M116A3 Build

[lfhoward]

Today I noticed that my solar panel wasn’t putting out much electricity. Turns out it was coated with dirt! I cleaned it off, then did a bit more on the trailer sides so the trailer didn’t look as dirty. The roof... still needs a lot of scrubbing. But at least the batteries will stay charged now!

[lfhoward]

Lighting upgrade: reading lights.

New vs. Old. The LED light on the left came from a company called Oz-USA.


What they look like installed. New on left, old on right.


The color is a bit bluer for the new bulb, redder for the old. The brightness is comparable.


Both new bulbs installed. I lose the frosty look of the old bulbs, but...


The amp draw with both reading lights on doesn’t even register now. Prior to changing them out, the old bulbs drew an amp apiece and became extremely hot when in use.

[noseoil]

Looks really nice now, good job sticking with it & doing the job right!

[lfhoward]

Looks really nice now, good job sticking with it & doing the job right!

Hey thanks for checking back in!! It was always great to get your feedback on my build as we were both building at the same time. Was that back in 2015?! Wow, time flies. The Tucson Tortoise still looks great too! Amazing you have so many miles on it already. Mine probably has under 10K on it at this point, maybe closer to 5K miles. Time for new tires soon. Mine were used tires when I got them, and although there is still some usable tread, they are aging out.

[lfhoward]

The build continues... at a slow pace! Winter vacation for us teachers is a good time for puttering in the workshop, as long as it’s after the holidays. I have a bit of time before school starts up again, so I chose to work on something small.

The big picture is I want to finish building the side cargo doors for my trailer, which I’ve mentioned at several points in this thread. That seems to be a long term goal, but I thought to myself that if I could finish the doors this winter, I’d be more likely to install them this spring when the weather warms up.



One thing holding me up was difficulty cutting precise 45° angles on my aluminum trim for the corners. Before we moved 2 years ago, I borrowed my neighbor’s mitre box and hack sawed trim pieces by hand. I really wasn’t looking forward to that job again, so I made a jig to hold the trim while I could cut it with a jig saw.





The jig is made out of some spare pieces of 2x4’s and some deck screws. It functions like a vise to hold the trim by squeezing it, and the tightness can be adjusted by the screws. I also use a clamp to hold down the trim as a secondary safety measure, because I don’t want pieces of it flying across the room or into me while sawing. Eye protection while cutting anything is a good idea, but is an absolute must when cutting metal.

I cut my first length of T-molding tonight after supper and it works! The cutting process is pretty loud though and I figured I’d hold off doing the rest until the neighbor’s young kids aren’t sleeping. It’s super easy to do, which makes me more motivated to finish this part of the build. There are outside-facing T moldings and inside-facing L-moldings on these doors. Lots of cutting to go, which is why I didn’t want to hand-cut them.

Once all the T-moldings & L-moldings are cut to length, the next steps are:
- Test fit and file down sharp edges.
- Drill screw holes in the molding and door edges.
- Counter sink screw holes.
- Test fit everything again just to be sure.
- Disassemble, and assemble again using Sikaflex to permanently seal the trim pieces to the doors and make the edges waterproof.

[lfhoward]

Made a little more progress today. I cut all the T-moldings to shape, then drilled and installed them temporarily. Everything will come apart later and get Sikaflexed before it becomes permanent.

The 45° Jig works great.


These are the L-molding and T-molding strips that go on the doors.


Test fitting the T-moldings. They look identical but they’re not. Each is slightly different because the doors are not quite perfectly rectangular.




Drilled, countersunk, and screwed in place.


I filed down the corners and sharp edges. Don’t want anyone getting lacerated or impaled.


L-molding sitting in place. This will be another day’s work.

[lfhoward]

Today I got around to cutting and drilling the last of the aluminum trim for my cargo doors. It’s all dry-fitted together, ready for Sikaflex 221. I found the spare tube of Sikaflex I had left over from the build and it expired in 2016! So I guess I won’t be using that.

[lfhoward]

New tires for the Liberty and camping trailer today!

BFG KO2 245/75R16

[S. Heisley]

Wow! Mr Moneybags, they look great!

[lfhoward]

Wow! Mr Moneybags, they look great!

Thanks Sharon! Yes, credit cards are grand. Will be paying them off for a few months. The thing is I found an amazing sale with money back and free installation, so I basically got the 2 trailer tires for free. The Jeep had 95,000 miles on the last set of tires, so it was definitely time. What a difference! It feels like a brand new vehicle. Quiet, smoother over bumps, better traction around corners (especially in the rain)... I didn’t realize just how bad the former tires had gotten until today.

[lfhoward]

While getting the new tires put on, I became aware of another problem. One of the lugs was loose inside of the drum. So after taking the drum off, this is what we saw:



Yes, the hub is cracked!



Oxidation of the metal in the crack shows it’s been there a while. If it just broke, it would be silver.

Right now, I have a 7-lug wheel on one side instead of 8. It holds, but I need to get this sorted before my next trip in February. I’m thinking a new hub and new races. Hopefully I can salvage bearings from the old hub, because they’re not very old.

Here are the part numbers so I don’t forget them.
Hub: 3040-01-139-9900 (NSN)
Races: 25520 & 2520
Grease seal: 1036

[S. Heisley]

Wow! Good thing you got new tires or that hub problem might not have been found in time and could have been a problem out on the road!

[lfhoward]

:shock: Wow! Good thing you got new tires or that hub problem might not have been found in time and could have been a problem out on the road!

Yes! I’m thinking that at minimum it would cause the vibration/rattle like with a severely off balance wheel at highway speed. I don’t want to shake up my trailer that much because it could lead to water leaks or worse. I don’t think the wheel would have come off or anything that drastic, unless there is another invisible crack in the casting. I’m not going to wait to find out. I’m researching options at the moment. I have a lead on a replacement hub on eBay, and am waiting for a quote from Eastern Surplus in Philly (a military vehicle repair & restoration shop). Hopefully they’ll call me back tomorrow with an estimate and I can make a decision.

[lfhoward]

I ordered a replacement hub on eBay and the races from Summit Racing. Once everything gets here (sometime after Feb 10), I’ll update about installation. I hope to transplant the wheel bearings over to the new hub, since they are pretty new. The goal is to have everything up and running by Feb 14 for our next winter camping trip!!!

[lfhoward]

The replacement military trailer hub got here tonight as did the races made by Timken. Since they’re here several days earlier than expected I’ll see if the shop can do the job sooner! More to come.