A Blog About Land Rovers and Living in Oklahoma
My good friend JagGuy, who you may know from his site XM381.com or my frequent mentions of his genius when it comes to automotive knowledge, has an interesting hobby. He has a business where he bobs the venerable Duece and a Half’s that were so prevalent in the last century with our military. I drove one at the 1984 Combined Arms Exercise at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Continue reading “3 Ply Tires are for Sissies* (Post #489) 4/24/2014”
I made it home. I’ll start with that because between Chickasha and Blanchard Oklahoma I wasn’t sure I’d be home tonight.
The drive down was totally uneventful. The temperature today was supposed to be nearly 100 degrees (F). Clouds were out and the temps weren’t bad. The winds however were brutal as they were blowing into a storm in the north part of the state. The BWB (Big White Bus) does highway like no other car I’ve ever owned. She cruises at 85mph with little or no effort. The fun part of that is the suspension and how she dances all over the road. She didn’t used to behave like that. But after today I have decided that the springs and shocks all have to be replaced. Something isn’t right with the suspension and how she bounces all over the road has to be the combination of the springs and shocks and the bushings being worn out.
I will apologize for not taking pictures before I describe the next part of the trip. Taking pictures on a military base makes people nervous. I was nervous doing it and I didn’t want anyone nervous watching me do it. So with that I took one picture while on base.
I arrived at Key Gate well ahead of schedule. I was a little concerned about time but then again I’ve never driven to the Key Gate exit at 85mph. When I used to drive down there while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve we never went over 40 mph.
I was warned that at the gate I would need my vehicle registration, which in Oklahoma is the equivalent to the vehicle title. I was told to have my insurance verification, no problem that is required by Oklahoma law. When I got to the gate the security guard scanned my driver’s license with a hand held scanner and said, “drive safely”. That was it. I was a bit disappointed. I went through the gate.
I was given excellent directions by Joe the night before. So I ignored the directions I had looked up on the internet. I called the number I was told to and they gave me the same directions they did on the phone. I was nervous until I started seeing the street signs. Sure enough, Seawright was the correct road. Cathy told me to go in the gate marked military vehicles only and wait.
I pulled up right in front of the trailers and waited. My trailer as it turned out was just out of the picture to the left.
Cheryl arrived with another customer and got them hooked up with an M105. I dropped Joe’s name right off but it wasn’t necessary. She said, “Joe buys all kids of stuff and was a great guy.” She was great to talk to and the deal was done with just a signature on her paper. She didn’t even ask to see my copy.
My hook-up required me to off road it back behind the trailers over busted up concrete and weeds. “Matt” helped me get the trailer hooked up and they said thanks.
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I made sure the safety chains were hooked up. It took a little bit of wrapping to get the chain length just right. I checked the emergency brakes but I don’t think they work. I pulled out of the yard and stopped to make sure the tarps were all tied down. That was smart as several of them were not tied down. It doesn’t take long flapping in the wind for the tarp to be torn up.
I headed out and back to Sheridan to get off base. I thought for sure there would be someone there to verify that I had purchased the military property I had attached to my Rover. But again, I was disappointed and surprised when I drove straight out the gate. When the budget our government’s budget was really low back in the early 1980s Fort Sill didn’t even staff Key Gate. I’d have to say it was only just staffed today.
I decided to skip the turnpike on the way home and took the state highways. I wasn’t sure how fast I would be able to travel and thought if I broke down or had trouble I’d rather not be on the turnpike. Besides I’m sure there is an additional charge for the extra axle on the turnpike and because I have a PikePass I didn’t really know how that would all work. State highways have more to see anyway.
I stopped at the first intersection with a gas station
A) to wash my hands which were covered with oil from the chain, and
B) to get something cold to drink, 90 degree water is not very refreshing.
Here she is. That is the Porter Hill intersection in the background. I think I can live with that. When I get upgraded springs I think the ride will be perfect.
You can see the monster HMMWV tires. That is possibly a good place to start to lighten up the trailer. I’m hoping I can shave a few pounds off the trailer weight.
I got a cold drink and got back on the highway. I didn’t choose a very scenic drive home but I did snap some pics along the way. These are not in order.
 Bluffs outside Verden |
 Fire truck in Anadarko |
 Indian City, USA |
 A plateau outside Cyril |
One of the first tourist attractions my parents took us to after we returned to Oklahoma from Guam, was Indian City, USA. It was supposed to mean a lot to me because as my adoptive parents said, “I was a Cherokee Indian”. My parents didn’t know anything about being an indian, and at that age neither did I. Well as I was to learn, Cherokees didn’t live anywhere near this place. This was a place for the Southern Plains tribes. In fact, some Tonkawas were massacred on or near this site. There is no good link for the Indian City site that I could find. This is to be expected, as the museum is now owned by the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. And they are notorious for a poor web presence.
I faced some serious head winds when I got outside Chickasha. At least 20 mph+ and there were gusts above 30 mph. This took its toll on my transmission. I was not able to go faster than 60mph in fourth gear. I could kick it down to third and get up to 65 mph, but as soon as I got back to fourth gear my speed would drop back down.
I’m guessing the transmission was not performing as it should. I will be investigating that further when I take the Rover down for another round of restoration, real soon. At a minimum I’m going to add some additional transmission cooling. It’s always a good idea in this climate. I will need to get the transmission in for a fluid change and possible service too.
After a what seemed to be a long drive I finally got the trailer home. There it is behind the house. I will be constructing a gate soon. I was able to drop a panel and park it on the side yard in the back. My neighborhood would not tolerate the trailer parked out front for very long.
Rooster was excited and wanted to pose on the tongue for some strange reason.
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There is Rooster macking it for the ladies. I’m not sure what that means. He has a girlfriend too so I’m not sure what “ladies” he is macking. And there is my dear patient wife, with her monagramed MiMi t-shirt on. Who as you can probably tell, looks mostly disappointed. Rooster noticed it too. Her comments were not approving.
“Where are you going to park it?”
“How are you going to get it through the fence?”
“I thought it would be smaller.”
And with that, she was back in the house. It was only a concept to her and now that it is a reality she will have to warm up to it. So I have a gate to put in the fence. No biggy.
After my inspection of the trailer there is some surface rust and some missing paint. My buddy JagGuy called me while I was typing this blog entry. He buys an automotive paint that is real close in shade and superior in its appearance and said he always has some left over. I’m sure I could get the rust off and the spots primed and the next time he is spraying one of his M35s I’m sure we could spray my trailer. Check out his site. As he said, when his Range Rover busted a drive shaft and took out the casing on the transmission, he pulled it to the shop with a “real 4×4”. I told him with a former 6×6 and we each had a chuckle. We are such nerds.
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The tires are huge! Well 37 inch anyway. They are mounted on split rims, which is pretty cool. So if I were to carry a spare, I would only need to carry a tire and not a rim. These tires can be swapped without even unloading the trailer. JagGuy said used tires could be had for around 85$(US). That is going to make me think long and hard about swapping them out. I will have to pack a deep well socket for the new nuts on the rims.
I’m not sure what the item in the next picture is, but it is obviously damaged. It seems still functional so I’m not how important it will be to replace. Perhaps a post on one of the militaria web sites will answer what it is. I will also be looking for the manual for this trailer which I’m sure is available online.
The transmission issue seems more important now after talking with JagGuy. My thoughts were the fluid needed to be cooled more. His thoughts were more that the fluid is either burned or there is something wrong with the transmission. So it seems I’ll be having a shop check that out. I can check to see if the fluid is burned. If it is, that’s not good news. There is a slight chance that replacing the fluid will make it better, but a transmission service would probably tell me more. It is time for it as I think it was at least 60,000 miles ago that I had trouble with the torque converter. It might even have been 80,000 miles ago. Which in my mind would be time for a fluid change.
Over all it was excited to be back on the base. All that militaria and being back on the base I spent most of my USMCR hitch on was great. I passed the old chow hall that we were able to eat Sunday morning breakfasts at. I wrote about that in my military biography. Western omelettes are still my favorite.
So today was exciting and fun and a learning experience. More later, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
I ventured up north to JagGuy’s shop to discuss the trailer pick up on Monday. He has my bill of sale. So I stopped by to make sure he sent it and to talk about the safety chains for the new trailer.
We talked about lunettes and chain. I’m going to utilize the tie down rings under the rear of the Range Rover for my safety chains. I bought two lengths 2.5 foot of 3/8th chain and some lunettes from Tractor Supply. Man do I love some Tractor Supply. I actually am angry at my forefathers for failing to secure a gigantic piece property that would require me to visit Tractor Supply at least once a month.
I think I’m ready to get the trailer except for the directions. I have a number to call of a fellow who knows this system of Govliquidation.com and the location of the building I have to meet my contact at. As you remember her directions to me were lacking details, like an address, building number or actual names of the streets I need to use to meet her.
The way my friend JagGuy described them would be very much like the Soup Nazi from tv’s Seinfeld. If you don’t make your appointment EXACTLY on time. NO TRAILER FOR YOU, reschedule!
More after I pick up the trailer. Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
YES!
I have an appointment scheduled to pick up my new trailer for Monday. My directions are a bit dodgy as the gal I talked to with govliquidation.com at Ft. Sill was pretty vague about street names and didn’t have an address or building number for the location of my trailer. Thankfully they have a map on their site. Unfortunately it doesn’t follow any of the directions she gave me. The brave soldiers guarding the gate will certainly know where I need to go. (fingers crossed)
I still have to put together my pintle hitch. I also have to hope that my old springs will be good enough and not sag too much when I hook up the trailer. Lots of pictures will be coming soon. Hopefully they won’t be sad pictures, but happy, good looking pictures of the Range Rover with a trailer attached.
Other good news this week…the doctor cleared me to do just about anything I want to considering my neck. Well okay, he said no football and that I should “use caution”. So I guess I’ll mark off,
from my effin’ bucket list. Damn it I would have looked great in Desert MARPATtm too. It’s been six months since my surgery and I can now take Ibuprofen based drugs again for my aches and pains. My wife, the nurse, said, “you’ve been mostly non-compliant so far so it doesn’t surprise me that your graft hasn’t fuzed.” Can you feel the empathy for my condition? Deep, deep down I know she loves me. Turns out 10% of them never do and as long as I’m not in pain, ROCK ON!
Well wish me luck, thanks again for reading and Happy Rovering.
Victory is mine!
Okay, I was the successful bidder on one of the trailers. 465$(US) and its all mine. I still have to get a pintle hitch setup for the Range Rover but by the end of the month I’ll have the trailer at the house.
I now have to get busy on mechanical repairs, mainly my viscous coupling. I am going to attempt to repair it either this weekend or next. I also have to fashion a gate in the back yard to store my trailer. I had dreams that I could store it on the side of the house. But sadly the builder gave me the wrong property lines and now I don’t think I have room for a gate. So I’ll have to pull it out through the field behind the house. That’s no big deal except I won’t be able to get to the trailer if it rains very much.
But hey! I have a trailer. I have already been thinking about a battery system and some modifications. It would be nice if I could store the propane tank on the tongue and have a place to store batteries to power lights and such.
Well if you have not been living under a rock you should have seen by now some video of the hail storms of May 16th, 2010. Unreal only barely describes the ferocity of this storm.
The white stuff in the middle isn’t rain. It’s hail. A veritable column of hail falling from the sky.
You can search YouTube for more videos. The damage throughout the city was horrible. Thankfully we didn’t get any of this in Norman. I was driving home from my father-in-law’s house. The sky to the North was black. As I turned on to Robinson to head west I felt the temperature drop 20 degrees. My friend has a great pic of the hail in his step-son’s driveway.
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As my friend GiGi said on Facebook after the tornadoes blew through, “You have to be made of tough stuff to live in Oklahoma.” I couldn’t have said it better GiGi.
I’ll post up some pics from the trip to pick up the trailer and such later in the month.
Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.
We are going after one of these. Its an M101A1 3/4 ton trailer. I have thought about getting a trailer for a couple of years, as you regular readers know. I have looked at all manner of trailers, every thing from Sankey to M105s to M334 ammo trailers.
I have recently been trolling the GOVLIQUIDATION.COM website again for a trailer. Long gone are the days were you see a M416 on the site. Seemingly everything on earth is available via surplus from our government. I have dreamed about buying all manner of things from the site. I would love to have a Boston whaler. Or perhaps even a 26 foot whaler. How cool would that be tooling around the lakes of OKLAHOMA in such a craft?
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Pretty damn cool, I’ll tell ya.
Look through the site. There are a million things on there. Some have a really high cool factor. I know if you are like me you can imagine buying the stuff and just “playing with it”. If I ever do choose to get a boat you know I’ll be looking at those Boston whalers first and hoping I can get one with a weapon’s ring already mounted.
Today though, we are talking about trailers. Specifically an expedition quality trailer we can outfit for family camping. So lets get on to the candidates.
You can be sure that as the U.S. military begins to phase out its use of the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, also and better known as the Hummer, you will begin to see these gems come up for sale.
Behold the HMMWV trailer.
That is sexy. No really, that is very, very cool. I don’t have to tell you how sweet that would look being pulled behind the Range Rover. It will be interesting to see how much these bad boys go for at auction the first couple of years they begin being available. Pitfalls? Other than cost, they might be too wide. As you know if you have ever been in or near a Hummer, they are wide. Really, really wide. The trailers are no exception. You will not have trouble finding it in your mirrors as you plod along. If you are wondering if there is a version with tarps, yep they got those too.
Okay back to reality, what are our options. What are the pros and cons as I see it.
The Sankey trailer is obviously perfect for my situation. First, it is British. It would look great behind my Defender (well when I get one). But the problems with it are 45 mph top towing speed and they are EXPENSIVE. Try more than a thousand dollars (US) expensive. And lastly, they are rare in the United States.
Along those lines we have the Jeep trailers. These, as you might imagine, are more or less plentiful. There have been three basic versions of this trailer over the years. (From WikiPedia) The first trailer was called the “Trailer, 1/4-ton, 2W, cargo, Amphibian”. The second version which was built for the M38 jeep, was called the M100 trailer, and the third version, for the M151 MUTT was called the M416 trailer.
I remember the M416 from my Marine Corps days in the early 1980s. They will float, it is light weight, and it would be perfect for my needs. But the set backs are similar to the Sankey. In good condition they are expensive. I saw one at a State of Oklahoma surplus auction that eventually sold for 250$(US). It was beat up and in terrible condition. It would have taken three to four hundred dollars to get it right. It is not uncommon to see a trailer in this good condition top two thousand dollars (US).
The next logical candidate would seemingly be the M332 Ammo Trailer. Hey, its the right size. It looks sturdy. It has a lovely storage box already built into the tongue. They are fairly plentiful in the United States. What could possibly be wrong with these? Well I’ll tell ya. First they weight a ton. No, seriously, they weigh a little over ton. This trailer is capable of carrying 1.5 tons of ammo over rough ground. It was built to take the punishment and as you can see it is beefy. As far as costs go, these are cheap. You can get them starting around 300$(US). I thought about getting one and at the time of this post there is one on eBay in Central Alabama for 250$(US). It would cost me 250 dollars just to fetch it home so I’m looking closer to my hacienda for a trailer.
At first I thought about getting one of these and taking some weight off of it. You could change the springs and loose the stand on the tongue and yeah…never mind. I don’t know that I could get it down to an acceptable weight. Next!
There are a couple of options when we start talking about this style. They have different nomenclatures M103A2, M116A2, etc. They are mostly used with generators. I saw a few of these in OKC at ARS. He wanted 450$(US) for them. At the time that was my entire budget. They did have a bunch of jerry can mounts on them. That was a plus. And if you get the ones with metal tarp frames the options open up pretty well for roof tents or what have you. There are a few negatives. They are rare. They don’t have sides. I talked to the fellow who uses this one with his classic Toyota FJ. He loves it and had big plans for fitting it expedition style.
There is one more I felt like mentioning. The tool trailer. On the M116 platform they placed a tool box and boom shaka laka you have pure genius. The first time I saw this I thought, “I have to have it.” Perfect for what I want to do. I had all kinds of ideas for it. Flip out or slide out kitchen, television, lockable storage, seriously it would be great. There are a few set backs though. One of the uses I have for the trailer project is utilitarian. I intend to haul stuff in my trailer when it is not out fitted for camping. I don’t have a pickup truck any longer and I miss having a bed to haul dirt and lumber and firewood and appliances and all the stuff you use a pickup for. So while the tool trailer would be perfect for camping it is not so much for all the other things I want to use the trailer for.
I had a few problems with the tool trailer I felt I had to mention. They are rare. There was an government auction in Missouri a year or so ago. They had a few dozen of these. Since then I haven’t seen but one or two available. A fellow out in Binger, Oklahoma who has a few military vehicles for sale had a couple parked out there on his makeshift lot. He wanted 600$(US) and told me they go quick and are hard to get. I don’t know how much salesman talk that was or how much fact that was. They stand a little too tall. I know with regular size Rover wheels and perhaps a different spring setup they would ride lower but those are modifications that cost money. And at the time 600 dollars was way over my budget.
This all brings us to the last two candidates. The M105 and the M101.
The M105 is the big brother to the M101. With the major difference being the capacity. The M105 is capable of hauling 1.5 tons and the M101 has a 3/4 ton capacity. So with that you can imagine the construction of each trailer is built for those tasks. The M105 unloaded weighs 2,650 lbs. The M101 unloaded weighs 1,340 lbs. So you can see the major difference right there.
My friend JagGuy has been building bobbed M35 trucks of late. I believe he is on his third one. He uses the M105 bed to replace the ginormous bed that comes with the M35. It and the removal of a set of axles that give the M35 the bobbed look that is so popular today.
The M105 is perhaps the most plentiful trailer on the market today. Prices range all over from 200$(US) for a beater to past a thousand for a nice one. Any price close to 600$ is fair and what you might expect to pay for one.
The M101 is also a plentiful trailer. But my research does make them as plentiful as the M105. I think the hauling weight and the overall weight along with the price I hope to pay at auction, make this TODAY my ideal of a trailer for the combined hauling of camp gear and work around the house.
If my finances in the future allow me to have another trailer I would look strongly at the tool trailer again. It has more of the features I was hoping to have in an expedition trailer.
At one time I entertained ideas to build a trailer. I have lots of ideas floating around in my gray matter but I really don’t have the funds or space to build right now. I have to also say that camping is new to my family. We have never been camping together, not in this century any way. I am a historical reenactor and have camped in many centuries through my hobby. That style of camping does not appeal to my wife in the least. So with that being said we may or may not even like camping as a hobby.
My children are getting older as well. This camping thing evolved from a thought that my wife and I might like to begin RVing. But I imagine myself a more rugged individual. I thought I would like camping out in the wilderness more than on a concrete pad in an RV park.
Camping recharges my batteries. I’m not sure it would recharge me as much if I have to deal with Billy Joe Redneck next door to me listening to Lynard Skynard all day and night and his Rottweiler chained to the nearest tree while his 3 kids run around terrorizing the area. So I’m looking toward the west. I’m thinking off the beaten path. Hell I’m pulling whatever trailer I outfit with a bloody Land Rover. I SHOULD be off the beaten path. The spirit of Solihull demands it!
Wish me luck, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.