Mashed Potatoes: M1101

[Levy3o8]

Hola, Steel Soldiers forum members!
I decided, against my reluctance to sign up for one more website, to join the forum here because of how useful this forum and the members were in my research for my M1101.

I've been wanting an M1101/1102 for about 2 years now because my wife and I like to camp, and we wanted something that would enable us to take our baby, our 2 German Shepherds, and all our gear, and be able to go offroad on any trail we may decide to explore.

Here it is! A 2009 Schutt Industries version of the M1101. Gotten from Iron Planet auction for a "Middle of the road" price for $1750
It came with the bows for the canvas cover (cover not included), one stabilizing leg, and seems to be in extremely good shape mechanically.
The surge brakes must be working well, because the fluid is a nice honey color and it doesn't feel like I'm trying to brake with a ton of extra weight.
The surge brake emergency handle needs a new safety wire because it was pulled and the wire was snapped.
The jack works great, and despite the tires being dated "0609", the tires don't look like they're form 2009. They still had a little bit of rubber seepage from the mold of the tire when the rubber was poured. They're not dry rotted or nasty or anything, and gave no issues on the 4.5 hour drive from Lytle back to Ft. Worth.



The yard was down in Lytle, TX, south of San Antonio. It wasn't a military base, so there wasn't any of that business. Just "drive up, it's over there, hook it up, see ya' " type yard. Super chill.

Here it is on my daily driver, my 2014 FJ Cruiser. Since my FJ cruiser is named Green Bean, my wife said the trailer should be "Mashed Potatoes", and so the name was decided!



You have no idea how excited I was to see my mirror look like this. I've wanted one of these trailers for so long lol



I went from 14.5 MPG at 75 mph to 12.8 MPG at about 65 mph average.



A couple days after getting it home, I hit up the local pay n' spray car wash to spray off all the grime.

Before:


After:


Aaaaand a few more days later, I got Mashed Potato registered and legal to use on the roads!
Having the SF-97 and other paperwork that Iron Planet sent, as well as having the application for title/registry filled out, the process to get plates was literally 20 minutes from standing in line to getting back in my car to leave.

I wasn't about to just go out and purchase a license plate bracket. Oh no no, I have a welder and scrap metal!
I took some angle steel from an old bed frame that I frequently use for goofing around, and welded it to the tail gate latch, drilled a hole for the safety pin (new pins inbound), and drilled some holes for the license plate frame screws.

I'm happy with how it came out, BUT the latch can only swing out *so far*, which is more than enough to use the tail gate. I would say, if you were to copy me, mount the plate as far inboard as you can to make the outboard edge of the plate line up with the pivot point.



As you can see, I painted the piece if flabbaggated together. Here's the paint used, and the lower cross bar that needs some paint.


And here's the after. This paint works PERFECT for this trailer I think. It may not be perfect, but who cares? It's an old mil trailer that's going to get beat up and scratched offroading and camping! It was about $8/can from Home Depot. I'll probably go back and buy out the stock when I drive past Home Depot again.



There were some scratches in various places on the trailer that I touched up, and these gouges in the bed were the biggest. I think the paint works great!



Well there's 10 images! FJCruiserForums.com limits to 10, so I'll end the first post here.

Thanks for having me, and thanks for all the info I've been able to find on here prior to purchasing!

 

[M35fan]

Welcome to Steel Soldiers! That is a super nice looking trailer, congrats! If you haven't done it yet, I highly recommend greasing the wheel bearings. They are often overlooked, especially on trailers. That paint is a very close match, at least to my eyes. Hope yall have a lot of fun camping.

 

[Levy3o8]

Welcome to Steel Soldiers! That is a super nice looking trailer, congrats! If you haven't done it yet, I highly recommend greasing the wheel bearings. They are often overlooked, especially on trailers. That paint is a very close match, at least to my eyes. Hope yall have a lot of fun camping.

Thanks for the welcome and the kind words!

I actually already have a pair of Bearing Buddys ("Buddies"?), but I can't figure out how to get the center cap off to install them, and I stopped hammering my flathead screwdriver at the base of the OEM caps before I did any damage. How do you get those darn center caps off?

 

[Levy3o8]

Little update for today:
I replaced the 24v tail lights with these 12v LEDs.

4x Piece Lot M1101/M1102 Military Trailer Tail Light 12v LED Replacement Bulbs | eBay

Even the newest (2010 or newer) military trailers manufactured with "LED lighting", still use Incandescent bulbs in the tail lights. Only the front and side Marker lights are LED on newer trailers. This kit replaces the 2x Incandescent bulbs in each tail light with new Multi LED Bulbs which...

www.ebay.com

I found that ebay link through another M1101 post on another site, so I just went ahead and ordered what should work (even though I know it was overpriced for 4 LEDs). I wish I had taken the tail light cover off and done some searching before ordering that off of Ebay. Oh well...the joys of being away from home for half the week (and researching without the ability to go hands on).

I also used the single stab leg I have to jack up the trailer and get a wheel off the ground to check the wheel bearings on each wheel. No play, no clunk, no doubt. Nice!

 

[Tinstar]

Welcome to Steel Soldiers.

You’ll want to remove the wheels and physically inspect/repack the bearings.
These trailers are notorious for lack of maintenance as already mentioned.

Snap-on makes a special plier that removes the grease cap without damaging it.
I've used mine to remove some pretty stubborn ones without damage.
If you do tear one up, the caps can be found at any trailer shop.

Read through the old threads and you will see some really interesting and amazing camper builds.
Just takes time, money and skill.

Military trailers and vehicles are like potato chips………you can never have “just one”!

 

[Levy3o8]

Welcome to Steel Soldiers.

You’ll want to remove the wheels and physically inspect/repack the bearings.
These trailers are notorious for lack of maintenance as already mentioned.

Snap-on makes a special plier that removes the grease cap without damaging it.
I've used mine to remove some pretty stubborn ones without damage.
If you do tear one up, the caps can be found at any trailer shop.

Read through the old threads and you will see some really interesting and amazing camper builds.
Just takes time, money and skill.

Military trailers and vehicles are like potato chips………you can never have “just one”!

I've got some Bearing Buddies that I'm going to replace the grease caps with whenever I get around to it.
Is there a specific grease that I should look for or order for the bearings?

Also, do you know what size the rivets are that hold in the side marker lights?

 

[HoveringHMMWV]

Also, do you know what size the rivets are that hold in the side marker lights?

I’ve used these without issue. They are a perfect fit. They also work for the taillight buckets.

 

[Levy3o8]

It might not be what I'm looking for exactly, but that will at least work. Thanks!

 

[HoveringHMMWV]

It might not be what I'm looking for exactly, but that will at least work. Thanks!

They were an almost identical match from what were installed on both my M1101 and M1151A1. But I have noticed that both rivets and/or machine screws were used. Probably just depended on what was available at the time.

 

[flyfishtrailer]

Are you missing rivets in the lights? You don't need to remove the rivets to service the marker lights. The outside cover has two screws and then the light itself just twists out of the cover.

 

[Tinstar]

Any standard or high temp bearing grease will work.
Recommend you repack the grease at a minimum.
Then you can use the Bearing Buddies to keep them maintained

 

[Levy3o8]

I found a solution to mount my mountain bike in the trailer in a cost effective way that doesn't intrude on the center space, which would interfere with being able to use the tie downs.

I had contemplated making a cross-brace to go across the back, and wending a hitch receiver, and mounting my current "on vehicle" bike rack to a swing out hitch mount, but since I usually only have a couple days home a week at a time, I didn't want to do something that would take so much time from being with my family.

Instead, I opted for a well-reviewed vertical, tray style, bike rack, like you would use to mount your bike to roof rack cross rails. Here it is all mounted up!



The rack used is this one:

https://a.co/d/hcp2586

I assembled the rack, put my bike on for a test size, and mocked it up on the wheel well. I then drilled holes in the wheel well to secure the nuts on the inside of the wheel well, that way it sits flush. Here's the nuts on the inside, showing how they're mounted. I painted the holes after drilling and used thread locker on the nuts.



The bike rack wobbled at first because it was essentially just held in place by a single row of longitudinally aligned bolts, but I used some thick scrap angle iron I had lying around to add some lateral stability. It feels WAY more stable now, and shouldn't have any issues on forest roads, getting to a camp site where the trailer will remain during camping trips.




There's one more picture of my bike mounted on the rack. Also, on the other side is the Gazelle T4 Plus tent we got as a tent upgrade. It fits in the M1101 with loads of room to spare in front of and behind. It's all coming together!

 

[Levy3o8]

Huge thanks to @HoveringHMMWV for linking the rivets that work on these trailers. I was able to un-fuckulate the light I goofed up.

And huge thanks to you all for letting me know these things twist out to service at this level. I really would have never figured that out if not for you guys lol.

Anyways, you can see the grounding wire that I unscrewed.



I'm not sure why this picture is upside down, but here's the nut that attaches on the inside of the whole bucket assembly here is what was fell out and was giving me all this grief



Rivets all drilled out, assembly removed



And here's the grounding terminal that I've been after this whole time. you can even see where the washer imprinted its teeth on it



Here it is, all riveted and screwed back together with the rivets ground down flush



Aaaaand here it is after a little paint! I'm realizing that the paint is just different enough to tell if you're thinking about it and looking at it, but I figure this thing will eventually be completely covered in little touch ups through its life with me lol



Also, I took a wire wheel to all the tie down tabs to knock off the rust, and painted them all to make it look nicer and inhibit rust



AND one last update for now: I was able to find another stabilizing leg on ebay and got it, so now I have the pair. Also, I replaced all the little pins with these nice black pins with the red handles. 2 for each stab leg, and 2 for the tail gate. Makes it much nicer to use than the old rusted pins with rusted retaining balls haha

 

[Levy3o8]

Okie doke, @Tinstar, you can mark the bearings as checked and greased!

I started with the passenger side. Here's what I saw when I got the grease cap, spindle, and big greasy washer off. I was pleasantly surprised to see decent traces of grease. This aligns with my thoughts, based on the tires, that this trailer really didn't get much use in the military.



And here's the outer bearing itself. Not a whole hell of a lot of wear on this, and still decently greasy!



I know, I should have taken the whole hub apart and inspected the internal wheel bearings...but here's the thing: I tend to really break things when I try and "fix" something that doesn't need fixing. I figured that if the outside bearing looks like this, the internal bearing must be similar, and that's good enough for me since it's not giving me any noises or signs of impending failure.

Here's the assembly put back together, greased up, before installing the bearing buddy. MAN am I glad I picked up a cotter pin pack when I went to Ace the other day!



Bearing buddy installed and greased up! I couldn't find anything explicitly stating how far to hammer in the bearing buddy, so I just went up to the gap, that way i'll have a pry point if I need to remove it.



I found that a pry bar is essential for putting these wheels back on. I weigh 165 pounds, and so do these tires. I brought out my scale and rolled it on lol.
I really think I'm gonna replace the wheels/tires with some 17" wheels and the same metric 34" tires I run on both our FJs.



Driver side looked very similar, albeit possibly a little dryer. Maybe this side faced the sun when it was parked. The bearing looked similar, so no need for photographic documentation for my own purposes.



Here's the bearing all greased up before I hammered on the driver side bearing buddy and pumped 'er fulla' grease.



Thanks for the advice on checking the bearings. It'll be a lot of peace of mind knowing that they're properly greased and not about to shit the bed very soon.
You guys are great!

 

[fb40dash5]

This aligns with my thoughts, based on the tires, that this trailer really didn't get much use in the military.

I was in for a good bit of the time these trailers were... granted I was in transportation, so it's not like we needed a Humvee trailer.

I don't remember ever seeing one, besides maybe generator trailers, in use around Bragg. I might have run into someone dragging trash to a trash pit in Iraq a few times. I remember seeing a ton of them in a motorpool that belonged to Psyops, and them never going anywhere (well... one of them is currently in my driveway) but I think the utility trailers were mostly an answer to a question no one asked.

Interestingly, I was hanging out on the porch one morning during AT season last year, and this convoy of about 5 Humvees towing them rolls down my random side road, including one with the rare turtle top.

Totally recommend swapping to 6-lug, especially with a Toyota. I lowered mine onto 1.5x2.5 box (3.5" lower) and with 265/75R16s it's still way taller than it needs to be. I can't imagine anywhere I'd try to drag a 7' wide trailer that it couldn't go now... another 6" of tire & 3.5" more ride height is just unnecessary. I brought a pair of Chevy roller tires to pick up mine so I didn't have to roll 300lb of tires home.

 

[Levy3o8]

I was in for a good bit of the time these trailers were... granted I was in transportation, so it's not like we needed a Humvee trailer.

I don't remember ever seeing one, besides maybe generator trailers, in use around Bragg. I might have run into someone dragging trash to a trash pit in Iraq a few times. I remember seeing a ton of them in a motorpool that belonged to Psyops, and them never going anywhere (well... one of them is currently in my driveway) but I think the utility trailers were mostly an answer to a question no one asked.

Interestingly, I was hanging out on the porch one morning during AT season last year, and this convoy of about 5 Humvees towing them rolls down my random side road, including one with the rare turtle top.

Totally recommend swapping to 6-lug, especially with a Toyota. I lowered mine onto 1.5x2.5 box (3.5" lower) and with 265/75R16s it's still way taller than it needs to be. I can't imagine anywhere I'd try to drag a 7' wide trailer that it couldn't go now... another 6" of tire & 3.5" more ride height is just unnecessary. I brought a pair of Chevy roller tires to pick up mine so I didn't have to roll 300lb of tires home.

Haha that's an awesome story seeing all of those! When I was working on it today, my wife was asking "So what were these used for and where?" And I just gave a generic answer I thought wasn't false along the lines of "Just used to haul various things around, basically wherever a humvee might be" lol

Do you have a part number or link to a recommended 6 lug hub? I was thinking today "Man...if I could find a 6 lug piece that seems like it would be such an easy swap". I would LOVE to run identical wheels all around.

 

[Tinstar]

Okie doke, @Tinstar, you can mark the bearings as checked and greased!

Thanks for the advice on checking the bearings. It'll be a lot of peace of mind knowing that they're properly greased and not about to shit the bed very soon.
You guys are great!

They were definitely needing grease.
Wouldn’t have carried a heavy load very far.

At least you now know their condition and they have plenty of grease.

Numerous examples in the old threads of guys getting trailers that looked great, but had junk dry bearings, including me.

Glad you checked and caught them in time before they started chewing metal.

 

[fb40dash5]

Do you have a part number or link to a recommended 6 lug hub? I was thinking today "Man...if I could find a 6 lug piece that seems like it would be such an easy swap". I would LOVE to run identical wheels all around.

008-201-9 is what you want. Same seal & inner bearing, different outer bearing (and unfortunately different cap/Bearing Buddy too) Also need new lug nuts as they come with 1/2" studs (which is good since Toyota wheels use 12mm studs), Gorilla 91188XL, or early 90s F150 or E150 lugs if you want to hit a parts store, are 13/16" hex to match Toyota's 21mm.

 

[Levy3o8]

008-201-9 is what you want. Same seal & inner bearing, different outer bearing (and unfortunately different cap/Bearing Buddy too) Also need new lug nuts as they come with 1/2" studs (which is good since Toyota wheels use 12mm studs), Gorilla 91188XL, or early 90s F150 or E150 lugs if you want to hit a parts store, are 13/16" hex to match Toyota's 21mm.

Amazing, thanks for the part number and info! Can't say I'll be doing all that soon, but it's definitely good to have that info on the radar

 

[Levy3o8]

Yesterday I took the trailer out with my bike on it for a test drive to see how it felt.
I did have the thought "Maybe I shouldn't do this with my most expensive bike" before leaving, but thankfully everything went pretty well.



The only thing was that it DID kind of wobble side to side just enough to make me nervous.
Solution? Add the additional brace I had thought about.
This took me way longer than you'd have thought. No real reason except for my precision "kinda put a sharpie dot where I think the hole needs to be" bit me a couple times lol. Also, making the bend on the vertical piece was tricky to figure out how to do with my basic tools, but I used a plumbing pipe wrench to pry the "close enough" angle lol. I also flipped two of the bolts on the top and added loctite red because the blue came off a little too easy.



We took another test drive, and it was even more stable. I found that REALLY tightening down the handle on the bike rack itself made a large improvement.
Success!