Mballor

Topic Originally Created on Tow411 in November of 2007:

I bought this Truck in the beginning of october, Its a 1968 kaiser jeep m543a2 6x6 with a military crane. We just got it out of paint last week and its waiting to be lettered. It was a lot of work but everyone in the body shop all did there part and we got it done in a little under three weeks, the worst parts on it were the fenders and the boom and everything was stripped down to the steel. We still have some little things to do to it but let me know what you guys think.

tator envy said:

Sweet, hope you get lots of service from it. Kinda looks like a pissed off bumble bee from the front.

thtdon said:

Nice truck! I like it!
thtdon

hpgtowing said:

Lots of luck with it.... These trucks are extremely under rated... I'm sure it will serve you proudly for many, many years to come... The truck looks great... Stay well.... Steve

timstruckservice said:

I thought the same Thing ..... Nice Bumble Bee !!!......TIM

mballor said:

Thanks for the comments guys .... Steve that is the exact pic i showed the guys when we were getting ready to put it in the body shop, i had to go and search for it to show them that it could be done. I now have a lot more respect for the two that you have reconditioned becouse it does take a lot of work. It looked like they just painted over the military colors and i could see why (in some spots the military paint was about 1/4 inch thick)but we ended up stripping it and we redid the inside also. I just can't wait to get it all done and play with it

The truck has four outriggers.

I ended up naming the truck after my grandpa "St. Len", he would always joke with us by saying that is what they called him whenever he would go into the resteraunts around us. I also put an in memory of him on the back along with the red arrows becouse he was a wwII vet. I only told a couple of people at the shop about this and my dad was pretty excited when he saw it for the first time yesterday. We still have to put on the website and a couple of other things, like a chrome stack, but here it is for now.

Topic Originally Created in December of 2006:

We got called out this afternoon to get a 5th, when we arrived we noticed that our 5th wheel attachment would not fit because the shaft was a little to short to let the pin go through the hole. We ended up using our other plate with the clevis rings.

we put in some shims

Everything went good, and there was no damage and everything stayed in the exact same spot. I was just wondering if anyone would have done anything different, when we picked it up we asked the man behind the desk and he said some manufacturers will make the shaft a little longer or shorter. We have used our 5th wheel plate of campers before and it worked perfect this is just the first one that it didn't work on.

Hookin29 said:

Job well done.

BERTS112 said:

way to think on the fly... good job

QueenswayTire said:

I have used the miller 5th wheel plate without the lock pin in and chained the trailer so it could not slide back and let my underreach become the pivot point. Works great, the one I had the pin was bent a little so the lock pin wouldn't fit in the grove.

Any reason why you went around the tire instead of just through the rim? 

Nice looking truck. What engine did you end up going with?