Motto's Chev

[motto]

I thought best to start a new thread instead of hijacking Ganmain Tony's. See thread 'It's Infectious', posts 73 to 83 for the origins of this one.
Some pictures of the Chev are in the computer and accessible so will try and post a few of them. The file size and pixel limit may be a problem.
1/ On the cover of Big Rigs newspaper for truckies, April 2002. This was a follow up article 7 years after the original that appeared in 1995. Maggie and I were stopped at the 'Frosty Mango' near Townsville, Far North Queensland on our way home from Darwin when we were approached by journalist that wrote for the paper. He contacted us in 2002 to see if we still had the truck.
2/ On the Oodnadatta track north of William Creek over a thousand miles from home. Broken Hill/Alice Springs run 2000.
David

[motto]

Preparing the Chev for the ANZAC Tour. Summer 2008/2009.
With the intention of selling the truck in Europe after taking it on the tour and on to Beltring, I made every effort to ensure that it would be as good as it could be. This included body work, mechanical work, upholstery, painting and the construction of living accommodation in the back with no significant modification to the tray body. This would not have been possible without the generous assistance of a wizard body repairer friend named Simon Allen and my friend of forty plus years Keith Newsome AKA Dunny Brush Head or Short Fat and Ugly. The work was frantic and right up to the last minute.
David

[motto]

Accommodation consisted of a 4' wide double bed with inner spring mattress, head and foot lockers and secure under bed stowage, chests of draws, including wash stand and in the forward right hand corner a porta loo.
David

[motto]

1/ On a tilt-tray in my drive. This was for transport to the set of 'The Pacific' that was being filmed at a location southwest of Melbourne. Summer 2007/2008. The sharp eyed among you may notice that the rear wheels are 6 stud instead of the standard 10 on these trucks. The reason for that is because the hubs and drums are from a late model GMC CCKW. These hubs have demountable drums, the L/L Chev to my knowledge never were. To get at the brakes on the Chev the axles and hubs must be removed. With this mod only the wheels and drums need be removed. The GMC hubs and drums fit straight on, the Hyat barrel roller wheel bearings are the same part number. The only tricky bit is the axles. The GMC has a larger diameter drive flange but none of the CCKW axles are the right length. American Chev 4x4 1 1/2 Ton (Yankee Joe to you Aussies) axles must be used.
2/ A L/L Chev on the set that had been modified to break in the middle at the push of a button.
David

[motto]

The Chev as it was positioned for one of the scenes in 'The Pacific'. This view shows part of the set that was constructed to represent the airfield captured from the Japanese by the US Marines on Pelelieu.
David

[jim sewell]

Dave
That was a very good restoration , very neat tidy truck.
Do you miss it .
Regards
Jim S.

[motto]

Since returning from the European trip last year I've been a bit too busy to miss the Chev all that much Jim but now and then I would get a twinge. It's worse now as I seek out pictures for this thread and the memories keep coming back. If there is enough interest out there for me to keep this thread going, you and your truck will rate a mention also. Watch this space.
Give our regards to Sandy.
Dave

[motto]

Replica Japanese 'No Go' tank. (Just kidding). Three of these were built for the filming. The story from the action vehicle people was that the tracks alone cost $120,000. The links were cast off an original from the AWM.
The tanks were powered by Ford Falcon engines and gearboxes driving at first through Jaguar differentials using the inboard disc brakes for steering. This was not successful and Marmon Herrington light tank transmissions were procured and installed. These did work but problems were encountered because of the lack of offset final drives. This meant that even with the transmissions mounted as far forward in the hull as possible the short little jack shafts between the transmission and stub axle were running at an extreme angle.
David

[motto]

Close up of the release mechanism on the 'Break Back' L/L Chev.
The cables running in to the cab were pulled by a remotely operated actuator to withdraw the pins and release the lock strut.
When the lock strut released the chassis would fold. With a synchronised explosion it would look like the truck took a direct hit.
David

[motto]

The trucks in this photo were used for set dressing and belonged to the art department. Vehicles that were operational and driven into place prior to filming or driven as part of the shoot came under 'Action Vehicles'.
The vehicle nearest the camera, a L/L Chev, appeared to have been a nice truck prior to being used in the filming. When I next returned to the set it had had some cosmetic work done and been placed in position for another scene. See next post.
David

[motto]

L/L Chev tipper that appeared in the previous post after being modified with the aid of a front end loader or similar machine and then positioned with the left rear wheels in a prepared hole as part of another scene. Manitous were used on set for this sort of work.
David

[cliff]

Originally Posted by motto

L/L Chev tipper that appeared in the previous post after being modified with the aid of a front end loader or similar machine and then positioned with the left rear wheels in a prepared hole as part of another scene.
David

David this is a Holden bodied Chev as it has the quartervents in the doors and vents in the cowl. Lendlease vehicles did not have these features. Nice photos though thanks for sharing.

[motto]

You are most likely correct in what you say about Holden cab Chevs not being L/L Cliff but in my ignorance (and we all start out that way) I have always been indifferent to the correct nomenclature and like the general public have come to refer to trucks with this type front end sheetmetal built from '42 to '46 regardless of the cab being North American or Holden as being Lease/Lend Chevs.
I don't profess to be an authority or have any special knowledge, only an accumulation of experience and I stand in awe of some of the characters that contribute to this forum. This is why I shy away from definitive statements. The more I learn about these trucks the more confused I become as the variations seem to be endless.
As I said in one of my very first posts on this forum. I'd rather keep my mouth shut and look a fool than open my mouth and prove it. Maybe I've said too much already but I was encouraged by interest shown.
David

[motto]

Some of the pictures shown are not what I intended to post when I started this thread but are all from the same data base so I'm a little off topic. If I can download from disc I will get back to the Chev but meanwhile I thought these may be of interest.
1/ The 'Break Back' Chev.
2/ Another art department vehicle. I couldn't recognise it but whoever they got it from had filled the rear of the vehicle with spare parts right up to window level. Maybe he was glad to see it all go!
Can somebody identify it please?
David

[motto]

There were three 'Shermans' used in the production. They were all in fact Grants that had been extensively modified with the upper hull removed and replaced with sheet metal over a tubular steel framework. The turrets were constructed of fibreglass and all three were re-powered with Cummins engines.
One of the tanks had been built up for use in a movie some years ago and was purchased as an intact unit. Two of them were purchased as hulls and built up for use in this series.
David

[motto]

LVT-4. A lot of very impressive work was done by the people involved in various aspects of the production and this LVT-4 is a part of that. It is in fact a complete fake. I'm sure I had helped unload some drums out of the back when it was in the action vehicle compound and hadn't realise that it wasn't a vehicle at all. I was unaware that there was a counterfeit among them at the time.
The frame underneath was the structural support as I don't believe the running gear would stand the weight.All the suspension components were cast in resin.

[motto]

Here are a couple of close ups of the running gear. Original components were aquired and moulds made off them for production of the many parts that had to be made, some of them in large numbers.
One of the effects of this is the circular 'welds' in the first picture are all identical as they all came out of the same mould!
The 'solid' rubber tyres on the road wheels were foam rubber and could be indented with a finger tip.
David

[motto]

An amusing detail about the fake LVT that was related to me had to do with the engine installation of the vehicle that was used as a pattern.
This vehicle had had the original powerplant, a Continenal 7 cylinder radial, replaced with an in-line diesel the radiator of which protruded some distance into the cargo compartment. A cowl and grill had been constructed or adapted to finish off the very non-original installation.
All of this had been faithfully copied for the fake.
David

[motto]

Hmm, steel tracks on the tank but the spare track on the side of the hull is rubber!
Take a closer look. It's fake anyway.
The props people were very good at making what they didn't have.
David

[jim sewell]

Hi Dave
Keep them coming , very interesting.
Regards
Jim S.

[motto]

Thanks Jim, there are not that many more of these to go and I would have got through them a lot quicker if I knew how to reduce them.
This picture shows a line up of the five regularly used GMCs and was taken at Victoria Park, the old Collingwood football ground that stood in for the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The MCG is where the Marines were actually accommodated after their return from Guadalcanal but it has been greatly changed since then.
One of the scenes shot this day was of the trucks loaded with marines arriving at the grounds. During the first 'take' I was driving the middle truck and we drove in under the stands. My front seat passenger accidently bumped the mal adjusted High/Low range lever into neutral and I rolled to a stop right in front of the camera and ruined the run. To make matters worse the engine was fumey and while non plussed as to what had happened I shut it down because of the hoard of people surrounding us and closing in ready to push the truck. I suddenly realised what the problem was and went to restart the truck but it didn't want to play any more. The battery was on it's last when the engine hesitantly came back to life. Having two hundred plus people watching and waiting for your every move is not a pleasant experience.
David

[Snowy]

Slightly off-topic but addresses your comment about the tediousness of reducing photos for posting.

This is a drop-dead-easy way of resizing, including doing in bulk with a single commandline command, no fancy or expensive Photoshop program needed:

Firstly, download the free/open source ImageMagick program from
http://www.imagemagick.org
and install. There are builds for Windows, Mac, Linux etc.

Once installed, open up a command prompt and go to your fullsize photos directory. (Best to practise on some test photos first)

Assuming you had a bunch of JPEG images you want to make a quarter the size of the originals, type the following:

convert -resize 25% *.jpg resized%03d.jpg

You should have a bunch of pics named resized000.jpg, resized001.jpg and so on. The %03 means substitute a padded 3-digit number for each image (This is an easy way to make thumbnails from originals.)

There are about fifty-seven million things you can do with this wonderful program - it's like a 100-bladed Swiss army knife for image manipulation, just take a look at the examples on the ImageMagick site.

Steve.

[motto]

Thanks Snowy, I will certainly give it a go. Perhaps some level of competency is on the horizon but I'll keep working on the catapult idea just in case.
Photo:- Your worthy correspondent on location in North Melbourne with one of the GMCs.
Vehicles used in the filming were a mixture of purchased and hired vehicles a lot of which belonged to private owners. A GMC owner could expect to get $875 a day, a motorcycle owner $500. This would only apply if the vehicle was on set.
The clothing worn on set was of course fully supplied and once fitted was racked for use on later occasions by the same person. It was strange to have this outfit referred to by the wardrobe people not as a uniform but a 'costume'. Dammit! I'm a soldier, not a bloody fairy!
David

[Keith Webb]

David how accurate (or otherwise) was that dark green colour we see on US vehicles in the series?

[motto]

The green colour used on the vehicles was a topic of discussion and no-one seemed to have a definite answer as to its accuracy. I had not seen anything like it before and yet must have seen restored US Marine Corp vehicles in my travels some of which would have been restored by Marine Corp nutters who got the colour right.
Some held that this colour was used as it would look right when portrayed in sepia tones in the finished production such as was done a lot in 'Band of Brothers' but that didn't seem to be used much if at all in this series.
The Marine Corp did paint their vehicles a different colour to the army I believe but I doubt that it was this shade of green.
Hopefully someone more qualified than I am on this matter will see this thread and make some pertinent comments.
David

[Lynn Eades]

My Dodge gun motor carriage belonged to the Marine Corp. The forest green paint over the top of the original army green was very dark, in the sheltered areas of the vehicle, almost black. It was a pretty rough paint job, with no shortage of runs. It still has "posting instructions" on the front guards, stencilled in yellow.

[motto]

The colour you describe is what I would have thought to be correct Lynn. I can't explain the colour used on the film vehicles. Considering the trouble that they went to to get things right I figured there must have been a good reason for it. They even had a couple of genuine ex-Marines commanding the troops to make sure the way they dressed, behaved and carried their weapons was authentic. There were some slip ups though. Hollywood just can't get away from depicting soldiers festooning themselves with belts of MG ammunition when the very last thing you would want is to risk feeding mud and debris into the gun. I'm certain it would have remained in the can 'til the last second.
Are there any pictures of your WC55 on the forum Lynn?
David

[motto]

I wouldn't mind having one of these props at home. They just turned up one day from I know not where. They certainly looked real. I believe they were and that they were probably brought in from the States and went back again afterwards.
David

[Howard]

This is an excellent thread, David, keep it coming.
As you stated, don't worry too much about the accuracies of your story, those that know will correct where necessary, and then we all know!
Now, duck into the Holgate Brewhouse for me and down a "Hoppinator"... Yummy!

[warren brown]

G'day Dave - terrific post. Years ago I ran into Paul Naylor in Sydney, who'd just come back from the Daintree Rainforest filming The Thin Red Line. He said the director, Terrence Mallick (Badlands etc) was an absolute nut on detail , in particular paint colour for vehicles and he'd been consulting an expert, I think an ex-marine, at the museum at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I don't know what the colour was exactly, but Mallick had gone to great pains to match it with the Fort Knox recipe and all the vehicles were required to receive this colour - whatever it was. Paul also told this story of Mallick desperately needing a Diamond T wrecker and they located one way up in the sticks on an aboriginal mission. They negotiated a fee for it and spent ages getting it going - fitting with a Falcon motor or a Holden motor if I remember correctly - trucking back to the Daintree, giving it a coat of Fort Knox green and it appears in the film as a tiny, blurry speck on a distant horizon on an airfield for a millionth of a second. It's at least 10 years since I heard this, so I might be a bit rubbery on it's exactness but this is pretty much what I remember...