Expedition Trailer Build

 The trailer is at the fabricators now and work is coming along swimmingly. We are now proud owners of a tailgate, trailer lid, fenders, mounting plates for our taillights and a counter with Expedition Family laser cut onto it.

 Nice tight tailgate clearance. Now to figure out the sealing.

Counter with laser cut.

  Lid tacked together.

 Tail light mounts with fenders and lid.

Trailer Preperation and Building

We received our m101cdn from a local DND surplus supplier in Kelowna, BC. it was very convenient for us, only around 10 minutes from our home. Upon taking delivery of the triler it looked to be in near prestine condition, which is quite rare. On a cold January afternoon when our children had gone down for naps, Andrea and I went out to tackle the necessary trailer preparation to get it modification ready.
we first removed the tiedown points -- all 14 of them, then the fenders as we would be replacing them with much more robust items.

I noticed that the automotive seam sealer was allowing water to penetrate behind it and just sit their, this was starting some rust and would leave us with a less then desirable situation down the road when the rust would inevitably return unless completely removed and sealed the affected area. it actually took several days of attacking the whole area with a wire brush on a drill and a gasket scraper. The end result should be that with proper maintenance we wont have rust appearing for many years in the future.

We arranged to drop the trailer off at the fabricators on Feb26th 2011 to have the following engineered, built and installed.

Sealed lid with three cross bars, Aluminum counter with Expedition Family laser cut into it, Wider and stronger fenders, A nose box to house all the electrical, Extended trailer leg to match the new height, A tailgate and a 2" receiver on the rear (recovery point, stabilizer mounting, bike rack) pictured are the plans.

Once finished the fabrication stage all parts will be removed sent to the painters for sandblasting and powder coating. We are still debating the need to have the inside of the box bed lined.

I sourced a really nice sealed Phillips brand trailer wiring harness from Cerka trailer in Ontario, I think that with the types of muddy and rocky terrain we will be using this trailer in it will be a necessity to install electric trailer brakes, so i also ordered a Prodigy 2, 3axis brake controller for the Frontier as well as the necessary 7pin connection kit to control the whole system.

Things are really starting to come together now, summer is a few short months away and we are really excited to share our adventures with you.

Jonathan Gleadle