[Frank L.]

So far the assessment is after 3 hours of mucking about:

- the turret is able to move and there are no hidden welds.

- traverse mech is very hard to turn and will need to be pulled off and re worked. The good thing is the hydraulic tank is still in there and in very good shape as are the lines.

- the mantlet has been welded. Angle grinder will take care of that.

- breech is welded as well.

- Turret floor is rotted out. Enough of it remains that we'll be able to make a template of it and get it scratch built.

- Same goes for the driver and bow gunner's chairs....more templates.

- Front tires will be replaced.

- The fire extinguishers are gone, but the mounts are still there, as are the handles for popping the bottles in the driver's hole.

- the view ports in the front are tack welded shut.

- all exterior lights are long gone as are the AMU and .50 cal mount. There are no episcopes at all. The sighting system is long gone as well....which will be extreemly hard to get.


The big part of the rebuild is to pull the turret off and strip everything out and rework everything.

As soon as that's done and it's up and running, a few shake out runs to work out the kinks. Once that's done, one final tear down and then primer and paint the interior properly.

As the project gets worked on I'll be posting pictures here for all to see.

Regards