F60L Recent pics

[lynx42]

The President and Members of Khaki Vehicle Enthusiasts Inc extend their sympathies to you Howard and to your extended family.
Rick Cove
President KVE Inc.

[Ganmain Tony]

Earlier this year I took the truck down to Batemans Bay for the Anzac Day service & march from the local RSL to the Cenotaph.

Why to Batemans Bay? My grandfather lives there and it has been one of the goals of restoring the truck. Driving him in one of the Anzac Day parades.

I very nearly didnt make it. It was only due to the combined efforts of Max Hedges and Ashley Wilson who helped me with a breakdown the day before. The centre bearing lining on the rear tailshaft collapsed (due to transfer case coming slightly loose). Max helped me dig one up (literally) out of a wreck and Ashley grabbed a tow truck off one of his mates and helped go and get it from Binalong.

[Ganmain Tony]

I could not get over the amount of people, there where hundreds of Mums & Dads with their kids. My grandfather said he felt like his arm was about to fall off at the end of it all. Heaps of children with the Australian Flag waving it proudly.

We unexpectedly led the parade, which was an honour. We were followed by two jeeps.

I couldnt help but notice the ABC didnt report the Batemans Bay parade had three WW2 vehicles including a 1941 Blitz and the parade went without a hitch

[Ganmain Tony]

I am so glad I decided to do this instead of putting it off and thinking "I'll do it one of these days".

Both of my brothers came as well. They jumped in a ute and escorted me down the Clyde escarpment descent. The truck was brilliant once I put in low range. It held a low speed & i didnt need to touch the brakes. Traffic wasnt bad and people were good to us on the road as well.

[Ganmain Tony]

Ok Ok I'll admit an obvious truth straight away........I didnt clean out the fuel tanks properly before I put them in. I know that now.

My theory was that the feul filters would pick the crap up and slowly get rid of it. All I'd have to do was replace the filters every now and again.

That was probably true of the small stuff but have a look at the size of some the detritis I got out of the tanks earlier in the week.

[Ganmain Tony]

To be fair I did make an attempt to get most of the rubbish out when I had the senders out. But how was I going to make certain of the possible wasp nest's etc behind the baffles?

Pretty niave I suppose looking back now.

Ive been having problems with fuel surge on steep hills and the engine eventually stalling. My theory is the big pieces in this collection have simply blocked the end of the pickup tube in the tanks & therefore cause the surging.

Who else has encountered this sort of thing??

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

The old fix for this was gas tank sealant which would glue all the crud down. Only problem is they changed the gas and they added ethanol to US gas. Result the new gas dissolved the old sealant causing a real mess. Check around and see if there is newer gas tank sealant that is ethanol resistant.

Cheers Phil

[zemsi]

Hi Tony

You should check out the Girlfriend's fuel tanks. Clean like a baby's bum after driving thousands of km's out in the bush. That's how you do it

Greetings
Chris

[Ganmain Tony]

Finally got a completely rebuilt radiator with a quality copper core.

On Richard Coutts Smith's advice I went to Phil at Phoenix Radiators in Wodonga. Pleased with the result. Havent taken her for a run yet, but will let you know outcome.

As you can see, have had coolant spitting out the top at stages. Bloody hell it makes a mess.....anyway, getting that sorted out as well.

[Ganmain Tony]

Old radiator was either out of Carrier or a Lend lease ford. Bottom water outlets heading down instead of straight out of tank. So its great to get the right set up in there.

Have also found original Cab 12 Fan Shroud and support bar that runs through the Shroud so they will go on soon as well.

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

No doubt that was an expensive item Tony.
Bit of a bugger that you have to go interstate for a radiator!
I do not give recommendations lightly, so hope you are as happy with the end result as I was.
Rich.

[Ganmain Tony]

A quick update on the performance of replacement radiator. Very successful...engine is running cooler. Heat however is being blown onto engine covers. They are hotter then they ever were before.

Have installed fan shroud and support bar. This bar definitely reduces the flex in the cab so a good thing to have back in there.

[Ganmain Tony]

I was asked a couple months ago to take the truck out to a little struggling country show at Ariah Park. It was the show's centenary year so they were making a big effort.

Ian Styles brought out his superb example of an LP2 Carrier on the back of his '52 Ford troop truck. It was great to have an opportunity to check it out.

[Ganmain Tony]

The truck even won a ribbon...

[Ryan]

Well done Tony, looks like it was great weather for the show too.

[Ganmain Tony]

19 Degrees...no wind (finally). Was a magic day Ryan. Vintage tractor pull was great as well. Below are a couple of other exhibits that may interest forum members.

Ian's carrier has a sweet exhaust note as well.

[Keith Webb]

Did you have a drive of the carrier?

[Lionelgee]

Hello Tony,

Just wondering if you have any photographs of the vehicle to the left of your truck shown in photo AP show 2012 030.jpg? If so could you post them up please?

Kind Regards
Lionel

[Alex van de Wetering]

Tony,

I just watched the movies on your truck on Swiss Chris' youtube channel. Excellent work on your truck, really nice......"It's alive....it's alive"

Alex

[Ganmain Tony]

Apologies to Keith, Lionel and Alex. Ive been away again with work and no internet access.

Stylesy didnt even offer Keith. Maybe your footage of my gear bashing has reached Temora so no, I dipped out there.

Not sure Lionel if I did get shot of that truck by itself. It is a '52 Ford and is and authentic Aust. Army troop transport. Ian puts the carrier on the back of it as well as other things he owns. It is great to drive.

Thanks for your kind comments Alex. It was a lot of fun recording those.

[Max Hedges]

Tony just to let you know that Iam still kicking and annoying Kathy

also I thought that I had better remind you of the field days in case you wanted to come along again and bring your blitz this time
Max

[Ganmain Tony]

Have had a ball the last two years...should be another great weekend Max.

Looking forward to it..

[Ganmain Tony]

Thought Id better stop thinking about it and just do it. I have finally started on the passenger door of the truck.

I wont say doors at this point 'cause these thing's seem to take an age to do.

Got a passenger door with a reasonable frame and skin to start with. Trial fitted the old door. Just to if everything was lining up. Pretty good fit, hinge at the bottom needs to be bent forward a bit.

Removed old skin using a drill to get through them and then a hammer and chisel to lift off the skin from the frame.

Flattened out old skin, used it as a template and cut it new skin with an angle grinder.

[Ganmain Tony]

Cleaned up old frame at the sand blasters to see how bad the bottom was.

Actually not too bad. I mean, its certainly not as good as new but OK.

Had a bit of ding in the top of the frame. Did a bit of creative panel beating to knock it out (well not quite but it looks OK).

New skin is a heavier gauge steel. Why? I have no idea really. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Ill let you know with the end result if this was a good idea or a bad idea.

Repaired frame with the assistance of Bruce Peelgrain....he also has an Oxy and I dont. He also has a stick welder and I dont. He also is a better welder than I am.

Gave the new skin a clean up and primed it. Primed the frame as well.

[Ganmain Tony]

As you may have guessed I am seriously winging this project as I have not done this kind of thing before. Very pleased with the result however.

Had no idea how I was going to fold the skin over the frame. After much procrastination I finally said "stuff it" and went to work with a hammer, a shifter a big piece of flat and some g clamps.

Instead of creating a disaster I think I may have succeeded by jove..

[hrpearce]

Looks good Tony glad I didn't need to do that.

[Mike Cecil]

Nice result, Tony, very nice. You'll qualify as a Tinker yet!

An alternate way I have used is a vice: start the fold all round by tapping with a light, square, flat faced hammer, then transfer to the vice to progressively flatten the fold. It takes two: someone else needs to support the door or turn the vice screw, but using 1/4 plate flats in the jaws, the result leaves no hammer marks. I had ther vice just above floor level mounted on a length of 1-inch x 6 inch steel bar for stability.

Just a thought....

Mike C

[Bob Carriere]

..... I had to rebuild the frame portion of my door bottoms......still need to do the skin.

Been afraid to start the skin but your pics are an inspiration.

Now tell me what gauge did you finally use...Gauge of metric is fine...... you went thicker/heavier I have been thinking of going lighter to ease the folding over process of the skin.....

How did you finally weld the skin...... I have a spot welder but must go through 3 thicknesses of steel..... or drill and plug with the jig welder.

Bob

[Grant Bowker]

Bob
Have you considered glueing the skin? If you are willing to use the pan brake to make the first 90 degrees of the fold, then a hammer to do most of the rest (probably with a block to make a longer working face to avoid dings), we should be able to devise tooling to uniformly close a partially folded seam. All of this is obviously trickier on the curved edge of the door, you might want to get the straight edges done first, let the glue set and then come back to the curve.
We can discuss this one day at the barn when we can look at the door, draw sketches, make mock-ups and talk with our hands.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony

Your prep of the metal in the door is what is key to a good job. Clean bare steel is going to weld best. Having done a similar job on my Pat 12 and Pat 13 re-skinning both doors I would echo Grants comment on using a brake to form all the straight sides.

On the HUP door I used heavier than original steel and it was much harder to get sharp bends, on the Pat 12 went with same gauge as original and did all the bends except the curved section with the brake. For the curved edge I used a similar method to what Mike describes.

As to Bobs question about welding I have done it both ways, plug welding as described in the discussion of repairing cracks in hinged area, drilling through two of the three layers seems to work best if the metal is rusted or pitted. While pinch welding works good when all three layers of steel are clean and bare. But as previously discussed in other threads pinch welding is limited in the thickness it can effectively weld.

I've also used as Grant suggest panel adhesives on to re-skin doors on modern cars.

Keep up the great detail work Tony

Cheers Phil