7/1/2021

Getting very close to wrapping up the body work on the tail end of the trailer, and then it's fiberglass game on! Also think we've wrapped up most of the painting on the driver side of Tiffany. Maybe just a bit of touch up once we get her out in the light in the parking lot this weekend. 

Ran out of paint again so we didn't finish the back wall. That's for another day. 

2/1/2019

Got the last two pieces of the sower pan down today and went to work on the kitchen. Turned out that we had the wrong cut out template so it ended up being a bit of a chore to get things right. Sink in the hole at the end of the day.

11/3/2018

We have tons of posts to catch up on and with luck we will in the coming days. Now that the rainy season is upon us we are starting to fight the weather once again along with the shortening days.

Today Soldier A was able to get the landing gear reassembled an installed on the long trailer. There was a bit of a problem with a damaged set of threads but that was overcome and the job got completed. Another baby step but it's DONE! LOL!

6/12/2018

More fiberglass and epoxy today than any other 3 days. Even if it did take until after nine tonight this was a really awesome day. There is only one corner left to reinforce and the last large piece to apply and we're ready for scales.

If everything goes as well tomorrow that will all get done, as well as the installation of the new batteries. Soldier A is still kicking himself in the ass over leaving the master switch on, but it's pretty much water under the bridge now.

2/18/2018

Today was an wonderful and unexpected treat! An absolutely beautiful white out snow day. So much better than rain!

Down side is the fact that we didn't turn on the heaters in the garages, so it was to cold to do anything on the projects today.
 

2/16/202-18

Decent but not great progress today. Had to do the fire wood buildup thing which took up the morning.


Then it was on to building what we hope is the last prototype of the water catch for the shooting trailer. we added 6" of depth to the actual water basin in hopes that this will improve the dead fall effect and eliminate the possibility of rounds bouncing out or coming back down range.

Then began the 3 plus hour long battle to get the lunette eye off the front of the trailer. We beat on that thing without mercy. Finally ended up putting together a contraption to put a bottler jack in the mix and then beat it some more. It finally gave up and came loose. So , that wrapped up the day outside.

2/10/2018

What a beating! Soldier A mounted the new tires on the shooting trailer today. He will definitely be hurting tomorrow 😅 The weight of the MRAP wheels and adapter plates adds a whole new dimension to the man handling of an all ready heavy tire. But, they are on! And, my trailer wheels are back where they belong.
 

2/09/2018

Picked up the new tires, wheels, adapter plates today. They are a bit bigger than expected. That was a quick two grand. Seems like every time we go on the internet or pick up the phone, our bank account shrinks. At least they are here and we can move forward with the way-behind build project.

5/31/2015

Today was another one of those days you wished could be the status quo. Beautiful weather and getting tons of stuff done.

The AO got mowed, edged and lots of weed burning too. We don't pick weeds at the motor pool; we burn the crap off! Who doesn't like a good flame thrower?

We also moved all the equipment around to make it easier to work on the priority issues. In the end, things are more organized and we certainly have more room to work.

Got pretty hairy a couple of times, but that happens when soldier A is on a roll. He may be the craziest SOB on the planet LOL! 
 

2/18/2015

You just can't beat good weather in a region that is known to be very wet. You learn to make every sunny day count, and that's what the motor pool crew did again today.

We have accumulated quite a bit of stuff that we have no need for and today was the day for some spring cleaning. There were two big bed rails that were totally warped, but had brackets that we may need later so they had to be removed before the rest went to the scrap yard. We also needed to get two bed ribs off of a piece of plate steel we need, so that was the start to the day.


As usual when you mention taking anything apart Stewart shows up with his torch, but after a debate soldier A convinced him of a more surgical way to remove the brackets.


Once all the extra weight was ready for the recycle yard, the team focused all its energy on cleaning rust off the trailer chassis.

With the threat of afternoon rain, we did the cleanup one section at a time and coated things as we went. This time we tried something a little different and shot all the cleaned areas with rust reformer instead of etching primer, the theory being that anything we could not get off with the tools would be handled by the rust reformer.

We also got a visit from V who had some awesome new tactical zombie killer knives that will be offered at the rolling monster truck display this weekend.

2/17/2015

Had to take advantage of the awesome weather today. So, we rallied the minions early and Stewart was like a hamster on crack, thinking we might need to do some torching.

As it ended up we just needed to rebuild the front end of the little Ford 150, no torch necessary. Not a big deal unless you don't have everything to do the project, and soldier A was short seals and the right bearing grease, so the day was a bit slower than expected, but the whole front end is new now.

Stewart broke the first beer as soon as the test drive was over!

Tomorrow is all grinder day!

1/18/2015

Picking up from where we left off with our journey back in time yesterday, we had to get everything aligned once we had the parts ready.

With a ton of clamps and some real straight steel we got the frame sections lined up for welding. After hours of adjustment down to 1/8" from perfectly square, soldier B tried to convince soldier A that it was way past good enough, but that OCD just overpowers him most of the time. So, he jacked with it until he realized he couldn't do better than 1/16" from perfect. That was enough to get him to start welding!


After the butt joints were welded, two of the extra cross members were cleaned up and inserted into the frame rails spanning the connection 50/50. Then those were fully welded in place, and soldier B thought this was enough, but no way.

Down to Tacoma Steel, our go-to supplier, and some 5" x 1/4" steel was brought home to fully box the entire frame. 

Tires will go flat, axles, springs, and u bolts will break and the goddamn frame will be perfect. This thing is ridiculous! But it did look good as it was done ;-)

1/17/2015

As promised we are going to start a little walk back in time and explain how our extended m105 trailer came to be.


It was originally intended to be a basic camp trailer, but now it has a much more important mission.

We started with 2 105s, which are legendary for being work horses. They have 5 thousand pound axles and deuce springs with overloads to boot. For two wheel trailers these things are beasts.

The beds were removed from both so we could get at the frames. Once that was done we cut the tongue off the first unit and then spliced the second trailer into the first. We didn't want to get crazy with length so we only used about 40% of the second frame. The final result is a 70/30 wheelbase split, more or less. and the thing pulls like a dream, even behind the bobbed deuce.

We will start covering the details of how the joining was done tomorrow. It took soldier A about a week and he was almost bat shit crazy when it was finished. The OCD thing was driving him crazy as usual.

1/16/2015

Well today brought a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. Several hours of decent and un-forecast weather. So, we got out the old grinder and started in on those weld cleanups and rust removal.


Soldier A tends to over build to the extreme and it took much longer to get things back to the way we had them when the original chassis was done way back when. It's all working out,though, as a smooth grinding hand and the right combinations of wheels put things back to near perfect. 


When the clouds started to roll in, better heads prevailed and we cleaned and primed the areas we got done before the rain returned. It's really awesome to see our chassis getting back to the pristine condition it was once in, and the thoughts of the box to come are very exciting. Much more work to do though, hope the weather breaks again soon.

For our friends that are interested in the technical aspect of how this extended chassis came to be, we are going to dig up some of the build photos and do some recaps of the original build over the next few days. The underside of this area is next and then we'll move on.