Picked up an MKT-85 today

Today I picked up the MKT-85 I recently won on GL and for the first time I'm actually asking myself the question outsiders always seem to ask about our military toys "What are you going to do with that?". The 120 mile recovery went fine. It was a very windy day with 30 mph gusts but I just stayed under 55 and it pulled fine. I took the advise of rumplecat and wrapped it with stretch wrap before the trip home. I did have to stop a few times and used a whole role of duct tape fixing the stretch wrap.

When I got home I just had to see what all was in it so I started pulling things out. Next thing you know I have stuff laying every where, not thinking about how much fun it was going to be to put it all up tonight. I am totally worn out but I had to post some pictures.

Here a more pictures:

And more pictures:

The last few pictures:

I impressed!!

Cheers

Looks like you have most of the equipment that comes with the trailers. The MBU burners burn diesel fuel and the electrical runs off the cables and the transformer box. The burners goes into the ovens for baking and the other units act as stove burners. The water cooler are for mixed drinks not milk. There is technical manuals for the Mkt trailer and there are you tube movies on how to set up the trailer. One hint you need to add straps from the roof awning to the floor because without the sides in place the wind will pick up the awning and pull the tent poles out of the floor peg holes. Do not stand on the rear deck without the outrigger legs down. You have a $100,000.00 GI hot dog cooker or chillie cooker. Have fun! Mark

so when is the next BBQ at your place...lots of goodies with this rig.......what side does the Ice cream on....

Looks like you have the BII and in some cases double the BII. You done very good! Only down note that I could see is that your rear carry cover is nylon and has faded badly. The Army went with the vinyl because the nylon, after it fades, gets real stiff, then disintegrates without provocation. If you remove the fuel can carriers, you can then use a front carry cover on the back, giving you a wider choice when purchasing a replacement.

What a haul, you can have a sale to sell off what you don't need to help pay for the original purchase! Nice win!

Had a few more minutes this evening to look over things. I see that the end of my only 4 branch 24v cable is bad (even though there is a tag attached which says "works" with a smiley face). I should be able to splice a good connector from one of the extra cables.

I also started lookimg through all of the vinyl, nylon, and canvas covers. I still need to identify what all is there but I did find that there is a brand new nylon front travel cover.

Also found 2 new cutlery rolls.

More pictures. Did the government really pay $145,000 for these trailers?

Here is the most amazing find. For some reason there was a brand new vehicle heater packed inside the trailer. Based on an SS thread it appears to be for an M939. Just last week my deuce sprung a big leak in the heater core and I found out they are hard to find. Well, the housing on this one is different than the deuce but the heater core is same except that the hose connections have a bend instead of facing up. So I got a brand new heater core for my deuce. How cool is that?



http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?115488-m939-Heater-Core&p=1450267&viewfull=1#post1450267

Thanks for the information on being able to use a front travel cover on the back. My back cover is starting to fall apart but I found that I have an extra brand new front cover. It is the less desirable nylon type but I won't complain.

SCSG-G4 said:

Looks like you have the BII and in some cases double the BII. You done very good! Only down note that I could see is that your rear carry cover is nylon and has faded badly. The Army went with the vinyl because the nylon, after it fades, gets real stiff, then disintegrates without provocation. If you remove the fuel can carriers, you can then use a front carry cover on the back, giving you a wider choice when purchasing a replacement.

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Nicely loaded. Looks like you're missing one set of stairs but you have an extra griddle which is more than a fair trade. Was this one of the MS MKTs that just sold on GL or did you get it from a private party?

Actually I do have the 3rd set of stairs. I was using it on the back of the trailer when I took the picture of the other two. I did get this from GL. I didn't realize at first that there was only supposed to be one griddle. I just started going through the TMs and I still have a lot to learn about theses trailers.

mkcoen said:

Nicely loaded. Looks like you're missing one set of stairs but you have an extra griddle which is more than a fair trade. Was this one of the MS MKTs that just sold on GL or did you get it from a private party?

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Happyland1410 said:

Actually I do have the 3rd set of stairs. I was using it on the back of the trailer when I took the picture of the other two. I did get this from GL. I didn't realize at first that there was only supposed to be one griddle. I just stated going through the TMs and I still have a lot to learn about theses trailers.

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For my first MKT I actually bought a second griddle. You get a whole lot more use out of two of them than the open burners. If you're doing a breakfast meal you can cook eggs and bacon on one and pancakes on the other or for lunch have about 50 burgers cooking at the same time.

Pictures 1 and 8 are roof canopies, picture 9 is the rain gutter, used when two MKT's are setup back-to-back to keep rain from splashing down on people moving from one trailer to the other. From the color, it looks like the front carry cover in picture 5 is nylon. There is nothing inherently wrong with the nylon covers, so long as they are kept out of sunlight (UV Rays) in storage. Leave them outside all the time and you will be replacing them!

Happyland1410 said:

More pictures. Did the government really pay $145,000 for these trailers?

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Yes. The MBU's are $3000 each, inverter about the same, so that's $21,000, the pots in the M-59 range are a couple of hundred apiece, the squarehead pan retails for about $350, the stainless can opener retails for over $550. The complete M-59 is over 4 grand with all the utensils, knives, etc. The 19 pieces of canvas/vinyl cost over 7 grand. Upgrading it to be carried as a sling load by a chopper was not cheap. The four inch lip griddles and the grease guards - about $500. It all adds up!

SCSG-G4 said:

Yes. The MBU's are $3000 each, inverter about the same, so that's $21,000, the pots in the M-59 range are a couple of hundred apiece, the squarehead pan retails for about $350, the stainless can opener retails for over $550. The complete M-59 is over 4 grand with all the utensils, knives, etc. The 19 pieces of canvas/vinyl cost over 7 grand. Upgrading it to be carried as a sling load by a chopper was not cheap. The four inch lip griddles and the grease guards - about $500. It all adds up!

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Thanks for all of the information! I have a lot to learn about these. I think my next step (time and weather permiting) is to open it all up, inventory everything, and see if the inverter works to power up the MBU's and check their condition. It appears that I have a few missing items but also several duplicate items.

It looks like I have 2 or 3 different types of the big can openers. How many different types are there?

My wife really thinks I have lost my mind with this one. She just asked jokingly from the next room "Are you in the kitchen again?".

they are very fun to get into.. i dont cook and im having a blast with them