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Old 21-09-18, 06:25
Big D Big D is offline
Darryl
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Dunedin, New Zealand
Posts: 653
Default M8 restoration

Hi all,
This week seems to be one where I start a lot of jobs and for various reasons only finish one or two of them.

I managed to source a NOS replacement housing to replace the cracked one on the differential. I talked with my engineering contacts about various ways to repair the crack in the other one and the consensus was that we could spend several hours on a repair with no guarantee it would be a permanent repair. I managed to get the NOS housing at a very reasonable price so it made sense to go that way.

As an aside, not sure if anyone has confirmed this previously but the differential in the M8 is quite a bit bigger than the one in the White Scout car. I had a spare axle for my Scout Car and I opened up the diff housing to see if I could rob the required part from there. Alas, the diff is smaller. The gaskets I got from Andrew which were made up for LP2A carriers were the right hole spacing and size for the Scout Car axle housing so I’m interested in seeing if they fit the M8 axle housing.

Thanks to Grant for his recommendation on the parts for the primer pump. I got a rebuild kit for a primer pump for an M38 jeep off EBay. The internal dimensions of this pump seem to be the same. The leather washer was a tight fit in the pump bore but it went in. I didn’t have any Neatsfoot oil for the seal so I used Olive Oil instead.

I managed to pick-up a few good parts recently like the headlight sleeves for the hull which I’d been looking for. I’ve also spent a bit of time tidying up some take-off MP48A antennas.

I had no luck finding the elusive U bolt for the rear springs, so I got one made up. It doesn’t look exactly like the original but I will shape it a little bit with the grinder and it should do the trick.

I’ve started stripping the recoil system. Despite many weeks of soaking with penetrant, I needed a big long lever on a breaker bar to remove the buffer off the end of the recoil cylinder. A bit of heat might have made it slightly easier but I didn’t have that at hand at the time. I removed the pin securing the coupler to the piston but that thing is on there real tight. I’ll get some heat onto that next and see if it will pull off.

Like Tankanic, I made up a tool to remove the follower at the end of the cylinder but I’d say I’ll need to weld a big lever onto that to get it to move, once I have the coupler off.

Meanwhile, I finally got around to arranging a truck to take the turret to the sandblasters for blasting and painting.

That is all.
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__________________
Cheers,

Darryl Lennane

1943 Willys MB
1941 Willys MBT Trailer
1941 Australian LP2A Machine Gun Carrier
1943 White M3A1AOP Scout Car
1944 Ford M8 Armoured Car
1945 Ford M20 Armoured Car
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