Offroad trailers: your thoughts and why

[Grouseman]

Exiled,

Does your rear door open on the M101 with the top closed? Never thought about it until Mike mentioned it.

Steve

 

[Exiled]

Exiled,

Does your rear door open on the M101 with the top closed? Never thought about it until Mike mentioned it.

Steve

Mine's an M416, and no, if the top is closed, the tailgate doesn't open. Did that on purpose so I could secure both with just two locks.

 

[Exiled]

I made them out of 1 1/4 inch EMT conduit from Home Depot, about $12.00 for a 10 foot piece and plenty stout for holding the tent. The O.D. is 1.5 inches so it fits a 1.5 inch die for bending tubing. The clmps I found are bolt together from a tent and awning supply. They are sized for one-inch pipe (1.315 o.d) but I was able to get them to fit the conduit okay.

I think the M101s look cool, but they just seem a bit small IMO.

Henry, what if you just put a rectangular tank across the front of the trailer, with a tongue box in front of it? The only downside to this is you might have too much tongue weight. I know I do. If I were to put one on, it'd be undernieth behind the rear axle.

Dan

Thought about it, but I don't want to add weight to the tongue, and a huge reason I did the tongue lengthening was so I could jacknife the trailer without hitting the truck. If I moved the cooler basket forward, I'd hit it...I'll figure this out, it's just going to take me some time and I *don't* want to do it more than once.

Below is a picture of the lengthened tongue:

 

[Snook]

Fenders. I crunched up the original fenders pretty bad on mine (M416), they just weren't strong enough to stand up to trail abuse. So I designed stronger ones (tube frames with steel plate) and had JKCustoms make me a set. I could have made them wider, but I'm pretty happy with the overall strength and they didn't add too much weight to the trailer. I also should have rethought the design to allow for the mounting of a flat work surface (table for cooking) since that's the ideal height. I'm still toying with that....

I added steel angles to protect the wheel fenderss and used it as a foot step. See photo below. Keep it simple, the ride out in trail is amazing brutal.

Future. I'm actually getting ready to do another round of small modifications to the trailer. I'm going to install the propane bottle mounts and figure out a way to set up a water tank, and I've also designed a neat setup for a hammock/light/shower mount. I'm also going to incorporate a 12-volt plug, probably on the frame, so I can hook up a light or freezer/fridge back on the trailer.

I put propane bottle/water bottle mount in the front of the tub. I would rather have freezer/fridge in my truck. Depend on trail condition, the trailer is often covered with thick dust coating.

Cheers,

 

[Exiled]

Looks good, Snook, but my tires won't fit with the stock fenders anymore anyway!

Just to clarify, I meant a plug for the fride/freezer *while we're at camp*, an Engel 45 qt. won't fit in the back of my trailer with the lid on, it's too tall, and the front basket was designed for a standard cooler to be within easy reach at camp.