A Southern M416

[A Southern Gentleman]

A friend of mine found me what appears to be Vietnam era M416 on a government auction website. It had been previously used by the Georgia Forestry Commission. My friend already has an older Bantam trailer, converted into a camping trailer, that he pulls behind his Jeep. He and I have now started work on my M416 that I am converting into an expedition trailer I can pull behind my Jeep.

The trailer is pretty solid and rust free. There were a few strange things welded on here and there that are now long gone. The taillights have been removed and will be replaced with the original style lights and brackets, but updated with 12v LED bulbs. It has a Frankenstein tongue that will need some attention soon. I'll probably extend the tongue and add Lock'N'Roll and a new jack. The biggest effort so far has been directed towards the rear of the trailer. Bubba cut off the rear panel. Thankfully the cuts were pretty clean. We have straightened bent areas, welded new tabs to the floor that bolt to the rear frame (the original tabs were cut when the rear panel was removed), and built a frame and tailgate from 1 inch square tubing. The tailgate has bullet-style hinges so the tailgate will be removable. We will skin the tailgate, and put the rear corner handles and tie down hook back where they were originally.

The next step in the plan is for a hinged lid on the top with a RTT rack. Once that is fabricated we will take the tub off the frame, do any necessary restoration to the frame and suspension, patch any holes in the tub, etc. I plan to use bed liner on the tub inside and out once the metal work is complete.

I bought a Harbor Freight tongue box that will hold the electrics up front once the tongue is rebuilt. I'm thinking I will incorporate a shore power plug for 120v and possibly some sort of solar setup. That's all still in the planning stages. The electrics will power lights, chargers and a 12v fridge. I'm planning a kitchen drawer slide-out box in the rear. I'm thinking I may use 80/20 t-slot to build that.

It's been a fun project so far and we have made some good progress. I have benefitted a lot from reading the threads in these forums to get ideas for this build. I appreciate everyone else who has taken the time to document their projects.

A Southern Gentleman

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

We are making good progress on the trailer. We got the outer perimeter of the lid's frame put together over the weekend.

 

[50 fiver]

Looks great so far, following, hoping to build a lid for mine soon...

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

We took a break to go to Jeepfest, but got back on the trailer this week. We have the perimeter of the lid frame done. It just needs cross bars and skin. I have a couple of heavy duty strap hinges on order from Amazon. Once we get done with that fabrication, the tub is coming off the frame so that can all be cleaned up and repaired as needed.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

Progress is being made on the hinges for the lid. We decided to notch out the lid frame to accept the flange of the hinge. So those are welded in place and flush with the edge of the frame. The skin of the lid will eventually overlap the top half of the hinge and all you will see is the beefy angled part that sticks out below the lip of the lid. There is a gap between the side of the trailer and the lower element of the hinge. The plan is to drill two holes in the lower element, put spacers for bolts to pass through between that element and the side of the trailer, reinforce the thin metal of the side of the trailer with a plate on the inside to spread the weight across a wider surface and then finally locking nuts on the inside to hold it all together. There is some concern about the thin gauge of the steel where the hinges will be mounted, but we are hopeful that reinforcing plate coupled with the support of hydraulic struts will be enough to support the weight of the lid and roof top tent and not tear the hinges from their mounting holes.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

The fenders are off and the hinges are now mounted to the body with spacers on the outside and a reinforcing plate on the inside. At this point I think we will set the lid aside and get the tub off of the frame so we can patch holes in the tub and do some work on the frame.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

The tub is off the frame which is being prepped for paint.

 

[HendersonJL]

Looking great!! Looking for inspirations!! Subscribed!

Thanks for posting.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

I ground down a few old messy weld spots, used Krud Cutter and a pressure washer to cut through the grime, palm sanded the whole frame, and then primed and painted it black. I left the tongue alone because we still have some surgery to do on that, but it will be no big problem to go back and prime and paint whatever is left when we finish cutting and welding on the tongue. Lock N Roll has a 30" long 2" square trailer side extension tube available that will fit into a 2" receiver tube. I'm thinking what we may do is fashion a receiver tube and weld that between the angled frame rails that can then receive the 30" long extension. I like both the function of the Lock N Roll and also the fact that this would give me a longer tongue that won't swing so tight and risk damage to the Jeep. I'm also planning to get a different jack to clamp to the tube. When that's all done, I have a replacement wiring harness, original military tail lights and brackets to install. I also have a Harbor Freight tongue box to mount up front for the electrical components to run a fridge, lights, phone charger, etc.

I have ordered and received replacement military tires from Coker Tire that are done on Firestone molds. The old tires were mismatched and really cracked with age. I still have to get the old tires unmounted and then media blast and paint the wheels before mounting the new tires. I have already media blasted the lug nuts and center caps so those are ready for paint.

Meanwhile, the tub is at my friend's house. The tub is in really solid shape, but over the years has obviously had lots of different things mounted to it because it is full of bolt holes in the sides and floor. The worst hole is in the floor and looks like a magnesium flare melted a fist sized hole. My friend has been plugging and welding the holes in the tub while I work on the frame. When the metal work is done on the tub the plan is to spray black bed liner inside and out.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

Most of the holes in the tub have been welded closed with pieces of rebar and then ground flat. A fresh wiring harness has been installed in the frame. The rubber grommets that protect the wiring from chafing where it passes through the frame were brittle and crumbling. I managed to find almost the exact same grommets in one of the misc parts drawers at Lowes (I attached a pic of the bag showing which grommet works). I have also been working on getting decades of layers of paint off of the wheels. I'm down to the original green which must have been some pretty good cancer causing paint because it is stuck on pretty solid in some places. Paint stripper doesn't seem to touch it and media blasting has been slow going. Once those are painted and the new tires mounted I'll turn my attention to the tongue.

 

[ZMagic97]

Very nice work so far.

 

[77TLCFJ40]

Great tip on the grommets! Thanks very much.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

All the holes in the tub have been patched and replacement handles are welded to the rear corners. I've been working on sanding the tub this weekend in preparation for primer and then a bedliner finish. The new Coker military tires and new tubes have been mounted on the refinished wheels and those have been reinstalled on the hubs.

Work is progressing on the tongue. The old two inch ball coupler has been removed from the square tube of the tongue. The square tube is three inches on the outside measurement and two and a half inches on the inside. The plan is to weld a two inch receiver tube inside that square tube. That way I can install a trailer-side Lock N Roll trailer hitch that will slide inside a standard 2" receiver tube.

I ordered some Packard connectors online. I plan to wire a standard 4-pole trailer wiring harness to those Packard connectors so that it can plug into the new wiring harness that has been installed on the trailer.

I found a Black Friday deal on a two man Tepui roof top tent that should be here in the next few days. We've decided to fabricate tent supports from angle iron and 1x2 steel tubing that will mount on the trailer lid. The crossbars were welded to the lid this weekend so it's ready for a skin. We're still trying to find someone local with a metal brake that can bend the sheet steel so we can skin the lid.

Everything is coming together in good time. We have a winter campout in the North Carolina mountains shortly after the first of the year so we are trying to get the trailer to the point where it is usable. It may not have a fridge and some of those kind of amenities at first, but if it's rolling and has a tent on top we can make do with the rest of the details. I can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel on this project.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

The tongue is now fairly complete. A 2 inch receiver has now been welded inside the 3 inch square tubing. That 2 inch receiver will accept the Lock N Roll hitch. We got the old jack cut off and mocked up the location of the HF tongue box. We will have to lengthen the chains and find a jack that fits in the space we have to work with. The underside of the tub is now covered in a rubberized undercoating and the tub is basically ready for the bed liner; we just need to find a warm day to get that sprayed. The next challenge is to figure out the tail light wiring.

 

[A Southern Gentleman]

The weather was nice enough today that I was able to get two coats of roll-on Raptor liner on the bed of the tub. The bed was in pretty rough and uneven shape so I decided to roll on a couple of coats first, and later we will spray Raptor liner over the entire tub. I put the abrasive in the kit in the second coat to give the bed a rougher anti-skid texture and to hopefully cover some of the blemishes. I also rolled a small amount over the areas where we patched holes in the sides to fill in any little pinholes that were not filled by the welds.