expo trailer resto

[rain76king]

So I like camping alot, I love the outdoors, love the old campfire, the stories and the memories made doing so. I love the road trips getting to the campsite and just traveling in general. The huge pain in the bum is packing, pack the gear, pack the clothes, pack the food, if theres wheeling involved spare parts and more gear. Often times I would find myself unpacking just to head out the next weekend and do all the packing over again. Not to mention traveling with wifey and packing the dog in the cherokee was getting cramped.
So the wheels started turning and I thought about a small pop up, could store some gear in it. Maybe even throw bikes or the kayaks on the roof. Something I could do some long range travel with, take that trip to Eagle Lake up in Maine, maybe go further north up to Nova Scotia and travel the Cabot trail...who knows maybe someday the Labrador Highway.
After a little convo with wifey, Brianna shared some of her experiences with her family traveling across the country with one in tow. Blow outs often at highway speeds and mold issues quickly squashed that idea. Plus I wanted something that I could do a little offroad exploring with and something that wouldn't fall apart.
I started exploring the options of strengthening the frame and axle of a pop up and came across this site. What a great site for camping, fourwheeling and expedition outfitting. I quickly was hooked.
I scratched the idea of a pop up and quickly liked the looks of a 1/4 ton military trailer. I could throw a lid on and find a roof top tent to mount on it I would be good to roll.
Found an old m416 on craigslist after months of searching online for a few hundred buck delivered to my door. It was still in camo with little rust and looked similar to this.

After some grinding, some sanding a new set of shocks and some herculiner I had a decent foundation for a build. I had some plywood around the house, some 2x4,screws and foam gasket window sealer. I through a lid together pretty quickly for no money spent. I hit the junkyard, found some lift struts from a cherokee and a kia mini van and I had a lid that took no effort to lift and would stay open on it's own. I also found a roof rack with a yakima rack on it from the junk yard and was able to lag in racks to my lid on the m416. After a few months I found a roof top tent as well and I was super excited about the end result. I felt the lid could be made of metal in the future and sured up so things would be more secure. Some pictures below.

 

[rain76king]

This worked great, towing was a little tough on the xj with stock gearing and 31's and 260+k. Overall it made camping easy although packing was still a little tight, though this thing shined offroad.
I still wanted something a little bigger, something that had room for me to run 12volt,some water storage.maybe a hot water heater and a little more gear.
Per chance one day I was looking on craigslist and found an interesting title "African Bundu Safari Trailer" but with no picture. I decided to google the image to see what it looked like and I found pictures of the exact one for sale on craigslist but it was posted here on expeditionportal.com and on ih8mud.com by a member. I quickly called, checked it out and it was mine for a small fee. The story goes that a couple from South Africa moved here to the states, they imported it from South Africa to the US. They used it here little, and ended up splitting up after awhile. He moved back to Africa and left the trailer behind due to the costs of importing it back to his country. It sat out in a backyard for quite sometime and the ex decided to get rid of it. It was pretty rusted but way cool and came with the original roof top tent as well that needs some cleaning and attention.
The next day got a phone call from the seller letting me know that there were a few things that came with the trailer that was left in the garage. I got all the trailer paperwork, with all the specs and parts used. All of it's importation paperwork along with the trailers title. A cargo bag that sits in the rack behind the tent along with the biggest score. A Engel MT45 12 volt fridge. These things are top quality and big bucks! I had just got a ton of expo gear for such a small cost I can't even post it and feel good about it!

 

[rain76king]

The trailer was just what I was looking for. there would be alot of work involved in cleaning it up though, lots of nights grinding and sanding.

 

[rain76king]

It took me a few weekends and a couple of weeknights after work. I grinded it down and took it to bare metal. Seems that with the angle it was parked at and the lid not securely clamped down water seeped in and sat for quite some time in the bed of the trailer. Also the amount of rust on the topside of the lid was due to leaves sitting under the rack for a long time soaking up water and snow over the years. Luckily though none of it was bad enough to rust through or anything. I used some rust converter, a little por 15 and herculiner and got the bed in good shape. primed and spraybombed it....I thought of fancy paint jobs but this is a camping/wheeling trailer that I want to be able to touch up myself. A few holes drilled, a few bolts and I had my RTT(roof top tent) mounted securely to the rack.

I started this thread awhile back but never finished it because I didn't realy get a chance to do a good write up. It's still a work in progress but it's been great so far and tows like a dream after the axle service.
I just wated to thank you guys for all the countless write ups and awesome ideas that have helped me to get here!:victory:

 

[Hill Bill E.]

Awsome find!! And nice resto on it!

 

[Jis4Jeep]

Great find x2 excellent work doesn't it feel great at the end of the day when you make it to camp and set up and everything just worked out.

 

[rain76king]

Ya, I love it. Theres no stress involved anymore, camp sets up and wraps up in minutes, no worrying about packing or where i put something....I wired up a battery last week in one of the front cargo boxes on the side and wired to l.e.d.s, one under the part of the tent that folds out that illuminates the ladder and one under the lid. Need to do one for the tongue box next and wire a battery charger in.

 

[Snowrydr01]

now you just need to put a hitch on the back of it to tow both trailers with two tents! Itll be like your own little city

 

[The Swiss]

Great story and good job on your restoration.

 

[GroupSe7en]

Nice. :victory:

Hope to see you out there sometime!:campfire: :friday:

Cheers,
Mark

 

[rain76king]

Thanks guys, Mark I'm looking forward to hearing about your travels on the Labrador. Maybe theres a chance we'll catch up at a fall gathering here on the east coast?

 

[Titanpat57]

I wondered what the hell became of this gem...congratz on a great restoration!!

Came out great!!

Pat

 

[OverlandZJ]

Very nice Bob, lots of loving care went into your resto that should pay dividends in the upcoming years.

Bravo..

 

[rain76king]

Thanks Guys. I have had alot of great times with it already, Have not done much to it other than enjoy it. I have picked up a few things for it - Fuse block, Inverter and a Norcold 60L I scored on craigslist.
The plan is to camp with it into this winter and work out the kinks before my Trans-Lab highway trip in June 2011. I'll post as I get the trailer up to snuff and do mods to the lx450 such as - front runner 45 gallon sub tank, snorkel and IBS dual battery system.