M416 Build

[dieselcruiserhead]

That's about it for now... I built the first fender Friday night and all of this was on Saturday. I was down there last night and part of today so I have some more updates, but again no photos so I'll post tomorrow. Cheers, Andre

The other side:

Somewhat hidden under the bed wall:

The strengthening additions:

Both fenders, widened 2". Again it would have been much easier if I committed to the wheel size and built the trailing arms narrower. It is an *excellent* wheel side (33x10.5 R15) but I didn't know...

 

[mudbutt]

Farkin' beautiful, man.....

 

[Box Rocket]

Nice work Andre. You've got a week dude. Get some paint on the sum-********** so the rain on your drive to Moab next Wednesday won't make it start rusting.

 

[Curtis in Texas]

If I may!
In case someone doesn't know.
There is a tool that makes this work a breeze.

I'll post up to the Harbor Frieght site but you can get these at almost any tool place.
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=1110

The panel flangers will put a step crimp in sheet metal so you can overlap the sheet metal by 1/2" and weld two panels together for a stronger bond. The air powered are super fast too!
The new flangers now come with a hole punch feature built in that allow you to pop in small holes in one side so you can mig weld them together easier.
That or a spot welder makes short work of stretching a fender.

I understand you probably didn't have two sets of these old trailer fenders, but for general info, if a person wanted to widen a fender and could get two sets, Cut the lip off of one or devide them off center with the width you need, and then you can splice the fender wider with only one splice. And the flange will make it super strong.


Love reading your build and wll use some of you ideas on my build this Fall.

Hope this will help someone who may not know.
I'll go back to Lurker Status now!eepwall:

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Very nice looking tool and not even too expensive either at Harbor Freight... Very good to know, you are actually the first person to suggest that to me...

Here comes a loong round of updates... I have been down there several days this week as well, really really draining but boy do I have some progress for you guys... I'll start resizing and posting shortly!

thanks guys! You too Mr. Tolman, I'm assuming you're coming to Moab and bringing your trailer as well? Bold assumption!?

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

It starts Monday where I spent the morning doing some more prep on the trailer, mostly deconstruction and then spent the afternoon doing errands... 1) new point and shoot, Canon A1000, which I am happy with... 2) New tires on the pickup, 33 x 10.5 to match the trailer.. Also picked up another neat little surprise which is below the old 32s from www.cruiseroutfitters.com

I pulled the trailer tires off as well and completely disassembled the trailer for paint and last rounds of prep...

The tire situation again. I really love this old truck and it really boogies around pretty well even quite loaded. The new 33's are so nice, it oddly got rid of the rubbing I had with the smaller tires of all things (related to rim width/offset) and handles really well with the new 33s...

Tub/body/components pulled apart for prep... Really didn't take too long to break down at all...

Strengthening addition to the rear frame. It is clear I will spend much time spraying both black again as well as the tan...

Notice the pen marks on the tub wall...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

In the laspe of a camera I believe this was Friday night or something in the last few days (all starting to become a blur) where I addressed the weatherstripping issue with the drawer... This is thin angle iron I had lying around that is acquired for free from the local ATV supplier, this is the steel that they pallet each ATV in when they're delivered...

Turned out awesome, I am really pleased. Scotty Ray (who is formerly a pro carpenter) commented that it looks like finish carpentry

It will make sense when it's back attached to the trailer and how it all fits...

I also removed the thinner strap for tub stiffness and added this 1/4" thick 1.5" wide strapping -- much beefier...

This is on both ends...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Taping.. There was lots of this...

Misc components to be sprayed...

Frame prep... The gun is so refined that I didn't even use a drop cloth...

The old harbor freight HVLP gun.. I also found this one for $15 that basically looks identical other than slightly stripped down... I always found the HVLP also consumed a lot of air so it was a gamble but as I consider these guns disposable then $15 one is much more appealing...

Finally spraying, exciting! This is Tuesday...

Frame touchups, nice to add another coat as needed...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Mostly dried bits to see how the paint took

I also touched up the floor with close to about 1 coat as well... I have to say the paint drying and the quality of the paint with the new gun also had me very excited...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I also unfortunately had about 4 or 5 things lingering that I needed to address before I started painting the tub. One of them was the locking/clasp mechanism for the tailgate. Also as it was it could potentially rattle loose opening the tailgate - that wouldn't be good!

You can see what the original material was (more angle iron)...

To see how she works... I'll be using the same locks as the shop so no more additional keys...

Pretty pumped how this turned out and didn't take too long to make either...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

More lingering, the end caps on the tailgate, the lid, and the side rigidity tube I added to the rear of the tub. The good news is all of these little things went quickly. But adding them all together took quite a while (about a day perhaps). I way under estimated the final time all of this stuff took and by now it was also starting to wear me down though as usual I was having fun. This all is a lot of time on your feet for reference...

End cap creation for the 1.5" box tube...

The gap in the lid I needed to address... At first I was going to just caulk this but it would be too ghetto to do that...

More welding, hard to tell but the cap is on... Lots of "tap tap tap" "stitch stitch stitch" to get it all together....

How I addressed the gap...

And I decided to weld up the entire cap at least on the sides to make it more weatherproof and not have to rely on caulk. It was actually "double welded" so it really should be pretty damn good and let in little moisture or dust through the seams at least...

The welding of the lid also took several hours...

 

[teotwaki]

This thread is too much fun. I've wanted a trailer like that but would have no way to perform such fine mods as you have chronicled here. Vicarious thrills for me for now...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

Make-shift paint booth

The tan.. Exciting!

Taped up...

Spraying away.. This began a process of several hours where I got two good coats on the side, much of one on the inside and the kitchen drawer painted.... This was through Wed evening about 7:30PM -- a long day -- and we then booked it about 1 hour to Salt Lake City to see Franti / Spearhead play for earth day. I cannot say how delicious a beer tasted after this day followed by the Red Iguana

Came out lighter than I was expecting. Which I really like quite a bit, and to also distinguish it from the other tan M416s (popular color it turns out) mostly on the ih8mud site...

You can see what the first coat looks like when done quickly (which is fine) on the inside... Again, this all took *hours* quite monotonous..

Two coats on the lid as well, woo hoo... One mistake I made was putting the fenders near the tan to see how it compares. I then fired off some touch up and got a hair of overspray (little specs) on the fenders -- that was a bummer as I wasn't planning to come back to the black again, at this point... Pretty psyched and photos don't do it justice but they go together well!

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

So that was through Wed. Thurs morning (yesterday) I resumed for one more very long day, but boy were things starting to come together I also love (as cheesy as this sounds) how multiple coats of paint come together, so nice and so solid...

Arrive to this in the morning, :wings:, and off we go...

The drawer... This turned out excellently as well... It needs to have at least 1 solid coat on everything for long term rust prevention...

Tailgate in the "paint booth.."

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

This thread is too much fun. I've wanted a trailer like that but would have no way to perform such fine mods as you have chronicled here. Vicarious thrills for me for now...

Thanks Jim, appreciated as always!