Gaberelli's M101 CDN Build Thread

[gaberelli]

Just thought I would quickly put together a thread with the history of my trailer and detail the things I have done. I now have a clean slate to start with and plan to make some simple mods in the coming months/years.

My trailer came over in a shipment of unused trailers from Canada purchased by a Jeep off-road group. The guy in Iowa that bought mine added a rad paint job and some rims/tires to match his Heep...hmmhmmm...I mean Jeep.

I started by ripping off the tires/wheels and putting on some Toyota bolt pattern (6x5.5) hubs from here:

http://www.southwestwheel.com/store/p-247-l0655lb3e.aspx

I soon realized that these hubs come with SAE threads (1/2"x20) and I planned on putting some FJ Cruiser aluminum wheels on to match my towing vehicle with the plan of carrying one spare. Well....the factory aluminum wheels can't use the acorn style nuts that came with the hubs. Like this:

because they use a "shank" style nut like this:

So, I changed out the lug studs from SAE to metric (M12x1.5) from here:

List: '610-376' | O'Reilly Auto Parts

I thought I was all good until I mounted them and realized that there is no hub ring on the trailer hub for mounting hub centric wheels like factory Toyota wheels. Isn't learning a ***** sometimes? Since there was zero hub ring, I couldn't use cheap hub ring adapters to increase the hub ring to 106mm (Toyota). Instead, I bought some Spidertrax wheel spacers. From here:

Toyota Hub Centric Wheel Spacer Kit

These would be lug centric to the hub and hub centric to the wheel. Perfect! But, I still wasn't happy. Now the wheel stick out another 1.5" and I had to buy a $100 part just to make the $250 wheels (price for 4) work on the trailer. This is when plan B kicked in. I decided to return the Spidertrax spacers and sell the aluminum FJ wheels and buy a set of 4 steel FJ Cruiser wheels I found for $100. These would be lug centric and use standard metric acorn lug nuts. In a pinch, I could use the vehicle spare with some "shank" lug nuts I kept and mount that spare on the trailer. I would just risk breaking a stud or damaging the wheel. I may try and find a place to mount a full steel spare since I have 2 extra.

Now comes the lid.

 

[gaberelli]

This was quite a process. My fabricator took the trailer in the winter thinking that they would get to it at some point. I gave him some detailed drawings from other helpful users here and on the other forum. After reviewing them, the fabber said they could not bend the drip edge from one piece into the lid like others I had seen. Their equipment couldn't do it. So, we decided to go with 12ga for each end, 14 guage for the top and square 1" tube for the perimeter of the base of the lid and for a truss in the center.

I also dropped off two 200# struts and mounting hardware, greaseable weld-on barrel hinges and a paddle latch from here:

Allegis Corporation

Allegis Corporation

Allegis Corporation

And then the waiting began.....

The shop got busy and my project got back burnered. Eventually I had to give them the cattle prod because I needed to get started on my own work on the trailer. It didn't help that I also asked them to put together some wider fenders, which they did from scratch. They finally finished the trailer and it looked like this:

It looked great in its cool primer colors except the rushed welding process led to a warped lid. On the sides, the lid rose to almost 1/2" and would not be able to be sealed by weatherstripping. The fabber took the lid back and added to angle iron to the sides and back and I got this:

Much better! Now its time for paint. I went to wally world and bought a ton of flat olive drab and black paint. My wife and I put it in the drive and and started to paint. Less than 15 minutes later, we decided this thing was going to a pro. I called a guy that had done some work for my business in the past. He gave me a quote that I thought was steep so I called two other painters. They both quoted me DOUBLE what he had. Needless to say, he got the job and may I say he did an excellent job:

 

[gaberelli]

Once all the paint and new angle iron was added, the 200# struts that the fab shop said would be way too heavy could now barely lift the lid. My wife could hardly get the thing up. So, I ordered and installed some 250# struts from the same manufacturer, Allegis. They work great now.

Next was wiring. I ordered some LED tail light and 7-way wiring from etrailer.com. I also ordered this tongue box from Harbor Freight. I saw it in the store and it was actually pretty nice:

Steel Trailer Tongue Box

I plan on putting the wiring box for the trailer wiring as well as an auxiliary battery in the box. I may go with a battery isolator like this:

Hellroaring Battery Isolator Combiner, BIC-75150A

 

[gaberelli]

Got the tongue box installed finally. I had bought this at Harbor Freight before our last trip but didn't have time to put it on. It is a pretty nice box and only cost $99. Tools and such will go in there for now. Later it will be used for housing electrical and battery.

 

[gasman]

nice .. the tounge box fits on there perfectly, i notice you moved your brake handle underneath the tounge . does it interfere with the landing leg at all? i had thought about that option , when mounting my tounge basket, but i got lucky and had just enough room that i could leave it where it was,

 

[Springhilljeep]

Hinges

Which part number did you use for your hinges. They list a ton of hinge sizes.

The lid looks great.

 

[gaberelli]

nice .. the tounge box fits on there perfectly, i notice you moved your brake handle underneath the tounge . does it interfere with the landing leg at all? i had thought about that option , when mounting my tounge basket, but i got lucky and had just enough room that i could leave it where it was,

The brake is currently non-operational. Wanted to finish adding things on and then see if there is a place to mount it and way to make it work with some linkages. We will see.

 

[gaberelli]

Which part number did you use for your hinges. They list a ton of hinge sizes.

The lid looks great.

338005-150 from Allegis Corp

 

[Mark2457]

what did it cost to get the lid made?

 

[gaberelli]

what did it cost to get the lid made?

Good question. Been a long time but still regularly use this trailer and the lid is awesome.

The fabrication shop that did the work for me had a new employee tackle this project. I gave him all of the drawings in CAD and he mocked up one but apparently the fitment was bad so they actually had him make another one… I think I only paid about $400.


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