RHINO said:
i think the 416 style trailer is a good buy at $800 if you are happy with it AS IS. even though exiled has not disclosed his money and time spent, i am sure he could have bought one of the custom build 416 style trailer with cash leftover for that new paint job for princess. am i close??
Agreed 100%, $800 is fine if all you need is paint, new seals and 12-volt bulbs. But if you plan to use that thing offroad on anything more than dirt roads, you might want to consider other options. The biggest limitations I saw in the M416 for *my purposes* were:
1. Short tongue
2. Stock lights vulnerable
3. Stock height
4. Wheel bolt pattern
5. Axle width/track
6. Box dimensions
7. Flimsy fenders
8. 30 years of government use
9. Stock tires dry-rotted and unsafe
Point 2 can be addressed cheaply and easily by making triangle brackets out of sheetmetal and bolting the stock lights up by the fenders. Cost? Negligible. The stock height I initially addressed by changing the shackles on it; M416's use the same shackles as 1947-1974 Jeep CJ's, so you can get aftermarket extended ones (I used Daystars). A custom axle took care of points 5 and 6, I paid $125 in Phoenix at Arizona Trailer and Axle; this also took care of the height, since I designed the axle for a SOA to match the Cruiser's height. The fenders gave me grief, not only where they flimsy but they also mounted mostly to the body, and I was afraid to rip them off on a rock. More on this later....
The biggest issue I had with the trailer was the last point; although in pretty good shape overall, it still had about 20 coats of paint on it, to the point where some of the bolts on the body looked like round rivets, you couldn't even tell how many sides they had. The underside had this milspec undercoating that was peeling off, the wire harness was crumbling into dust, the lunnette had so much paint on it it no longer turned, and the grease nipple was covered in paint.
Now a caveat. When I first bought the trailer I was a poor college student, so Junior 1.0 wasn't exactly a well-funded project. Not a lot of free time, either, and I didn't even have a car at the time (importation papers for the Cruiser took the better part of a year to complete). I rented a sandblaster, did the trailer in the driveway of my roommate's parent's house, painted it with Rustoleum spray cans, used Wurth SKS to line the interior, wired it with generic trailer stuff from Autozone, and bolted an ammo box on the tongue.
The Wurth SKS turned out to be worthless, the trailer tires I was running terrible on the trail, the tongue way too short for an offroad trailer.
Enter Junior 2.0, a project embarked on while I was a graduate student at Thunderbird. Again, funds weren't abundant, but I had learned a lot from experience and wanted to make some fundamental changes. Lifted the trailer to match the Cruiser, which made a tailgate almost mandatory. I had gotten into long trips into the desert, so I wanted to be able to lock up the trailer at the campsite while I made side trips on the Cruiser...enter the lockable steel lid. Paul Porter really helped me out with the design and execution of both modifications, and I completed this part of the project by adding matching rims and tires, painting the trailer, and mounting a MARES expedition tent on the steel lid. Worked great for some time, but I was still dealing with the flimsy fenders, the short tongue, and now had a too-short landing gear that forced me to use the tent only when the trailer was hooked up to the Cruiser. Because of the short tongue, I couldn't open the bumper swingouts or drop the tailgate, which made it impractical in camp.
Used it, did a lot of camping, made it to Crown King from Lake Pleasant with the trailer in tow, completed Trail 42 (bad idea) with it, and took it on an extended Utah trip. Learned some more...
Spent a regrettable couple of years on the East Coast, using it only for the ocassional Cruiser event like the Fall Gathering, then moved to Offroad Hell (er, I mean, Central Texas). For the first time since I moved to the US, my budget grew past the "buy red meat or spend money on the Cruiser" stage, and I began to consider additional mods.
Enter Junior 3.0, the current iteration. With my friend Jason Kenne behind the welding mask, we replaced the stock fenders with much stronger ones made with bent tubing and sheet metal. Not only are they much stronger, they're also much lower profile and fit the bigger tires/rims much better. Extended the landing gear so that the trailer sits dead even when disconnected. Extended the tongue by 24", allowing the installation of a cooler rack in front of the tub (made to fit either a medium Action Packer or one of the new steel-banded Coleman coolers). I got a great deal for Scorpion lining (about halfway between Rhino Lining and Line-X), and chose light gray to keep the heat and dirt down. Finally, I rewired the whole trailer (still running the generic stuff from 1.0) with 7-wire semi stuff, in anticipation of adding some lights for the campsite.
There's a few details to finish, like adding a better handle to the steel lid (opening it is awkward because the fit is *TIGHT*), finishing a table I built to attach to one fender, adding the lights, installing the propane and water tanks that are sitting in my garage, and maybe adding a better light to the inside of the lid.
So yes, I've spent a bunch of money on it, but I've also redone things several times (part of the learning curve) and often had to compromise because of budget constraints. All told, I probably have about $2,500+ in it, but I could do it now for much less and make one further change, the only limitation still there. I would make the box 6-12" longer in length so I could sleep inside the trailer if I needed to. I'm only 6" tall, but that's still to tall to sleep comfortably inside it.
Now you know more about my trailer than my wife does...he, he! Questions?
