1951 m104 Trailer

Here's one you don't see too often, a 1.5 ton m104 trailer. It's in pretty good shape and has the original cargo body with front gate, landing leg, and data tag. It has m105 racks on it now but I have some of the Canadian m104 side racks to use with it, I'll just need to find the front and back double swing gates.
Hopefully I'll be able to bring it home in the next month or so.

I like it. The only type of 105 trailer I would want. Is it a Fruehauf? And a set # 7 to boot!

It is a Fruehauf. I figured it would sit in the yard just as good as my m105 that I’ll never use either.
Hopefully I’ll make a deal on the wrecker set as well and that will come home with it.

Nice find. Doesn't look like to much rust.

I think Fruehauf designed the 104/105 trailer, sort of like Reo did the M34/35. All the super early trailers seem to be Fruehaufs.

Tracer said:

Nice find. Doesn't look like to much rust.

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It's not bad at all considering the age and location. From what I could tell the box needs very little welding. I'm sure like a lot of trailers it didn't see much use in service and it has certainly faired well in civilian life seeing how the hitch and landing leg haven't been messed with.

I took a look at the side racks today, I have a stack of them but they're all for the left side. Luckily just like on m101s and other trailers they're interchangeable if you flip the top board so I just need to find some gates.
I'm guessing the bows are identical to m105 bows so no problems there either.

We finally went and picked this up yesterday. The wrecker set worked great to unload 7 Jeep engines sitting in the trailer. We put on bolster tires to drop it down and added some lights and longer safety chains. It towed great for the 350 mile trip. I'll get some more pics once it's unloaded and pressure washed.

I like the bolster tires, where would a person buy 3 of those? They seem to be a nice swap out.

Mine were on a trailer that I bought from an SS member. I think Kublo's Surplus in PA was selling the wheels on ebay, not sure if they still are or not. They drop the trailer down quite a bit but they also stick out a few inches or so on either side.

Nice find!

Some more pictures. The bed actually does need a fair bit of welding which is to be expected I guess. The rear tailgate needs quite a bit of work too but I picked up an NOS m105 gate with it that at a glance looks the same with just a couple small changes needed. I also got a couple canvas covers marked 1.5 ton trailer, so hopefully that's true and they're in usable shape. If it is then the only thing major I'll need to find are the wooden gates that go with the racks. It looks like some brake stuff underneath is missing too.

I got the lunette out since that needed to be flipped back up, removed the tailgates, and test fitted the m105 gate. That will work good after welding on some new brackets for the hooks, welding up the mystery squares and a couple other minor changes. After a bit of clean up the canvas covers will work fine and be a nice touch vs the later vinyl. I just threw the one pictured on to wash and dry it, the racks aren't seated all the way down so it looks like it doesn't fit right.

The only other thing I'll probably get done soon is separating the cargo body from the frame. It's both bolted and welded from the factory. After that I'll have to get some work done on other projects.

What was the purpose of the front gate? They had to have some specific need to have created the M104.

clinto said:

What was the purpose of the front gate? They had to have some specific need to have created the M104.

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My question exactly. I am going to guess that they were not very popular based on the fact they only made them for a few years while the M105 lived on

clinto said:

What was the purpose of the front gate? They had to have some specific need to have created the M104.

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To carry a larger generator set, for ventilation. I think this was a lesson learned from placing the PE95 in Ben Hur 1 ton trailers in WWII.

The TM doesn't specifically state a reason for the front gate. It would be nice for a genset if you needed the clearance to work on it. An article in MV magazine stated that the front tailgate was to allow the trailer to haul long cargo and poles. It would add a little over 3 feet of usable space but then you could really only haul a single pole or similar centered at the hitch or else it would interfere with the bumperettes on the towing vehicle. I don't see a reason to use the front gate to haul something only a foot or two over the length of the cargo bed vs hanging over the rear gate instead. The same article said the front tailgate was phased out because it made the trailer weaker which I could believe.
Then again the article has some errors as well...

Is there anyone still on the forum that has an m104 with the wood gates? I could use some measurements of the hardware so I can make something as close to correct as possible.