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| This thing has some sack... |
Hope everyone enjoyed Memorial Day weekend and took some time to honor those that served our country and celebrated with a BBQ. We spent our evening grilling out on the roof with our friends, enjoyed great views, perfect weather, good food, and tasty mojitos all night long. Even had some fun reminiscing over some old military photos from my scrapbook during the USMC days...how time flies!
Anyway, in our continual efforts to become completely self sufficient and
mobile, we've been wanting to purchase a trailer for over a year now. While I scour
Pinterest.com for ideas, Matt combs through the Government Liquidation
site looking for anything that might suit our needs for the gold claim,
camping, travel, or the Zombie Apocalypse. You know that's coming
right? People in the news, chewing other people's faces off, getting
shot multiple times, and still chewing...sounds like a zombie to us! In
all seriousness, we've been wanting to get a trailer for quite sometime
now and were not impressed with the quality and price of the newer
civilian style trailers you can buy from your local trailer stores, Home
Depot, etc. We needed something that can go off road, take a beating,
and still tow like a dream on the highway while hauling a 3/4 ton of gear
and material. It just seems the new trailers are too delicate, flimsy,
lightweight, overpriced, and will probably bust an axle or something on some of the
rough terrain we traverse out in the desert. So after months of searching, debating, looking online, looking at trailers, etc., we decided that a military trailer would be the perfect fit!
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| Filling out the paperwork and legal stuff from the GL office. |
So....Matt and I have been working on a a little secret squirrel plan over the past few months...Operation Covered Wagon came together last week just in time for the Memorial Day weekend. After weeks and months of watching various military surplus trailer auctions online, we finally scored one for a price! It was fitting to be rescuing an old military trailer circa the 60's, from a slow death of deterioration in the hot Mojave desert with Memorial Day only a few days away. What better way to honor something than to breathe new life into it! This trailer was built in Michigan in 1968 by a tank manufacturer for the U.S. Army and who only knows where all it has been since it's days of military service? Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraq, Afghanistan...who knows? This trailer was in service while my dad was on duty with the U.S. Army Special Forces...I hope he knows how very proud of him I am for his service! What we can tell about this trailer, is that it has some dents, rust, and overall patina that shows it has served our troops well and will probably provide another 40 plus years of service for our needs!
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| Our trailer waiting to be picked up... |
Well back to the story, after watching many online auctions and being disappointed with the bidding and jacked up prices (people paying $900 and up for these newer trailers) we discovered these 1968 vintage trailers and figured nobody would bid too much on them due to their age...and we were mostly right! We decided on this one trailer in particular because it had a nice camo paint job, plus some kind of canister attached to it's side that none of the other trailers had. Matt figured that the canister thing would be a good place to store a bottle of booze or something! So we waited and bid at the last minute...and won..sight unseen! $421 bucks plus a 10% buyers premium whatever the hell that means? Still not a bad price for a trailer built for the Army by a tank manufacturer. For those of you who are interested, a little tidbit here for fun; we've all heard stories about how the government spends $300 dollars on a hammer, a thousand dollars on a toilet seat, etc...well, this trailer only cost the government and taxpayer $225,000 in 1968. No...just kidding!!! The government actually did pretty darn good here in our opinion. The original acquisition cost was $987 in 1968 and they basically received almost half of their money back in 2012...not too bad, especially with over 40 years of depreciation.
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| The mystery canister turned out to be a lot more than we expected! |
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| These rubber tires still have lots of life... |
Anyway, we fill out and submit our forms and are anxiously awaiting approval from the government to allow us permission to pick this thing up. Weeks go by and we finally get our approval to go pick it up from a military base in California. I guess we passed the test that proved we are not a threat to national security or something by purchasing this trailer? We schedule an appointment and show up on time and are so excited but are also very nervous about picking up a 43 year old, sight unseen trailer in who knows what kind of actual condition? Well, we bring tools, tow lights, air compressor, you name it, just in case! We meet the guy from the base and he directs us to the pick up area and actually loads the trailer onto our trailer hitch by picking up the whole thing with a forklift! Pretty impressive! However, we notice there are cobwebs on the tires and a little fluid leak on the ground...uh-oh. It turns out this thing has the original 1968 tires on it manufactured in Akron, Ohio. Since we have family ties not only to Akron, Ohio and also a family history with BF Goodrich tires in Ohio, I figured this was a good omen despite the cobwebs, dry rot, and 5lbs. of air pressure the tires held. We also determined the fluid leak was old fuel from a fuel tank that had been mounted on the undercarriage of the trailer...Bonus! The mystery canister that was unbeknown to us was actually the filler container for the fuel tank which was hiding underneath the trailer frame. Once we get that tank squared away, it will probably hold approximately 20 gallons of fuel that will help increase our travel range in remote areas or when we are out on the gold claim. We went ahead and did what we could to get the trailer roadworthy and headed back to Vegas...about 165 miles away....
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| Original manufacturer 1968 tires |
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| Bonus fuel tank on the undercarriage |
The return trip went smooth and flawless, the tires held up nicely and held the 30psi we pumped into the tire tubes before departure. That's why we enjoy, appreciate, and admire vintage items...the quality! We find it amazing that we could hook up to a 43 year old trailer and tow it back to Vegas without incident after this thing has sat for who knows how long? We're looking forward to giving this trailer some TLC and are looking forward to the adventures it will share with us down the road...
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| Tucked away in her new home... |
PS- We highly recommend Government Liquidation for your surplus needs! What a fun experience!
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