD277) and I got to work on a few things this week. The ultimate plan is a small camping trailer build.
First thing, as with most of them, the front landing gear crank was MIA so I found a thread here with the measurements for one and dug through the odds and ends in the garage and came up with this...
...made it out of a piece of steel strap, a 1/4" x 4" carriage bolt, a piece of copper pipe (covering the 1/4" carriage bolt), a 1/2" X 5 1/2" carriage bolt, and an old 1/2" impact socket that I notched with a Dremel cutting wheel to fit the pins on the landing gear crank shaft. I still need to give it a couple more coats of paint and I think I'll deepen the notches a little but it works and the only part I had to buy was the 1/2" carriage bolt that cost $2.15.
I then went to re-wire the lights to a flat 4 connector and switched the 24-volt bulbs for 10-30 volt LEDs…. Went from…
...to...
... Since the military plug was trashed anyway I unplugged the wiring inside the junction box on the trailer tongue and cut the male connectors off and soldered then to the flat 4 wiring and plugged them back in. I left a little extra wire coiled up with a couple zip ties inside the junction box in case I need to make the flat 4 wiring a little longer. Went from…
…to…
Anyway, so far, so good. Lights work great. The next thing on the agenda is to take the landing gear off and open it up and clean and lube it. I noticed there are already 4 holes in the foot of the landing gear, I’m thinking that’s for drainage, but I might see if I can attach some type of wheel on there. It would make moving the trailer around the driveway a little easier.
First thing, as with most of them, the front landing gear crank was MIA so I found a thread here with the measurements for one and dug through the odds and ends in the garage and came up with this...
...made it out of a piece of steel strap, a 1/4" x 4" carriage bolt, a piece of copper pipe (covering the 1/4" carriage bolt), a 1/2" X 5 1/2" carriage bolt, and an old 1/2" impact socket that I notched with a Dremel cutting wheel to fit the pins on the landing gear crank shaft. I still need to give it a couple more coats of paint and I think I'll deepen the notches a little but it works and the only part I had to buy was the 1/2" carriage bolt that cost $2.15.
I then went to re-wire the lights to a flat 4 connector and switched the 24-volt bulbs for 10-30 volt LEDs…. Went from…
...to...
... Since the military plug was trashed anyway I unplugged the wiring inside the junction box on the trailer tongue and cut the male connectors off and soldered then to the flat 4 wiring and plugged them back in. I left a little extra wire coiled up with a couple zip ties inside the junction box in case I need to make the flat 4 wiring a little longer. Went from…
…to…
Anyway, so far, so good. Lights work great. The next thing on the agenda is to take the landing gear off and open it up and clean and lube it. I noticed there are already 4 holes in the foot of the landing gear, I’m thinking that’s for drainage, but I might see if I can attach some type of wheel on there. It would make moving the trailer around the driveway a little easier.
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