M101A2 & A3 Camping Trailer (1 Viewer)

[scrapdaddy]

Hey Guys,

Thought I'd start a build thread on my camping trailer. This one is a M101A2 body on a A3 axle. Government did that sort of thing, mix and match. Since my son stole the surge brake off of it for a replacement for the one he wrecked on a low water bridge, I thought it would be a good candidate for extending the tongue and adding electric brakes. It will be a slow build because that's how I roll.

I'm going to attempt to cut the axle at the hubs and shorten it so the tires are tucked under the fenders and are closer to my 55's width. I want to keep the A3 axle because I like the bump up for ground clearance. Any ideas on that are welcome.

Anyway here's the pictures...

So, first off I'll pull the body and weld in some 3x3x.250 tubing for the tongue. I would like it to be long enough so I can jack knife it without hitting the 55 body. Opinions on that are welcome. Goals in the end are to have a trailer with some sort of top with maybe a RTT all the usual goodies, but for now just a catch all for the camping equipment.

I used this A3 last year and it worked great, but too nice to hack on, so it goes back to full military running gear.

Let's build something!

 

[scrapdaddy]

Alright, I measured for the tongue length and wanted to know if I'm on the right track. As it sits here the tongue from the end of the body will be @ 51" and 107" overall. Is 51" too long of a tongue or could I go even longer?

 

[GLTHFJ60]

51" isn't too long as long as it's sufficiently beefy material. I like this platform, sold my A3 to @erymer who has outfitted it for camping.

 

[erymer]

yes indeed. Absolutely love that thing. I build a rack and mounted my rtt on top. ARB large anwing on one side and a smaller Tepui on the other. Has a sleeping platform inside for the wife and I and the kids are up top. Oh hell it's easier with pics. Here you go. The rack is not a permanent solution but it actually works well. Legs stabilize it during travel, then preposition and provides additional support when camping. I don't want to clutter your thread too much but if you want to see anything else just lemme know. Enjoy the build man. I know we sure have.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input. I'm going with the 51" and the tongue will extend back three crossmembers under the body. The main tube is 3x3x1/4" heavy tube. My thought in the coming years is to have an alum. topper made similar to a commercial topper with access to shelves on either side. Mount a alu-cab rtt to it and have excess to it from the inside or an outside ladder.

Job at hand now is to build the tongue and possible cut the axle down to tuck the tires under the fenders. I want to get the track closer to the 55's. The Pig Party is coming and I got to get moving.

If you look at the first picture of the axle you can see the area between the spring and the hub. That's where I believe it would be the easiest to cut back. Any ideas or comments have at it.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

When you extend the tongue, are you going to retain the dumping feature? If I were building a new tongue, I'd scrap the entire stock tongue and fabricate a new one out of box steel that's welded/bolted to the rest of the frame in more places than 4.

Cutting back between the spring and hub seems to be the least impacting, as long as you can come up with a way to make sure that both sides are still square!

Looking forward to what you come up with.

 

[scrapdaddy]

GLTHFJ60,

No those are going. I'm going to use 2x4 tubing for the side pieces and like you stated, weld them in. I never tried to use that tilt option, because it really wasn't designed for that. More for stacking in the cargo hold during transport. From what I read you're a pretty sharp guy, so any thoughts on cutting that axle and jigging it up for welding. I really haven't given it much thought yet, my mind can't juggle many things anymore. Once the body is off we can take a better look at it and come up with a plan. If I cut in the middle I'd be changing where the spring seats are, etc. bigger pain. I might even be able to buy new hubs with the electric brakes and right bolt pattern, then weld them in the tube.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

I had success dumping light-medium loads with my A3 with the factory setup, but agreed, it wasn't a great mechanism.

Agreed that shortening the axle outside from the spring perches would be fastest, the trick being coming up with a method to keep it square. Thinking out loud, do you have a lathe? You could maybe set it up in a lathe to establish an axle centerline, then cut each end short and square with lathe tooling. Could even tack weld it in place on the lathe to ensure squareness.

You'd have to cut the bracing off of the axle tube outboard of the spring perches to be able to do this, but that's the best way I can think of.

Is it worth the time and hassle of narrowing this axle or would it be cheaper and faster to order a drop spindle 3500# trailer axle, with a hub bolt pattern that matches your truck?

 

[scrapdaddy]

Is it worth the time and hassle of narrowing this axle or would it be cheaper and faster to order a drop spindle 3500# trailer axle, with a hub bolt pattern that matches your truck?

This would make the most sense, but I really like that bump up. That brings up another question, would a 5,200# axle be better or just plan over kill? I was looking at the spindles and hubs for each and leaning to the 5,200.

Let me look some more at the whole axle assembly.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Gotcha. Offroad trailer it is then!

This is going to be your answer I think. Leaf springs are so 1950

Timbren Heavy-Duty Axle-Less Trailer Suspension - 4" Lift Spindle - Off-Road Tires - 3,500 lbs

 

[scrapdaddy]

I was just looking at those. Oh man, here I go again down the rabbit hole. I blamed J Mack for the 55 and I'm giving your name to my wife for the trailer fiasco! What's wrong with the 50's I was born in 53, slow but still get there.

 

[erymer]

I was just looking at those. Oh man, here I go again down the rabbit hole. I blamed J Mack for the 55 and I'm giving your name to my wife for the trailer fiasco! What's wrong with the 50's I was born in 53, slow but still get there.

It's ok. He's used to it. ONSC has the greatest collection of enablers I've ever seen.

 

[half k cruiser]

Another idea for you: rather than cut the axle and spend your time and money trying to get it square, just to save the couple of inches extra clearance, what if you just buy a new one ? In the grand scheme of things that couple of inches extra clearance right down the middle probably isn't going to do much for you. Or think about it this way; what's the ground clearance from the ground to bottom of the outer axle tube on that trailer ? What's the axle clearance on your 55 series ? Now ask yourself, what am I going to clear with my 55 series axles that won't clear the trailer axle if it just ran straight across ? If your still worried about clearance after that, look into a drop hub solid axle like @cjmoon has on his setup. You could keep your springs at the same mounting height and would actually gain more clearance all the way out to the hub.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Half K,

Thanks for thinking on this. Honestly, I'm not real concerned about the ground clearance, but since it's there I really like the axle ( heavyduty). I'm asking myself do I really need the track to be narrower. On one of our other 101s, I just extended the fenders to cover the tires and called it good. I'm not sure going through all the cutting the axle and stuff is worth it either. One other option is just cut the welds on the fenders to body and slide the fender out like a true 101A3 is. This will also give me more room inside the cargo area. Let me measure the difference in widths.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Okay, A real ruff measurement tire to tire is 12" difference. 81" verse 69" on the 55, quite a bit, but would that be a huge problem and on the other side, wouldn't the greater width be more stable. Now I'm getting a headache.

Here you can see how easy it is to cut the welds and move the fender out. I would have to fill in the area where the fender was.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

It'll be a problem if you intend to do any more offroading than gravel roads. It'll cut a really big inside track as compared to your truck.

Then again, the body of your truck is narrower than the bed of the trailer most likely, so

 

[scrapdaddy]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Even if it had the axle less system on it, the trailer body is still wider than the 55. Let's cut that sucker down the middle and section it.

 

[GLTHFJ60]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Even if it had the axle less system on it, the trailer body is still wider than the 55. Let's cut that sucker down the middle and section it.

Now we're talkin

Narrow the tub and frame 12-18", put the axle less suspension on the customized frame with an extended tongue, and BOOM, the perfect camping (kinda-sorta-resembles a) M101A3

 

[scrapdaddy]

Went out and took off the body, fun to work on...Plenty of axle to cut off.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Found a stick of 3" x 1 1/2" x 3/16 tube, thinking I'll use that for the side tongues. Those side rails are only bolted on in four spots, must be sufficient enough for the military, but I'll like to weld mine in. Figuring I'll need 12' for those. I've got enough of the 3x3 for the main tongue to go back three cross members, the one the shocks are mounted to, should be good.