Builds Layonnn's 100 series build (1 Viewer)

[abuck99]

Thanks for the comparison, I'm currently leaning towards a Dissent rear bumper...
The Slee doesn't require to cut the rear crossmember?

One of the many things I like about the Dissent rear bumper is the swingout latching system- simple, clean and low profile. The departure angles of the back edge and the sides is more than adequate, and actually really nice looking. I like my BIOR, but the Dissent is in another category.

Yup. Did a lot of research on different designs. Found what I liked and didn't liked and added it all up to make something my own. All for about 1/4 of what I would have paid to have it made. Gorgeous dog btw.

Very interested in your trailer build- that is a project that's been on my radar. Looking forward to following your build.

 

[reddog90]

Yup. Did a lot of research on different designs. Found what I liked and didn't liked and added it all up to make something my own. All for about 1/4 of what I would have paid to have it made. Gorgeous dog btw.

What are you skinning it with? And what do you have planned for the interior buildout? Is the back 2' storage/kitchen etc? And thanks, he's a rascal!

 

[Layonnn]

One of the many things I like about the Dissent rear bumper is the swingout latching system- simple, clean and low profile. The departure angles of the back edge and the sides is more than adequate, and actually really nice looking. I like my BIOR, but the Dissent is in another category.

Very interested in your trailer build- that is a project that's been on my radar. Looking forward to following your build.

The Slee is built well but has some drawback. A big one being, you HAVE to use two hand to open each arm. One to pull the pin at the spindle, and then one to open it while holding up the pin. So if you have something in your hand, you have to set it down.

I haven't checked out the Dissent latch mechanism but I'll give it a look over. They have some really good designs.

I have always wanted to build my own trailer. Was mostly waiting until I got a lot of preventative maintenance done on the 100 series first though.

 

[Layonnn]

What are you skinning it with? And what do you have planned for the interior buildout? Is the back 2' storage/kitchen etc? And thanks, he's a rascal!

Just realized you're rjack on Instagram hahaha. We've been following each other for a while. You have some great photos man!

Mine is the first I've owned on my own, but we have had two golden retrievers as family dogs since I was 10 years old. Their personality is unlike any other dog I've been around.
The outer wall will be aluminum sheet. It will either go over a thin layer of plywood, or be the only piece to make up the outer wall. I haven't researched enough to make a decision.
I was thinking more like the back 1.5' would be storage for the rear, and a rear vertical opening door. I'm 6'1" and sleeping slightly cramped (length wise) drives me nuts.

No concrete plans yet for the rear storage. Probably shelves and sliding cabinet doors.

I do have some bad news. My cross members I've cut are too long.
The outer edge of the main frame rails needs to be 5ft/60". In my infinite wisdom, I thought "oh, well the frame rails are 2" wide, so I need to cut the cross members to 58"'. Problem being that I need to take into account 2" on BOTH sides haha. The crossmembers need to be 56". Doh. I realized that today when I was showing a friend the progress I had made. I wanted to leave work right then and go fix the mistake.

Thankfully, 2 cross members are not tacked in place, and the rest have 4 tacks each. So I will be spending some quality time with the cutoff wheel and angle grinder. Grrrr.

 

[reddog90]

Just realized you're rjack on Instagram hahaha. We've been following each other for a while. You have some great photos man!

Mine is the first I've owned on my own, but we have had two golden retrievers as family dogs since I was 10 years old. Their personality is unlike any other dog I've been around.
The outer wall will be aluminum sheet. It will either go over a thin layer of plywood, or be the only piece to make up the outer wall. I haven't researched enough to make a decision.
I was thinking more like the back 1.5' would be storage for the rear, and a rear vertical opening door. I'm 6'1" and sleeping slightly cramped (length wise) drives me nuts.

No concrete plans yet for the rear storage. Probably shelves and sliding cabinet doors.

I do have some bad news. My cross members I've cut are too long.
The outer edge of the main frame rails needs to be 5ft/60". In my infinite wisdom, I thought "oh, well the frame rails are 2" wide, so I need to cut the cross members to 58"'. Problem being that I need to take into account 2" on BOTH sides haha. The crossmembers need to be 56". Doh. I realized that today when I was showing a friend the progress I had made. I wanted to leave work right then and go fix the mistake.

Thankfully, 2 cross members are not tacked in place, and the rest have 4 tacks each. So I will be spending some quality time with the cutoff wheel and angle grinder. Grrrr.

Yeah you have some awesome photos as well. And yes, these dogs are awesome!

Do you insulate inside the aluminum or plywood?

 

[Layonnn]

Yeah you have some awesome photos as well. And yes, these dogs are awesome!

Do you insulate inside the aluminum or plywood?

I'll be insulating the wall in the sections where I skeletonize the 3/4" ply. The middle section of the wall will look like this with foam insulation in the sections where the wood is cut out.

 

[Layonnn]

My original wheel has started to recently fall apart. It wasn't in horrible shape but could have used a recovering. Looked at a couple of the eBay ones and was pretty impressed. I didn't know how I would like the wood but I'm pretty impressed. I'd highly recommend this wheel if yours needs a refresh.
I wish I would have done this mod sooner. I paid $220 shipped for it. Oh and you can also see the new Sony head unit.

 

[Layonnn]

After changing out the steering wheel, I got started on cutting tack welds so that I could narrow the frame rails by 2 inches. I also moved the main hitch tube back to the next crossmember. I think that makes it connect to the 4th crossmember?
I still need to order my Timbren suspension. I just have a few more measurements to figure out. I'm fairly positive I'll need to run hub adapters in order to run the TRD RW wheels with 35s. I don't plan to build the outer section of the frame (where the fenders will attach) until I get everything mounted up.
I was going to start tack welding everything back together tonight but it got late, exgf showed up with her golden retriever so we were letting them play for a while.
Tomorrow morning I'll double measurements and squareness, then tack, check again, then start fully welding.

Roux stole a full box of French fries from my dad's employee at lunch when he wasn't looking ha. She also got into some chicken bones they put on the top of the trash can. I was in the middle of grinding and saw it out of the corner of my eye. I'll be keeping a close eye on her to see if she starts acting strange from the bones. I don't know how much she actually ate though.

 

[El Cid]

steering wheel looks insane, where did you buy it?

 

[Layonnn]

steering wheel looks insane, where did you buy it?

*Replacement Steering Wheel Dark Wood Grain Leather Grip For Toyota Land Cruiser

It feels really good in the hand. The wood is pretty dark so it doesn't stand out too much. I have always been impressed with any item I have gotten that was made in Taiwan.

Made some more progress on the trailer.
Everything is tack welded. I started burning in a few of the welds on the hitch tube but ran out of time.

I moved the main hitch tube back one more cross member and have in place the front triangulation I'm going to add, haven't cut it yet but will this Friday.

 

[Layonnn]

Got all of the welding done on the main part of the frame.
I think I am going to add two supports beam in the front basket area (where the frame narrows, plan to have expanded steel mesh in this area for cooler and other storage).

 

[Layonnn]

Suspension and hubs came in.
I ordered the Timbren 2000 HD suspension (comes with 3500lb spindles) with 4" lift spindles, for wide/off-road tires. I also got it with 10" electric brakes. Probably not necessary on a 1500-1800lbs (when loaded down with gear) but it wasn't much more expensive compared to nice idler hubs. ($80 vs $140)

In order to run the same wheels as the 100 (TRD rock warriors), I have to run a hub adapter. With the wide spindles, the hub surface to frame distance is 8.5". The backspacing on the TRD wheels is ~6.5", and they are 8" wide. With a 35x12.50, the tire extends about 2" beyond the edge of the wheel, meaning the tire will be about 8.5" from the mounting surface of the wheel.
So, running the hub adapters, or at least a spacer would be needed anyways. The only 5x4.5" to 5x150mm adapters I could find (by a reputable company) were 1". I called and got them to custom make me some that were 1.75" thick, to give the tires a little more room between them and the frame.

The hub also has a bit of a radius on the bottom, so I had to get them to make them a little larger than the hub itself.

I was also running into an issue that all of the hubs I was looking at had longer than 1.75" studs. So I was going to have to remove or cut down all of the studs. These studs with the electric brakes are right under 1.75" long, so no need to cut them down.

 

[Layonnn]

Started working on installing the suspension.

Timbren suggest that you fabricate a plate to bolt the suspension to on the inner side of the frame. They really should offer this plate as an option, I would have paid for it. I also added some triangles to the angle iron for strength.

With some 2" 1/4" wall angle wasn't wide enough to leave enough material for a 1/2" hole. I went by Home Depot and grabbed some 3/8" bar stock to push the angle iron out enough to give enough material for the holes.

Now to just repeat everything for he passenger side

Thankfully there is a fastenal about 2 blocks from my dad's shop. They had all the grade 8 1/2" hardware I needed.

I have a set of Dewalt Cobalt drill bits I bought in preparation for the build. Kit didn't come with a 1/2" bit though, so I went bought the Dewalt cobalt 1/2" bit from Lowes. I drilled a pilot hole for the bit. Drilled the 1/2" out smooth as silk. Next hole, same thing except the bit snapped. $21 bit snapped on mild steel .120 wall thickness. I brought it back to Lowes as I had bought it the night before and they let me exchange it. Went back to the shop, this time I tried using the bit without drilling a pilot hole (using a dab of cutting oil every time). This time the bit snapped on the first hole.

I grabbed the 3/8" bit from the kit I had bought and it drilled 4 holes in a row like it was nothing. I think Lowes just got a bad batch of these bits. Brought it back to Lowes, got my money back. Fastenal only had HSS 1/2" bits. That one hasn't broke on me yet though haha.

 

[Layonnn]

I went by a steel supplier and bought 20ft of 1" square tube 14gauge to build the fenders with. I have some scrap steel as well to make the fenders. I'm going to try using the shop press and some angle iron to make a brake for making the fenders.

I also bought some expanded steel mesh to make the front rack as well as the rear behind the fender sections. I started off by cutting this stuff with the angle grinder and a steel cut off wheel. Then I remembered we had some bolt cutters laying around somewhere. Bolt cutters were by far the better method. I plan to go back with the grinder/flap disk and remove any sharp corners/edges. I still need to finish trimming up the other side of the mesh but I ran out of time.

I got my sand blasting kit in and some media coming in this week. Plan is to sand blast the frame, then put on 2 coats of POR-15. I still need to build the fenders, route the wiring, order the wiring and lights,....

Oh and I ordered a nose box to store my battery, trailers electronics, wheel chocks, etc.

 

[Layonnn]

Discount tire direct is having a sale on eBay as well. 100$ off an order of 400 or more. I spoke to a rep (they sponsor FJ forum I used to frequent) and since I was buying 7 tires, they offered me an extra 50 off as well. So ended up saving 150$ and they had the lowest price around that I found for the BFG all terrain KO2s in 35x12.50.

 

[Layonnn]

Got my tires in and mounted up to the TRD wheels. Overall diameter is barely over 33”. Forgot how much BFG lies about their tire sizes haha. The 315 MTRs are a good bit bigger.

 

[Layonnn]

Trailer hasn’t progressed all that much as I’ve been busy with work. I’ve also been waiting on my hub adapters to be able to build the fenders. The adapters should be in soon.

Also, planning on getting an early Christmas present, AHP alpha 200x TIG welder.

Also, it’s Roux’s 9th birthday today!

 

[abuck99]

View attachment 1570306

Also, it’s Roux’s 9th birthday today!

View attachment 1570309

Happy 9th to Roux! Look at all that good stuff!!!

 

[Layonnn]

Selling my old wheels and tires as well.
For Sale - 5 - 315/75r16 Goodyear MTRs on 100 series 16” wheels

 

[Layonnn]

Just had the busiest 4 weeks of my work for the year (4 weeks of 10-12 hours a day) with only a couple days off and in the middle my mother passed away.

Now that works over, I’ve been spending a lot of time on the trailer. Got a lot to post.

Got the AHP alpha TIG 200 welder in. Spent a lot of nights watching how to videos on YouTube about TIG welding. Then I spent a weekend or so just practicing with it. MIG welding is far easier to learn than TIG.

I started building the rear section behind the fenders/tires. I plan to build some type of propane holder and a CO2 tank mount, probably fire extinguisher as well on either side. Also, the expanded steel will cover the opening at the rear.

New cart for the TIG