flooring can be a big job !...and cameras are fragile !

Like dropping your cel phone in water, dropping your digital camera in "liquid"  can be equally as distressing, and we are happy to report that after a few days in box of rice, we are back in business with no lost pics ! It fell from my pocket into a lovely coolant / oil combo pail...sigh, twas  a sad sound when it went "splat".....

Floor is now fully removed, and we ran into big rust issues with the hold down bolts, interesting floor design though, with a series of 6 frame mounted "perches" that angles attach to. These angle have slots cut for the bolts to accommodate production variation .

Attached to the angle iron, is the floor skinning and stowage and radio battery box, you can see the construction from the underside picture how the floor is welded to the fame that bolts up to the perches

what distressed me the most about this is the ZERO blast protection afforded to the crew. While its true that they (and the gas tanks) sat on armoured plates, the center section offered no blast protection. In this case, its much like the M8 Greyhound , ballistic protection sides and top, but not in the floor.

Having worked on modern armour and been involved in BDA's post blast, I appreciate the advances in armour technology , something the Society tries to highlight with its education programming, showing how technology is being employed to keep people safe in unsafe places

The last frame are the entire package of components , as removed , from the passenger side rear of the light, and its mounts. The triangular section bolts to the rear armour section and bumper to be easily replaceable in the field

the whole floor section lifts off as one part, and can be lifted clear by two people once undone from the frame rails

Here is what's hiding under the floor , clear, rust free and straight frame !

line and plate details !

moving now to stripping under the floor of the rear hull, we are very pleased to see that we can salvage 100" of the original brake systems and lines !

here are a few shots of the line routing . Note the retaining clip attached to the massive axel mount bolt !

and, some underside sponson pics, see they are 4 sections per side, but are retained by two long angle sections, once again showing the "piece on piece" construction. you can see the small strip of steel that "knits" the section plates together to support it from the underside. and , my feet !

seldom seen view of track ...finally !

Nice to have the sponson and rear hull floor structure off. Its been slow going ...I shouldn't have bragged about the lack of rust on her...its been a challenge to get stuff removed without further damage
you can see the rust on the main support beam from the forward rear hull. This is also the support for the .30 / .50 pedestal mount , so quite critical

you can see a light black circle where the base plate for the pedestal weapons mounts up

Remembrance Day , Wakefeld Qc

...we were there supporting our local Community and Legion , as well, as acting as a road block in case we had a driver not respecting the crowd line. Of course, this gave us ample chance to introduce some young people to vintage armour

The Society was very pleased to be able support our local Veterans while educating the public about some of our military history

fall maintenance

Well, its starting to get cold, so we are organizing the hangar so the bulk of the fleet can hibernate, in the cold pale blue light of a Canadian Winter. We make sure they are all tucked in warm with battery tenders turned on, and coolant and other fluids topped up. The only ones we keep ready is our Bv 206 which we keep on short notice ready, with Pinzgauer also ready for last minute events that might pop up during the "Big Cold"

here are a few shots of the Society's V-100 getting checked over today , with a few extra inside shots
Note the unique to the V-series Transfer Case, these are the weak point of ownership, as they are not available, unless you want to part with a breathless amount of money

sweet , sweet engine goodness

getting back on track here slowly, but its been a busy week. Many roads here are still out of use, and my own commute has grown from 30 minutes, to 90 minutes each way from home to shop. Being a Fire Rescue Technician in West Quebec as well as the Curator / Crew Chief here at the Museum basically means there has been little sleep in the last two weeks.

I found this picture, blending perfectly in  the haze of little sleep, Half Track Resto and Fire / Rescue activity



Perhaps I need to take her in this direction ! (kidding !!, )

But , in a ray of good news, her new engine came in ! A zero time French Army rebuild . Its going to be painted up and returned to its 1942 spec before we drop it in

we grabbed a free turning trans and TC as well, which is great news . We like collecting engines and drive line parts for the fleet whenever we find them.

force majour.....

wow, we got hit hard here.

West Quebec, where we have our shop spaces has taken a full on hit by mother nature. Last count we have 127 roads cut by flood waters, over 300 people cut off from evacuation. Some roads are so badly damaged, they may be closed and never rebuilt

all our facilities survived well and are dry, so we are very thankful for that !

all this started midnight Sunday, and as our collection Curator is a Swiftwater Rescue Technician with the local Fire Dept....well, he's been busy, to say the least  !

we expect to be back next week with more Half Track and other MV goodness, so, same bat time, same bat channel ...stay tuned !

to set the tone, in the below pics is a local flood control dam...the water should be 20 feet below the rim...notice the size of the smashed trees in the pile !

gates were smashed out of it by debris.