G749 Picture and info thread

[jdmcm]

Don't worry Dan, you will be one of the first bereaved to be called I'm sure for the wake/auction

[Dennis Cardy]

Borden. Museum.. 23 July 2017.

A visit to Borden yielded these shots.
As per Rob Love's request... a few photo's were taken of the data plates on the Dental Van and the cargo version

The helpful lady on the front desk last weekend said you can take as many photo's as you want..you can open the door..but please do not enter the cab.

This made a clear photo of the data plate hard to take…as it was very dark in the cab.
Even with a wetted finger and looking closely..it was very hard to make out what the numbers were

As best as I can tell... it seems that 52-5000 is 113500110 with a delivery date of 2-4-52.

Does that make sense.?

Dental Van to follow.

[Ed Storey]

Great photos, thank you.

[rob love]

Yes, great photos. I would suggest that serial 110 was not the first Canadian produced M135, although it may have been the first assigned CAR number on the delivery lot.

[Ed Storey]

Rob makes a good point that I agree with, sadly the first vehicle most likely got overlooked as the CFR would not indicate its importance. I take it that very few other 'firsts' have been saved.

[rob love]

I have photos somewhere of that truck back in the early 80s. I don't recall the CFR numbers looking like they were done with masking tape, but I could be wrong. Perhaps it is a more recent paint job?

Clive Law had asked (and received) lists from the DND of all CFR numbers which included the serial numbers. Sadly, he did not post those on the ram tank site, and with the cleanup of the old EDR data, it may now be lost. Unless serial number 001 was part of the forces reduction in the 71/72 era, the truck should have appeared onto the post 1978 Loomis data.

[rob love]

I took my deuce and C1 howitzer out to the threshermans reunion this weekend. I drove them from Shilo for a distance of 74 kms, and the truck just wanted to go faster. I had to keep backing off the throttle as I wasn't happy with the vibration at 56mph. Ahhh, for the blissfull days where the vibration didn't bother me.

Anyway, each day there is a parade and we hook up all the guns with their towing trucks, and go once around the track. All the tractors and horse teams do the same. So yesterday, with someone else driving my deuce, it started crapping out right on from of the stands. Paul was able to get it started, it would rumble and backfire, maybe give a spurt of power, then die. He finally made it past the reviewing stand, and I pulled up beside him and told him just to pull over. The museum there has a big old tractor just for recovery.

Paul at first thought it was out of fuel.....I knew that wasn't the case, besides, when a deuce runs out of fuel, it just quits. I though maybe someone messed with the fuel, so today brought out 4 jerry cans of fresh premium along with some tools and spare parts.

First I pulled the fuel line to the carb and turned on the engine. Lots of fuel and nice and clean. I moved on to the distributor and though I might have seen a couple of minor cracks. I installed the new cap and cover quickly, and that was not the problem. So before I moved to the other fender to replace the carb, I decided to replace the resister, coil and condenser. Once they were out I decided to replace the condenser for the contact points as well. Put it all together, eyeballed the point gap, closed the distributor, and she ran like a top. Failing condenser...who would have thought? The engine was a fresh rebuild back in 1980.

She went through the parade today with no issues (in fact all 5 vehicles and guns did). Tomorrow they have to do it one more time, then tear down and on Monday we retrieve everything back to Shilo and I'll drive the deuce and gun home Monday night.

One thing with fuel on a deuce, it is easy to know how much you need and how much you have. Every time the odometer clicks another mile, you have used another liter.

Photos later.