Hey Guys,
to Harley - It is all steel (empty about 11,000 lbs) - made to handle 22,000 lbs of ammo (I think usually rocket pods for the launchers). Usually pulled behind the M985 upgraded HEMTT Cargo Trucks with the Material Handling Crane on the butt end (truck carried 2 rocket pods, trailer carried 2 pods). Originally, they tried using a heavy duty equipment trailer with centrally mounted tandem dually axles (very typical trailer architecture - M989). Soon found out that that much weight carried high over the axles off road was not very stable and so they came out with this rig to get the center of gravity lower. Interesting design in that they pretty much knew that the trailer was going to be high centered with the axles that far apart, so the whole undercarriage between the "unibody framerails" is totally enclosed on the bottom to make a huge skidplate - just shift that HEMTT Allison into low range, lock the diffs and DRAG the 33,000 lbs over whatever is in the way!!! Can just hear those Detroits winding up now! The older one that I have has a few "ripples" in the bottom plating from just such an expedition or two. You would never know it unless you crawl under her though.
Harley and 86 - It pulled OK behind the one ton. lot of things that were not kosher as you would want for real towing as opposed to just recovery. Probably a combo of no air in the air bag suspension, "wagon steering", tow truck weighing less than trailer, etc. made anything over 45 mph cause a little pucker effect. When you drop a 35,000 lb HEMTT in front of it as intended, it can probably hold down the "wagging" better. But then again, if you are hauling a total of 44,000 lbs of rockets around, maybe you are not going even 45 mph! Different type of "pucker effect"! A lot of military equipment was not intended to see a lot of highway miles (did anyways!) like Gamma-Goats, Goers - I think that was one reason the HEMTT was built to replace the GOER - faster on the road although the GOER was still a little bit better off road (but then it was specialized so there you go).
Indy - HMMM...... I have seen them all over the map. The first one I got was a little bit high at about 2500.00, but that was before they started "dumping" a bunch of them and I had just gotten the HMTT Prototype and I thought it would be cool. Don't quote me on it, but I think I have seen some go for around 1,000.00 when there is a few at a time. I guess some of the farmers are liking these for hay wagons (really)! But it all depends what condition you want (as in everything) - This one appeared brand new (even had the newer "surface mount" led tail lights as opposed to the full bucket lights) and was only an hour from home base - so I paid dearly (about 3500.00). But in my little world, I am pretty busy and it is a challenge to set aside a large enough block of time to do any of my projects. If there is a way that I can get around having to "bump and paint" it - there is a price tag attached to that, like it or not. Any decent paint is deffinitely not coming down in price!
And PS - Yes it had the spare (just laying down in the bed).
Dave