Dstock's M101A1 build... or the reality, I needed a new project!

[XJSuperman]

I vote sledge approach. Thats what I would do. Gives a better hands on feel, and more control. Those reasons are also why I think you should eliminate nearly any use of the winch or comealong to "aid" this process. Clamps, bottle jack, or similar devices would be better I think. You can go really slow and get it just where you want it.

Needed:
sledge
deadblow hammer
wood blocks
angle iron maybe?
ballpeen hammer


I think many of those smaller dents can be removed as well. But a hammer and wood block (2x4 or 4x4) on the inside should help flatten it back out. Maybe slide a block up under the rolled rail too. You can always clamp wood on each side and hammer along.

 

[dstock]

I vote sledge approach. Thats what I would do. Gives a better hands on feel, and more control. Those reasons are also why I think you should eliminate nearly any use of the winch or comealong to "aid" this process. Clamps, bottle jack, or similar devices would be better I think. You can go really slow and get it just where you want it.

Needed:
sledge
deadblow hammer
wood blocks
angle iron maybe?
ballpeen hammer


I think many of those smaller dents can be removed as well. But a hammer and wood block (2x4 or 4x4) on the inside should help flatten it back out. Maybe slide a block up under the rolled rail too. You can always clamp wood on each side and hammer along.

You make a lot of good points.

I like the idea of the bottle jack approach, just have to figure out how to brace it into position, but I'm sure with the right placement of 4 x 4's I could come up with something. And then sledge/ hammer/ etc combo to finish things up.

Thanks for the input!

 

[XJSuperman]

No prob, I will be dealing with the same thing on my Sears & Roebuck in the coming months.

 

[zimm17]

Great build, it has me shopping for an M101A2! As for the bent bed- what about a body shop with a frame straightening rig? I bet they could pop that out with pretty good precision.

 

[dstock]

Great build, it has me shopping for an M101A2! As for the bent bed- what about a body shop with a frame straightening rig? I bet they could pop that out with pretty good precision.

Thanks!

The body shop is my last resort, if I can't manage to fix it myself. I'm hoping to finally be able to tackle it this weekend, so we will see how it goes, stay tuned for an update!

 

[dstock]

Bend it!

Quick recap, in order to fit a hard cover to the bed of the trailer, I needed to fix a dent in the front edge of the trailer.

Before:

The initial plan was to beat it back into shape with a sledge, etc. This quickly proved to be futile, how futile I wouldn't know until later. So I decided to go with Plan B which was to drill a hole into the upper portion of the bed, just under the rail, and run an anchor ring through it and bolt it to a 3/16 foot long piece of steel as a backing plate. I hooked the ring to the winch on my jeep and attempted to coax it back into position.

At first it appeared that it worked perfectly, and then when I took the tension of the winch it snapped right back to it's original position like a rubber band!

I ended up having to go a bit past where I wanted it which caused a small crease in the bed wall (to be pounded out after) but after that it held it's position, whew!

After:

It's not perfect, but it's close enough. I still have a bit of beating on the rail line to smooth it out.

Next up was adding LED lighting and a dimmer switch to the Annex area of the RTT. I had previously added lighting to the tent, but I needed to switch out the dimmer for a rotary switch with a mechanical off. I discovered anytime the power was cut and turned back on, the interior tent light would go on due to the momentary switch I used. Needless to say, that'sa no good!

The RTT interior, with rotary switch:

Annex lighting (dimmer switch out of photo but velcroed next to the light on the bottom of tent), wire connecting the 2 lights runs under ladder when folded without having to disconnect the lights.

That's it for now, couple more things in the works and coming soon....

 

[cs0430]

I get so excited to see updates to this thread. Nice work on the front and the lights bud!

 

[dstock]

I get so excited to see updates to this thread. Nice work on the front and the lights bud!

Thank you!

 

[dstock]

Pulled the trigger on a Diamondback SE bed cover this morning. I really wanted to try to build my own but I need something before the end of June. Work has been nuts lately, running into the weekends, so time is at a premium right now. This will enable me to camp for a week outside of Boulder while my daughter plays in a softball tournament, and the cost savings of the hotel room alone more than pays for the cover.

The cover: http://www.diamondbackcovers.com/se/

Obviously I'm not the first to do this, Egan70 has one on his: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/130986-Egan-s-M101A3-Build/page3?highlight=egan

Now that the lift on my rack is powered, it's very easy to raise the rack a bit for loading access, which I do now anyway with the soft cover so I don't continually bang my head on it!

Also, I should also point out Jordan Smith at Diamondback has been amazing in answering all my questions in many emails over the last month. Great customer service so far!

Cover should arrive in about 3 1/2 weeks, update to follow then!

Cheers!

 

[Egan70]

Pulled the trigger on a Diamondback SE bed cover this morning. I really wanted to try to build my own but I need something before the end of June. Work has been nuts lately, running into the weekends, so time is at a premium right now. This will enable me to camp for a week outside of Boulder while my daughter plays in a softball tournament, and the cost savings of the hotel room alone more than pays for the cover.

The cover: http://www.diamondbackcovers.com/se/

Obviously I'm not the first to do this, Egan70 has one on his: http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/130986-Egan-s-M101A3-Build/page3?highlight=egan

Now that the lift on my rack is powered, it's very easy to raise the rack a bit for loading access, which I do now anyway with the soft cover so I don't continually bang my head on it!

Also, I should also point out Jordan Smith at Diamondback has been amazing in answering all my questions in many emails over the last month. Great customer service so far!

Cover should arrive in about 3 1/2 weeks, update to follow then!

Cheers!

Awesome! Looking forward to seeing if you can come up with some better ideas for anchoring the center section. I need to get busy building my rack!

 

[dstock]

I had hoped this update would be showing the new Diamondback bed cover, but alas, Fedex did not deliver as promised this past Monday. The Fedex site also now shows that it has been flagged "damaged cleared", which according to the fine folks at Fedex means the packaging is damaged but the product is not. We will see when they deliver later this week. Suffice to say, I have zero confidence in Fedex after several phone calls with them.


In the meantime, I needed to do a couple upgrades to my power setup/tongue box before my next trip. I run an Ark PowerPak (not to be confused with the ArkPak) as my aux battery supply in the trailer. It's a stand alone battery box with a built in charger/conditioner and a 12 volt cigarette outlet in addition to the battery terminals on top.

I recently learned that there is a 12 volt charger available that would allow me to charge the battery on the road, albeit from the tow harness connected to the trailer. Prior to this, I would just charge from the DC charger at home. The battery runs led lighting and the linear actuators for the elevating rack, plus recharging of cameras, phones, etc. Not a ton of power needs and have never run out but I still like to be prepared. To make this work I needed a 12v lighter outlet, twist-lock variety, installed in the tongue box and wired to the tow harness. I mounted the outlet on the front wall of the box.

Of course this begins a slippery slope, cause then I thought, how great would it be if I could plug my solar setup (100 watt panel with controller) into the box as well to have yet one more way to regain power! Needless to say, I had to install an anderson power port outlet in the box as well.

For the solar to work, the PowerPak does need to be turned on (the big red key on the front of the battery box), but because I have a circuit breaker inline to the fuse panel, I can still turnoff power to everything when I am away from the trailer.

10 gauge wiring was used for everything to match my solar panel wiring and the tow harness wiring. Anderson outlet has an inline fuse as well.

Hope to have an update on the Diamondback in the next few days if Fedex didn't destroy it. Stay tuned!

 

[dstock]

Teaser

Diamondback has arrived!! Still finishing up the install, more info to follow, but I already love this thing!!

Oh yeah!

 

[kevinrx7]

Very nice lid. I have a home made plywood lid on mine. I love being able to walk around on the top to set up the tent, make life much easier.

Sent from my USCC-E6762 using Tapatalk

 

[Mark Harley]

Very Nice!

 

[dstock]

Thanks guys! Install is done, minus one small error on my part. Very happy with it. Full update and pics coming!