View Single Post
  #4  
Old 23-11-22, 21:37
daninnm's Avatar
daninnm daninnm is offline
Dan Dolan
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Albuquerque, NM, USA
Posts: 132
Default Staghound "2023" shipping and restoration details

Well, to answer the question - yes, this is the Stag that came from the Melbourne Museum sale 15 years ago....Gathered parts and bought out a large collection of NOS stuff (thousands of pounds) also from Australia. The Aussies thought I was nuts for buying it and truly it took two years to get paperwork done to get it into the US!
Actually 2023 was pretty complete inside and unmolested except for dirty. I replaced as many items as there were NOS parts with those NOS parts and did a complete sandblasting in and out before painting and restoring.

Marco: I hope to go to Normandy next year and will try and visit Olaf and the stag in Sneek. Though I lived in Europe for three years while in high school a long time ago in the UK I never visited Holland and really wanted to go to the tulip festival (but as a student, could not afford to travel there). I would ultimately like to go on the 30th Corp trip to Remagen but walking long distances is problematic due to a bad knee replacement. also looking at going to Beltring show but I have heard it is a shadow of its former self??? True or???

I never was able to get the oil pressure gauges for the engines on the instrument panel to work right....they got to full deflections always. Tried five different senders and never got a correct reading - always full scale. But I do know that the oil pressures are good because we tapped into the lines at the engines and used mechanical gauges to see 50-76 psi on start up. Perhaps you can help troubleshoot that - maybe there are correct NOS senders in Europe that are not here because of few staghound parts in the US...we searched for one for GMC 270s, bought them but they did not work!

We also found and error in the instrument panel to late to fix before shipping....the main ammeter works find and either engine generator shows a positive charge on the main - but the specific engine ammeters showed no charging. Rod brought a spare instrument panel over after the stag shipped and we discovered the two 0-60 engine ammeters had a triangular shaped board on the back of the meter with to 40 ohm resistors attached. Those meters were in the Keith spare parts from Australia but they are NOT CORRECT. The triangular boards need to be removed from the back of the two 0-60 ammeters andthe two engine wires from the generators hooked directly to the + and - meter terminals of the meters. Perhaps you can help Olaf and his mechanic with that. I will send photos from the spare instrument panel that Rod Shaver brought over in November after we shipped the stag.

Everything else runs and operates peachy keen!Leaving turret drive motor on draws heavy current and runs the batteries down fast...Also, leaving the master switch on drains the batteries since there are two resistors in line n the drive motor latching circuit and the dash that draw current whenever the master switch is left on. We put little magnetic plaques around warning to turn of master switch.

We also think the use of the turret drive motor is potentially dangerous. Feet, hands and heads in the side hatch opening are apt to get caught and we think serious injury could occur...we tried to be very cautious and we still got two crushed fingertips and two cuts requiring stitches from heads and elbows bumping sharp corners inside the turret.

Marco - I can still still get in the Hellcat (slowly) but slow to get out...getting into the stag is all but impossible....I could get into the turret from the top hatch but had trouble getting out....I would never have been able to drive it!!!!! But, I really really love restoring hard to restore armour....and that's why I did that project and also why I sold it to someone in Europe. No one without knowledge of WWII armour ever knew what it was when I showed it to various folks. Made in America but not a US operated vehicle during the war.....it will get used more and have a more appreciative home in Europe. Glad it will live in Sneek (near Leeuwarden) the area having been liberated by the 12thMD in April, 1945. That's my story! I have thousands of closeup pictures of various parts of the vehicle and our restoration efforts.....as gather those that are scattered around in every thumb drive and hard drive I will makeup a huge thumb drive and send on to anyone interested.

Have a nice Thanksgiving.
Dan
Reply With Quote