shakotankei's M101 CDN build

[shakotankei]

copying from my thread over on mud:

I've been searching for a 1/4 ton trailer for the last 2-3 years on various sites including my favorite Craiglist . I've contacted a bunch of people and seen a lot of 1/4 tons in various conditions, mostly banged up, rusted, and overpriced. The last year or so I've been searching heavily looking multiple times a day on different sites. Late February I managed to find a post on Clist for a M101CDN located out in Bakersfield within hours of it being posted. The price was a little on the higher end of what I wanted to pay but it was exactly what I've been looking for. got pictures of the trailer (ad didn't have any) to find out that this thing was in really great condition. Owner promised to give me "first shot at it" since I was traveling from Menifee and was genuinely interested so I ran out to Bakersfield super early in the morning with cash in hand and pintle hitch attached to the truck. This is what I ended up pulling home.




First thing I had done was drop the trailer off at Castle Fabrication in Irvine to get a lid made. Same dude that did Brentbba's lid. Few days later this is what I got.

 

[shakotankei]

Speeding right along heres some updates from may:



Painted the inside of the lid white.



painted the outside of the lid "dark taupe"



painted the trailer. copied Brentbba's paint scheme.



removed the dim military tail lights and replaced with some sleeved LED tails.

 

[shakotankei]

Lid reattached and struts installed.

 

[shakotankei]

From June:

California requires license plate light so I picked up some cheap LED deal from vatozone and painted it black.



works good enough



heres a picture from the SoCal Desert Rendezvous trip



heres a picture from June using it to do a storage unit run. riding a little high at the tongue.

 

[shakotankei]

Almost caught up! Heres some work from July

thule tracks and rack installed



Picked up a set of 80 series wheels off craiglist that weren't in great shape...



so I sand blasted and painted them



found some rubber for them



converted the hubs to lc pattern and threw them on

 

[shakotankei]

And here we are caught up to today :elkgrin:



Took it down to the shop to see how much it would cost to get the fenders extended out so they wont rub. Looks like its going to cost a couple hundred to have extension pieces bent up to go between the fender and the trailer.:Wow1: I didn't even bother to ask how much they'd charge to make new fenders. Maybe a shackle lift will get me the clearance? Don't really want to SOA if possible. Another suggestion was to trim the fenders but I don't know how that will look. Any suggestions?

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

Trailer looks great, and yes, the fender extension question.
Mine is the same, and I too am looking at options. A friend of mine is making some widened fiberglass reproduction fenders soon...will msg you when he gets the moulds made and a set goes on my CDN M101.
Looks great!

 

[hollaback55]

i ended up ordering a set of fenders from sierra 4x4. they fit perfect and look great. I had them widened 1" but thats b/c i'm running 37's probably could have gotten away with just slapping them on with no issues.

he's been having some issues lately with getting orders out and projects completed but when i ordered my fenders 9 mths ago they were in my hand 8 days later.

i believe the fenders were 125 bucks if i remember correctly.

 

[Mark Harley]

Very nice!
I like that paint scheme you did.
Bend up some fenders yourself.
Looks great with the cruizer.

Thanks for the idea about the license plate light, Pa requires one too.
It lights up nice.

 

[shakotankei]

Thought about bending up the extensions myself but my cheapy brake wont do 14-16ga. I doubt it would even do 18 well Been trying to find someone local in the IE that can do it or even make new fenders. I can't imagine it costing a whole lot to do 4 bends.

Yeah the license plate light is working pretty good. I think its made by PILOT. If you do end up picking one up I suggest taking it apart and changing out the hook up wire. The one it came with was SUPER thin like the stuff you'd find in a telephone cord.
I had mine apart because two of the leds in the array were dim/flickering right from the package so I ended up doing some soldering repair and changed the wire to something a little more durable.

Very nice!
I like that paint scheme you did.
Bend up some fenders yourself.
Looks great with the cruizer.

Thanks for the idea about the license plate light, Pa requires one too.
It lights up nice.

Here's an update from last weekend:

RTT attached







It needs a bath badly.
Now that the tent is on I can start making room for it to live in the garage instead of outside.

 

[k294]

Can I ask where you sourced your electrical stuff? I'd like to replace my hacked up wiring with an all new loom, including the LED lights and stainless sheaths like you have. Thanks for any pointers.

 

[shakotankei]

My apologies I didn't see that question until just now . If anyone was still interested in what I used here goes:

The trailer came wired with I believe was a 5 round plug replacing the original plug so I just chopped off that whole side and wired in one of these
It just looks cleaner vs wiring up at the plug head itself. nice rubber molded plug just seems more durable than a hard plastic plug.

I replaced the dim military tail lights with these. Huge improvement in visibility.
I originally wanted to find some military tail lights that had LEDs in them but no luck finding them at a reasonable price.
I think the left marker has a clear section on the bottom that shines white light for the license plate bracket.
I didn't need it and couldn't disable the white light so I ended up spraying the bottom clear lense section with some rubberized underbody coating I used under the fenders on the trailer so the light wouldnt bleed out and look silly.

For the Loom stuff I ended up using some Techflex 3/8 braided expandable sleeving vs split loom. I hate the look of split loom with zip ties and
I had some extra sleeving from a previous electrical project. You can actually purchase this stuff off places like ebay for a couple bucks for 25 feet sections.
I think I paid like 14 bucks for a 50 foot section recently.

For the License plate light I purchased one of these Be warned though these aren't the best quality.
I actually had to take it apart and resolder some of the Lights because one end of it was flickering and dim out of the box.
That and the wire gauge coming out of was like the thin stuff you'd find inside a telephone cord. So I had taken it completely apart and ended up spraying the chrome black to match my trailer.

Hope that helps anyone rounding up these parts for a build.:wavey:

 

[shakotankei]

And the reason I went back into my thread. Some update pictures:

Picking up a new tent @ SoCal Mountain Rendezvous Oct 2012


Death Valley trip Nov 2012





Result of almost flipping the trailer in Death Valley






New Reflectors


At Overland Expo 2013


photo by Desert Magazine
Heading home from OVX 13

 

[west_ok]

Nice build! That paint scheme looks awesome!

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

A sharp looking trailer to be sure.