M101-A3 to match my 2001 Suburban 2500

[snowblind]

19" looks good, but I would also consider the tow vehicle tailgate geometry and plans for gear on the tongue of trailer. Make sure it is long enough to jack knife the trailer and you can open the tailgate with the trailer coupled.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sort of torn on how far to extend it. My Suburban tailgate open up and requires less clearance than a truck tailgate. But if I eventually tow with a different vehicle that could change... I also feel like I can add 1-2 feet via an extension tube without any problems.

So you are going to weld the 2.5" tube to the bottom of the A-frame bracket? If you were not already planning on it, may want to bolt everything back onto the trailer before welding. Getting the bolts all of the bolts lined up is a challenge without introducing any strain from welding or modifications.

2.5" welded to the bottom of the stock nosecone and then bolted to a fabricated rear crossmember.

I know what you mean about fitment issues. I noticed on others builds that welding the tongue off the trailer might create problems. Unfortunately I can't get a welder to my house. Hopefully I can minimize fitment issues with careful planning. The only welding will be to the underside of the nosecone. I'm going to bolt a rear crossmember to the individual arms and the receiver tube. This won't be the most rigid set up but it will be plenty strong.

Here is my plan. Use 3" tubing for the the tongue and tie it into a frame cross member. I have the same 2" receiver and plan to use it on the rear of the trailer.

That looks really, really nice. How far will the tongue extend in front of the "A"?


Matt

 

[snowblind]

Looking good!

Thanks Blacky. So much good info and good ideas on this forum.


Matt

 

[RagnarD]

Not sure how far to extend it yet. Since I plan to use a channel mount, I will start out long (probably around 3'). I can cut off the channel/shorten as needed.

I would not weld the extension off the trailer. They are not perfect and you may end of with a crooked extension. Bolting it all back together and taking the entire trailer to the weld shop will probably give a better result.

 

[snowblind]

Welding!

Got the nose cone and receiver welded. We have a heavy-duty shop at my work and I exchanged a couple of favors.









Here it is mocked-up/upside-down to show how it will be assembled. The side arms are the wrong-way-up in this shot but you get the general idea.



We cut a piece of angle to use as a support for the rear of the receiver tube. The plan is to attach the arms to the trailer, bolt up the nose cone, slide this angle between the bottom of the side rails and the receiver tube and then bolt the receiver to the angle with a u-bolt and bolt the angle to the side arms with thru-bolts.



I'm going to paint it this weekend with a rattle can. The forecast is for rain so I doubt I will be doing any assembly.


Matt

 

[Phoenix]

This is exactly the modification I have been trying to figure out. I am planning on swapping from surge brake to ebrake and going with a max coupler set up. This is the last part of the swap I was trying to figure out.

My only question is , assuming the tire sizes on the trailer and tow vehicle are the same, if the receiver tube is below the A Frame, does that mean the trailer will be a bit higher in the front than the rear?

 

[snowblind]

This is exactly the modification I have been trying to figure out. I am planning on swapping from surge brake to ebrake and going with a max coupler set up. This is the last part of the swap I was trying to figure out.

My only question is , assuming the tire sizes on the trailer and tow vehicle are the same, if the receiver tube is below the A Frame, does that mean the trailer will be a bit higher in the front than the rear?

Hey Phoenix.

The trailer is always level until you attach it to the truck. What I mean by that is - once you jack the trailer tongue to "level" it is up to you to raise or lower the tow vehicle attachment point to KEEP the trailer level.

The 101A3 was designed to attach level to a HMMWV. If I swapped tires on the trailer AND the HMMWV everything would still line up. But instead of tires, I swapped a Chevy Suburban for the HMMWV so nothing lines up now. This is actually good because the trailer is still HIGHER than my 2500 Suburban even after the tire change.

In the end I anticipate that I will still need to RAISE the hitch on my Suburban by 2-3" to have the trailer level when attached.


Matt

 

[snowblind]

Tail Lights

Got some tail light boxes in the mail today. They need further welding to be finished but I think they will turn out really pretty nice.

Here are a couple of photos held up to the front of the frame to show the size.








Matt

 

[Xrunner]

Nice progress! Are you planning on using LEDs for the brake and marker lights?

 

[snowblind]

Nice progress! Are you planning on using LEDs for the brake and marker lights?

Yes. Truck-Lite 6" oval in the boxes and Truck-Lite Model 35 in the little armored mounts. Waiting on the UPS truck...


Matt

 

[snowblind]

Lock N' Roll

Coupler arrived today. Seems like the only real contenders for off-road hitches are the MaxCoupler and the Lock N' Roll. I went with the Lock N' Roll due to more options provided at time of purchase. I could have easily created the same set up with the MaxCoupler + some standard trailer parts but not in a single purchase like with Lock N' Roll.

My final choice was a 15" long coupler on the trailer side and a vehicle coupler with 2.5" lift. This should provide some additional clearance between the tow vehicle and the tongue and bring the trailer up to perfectly level. I have to admit though that it's all sort of a wild-*** guess.

Here's a couple of picks with the couple inserted. Nice thing is I can always switch to a shorter/longer coupler if I want/need.





Couple of shots of how it all works.





Ended up at EXACTLY 3 feet from front of nosecone to center of coupler attachment.






Matt

 

[snowblind]

Prime Time

Spent the weekend grinding, prepping and painting. I'm hoping the effort will pay off with good looking paint for years to come.

The steel on the M101A3s is all galvanized. I could actually see the galvanizing when sanding some areas for welding. The paint came off easily with a flapper disk but then a darker finish remained that was much harder to sand. Galvanized metal is toxic to work on so always wear a respirator. I sanded all the rust and loose paint and then did a heavy-duty degreasing.

After a night of drying I turned to chemical enhancement...



This is a 3M product. Goes on thin and milky white. Converts rust to a hard black primer. I used this on the inside of the nose-cone where there was a lot of inaccessible rust.

Next up was primer. I chose a self-etching "weldable" primer from Seymour Paint because it's the closest thing to the galvanized finish that came from the factory. It is also technically a finish coat in that it requires no immediate top-coat to prohibit corrosion.



I had not used this particular Seymour primer before. I read good reviews on Amazon and the size of can looked to be a slightly better value so I gave it a shot. All I can say is "WOW!" The primer sprayed easily, covered well and set up very, very smooth. The results after only coat and no sanding were very pleasing.





I still need to prime the two tongue arms and then it's Valspar Tool and Implement Paint in gloss black on everything.


Matt

 

[RagnarD]

Extension looks good. That is some serious prep work. I hate grinding or welding the paint on these trailers. Even if I get down to bare metal, the paint on the other side will still burn/smoke a little bit.

 

[Mark Harley]

The CARC paint is wicked stuff Don't breath it in.
I sanded any bad spots and wiped the tub down with thinner to clean off any grease.
Shot it in the back yard and it has held up well.

 

[snowblind]

The CARC paint is wicked stuff Don't breath it in.
I sanded any bad spots and wiped the tub down with thinner to clean off any grease.
Shot it in the back yard and it has held up well.

Love that red tub!

The whole deal is really nasty. Not sure if CARC is worse than the galvanizing but they are both nasty. I do know that heavy metal poisoning is no fun. After goggling "welding shivers" I make sure to wear a respirator for all grinding and welding.


Matt

 

[RagnarD]

Have you fit your tail lights on the rear yet? I wanted to get boxes like that but the bed brackets were in the way. I am just going to use the mil light brackets and replace with LED lights.