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

[James P]

Sooooo.............I hope the absence of updates is because you are feverishly turning wrenches and twisting screwdrivers . Come on Big D, at least throw up a pic or two for the M8 fans and your restoration.

[Big D]

Hi James P,

Apologies for not replying to your previous post.

I don't have a heck of a lot of positive news on the M8 at this stage. I am now on my third paint supplier as I have not been happy with the paint supplied by the first two suppliers. The paint from both has not been a matt finish. The colour shade appears correct but the finish is more of a dull satin (if that is a thing?). It simply has not been flat enough and this makes the colour shade look greener than it should be.

We have painted another panel with the paint from the third supplier tonight so hopefully it will be a goer tomorrow. I have my fingers crossed!

I haven't had time to do much other work on the M8 as I've had my hands full replacing rear sprockets on my LP2A carrier, as well as adjusting the brakes and repairing the fuel pump. The Warbirds over Wanaka Airshow is coming up and I need that running for that show.

There are never enough hours in the day!

[Big D]

Hi all,

Finally some progress on the painting of the hull. The latest paint supplier came up with a paint mix which I think is a good match to the OD-319 paint sample I had. We put that paint on today and it looks good. The paint appears a little shiny in some of the photos as it was still wet.

The plan is to get the hull back to the workshop on Monday and then drop off the turret and a few of the loose big parts and get them blasted and painted as well.

I’m looking forward to actually starting to put some of the restored parts on the hull.

I made up some decals for the vehicle and I will apply them as I go. Thanks to David and Seacon for assisting me with sizes etc.

[Big D]

More photos.

[James P]

So the thrid time is the charm for the paint work. Do worry to much about the sheen as in a couple of seasons it will be buff shined by oily hands and trouser butts, throw on a couple scratches and oil stains to give it the "lived in look". Are you decals water slide ? if so who made them ?

[Big D]

Hi James P,

Yes, all those things I have to look forward to with that expensive paint job! Haha.

The decals were done by a local printer. He does the halftrack and scout car instrument decals that I supply and he does a good job. These were supposed to be waterslide decals but his printer clapped out, so he did them on normal decal paper instead. These tend to be as sticky as hell so I'll need to get them positioned right first time.

[Big D]

Hi all,

Here are a few photos showing progress with the hull. It’s a nice feeling actually putting it together rather than the constant disassembly of the last couple of years.

I’ve had to spend a lot of time cleaning out the threads of all the fixing points on the hull. I ran a tap through each one of these before blasting but I’ve found now that I’m having to do them all again, due to the paint. I guess I can’t really complain about a good paint job!

I will need to do a bit of touching up of the paint on the nuts and bolts once I’m happy with everything.

I haven’t bolted the FT-237 radio tray down yet but I needed to make sure it was positioned right on the shelf. I cleaned up the paint on the shelf mounts so I should get a good earth on the FT-237. I’ll start routing the radio cable through the hull so I can cut it to the correct length.

I still haven’t sourced all the hydraulic lines so I won’t fit too much more in the hull until I have those laid out.

The decals I had made up worked a treat, although you do have to get them lined up first time as they stick like hell.