1944 C-15A-Wire-5 Restoration

[Harry Moon]

Originally Posted by rob love

Thanks for posting the results of the bed liner on the roof. I have been considering this product for a few various van bodies to prevent egress of water.

I'll go back and post a warning but the Berliner failed after less than a year, I should have used a primer of some sort on the aluminium and the maple plywood for the treads delaminated horribly. I'll get it into my workspace and strip it all down to bare metal again and do some more research before doing it again.

[Grant Bowker]

Good afternoon Harry,

You may want to use caution sanding the aluminum bodywork. In the aircraft world, either chemical strippers or more exotic forms of blasting (dry ice etc.) are typically used for paint removal as for at least some aluminum structures have the surface of the panel has different propertied than the core.
Aluminum typically needs some form of etch before prime/paint. The etch can either be a preliminary treatment in advance of priming or in the form of a self-etching primer.


Eastwood has an article on prep and priming of aluminum (of course featuring their products...) https://garage.eastwood.com/diy-how-...SAAEgIo6vD_BwE


You may also want to look at www.Aircraftspruce.com for products intended for aircraft use such as https://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catalo...clickkey=12575 or more generally https://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catego.../cs/index.html

[Bob Carriere]

Any pictures Harry????

I would check/chat with the firms that do install that liner, such as a local LineX, to see how they prepare the fresh factory paint to allows a permanent bond.... most dealers deal with a local after market contractor for that option....I had mine done on my Ford and when compared to the factory liner the local contractor did a better job of reaching/sealing very evenly in all corners.

They may be using some form of acidic or lye degreasing solution to remove any surface oil film or some other weird prep solution..

Let us know how youmake out.

[rob love]

I just finished painting an aluminum box shaped item. I sandblasted the sides, front and rear to bare aluminum and used the Endura brand primer. The salespeople said it would work fine on aluminum. I followed that with a coat of Endura gloss white, but they can mix whatever colour you want.
In my experience, this stuff adheres well. It isn't cheap mind you, but will not fade like the synthetic enamels we usually use in this hobby.

[Harry Moon]

I finally got ahead of other projects and got my wire 5 back in my workspace and assessed the damage from my poor choices.
First think I learned is I should have used a marine grade mahogany plywood. the ordinary plywood I used is 90% of the failure. The Bed liner seemed to stick to most of the aluminum and where it did fail was due to me not properly prepping the surface before hand. These pictures show the results. I got some good advice, got some good materials and I'm going to be on this roof for the next month at least.

[David Dunlop]

Hi Harry.

That is indeed a sad looking roof on your WIRE-5. I hope you have not purchased any replacement plywood yet for it. Any choice of plywood you should make will be incorrect. It was simply not used in any of the original factory production of these bodies by Wilson. The product they used was 1/4-inch solid fibre board. What we drill holes into today and call ‘peg board’. The trick is, they cut it into strips and installed it upside down; the rough, checkerboard surface facing up, rather than the smooth finished side.

In the 1943 - 1944 time period these trucks were built, several factors played against the use of plywood for these strips. Any marine grade supplys of plywood would have been reserved for the Navy. The use of the newer glues developed by De Havilland to solve delamination problems with the Mosquito in humid climates were reserved for aircraft production. So that left the animal glue based standard plywood’s that everyone knew would not hold up.

Plywood comes in three grades basically, a construction grade where all plies are crap. Good one side with a good ply on one side only. Good both Sides with all the crap hidden in the middle. Marine grade plywood indeed uses water resistant glues but I doubt the grade of the interior woods is much better than standard plywood. Cut into thin strips like you will require for your WIRE-5 roof will probably expose more flaws on the edges. It may take a little longer to happen but over time it would still start to rot out the wood bits.

The other problem is safety. These strips were added to the roof of the WIRE-5 to help reduce the risk of personnel slipping with wet, muddy boots and falling off the nice flat, smooth painted aluminum roof. How much safer would it be with rows of flat, smooth, painted plywood across the roof? They needed something better and as cheap as possible, and they found that with the fibre board strips installed upside down.

Back here in Winnipeg in the 1970’s, Princess Auto had a huge fleet of surplused WIRE-5s in their yard. They sold a lot complete but nearly 50 of them had the boxes removed to use as storage containers and the cab and chassis bits were sold off, oddly enough, as DODGE Trucks in their catalogues of the day. I combed through every single one of those boxes back then, collecting missing parts for my WIRE-5 restoration, including a complete accident write off vehicle sitting out near the front of the store. It was complete and very low mileage. The strips on its box roof, and 75% of all the others in their yard were 1/4-inch fibre board installed upside down. The rest were plywood and all looked like hell. The other interesting thing was most of the plywood jobs were on boxes with incorrect/repainted interiors, which led me to believe these vehicles had undergone a postwar military rebuild at some time using the cheapest possible materials chosen by people who did not understand the original design or purposes of the items being replaced.


David

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Hi Harry.

That is indeed a sad looking roof on your WIRE-5. I hope you have not purchased any replacement plywood yet for it. Any choice of plywood you should make will be incorrect. It was simply not used in any of the original factory production of these bodies by Wilson. The product they used was 1/4-inch solid fibre board. What we drill holes into today and call ‘peg board’. The trick is, they cut it into strips and installed it upside down; the rough, checkerboard surface facing up, rather than the smooth finished side.

David

I suspect you need the "Oil-Tempered" Masonite (Hardboard in the UK), as used for construction siding, roof lining, and levelling uneven floors. It's available in 6mm thickness over here (UK), so I would expect 1/4" to be stocked in the US and Canada. It's waterproof (people apparently made small boats and dinghys with it in the 1940s and '50s), whereas 'hardboard' is not and will swell badly when it gets water on it. (The tempering involves linseed oil and baking to polymerize it, but it's possible that the modern version has been cheapened by spraying rather than dipping the sheets.) Worth checking though, and it will take oil-based paint or varnish without difficulty.

Chris.

[David Dunlop]

A variation of that material I was not aware of, Chris. Thanks for the update.


David

[Harry Moon]

Originally Posted by Chris Suslowicz

I suspect you need the "Oil-Tempered" Masonite (Hardboard in the UK), as used for construction siding, roof lining, and levelling uneven floors. It's available in 6mm thickness over here (UK), so I would expect 1/4" to be stocked in the US and Canada. It's waterproof (people apparently made small boats and dinghys with it in the 1940s and '50s), whereas 'hardboard' is not and will swell badly when it gets water on it. (The tempering involves linseed oil and baking to polymerize it, but it's possible that the modern version has been cheapened by spraying rather than dipping the sheets.) Worth checking though, and it will take oil-based paint or varnish without difficulty.

Chris.

I have samples of the original materials which likely lasted about as long as this last roof. I am doing it so it will all out live me. Marine Grade mahogany coated in an equally marine grade 2 part epoxy. A marine grade adhesive and sealer and broad head Robertson screws one size up from the originals. A good all purpose primer compatible with those materials and then the truckbed liner which actually worked very well. Should outlive me this time!