Canadian M151A2 Restoration

[jim fraser (RIP)]

the guy i use charges around 375.00 for the blast and primer.it does a good job.he is mobile also but i think you are a just a little to far from arnprior.lol.regards jim.

[mike mckinley]

not sure if there is anyone up your way who does this, but there is macdonald applicators and jamac in saint john.btw...welcome to new brunswick, where our claim to fame is that you can walk to the top of a mountain, and still find a mosquito infested swamp!!! mike

[Scott Bentley]

Well, turns out I have a few options...

I may actually be able to do the blasting myself in a booth at work that they use for stripping and painting heavy equipment parts. But, there is also a shop that will do chemical/acid dipping for a really good price as well. Been doing a lot of reading though on the dip, sounds like it may be a bad idea with all the overlapping sheet metal on this thing.

I'm going to see how this pans out.

If your ever up this way Mike, shoot me a PM and drop by.

Scotty

[Scott Bentley]

Well, lots has happened since I started this thread.

So fast forward a few months.

After I stripped the Tub, I rolled it forward and went to work on the underside. The metal underneath was pretty good and still had the healthy remains of alot of Ziebart. I cleaned it all up with a wire wheel and hit it with flexible non-ashphalt undercoating:



I didn't exactly kill myself trying to hide the cut. It is what it is.... remilitarized. My concern here was getting the integrity of the Body back.

[Scott Bentley]

So, after going to all that work on the underside, an opportunity came up for some low budget Sand Blasting and Priming.

After giving it some long thoughts, I figured that rather than attacking the underside again, i'd just have outer Body and Interior/Floors etc Sand Blasted. Besides, this allowed me to leave the suspension installed which made it rolling on and off of trailers much easier. Luckily, there were no huge surprises as far as holes appearing.



Back home again, and collecting the remaining sand in it for my portable blaster.

[Scott Bentley]

So, after getting it home from Sand Blasting, I went to work tidying up the body, fixing some dents etc. I have come to the conclusion that no matter what I do, this Jeep is going to have some "character" left over. I tried to concentrate on the offensive larger repairs and left the odd ding and small dent that would have otherwise been covered over with body filler. My goal here was severely limit the use of any fills on the body and I ended up only having to smooth over where the "Cut" was. Aside from that, I used the Mig Welder and reversed a bunch of holes that were either left over from approved mods like Fender Mounted Mirrors (yuck) or other "Field Mods".

After this was all complete, I rolled it back in for another quick Sand Blast over the weld repair areas, and then it went in for Primer.

Now its starting to look much better. All of this banging away feels like it is paying off:



Tomorrow the Base Coat of paint goes on......

[Scott Bentley]

Some other little developments along the way. A short while back, Mike McKinley was kind enough to inform me of a well worn but complete M151A2 that was going to be scrapped not far from him. We promptly went down and collected it.

The timing was quite impeccable really. As I was preparing to start re-assembling this resto, I was getting concerned about the whole "where does that part go again" phase of things. Although this new to me M151A2 is way beyond repair, it will be invaluable for use as a living guide as to what goes where and donate a few items as well.



As an interesting side note, this other M151A2 belonged to 2 RCHA Petawawa, and then W Battery, RCA, Gagetown. Having looked at all of the markings on it and all of the Radio Frequency/Call Sign info labelled on the dash, it appears to have been a FOO/FAC Vehicle.