Friday Art Shot...yes, i know its thursday ......

....but I'm at our admin offices tomorrow, and not much to shoot 'cept paperwork (although...we do have our Sugga and Ferret down there still !)

on a diet !

we are doing a full "nut and bolt", so ifs its not riveted on, its coming off the frame, the pile of brackets and fittings is getting pretty big !

here are a few shots. What we find interesting from the manufacturing of the 1940's , is how the frame was pre painted black, had some brackets added, then shot Olive Drab, and more brackets added, even though both brackets were needed in this case to support the passenger running board

and we finally know what the big electrical disk is on the frame ! Its an adjustable electrical  Trailer Brake system...now, how cool is that for 1930's tech !

thems the brakes..well, some of them

we have the booster off as well as the master, these are being set out to a local shop, Malmberg Truck Center, here in Ottawa, as they have a knack of doing a great job on our historic brake systems, having rebuilt an entire T-17 Staghound Hydraulic System a few years ago for us

case split !

The trans has an inch of grease stuck on it, so it had to be cleaned just to find the Bell Housing Bolts, which, thankfully came out easy !
Not knowing what to expect, we were very pleased to see the condition of the Clutch Unit . Note the interesting venting on the Clutch.!

we found this aluminium tag riveted to the bell housing on the drivers side , nice and clear , but of course it would be after 70 plus years under oil !

Ottawa Veterans Dinner, 2017

We were very pleased to be one of the many dedicated sponsors for this highly successful event that sees citizens and veterans paired up to enjoy an evening of dinner and conversation

more pictures to follow, but for now, here are a few of the Society's "Gate Guards", Note the backlighting shot in the rear seat of the Sugga, showing the radio handset !

Friday Art Shot

...if you can see this...you may know what just happened here !

gotta work ...no time for blogging !

sometimes, everything just clicks in and you get lost in the work! here is a few shots of the last two days of caffeine fueled progress ( that and the shop has SERIOUSLY great acoustics for keeping the working tunes humming along !

no, its NOT an Australian Half Track ! just the easiest way to move it to a pallet !

 AND ! the big news is that the powertrain is out. Its quite extraordinary just how easy it is to pull this. 6 bolts, and the prop shaft retainers, and that s it!

the trans and transfer case actually sits on a leaf spring, while the front mounts have machined pockets to line up into, so there is no vertical stress on the bolts at all, making removal fast

whole thing popped right out !

Thanks to the BFT (Big Frikken Tractor )

run up time !

after shipping our Sugga and Ferret down to Ottawa to be staged for an upcoming weekend show , we are in our monthly run up and maintenance cycle, and of course....a battery change in the V-100 !

Rear light mount deatils

well, more off, and we are down to the bare floor, here is some detail of the trailer plug and light mounts with the mud guards removed , again we see how the hull is built by sandwiching the plates to form a rigid structure . In the middle pic, ive turned the end plate up so you can see the stiffener that is welded inside
the side plate is bolted to the side hull armour, then to the rear skin, and the bolts pass though to the rear bumper U channel

Friday Art shot

Such a fine bit of casting work! now that we are down to the rear floor, track is next up . We just have to build the suspension block out plates to prevent the spring sag first !

rust indeed...never sleeps!

this by far is the worst part of our half track when it comes to rust. As you can see, the lower sponson angle rail is a lot lighter than it used to be.

we found a great deal of thin wood shimming behind the fuel tanks, which by its presence underneath, leads us to think that this shim material was put in at assembly. The downside of course, despite being clearly treated with Creosote or similar protectant, it held water like a sponge....

The last picture here, you can see some of the wooden shims. We guess it was an inexpensive "anti rattle" fix, despite the gas tank being canvas wrapped. The black tar is some of the self sealing tank material glacially flowing out of a rust hole in the corner of the tank

there is some pitting in the floor plate under the tank, but, as its armour, no holes, so we will use it once sandblasted and treated to keep the hull as original as we can

Sugga Service !

Well, one more show to go this year, and that is supporting the Ottawa "Bring a Veteran to Dinner" evening . A not to be missed local event held every fall here in the capitol that sees people being paired up with veterans to share a meal and connect , this year , on Oct 22nd

This year we are providing two vehicles to the event, the Ferret , and our Volvo TP-21 Sugga, but
before they go and bask in the media spotlight in advance of the night,, we are doing all the fluids on the Sugga and catching up on a few small odds and ends, like repair of some internal light wiring and freshening up of the hand painted licence plates

happy to have all fresh oils in now , and as always , she runs like a dream

here are a couple of art shots of the Sugga ! Look for us on the Ottawa evening news Oct 17th !

rear hull plate details

Once the side armour is off, you can see that the whole structure of the M3 is built from the floor up, with each part reinforcing the next as its assembled. Lots of overlap parts to help strengthen the hull.

here, the sponson plate and the forward armoured mud guard is securing the bulkhead between the troop section and the cab. You can just make out the folded metal of the bulkhead structure between the armour plates.

And the support brackets....just tack welded into each other and then tacked to the upper hull rail, I suppose that once the whole thing was bolted together it could withstand the .30 cal machine guns firing from the rail, but, once the armour was off, I needed to clamp it to keep it from falling apart under its own weight !

Friday Art Shot

The Collections Belgian CVRT, in a Defensive position.....its Deer season after all !

grinder , torch and BFH...feel better !

well, that's one rear armour panel off ....

....pretty sure its been there since '42 !

under new management!

knowing our M3 was in North Africa in 42 due to its hood markings, we have been looking up pictures ...

...we found a few of these pictures of German captured M3 Half Tracks. Note the different design philosophies !!, flat vs. sloped armour etc. Both were designed around the same time in  the 1930's

The Afrika Corps, like all transportation and armour starved German Army units in the war, took a wide varity of vehicles in combat, and almost right away, painted crosses on them and put them to work.

spark it up !

So, taking a break from the cab section ... with that and a feeling a need to use big tools, I'm switching to the rear hull for a bit.

Well...normally these end plates are just bolted on...but sometime in her life, you guesses it, the same rod welder came out to weld these on too, its a careful cut so we just remove the weld without damaging the plate, or , the hull!

.....Pasta, part 2

Well...into the dash wiring .... It was easier to flip the cab over and get into it that way, lots of rust and it seems that there is a sandwich of stuff in here, the cowl armour is bolted though the window frame, then the dash....and finally, the instrument box that's behind the dash...so, really slow going !!

back again !

one of the downsides of doin this kind of work, is the constant demands of other tasks that take us off the main job of the M3. In this case, we had two things drop on our lap, one, Supporting a Biathlon Training Event. For those new to us, we maintain a large network of test trails for the collection on the large acreage here , as well as certified firing range. These facilities we loan to the local Biathlon Club for both "dry land'' and snow training, so we needed to generate the range and trails at short notice for this past weekends shoot !

Also, we have been asked to support the highly successful yearly Ottawa event of "Bring a Vet to Dinner", where people sign up to show their appreciation of our veterans, by agreeing to be matched up with a vet, and then, go to a sponsored dinner event !

We have been invited to bring two vehicles as "Gate Guards" for the event, and so we have selected our 1954 Volvo TP-21, and Our 1963 Daimler Ferret, so, that being said, we have to undertake our pre roll checks ! Pictures of the upcoming event, and some media soon!

Here is a nice study of our TP-21