Canadian M151A2 Restoration

[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.

[Scott Bentley]

I can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel...

I've got the MUTT body home today sporting a fresh paint job.

So far it has been Sandblasted, welding repairs, lightly Sandblasted a second time, Red Oxide Primed, very miniscule of Body Filler applied, Red Oxide Primed again. It was then given two coats of the Base Coat Color.

For the Base Coat I ended up going with 383 CARC Green from Tempo Paints. I want to commend Matt B for all of his work on sourcing the correct colors for the CF 3 Color Cam Pattern from the 70-80s. Having spent quite a while comparing paint chips and actual items painted in both colors, it was a real tough decision to make. When the 383 Green starts to oxidize in the sun, it begins to look a great deal like the Field/Pea Green in the old pattern. As I drove down the road between the CTC Schools here on Base Gagetown, I had a long stare at all the vehicles in the compounds. There are plenty in the old 3 Color Cam Pattern as well as in the current mono-tone 383 Green. The big thing I noticed is that there is NO consistency to any of the paint jobs, wether old or new pattern. I begin to wonder why the hell I was getting so frantic with my own paint. In my case it ended up being much more economically viable to go with the 383 CARC Green as a replacement for the Field Green as the Base Color for my M151A2.

So here are the results:


This is a snap that has an item (ROPS ID Tag from the other 151) in the old Field Green laid on top of the 383 CARC Green. Keep in mind that the ID Tag was painted over 30 years ago and has been stored outside ever since, and the paint on my MUTT is two days old and has never seen sunshine other than 15 minutes today.


The remainder of the large items will be painted separately. Once everything is reassembled, it will go back for a 3rd coat of paint, to get all of the fasteners and small parts matching. Lastly, according to my painter, I should be able to put the other paint over the base coat after it has cured for a month. At that time I will paint the Engine Compartment and under the Hood in Semi Gloss OD, and apply the Black and OD portions of the Cam Pattern.

[Wayne McGee]

Congratulations on the great job you're doing. You are absolutely right in not beating yourself up over colour matching as the colour will start changing the minute it's exposed to the elements.
Keep up the great work and have fun!

[donjunior]

Hi Scotty,
I too have been following your restoration with great interest. I purchased 74-09397 about two years ago and have been collecting parts for a total restoration. I will be going through the same steps as you (hopefully this fall). After wrestling with paint colors, I have decided to go with the semi gloss od as it was first delivered. Looking forward to your continued posts - Darcy