Nice job......
 

First semi nice day today and the boys are playing in the barn.......

......while I pump water out of the basement...... I have one of those house built by previous owner who believed that because we are on top of the hill and the ground is sandy that he did not need a sump pump.

Well we had torrential rain for two days and the ground is still frozen solid except for 5 inches of mud on top....... so run off has flowed between the foundtation walls and the frozen earth...... mean Winter means frost down to 5 feet......

Not enough water to use a real pump but my HD shop vac is doing hard work keeping up with the slow seepage.

Hope it dries up so I can play in the barn.

Bob

Tired of emptying the vac
 

Hi Bob

Years ago had a similar problem and I got tired of having to carry the shop vac out to empty it. At got bright idea of using a small submersible pump to pump out the vac base with a long hose to dump water far away from the shop. Then got the bright idea of plumbing the pump through the side of the base to connect the hose, which allowed the vacuum to pick up water at the same time it is being pumped out of the building.

Last time used the rig was to pick up the water off the floor of the shop while washing the HUP in the dead off winter.

Ah the joys of living with frozen ground, been a long hard winter, but have heart mud season is yet to come.

Cheers Phil

Mud is already here....
 

Funny I considered doing the same thing.

I built a 14 by 40 rear deck about 10 years ago to literaly move the eaves water away from the house. Never had a leak since then...... the shop vac started to squeal tonite and may have to find a new larger replacement...if I do I will look into piping a pump to the drain plug of the vac cannister.

I wanted to redo the computer room one day..... well that day as arrived. Luckily very little got wet except a few empty cardboard boxes as I have always taken the precaution of either using plastic storage containers or lifting everything on skids. Still a back breaking exercise.

cheers

A bit more
 

Made some good progress thanks to a very capable bit of help from the same neighbour.

Roof is in good nick but does have a few dings and numerous holes that required welding up.

Hatch is a bit of mess (arent they all) so thats for another weekend.

We have sucessfully got the roof straight with fairly minimal effort and all holes cleaned up. Gutters just required a bit of straightening with a block of wood and a shifter.

Canvas curtain on the back will look good. Managed to save the square nuts too. Bolts were knackered though.

Welding
 

Hole drilled in roof to attach overhead indicators, and wiring to them (small hole in the middle of the cab) and two to bolt the roof hatch shut.

Roof indicators fitted post war by the Australian Army I'm led to believe.

Brass block placed underneath each hole prior to welding. A lot less weld to grind off when doing this.

Removing Canvas window brackets reveal canvas webbing. Then canvas curtain clamped between first and second bracket.

Does anyone know what the rubber insulator looks like that stops the hatch bashing in the roof when it is opened?

A few weekends
 

Doesnt look like a lot but I have covered some ground over the last few weekends.

Had a heck of a lot of fun and learning some seriously handy skills as well as a few in house tricks.

Trick has been to get out all the damage out of the roof. But keep the spot welds and rough look that would have been there as it rolled off the factory floor.

We have not cheated (much) only very thin bog has been used to get very slight ripples where a weld repair has been done and one bad crease near the back window. Then a couple of coats of high fill .

Other bits
 

Also put a bit of top coat on some other bits. Dont it feel great to get some bits looking this terrific.

Couldnt wait to bolt everything down so I built a fragile castle and pretended.

Yes there may have been some flat head and crash gear change noises made as well.

Hatch
 

Started on the roof hatch. Removing remanants of latch. Drilling out domed slotted head bolts that refused to budge. By a miracle a roof in far worse condition than this one yeilded a pretty good latch and the bolts came out intact as well.

updates
 

Good work, fat old man!
:cheers:
:kangaroo:kangaroo:kangaroo:kangaroo

Howard, you need to insert "Happy" in there.
Tony You look like you're "Dancing like no one can see you"
Enjoy friend! Life is short! :salute:

Hatch
 

Nice work Tony! Good to see you looking so happy too.

Those latches are hard to find intact aren't they.

Another bit done..
 

It never ceases to amaze me how these bits, after some effort, return to almost "as new" condition.

They are neglected and abused from the day they are manufactured and can still look like this after 70 years.

We are extremely lucky to have the right sort of climate that lends itself to preservation I suppose.

Roof finally done as well as the back of the Cab.

Tony, that roof is as good as any I've seen. Looks gun barrel straight.
I have worked with trade qualified panelbeaters whose finish wasn't that meticulous. Seriously!

I know what you mean about preserving the spot weld detail. Not easy when there's damage next to (or on top of) factory welding.

Update
 

I have been nibbling away but what I achieved didnt seem to warrant an update.

I seem to have done enough to put up a few photo's.

Front wheel cylinders, brake shoes, hooked up and adjusted. Drums machined, Master cylinder reassembled and in. Bent up brake lines and put them in.

Could not find wheel bearing seals for love or money. Out of desperation typed part no. on old seal straight into google, lo and behold, took me straight to Macs. Bit tricky to tap in but very, very nice quality seal.

Other bits
 

Have two instrument clusters, both the early and the later one. Truck was fitted with the early type, but I do like the look of the later guages.

Anyway I decided to do both clusters and make my mind up later..

Located some impregnated webbing from a mate who had it "lying around" and didnt want it for anything he had.

Bugger me if its not identical to the original stuff... its very good to work with. To make it a bit sticky I gave it just a light brush with a bit of petrol.

Floor of cab is now in and working on seats and windscreen coming up.

Went out to an old floor I had and found a perfect fuel tap. Cleaned it up and in it went.

Looking good, your attention to detail is amazing.

I like your tyres they really look the part.

Cheers Ken

Chipping away
 

A few more pictures..

Drivers seat in correct position, found the locators that go through the floor.

Back of Cab now on... feels good to get that in place.

Windscreen frames pulled apart, one was too far gone, had another luckily.

Managed to save sufficent original nuts and bolts as well.

long overdue
 

The pace of this restoration is painfully slow but I do have some update photo's

Not a Reality TV Show speed restoration
 

Looks good to me, we went really fast with ours and have clocked up a meagre 30 years

Thanks Dudley
 

Your truck is very impressive, body on the back is not one I'd ever seen before.

Please post some footage of you doing some laps in it when you're able.

Interesting to note when I pulled the backing plates off these front mud guards the mud flap material was rubber. Judging from the colour of the paint, would suggest they were a fitment during military service.

Top Coat
 

Nice to have parts completed and ready to go back on,

Drivers door had a few cracks at the hinge area. Welded them up and ground them flat. Hard to see we'd been in there.

More
 

Few more bits done and ready to go back on.

Roof is on for trial fit and there is no room for it anywhere in the shed. It is an Australian roof of an F60s.

Hopefully I can find a Canadian ford roof that hasnt been hacked in the future, but this'll do for the time being

Steering box did turn out to be knackered. Swap meet at Corowa to the rescue.

A very generous gesture from an MLU member who had first dib's on it allowed me to purchase it instead.

Steering now feels like new, very tight.
Box apparently only had 5000 miles on it.

Progress
 

Finally, after much procrastination. Ive hooked into the rear axle.

Brake shoes were OK. Bearings came out looking like new.

Rebuilt the wheel cylinders of course. Handbrake cables had snapped and one was an absolute &%*# to get out.

New old stock ones went in courtesy of Mr Keith Webb.

Looking good, Tony :thup2:

Any thoughts about the cargo body? Meanwhile Robert Sexton has had Drawings for No1 Australian body made up.

Attachment 101870

Is that a left hand drive C15 ? My first thought was that the photo is back to front but most cargo planes have the loading door on the left side as in the photo.

David

Could the plane be a civilian DC3
 

Hi David that is very good spotting on the hatch being on the wrong side, one thought is could the plane be a Civilian DC-3 some of which had doors on the other or right side of the aircraft.


Cheers Phil

As I understand it, most 13 cab C15s have the spare wheel on the left side as in the photo. I think that some Indian bodied ones have it on the right but that is an Australian body isn't it ? The one in the picture not only has the hatch on the right but I think it is possible to make out the steering wheel on the left. If anyone had a clearer version of the photo it should be possible to tell by the Chevrolet badge as this is not siametrical.

David

Chevrolet emblem
 

https://media.gm.com/

https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/...02_bowtie.html

It would appear that the photo is reversed.

Well spotted, the photo is indeed mirrored!
The aircraft door had me puzzled as it seems to be a Dakota, which has a cargo door on the left hand side (the military C-47, that is).
But if you look closely it looks like the smaller passenger door which was fitted to the right hand side on some civilian DC-3’s.

H.

Here you go
 

Even the ARN reads better now.