1944 C-15A-Wire-5 Restoration

[Harry Moon]

Out at Jim's place my initial goal was to give it a good cleaning, and do all thev repairs and paint neccasary on the outside front wall so once it was on the truck I wouldn't have to move it to paint it again. I stripped the front down to bare metal, fixed a couple of dents and primed and painted it. In between I removed all the hardware from the roof, fixed the door handle that I broke and gave a very superficial sanding to remove loose flakes and gave the whole truck a coat of paint that is intended to be temporary. Then haveing stripped the tools boxes accesorys and POW racks I drove my truck out and with the assistance of Jim swapped the old box out and stored in his back 40 under wraps and lifted on the body to it's permanent home. and then brought it home as the 60 minute commute was time I could spend working on it at home.

[Harry Moon]

My initial goal when I got it home was to get into presentable shape for any upcoming drives or events. First thing was to install the tool boxes, POW racks and fill the spare tire carrier. The tool boxes and POW carriers went on as the holes were all exactly the same from my previous box that was copied from the original unit i had before. Interesting to note that all the other references to the jerry can holders and the book drive to victory had the jerry can holders not the POW carriers. The old one I had had both of the crushed POW tin holders still attached and nothing lined up with the jerry can mudflap combinatiuons I had. Interesting difference. Next was the spare tire. I run the 1050 X 16 chevrons and there is no way they fit so looking at a couple of wheels I had I had a decent looking 1941 dated run flat that has been sitting there for 20 years, still had 20 PSI so filled it to 30, cleaned and painted it and with the help of two friends lifted it into place. Close to home it might get me off the road to a safe spot in a crunch.
Then I took lots of pictures trying to document everything and going over this thread and saving tons of pictures.

[Harry Moon]

so everything came out, everypiece saved for reference and pattern and I set aside two pieces that I thoughtv deserved to be reinstalled with a little TLC. The metal parts went into the pot to be electrolysis cleaned and lots of sanding and prep work to the roof and rusty bits.

[Harry Moon]

I had Pacific Bending in Maple Ridge bend up the missing roof hardware and I welded them up as close to the originals and trial fitted them. They actually bolt to the frame in the roof and I cleaned up the threads with a thread chaser and two holes had to be expanded from the original 5/16th to 3/8.
Another decision I made was not to drill out the rivets on three sides to peel back the roof to replace the plywood sandwiched under the aluminum roof. the existing plywood was delaminated around the edges but not rotten so I carefully measured and intentionally made a tight fit of 3/4 maple plywood and pressed them into the voids between the roof trusses. They for the most part squeezed into place with the jack as pictured and stayed in place, retaining the curve even.
on the other side, I lack pictures for the start, i cut the 2 inch strips from 1/4 inch maple, stained them, and used much longer 1.25 inch #8's with collars to go through the original holes and into the 3/4 plywood underneath. Being careful to not pull the screws through the 1/4 inch strips on the roof. Just progressed along the roof from front to back. I used Polyurethane to seal the strips to the roof and seal the screw holes. So messy and I dare not grab my phone to take pictures as I recall.

[Harry Moon]

the roof side was messy but it went along fine, I added the roof hardware and hogged out the chimney and vent holes with an air grinder to break up the task load as the roof progressed. It felt solid and i did a check to see if the roof flexed underneath with my weight on it and surprisingly it didn't move, I'm still a considerable GVW although getting less.

[Harry Moon]

Next step was to reread all the posts and I picked up on the order of putting the interior back in, start with the roof! The inside ceiling panels were cut and placed and i tried for the original holes in the frame to start but quickly went to self drilling screws to secure the roof panels tight to the roof, had to router a groove for the wires around the powered roof exhaust and to where the switch would end up as there is no longer any void to pass them through, air grinder was used from the top to hog out the chimney and vent holes and trial fit all the vent and chimney hardware. They had beened stripped, primed and painted in the same time period. oh yes, another generous application of Polyurethane. Hint: Zylene cleans it off.

[Harry Moon]

WARNING!!!! DO NOT DO WHAT I DID HERE< CHECKK BACK LATER AS THE BEDLINER FAILED AFTER LESS THAN A YEAR AND IS PEELING OFF THE ALUMINUM< I"LL ADD TO THE THREAD AFTER I GET A CHANCE TO STRIP THE ROOF AND FIGURE OUT A BETTER PROCESS< PROPOBLY NOT THE PRODUCT BUT MY APPLICATION!????????so, i had thought about this for quite some time so I decided to coat the whole roof with a DIY truck bed liner. I had some experiance with applying truck bed liner to the bed of my 20 cwt trailer and it's been indestructible in that application which was a rustoleum product. This time I went with a spray application called Raptor. It was easy to use and like any new procedure to me I check out the manufacturers video's and Youtubers, gave me the confidence to go for it. Reasonable working time with a bottle, used two bottles for first coat and two for the second coat but hard to gauge coverage with the second coat so I was up there with a powerful flashlight checking out coverage before I popped the last bottle. With all the hardware and traction strips it was what you call a complex surface, a truck bed would be easier. I gave it a full 8 days before I got up on the roof to remove the last of the masking tape. What I failed to mention I jerry rigged up a scaffold all around the truck so I could work from the sides only getting on the roof at the beginning to do the centre few square feet then worked around. This stuff is polyurethane based so it was compatible with all the sealer I used previously and I managed not to make much of a mess with it. The special spray gun was accurate and consistent