How To: Restoration of Ford M8 armoured car US Ordnance number 7373

[lynx42]

Hi Darryl,

Seems to be a lot of parts for sale overseas. Try this link for many parts up for auction.

https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/u...2-22698-23047/

Regards Rick.

[Big D]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for that. Yes, I have a contact over there who is going to the auction and will bid for me. It is just my luck that I only need a handful of items in one lot, a few in another lot and one or two parts in the third lot!

I'm not sure how far the finances will stretch but we will see.

It would be fantastic to be present at this auction and the tank museum auction in Normandy.

[Big D]

Hi all,

Just a quick update showing some work done in the last few weeks.

I am still awaiting the axle housings to come back from the blasters. I have new diff carrier bearings, pinion shaft oil seals and bearings, and axle oil seals to go into the housings.

All the hubs have been cleaned up and primed. Interestingly, there was a mix of original US, French and Italian wheel bearings. One of the US ones was a little rough but I think I will get away with it considering the limited use this vehicle will get. The torsion bar, torque rods and steering U joints have also been cleaned up and are ready to fit/paint.

In between time, I have fully restored the turret seats. These were painted white on OD and the remnants of the black lettering for ‘CARBINE’ was still there under the white paint. The seat towers required some new spring retainers at the bottom of the towers which I have fabricated. All the rollers were locked up so I had to heat them up to get them off. All roll freely now. The seat pans were corroded so I removed these and replaced the corroded pieces of metal. I need to make up the padded seat bases and backs now.

With the exception of the spring I need for the sliding gear, the traverse mechanism is all set to fit. The gun mount has been cleaned up and painted, albeit in a shade I am not happy with yet. I’ll tidy that up later.

I have started work on the hatches. The hull has one of the front hatches fitted and I have two hatches to choose from for the other side. I started removing the frozen visor parts off these today and I am still working out which hatch to fit. One is rougher than the other one but has some hinges on it that I think I can work with. The other one is tidier overall but needs both hinges fabricated.

The visor assemblies need to be completely rebuilt on both the front hatch already fitted and the one I am going to fit. What a battle to get those little nuts off that had corroded. I need to fit new studs and spacers for the straps and fabricate the locking pin assembly.

At some stage, someone has stripped the hull of its original top hatches by cutting a square around each hinge. I have two top hatches to replace the missing ones. One of these has been removed from another hull by cutting horizontally right across the width of the hatch under both hinges, so I can shape the metalwork around the hinge mounts on this one to fit the cut outs on the hull fairly easily. The other hatch has been really knocked around with the mounting plate and hinges all twisted. I had to cut the hinges off that and will have to straighten them or rebuild them before I can fit that hatch.

I have a few questions about the hull and the hatches.

• I will need to fabricate new visors and straps for the side ports on the hull. Are these side visors and straps etc, all the same size as the port assemblies in the front hatches?

• Has anyone rebuilt the locking pin assembly for the visors? Alternatively, has anyone stripped one and has photos?

• Has anyone rebuilt the rotating handle on the top hatches? This seems like it would have had some sort of spring loading in the mount and an indent on the end so it would lock in the folded up position and in the 90 degrees position. Am I correct with that? Mine just have the remnants of the handle rusted into the mount so I need to start from scratch with them.

Thanks.

[Big D]

More pictures.

[Big D]

Pictures of the hull and hatches.

[Big D]

Last of the pictures of the hull and hatches.

[Big D]

Hi all,

It’s been a few weeks since I posted any progress reports on the M8 so here are a few pictures of some work I’ve been doing.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the hull, removing old broken bolts, cleaning out mounting holes, re-tapping threads where necessary, and cutting and grinding off the odd post-war mount.

I’ve removed the first section of the armoured floor. As you can see from the photos, the remnants of the original floor are still in place around the sides of the hull and the first cross member. I’m going to remove the rest of the armoured floor so I can clean out all those old rusty bits and pieces. I have a second-hand original front floor coming from Belgium but this won’t be here until Xmas. I’m not sure how much of the outside of that has been cut off and it will need repair to a few places but I’m hoping that it will be better than what I’ve got here. If not, I’ll go back to the armoured floor.

I’ve fabricated some new mounts for storing the headlights at the foot of the hull by the co-driver’s feet. I still need to make up the spring plate that sits in the mount and holds the light base in place in the mount.

I tidied up the top hatch mounts and started tacking them in place. One hatch needed the hinges removed altogether from what was left of the cut off mounts and straightened with a bit of heat. The other side still had part of the cut-away hull plate attached to the hinges so I have cut that piece to size to fit into place on the hull and tacked it in. I’ll fill in the joints the next time I’m in the workshop.

The driver’s front hatch is now in place and I’ll finish welding the hinges in next week. I had two hatches to choose from. This one has a bit of bullet damage to the front but the hinge mounts were in much better shape than the other, so I decided to use this one. The bullet damage will be a conversation starter anyway…

My father in law has fabricated new handles and mounts for the underside of the top hatches. It took us a while to work out how these were designed but the finished product looks quite good. These are now fitted to the top hatches.

I’ve fabricated some new visor/pistol port slides for the front hatches and side ports, using the existing pieces as templates. I have one good working retracting spring plunger and another that I should be able to get going. I also found two modern spring plungers which look similar to the originals. These have a knurled handle as well but are a bit smaller than the originals. While they won’t look quite right, they will do until an original hopefully turns up one day. Does anyone have any spare originals?

I’ve also replaced some of the original studs for mounting the slide levers.

I am working on the top hatch locking arms which hold the top hatches in the horizontal position. One had been removed from a hull at some stage and the mechanism was completely frozen. Despite lots of penetrant, some heat, plus a little bit of encouragement from a press, it refused to budge. As you can see I had to be a little surgical and get access to the mechanism by removing a strip of metal from the top. Penetrant was never going to do it! Once I have got it all working again, I’ll lengthen the activating rod and weld the top strip back in again. I’ll repair the other locking arm in situ.

The shovel and axe mounts, rear tow cable mount and siren mount are fitted along with a handful of footman loops I had.

The spring latch that sits on the glacis on the front of the hull for the two front hatches is repaired and ready to be welded on.

One mine rack has been repaired and ready to fit (thanks for the measurements Sly). The other one is being fabricated along with the missing top hatch handle and front hatch lever/handle.

The guys in the engineering shop are going to see if they can straighten the headlight guards. The ones I’ve got are pretty beaten up so it may be a case of starting afresh with them, and the bends in them are not something I can create.