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

[dstock]

And so it begins.....

After a couple years of looking at a variety of possibilities for a trailer to tow behind my JKUR, from buying something new, or used, or starting from scratch, I decided to buy something with the basics to build around. A search on Craigslist found an M101A1 just 7 miles from our cabin in the mountains at a good price. The seller turned out to be a fellow jeeper and good guy who had the same ambitions for the trailer as I do, just not enough time to pursue them.

Enter the M101A1 in a lovely shade of....well....green? $400 on Craigslist got me the beauty you see below:

As you can see...she's a real looker! Structurally, she is very sound, other than some surface rust, she is in amazing condition. The hand built shell of wood and fiberglass was in great decay and was too tall to fit in the garage which only left one option...Demo time!

The above is over the course of 3 hours but the end goal was achieved

The build itself will take some time and may be a little backwards in its approach. Our cabin is about 2 hours away and with a busy family life, we don't get up there as much as we would like. To make any progress, it's going to have to get moved to our home but I can't go that distance without getting it titled and tagged. Plus there is no way the tires would make it that far, the lights don't work, etc.

Since I am planning to do and axle swap and run matching JK rims and tires, I'm going to go ahead and get that done along with the lighting issues while its at the cabin, and have it inspected, registered, and tagged at the nearby DMV so that I can bring it home for the rest of the build.

Lofty plans include:

-Rack for my CVT RTT (possibly elevating)
-aforementioned axle swap 3500lb w/electric brakes and JK hubs with AEV Pintler wheels
-hard lid or soft cover for the bed
-on-board power - possibly an Arcpak setup
-on-board water tank
-Roto Pax and Maxtrax mounts
-Max coupler or similar hitch

And of course all the things that are not so exciting i.e. paint, bedliner, new chains, new jack, rear stabilizers, lighting, etc.

I blame the various M101 builds on here like Mark Harley's (thanks for the pre-purchase info as well), Shack's, RagnarD's, FandL's....I could go on and on, there is some amazing work in all of these builds with some great ideas that I will shamelessly steal.

I hope to have the bulk of the work done between now and next summer, assuming life does not get in the way to much! Only time will tell!

I am sure I will have a ton of questions and say thanks in advance to those who provide answers! I will also be learning to weld on this project, although anything critical or safety related will be done by someone who knows what they are doing.

-Dave

 

[shack]

Nice find! Good luck on your build. Feel free to ask me anything as you progress.

 

[dstock]

Nice find! Good luck on your build. Feel free to ask me anything as you progress.

Thank you!

 

[Mark Harley]

Nice score! It is in good condition too.
The M101a trailers make excellent foundations to build.
F and L built a M101A1 and could give you info on the axle he used.
His turned out very nice.

Looking forward to this build.
Post many pictures as you go.

Mark

 

[dstock]

Nice score! It is in good condition too.
The M101a trailers make excellent foundations to build.
F and L built a M101A1 and could give you info on the axle he used.
His turned out very nice.

Looking forward to this build.
Post many pictures as you go.

Mark

Thanks Mark, already fired off a pm to JandL to get the specs on the axle!

Has anyone hooked up a parking brake to the Dexter 3500lbs axles with the electric brakes? I see mention of the parking brake option in the Dexter materials, but not specifically which size brakes the option is available and the parking brake hardware to go with them. Or maybe re-use the existing hardware on the M101 with a different cable?

 

[dstock]

Been working on the trailer for the last couple of weekends now, unfortunately I only get a 5-6 hours per weekend to make any progress so it's been a bit slow going.

Pressure washed it last weekend in preparation for removing the axle which revealed some of the original army green paint.

The axle removal process turned out to be quite entertaining. The right hand wheel came off no problem.

The left hand wheel was another story. I will preface the following by saying I do spend a great deal of time researching things on the internet before I under take them. I however did not take the time to read the 500+ page manual on the M101A1, nor in my research did I come across the missing piece of information that would have saved me a couple hours of work. Did I mention that our internet was also not working correctly at our cabin?

So there I was with my air compressor set at 120psi and going to town attempting to remove the lug nuts on the left hand wheel. None would budge. So I decide to introduce some heat to help free things up. Still nothing. Finally the top lug nut starts to spin, and spin, and spin......and yes, it's now stripped!

I take a breather to evaluate things, and decide that if I can't get the wheel off, I can still remove the axle wheel attached and just pull the whole thing out to the side. I get all the nuts freed up on the u-bolts no problem, but the u-bolts themselves are frozen fast in the perch plates. Also, what's left of the manual parking brake cable assembly is frozen to the adjuster arms and also will not come apart despite a variety of tools, heat, and obscenities.
Simple enough, I just cut the cables since it is all getting replaced anyway. It became plainly obvious the u-bolts were going to have to be cut off as well (one was actually cracked in half already) and I plan to replace them also. Once that was achieved, the axle was ready to be removed, with the one wheel still attached.

Sadly, it was at this point I ran out of time, and to be honest it was probably a blessing in disguise. Without the wheel removed and lack of tall enough jack stands to get the wheel off the ground it was still going to be a bear. I also noticed several cracks in the right hand leaf spring which of course doesn't instill any confidence in the durability of the left hand spring. So now those will need to be replaced as well.

It was later at home, in searching for leaf springs replacement options that I came across a thread on Steel Soldiers that had the one piece of information I was missing. The lug threads on the left wheel are LEFT-HANDED!!!! Doh!!! Talk about feeling like a complete idiot!!! So I post this in the hopes that it will save someone a couple hours of misery down the road. I don't know if this is limited to the M101A1 or others as well but you have all been forewarned.

On the upside, I have a nice shiny new Dexter 3500lb axle with 3" tube, and electric brakes with the manual parking option on order. Also, grabbed a nice discount on a pair of Goodyear Duratracs to match my JK from Discount Tire on ebay.
I've also accumulated the original style reflectors, led running lights, new coupler mechanism for the current coupler, 5000lb coiled safety cables, and a 7 wire harness for the JK.
Still need to order brake controller, 2" wide bore spacers, AEV Pintler wheels and tail lights.

Again my focus is on getting it ready to be registered so I can bring it home where I can work on it more regularly (like every night!)

If anyone has suggestions on where to get new leaf springs or a good set of used ones, please let me know!

 

[dstock]

So the latest for those following along....

As it turns out, the threads on the lug on left hand wheel were not left-handed as I was lead to believe. Sadly, could still only get one lug nut removed.

It quickly became apparent that I was going to have to remove the axle with one wheel still attached. This of course was complicated by the fact that the locator pin on the right hand side of the axle had rusted itself to the perch on the axle. After putting a couple c-clamps on the spring pack, I unbolted the center pin bolt and voila...axle came free!

I then had to remove the leaf springs so I can either rebuild or replace them. Again, 60 years of rust was not my friend but I did get them free. You can see the cracks in the springs marked with blue tape.

Have not yet been able to locate a pair of used springs, and am now leaning towards just having new ones made. Going the new route means the entire suspension/axle/hub/wheel combo will be new and hopefully provide years of trouble free use.

I did find a date on the spring pack of 8-10-53, so at least there is some sign of its age.

The ordering continues with tail lights, license plate lights and half the wiring.

Nearing the end of the "removal" part of the process and looking forward to getting to the "rebuild" stage. Especially getting things like these mounted up!

 

[dstock]

Things are arriving!

Got home last night to find items on my door step:

Dexter 3500lb axle with elec brakes/manual parking brake and 5x5 hubs to match JK

The rest of the pile, shocks, leaf springs, 7 wire trailer harness and shackles:

Used leaf springs, paint a little flaky but in way better shape than what was on the trailer. I will re-paint anyway:

Need to order spacers and wheels, some 7 wire harness wiring and then I should be able to get it registered and on the road!

 

[Mark Harley]

Just like Christmas! Those springs look nice are they new old stock or lightly used?

 

[dstock]

Just like Christmas! Those springs look nice are they new old stock or lightly used?

They were not listed as NOS so I'm thinking lightly used. I found them at Saturn Surplus in PA. They did a great job packing them up which is more than I can say for the place on Ebay I got my tail lights, the box when it arrived:

Doh! Only one pigtail fell out, waiting on the new one.

 

[MountainD]

Where did you end up buying your Dexter from? I'm in the market...

 

[dstock]

I got mine from theoempartsstore.com This it the link for the Dexter I purchased:

http://www.theoempartsstore.com/product.php?productid=20484&cat=755&page=2

Marc Ledder handles all the Dexter axle orders, nice guy, very responsive through email or by phone. I had a ton of questions and he answered them all. You can get a quote through email, but best to call when you place final order. He can be reached at 757-745-0123. They say 2-3 weeks but mine showed up right at the 2 week mark.

 

[MountainD]

Awesome--thanks so much!!! Did you ask for anything special to get it with the parking brake? I need to make some final measurements and get my wheel spacers so I can dial in the axle width, then I am going to order....

 

[dstock]

Awesome--thanks so much!!! Did you ask for anything special to get it with the parking brake? I need to make some final measurements and get my wheel spacers so I can dial in the axle width, then I am going to order....

Yes you do have to specify the manual parking brake option, and also if you want to upgrade to the 3 inch axle. I went with the 3" because I am going to be using the oem springs and wanted the correct size spring perches and initially I will be re-using the u-bolt/shock mounts. I used a grinder to remove them from the old axle. Both of these options combined are pricey and will add about $200ish to the cost of the axle.

 

[dstock]

Just a heads up, the spring perch is still 1.75 on the 3 inch tube Dexter axle. It does not look to be an issue with the oem M101 springs.