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JAX Blount Island recovery

Nonotagain

New member
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Location
Parkville, MD
Blount Island M101a3 and M116 recovery.

On Wednesday September 17, 2009, my EUC was approved to pickup a couple of trailers that I purchased from Government Liquidation. I planned on calling the BlountIsland location sometime on Thursday afternoon, but Jackie from GL Blount called me before I even got a chance.

I asked about what days were available and she informed me that any weekday was fine. I explained that I was driving down from Maryland and would like to get a Friday load-out, sure no problem, you want this Friday? No, could I please get the 25th? OK, the 25th it is.

On Thursday evening I drove from my house in Maryland to my Dad's house in Virginia, picked up my Dad and off to Blount IslandFlorida we went.

We got into Jacksonville Florida around 8:15 AM Friday morning and onto the BlountIsland base at 8:30 AM.

Blount Island is a location that Government Liquidation does not physically man; they have some arraignment with Honeywell, one of the contractors working on base for loading assistance.

The folks from Honeywell were having some type of meeting, so they would not do any loading until after 9:30. My point of contact was John and he did not appear to be in a good mood. Could have been the meeting or it could have been the little bumble bee looking vehicle he was driving.

There were three of us he escorted to trailers, "here sign this" and then pointed to the AS-IS WHERE-IS clause.

I asked him if it were possible to stack the trailers and he some what went off. "We don't stack trailers, not safe to do so." OK.

I explained that it has been done before, "No way, I'm the only one that loads anything here". He called for the fork truck driver who came over within minutes and told John that yes he has stacked trailers, but only with the upper trailer backwards in front of the towing trailers wheels.

I showed the fork truck driver Recovry4x4’s pictures and he said cool, looks like it works. 10 minutes later the 101 was loaded on top the 116, bound down and the trailer tires aired up.

The landing gear leg on the M101 was raised so that the tongue of the M101 was on the M116 deck. The set-up was a little light on tongue weight, which I knew about after conversing with Recovry4x4 http://www.steelsoldiers.com/inspection-preview-questions/39961-inspection-needed-jax-fl-2.html#post443884 so I strapped my Dad’s generator on the nose of the trailer, and off to Virginia we went.

The only negative thing that I see with stacking the 101 on top of the 116 is that the trailer rocks side to side on rough roads. The rocking is controllable with road speed so as long as you keep your speed below 50 mph she will ride like a champ. On smooth roads 65 mph is fine.

Having never been to Blount Island, I was surprised at all of the Military equipment there. I know I counted over a 100 new HEMTT's, dozens of PLS's and ton's of new armored Oshkosh 5 ton trucks waiting to be shipped overseas. Everywhere you looked there were armored Hummers’s. Didn’t see any MRAP’s which I was a little surprised at.


Two casualties were encountered on the trip, one magnetic light got dislodged somewhere in Georgia and became road fodder.

When we got in around 1:30 AM Saturday morning and I slipped off the wet truck bumper and smashed my knee up pretty good. The bumper is fine.

On Saturday morning after getting a few hours of sleep I wanted to see just how much weight needed to be added to the tongue area to get 150 lbs of so tongue weight. I removed the generator that was strapped on the M116 bed and replaced this weight with bags of pea gravel on the trailer apron. One 50 lb bag of gravel sat the lunette on the pintle hitch. A second bag was added and I could lift the trailer, though it took some effort. A third bag was added and it really took some effort to lift the tongue so it appears that if you add 150-200 pounds to the nose of the trailer you should have ample tongue weight for safe towing.

Again, I wish to thank Kenny, Recovry4x4 for his effort in looking at different loading procedures/positions and the folks at Blount Island and Jackie from Government Liquidation.

http://www.steelsoldiers.com/inspec...61-inspection-needed-jax-fl-2.html#post454278
 
Last edited:

DieselBob

Active member
2,891
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Location
Arnold Maryland
I was so temped to bid on some of those trailers. Looked like real nice condition compaired to what comes up locally as a rule. Great to hear all went smoothly.
 

Nonotagain

New member
1,444
41
0
Location
Parkville, MD

Nonotagain

New member
1,444
41
0
Location
Parkville, MD
I was so temped to bid on some of those trailers. Looked like real nice condition compaired to what comes up locally as a rule. Great to hear all went smoothly.
Diesel Bob,

In picture # 2 if you look to the left you will see another batch of trailers soon to come to auction.

There must have been 2 dozen M116 trailers and even more M101a3's being stagged for auction.

Finding the Blount Island location was very easy as it was a straight shot off of I-95. The GPS was spot on for directions.

Roads in Florida and Georgia were in pretty rough shape, lots of road construction and tore up concrete. Once into South Carolina we made pretty good time.

My dually liked it's fuel averaging 12 mpg coming home, so calculate fuel costs into your purchasing decision.
 
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