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

[Big D]

Hi all,

Here are a few photos showing what I’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks.

I managed to get the recoil system apart. Thanks to Tankanic for his assistance. I had to make up another tool to remove the follower. Version 1 just wasn’t strong enough and I needed a big lever to get the follower undone. The photos show how it all sits in the recoil cylinder. I’ll have a closer look at everything when I am back in the workshop.

The new diff housing has arrived so I’ll be able to advance the axle assembly which I’m looking forward to.

I have a brake specialist folding up the 1/2" hydraulic line for the clutch master cylinder. The tubing was pricey so I figured I'd rather get it done right first time. Hopefully this will be done shortly.

I spent a bit of a time stripping the engine blocks to see what I’ve got and what can be reused. I got the flywheel off one of the blocks and the ring has a bit of damage. However, it looks like there is enough meat on there to turn the ring over on the flywheel. Out of interest I photographed the M8 flywheel alongside a White Scout car flywheel. As you can see, the scout car flywheel is quite a bit bigger.

On a side note, for what it’s worth for those doing Hercules JXD rebuilds, next week I will photograph the differences between the oil pump for the White Scout car and the M8 and post it here. I say that as I bought what I was told was a Scout car oil pump from a reseller for my Scout car engine rebuild and it turned out to be one from an M8. There are differences in the sumps as a result of the differences in the pumps.

That is all for this week...