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Gordon_M

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Posts posted by Gordon_M

  1. From the description, I'd guess the block is full of gunge. It's possible it had a leaky radiator or core plug are one time and somebody kept shovelling Barrs Leaks or Radweld into it, and you are now seeing the effects.

     

    Let's go easy to hard on the fixes.

     

    First easy check, if you can get hold of one, is to get a hand held infra red thermometer thingy. Fire the engine up and let it get warm, then check for differences between the head temperatures and look for hot spots. The hand held unit will let you do this in 30 seconds so it is worth begging or borrowing one. This could tell you a lot.

     

    Drain it all down, and see what comes out. Try to do it with a radiator bottom hose, and see if clean water comes out the block, the radiator, both, or neither.

     

    Flush the radiator out, bottom to top, and see what comes out. Might be worth pulling it and turning it upside down too.

     

    Flush the block and see what comes out.

     

    After that lot, you are into more than just work with hose clips. I'd start by replacing thermostat or stats ( been years since I had one ) then I'd pull the water pumps and check they still had impellers on the ends.

     

    After that, pull the block, turn it upside down, and power flush it.

  2. It certainly would.

     

    The Fifth and Eighth ones are easy to make, most of the others get a bit complicated with odd numbers of points, uneven angles and curves, etc.

     

    Another common marking was the 1" "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY " on each door.

  3. You can see the First has one bar, the Second has two squares, and the rest just go on the 'count the points' principle. It's worth noting too that the 'white on blue' colour scheme was for the patches and insignia. When applied to vehicles it was commonly just a white stencil onto the basic vehicle body colour, usually but not exclusively OD, like the Dodge pickup above.

     

    Here's the Eighth Service Command insignia on one of my Dodges;

     

    CAR0056.jpg

     

    ...and to round it off, here is the insignia of the Northwest Service Command, strangely missing from that article;

     

    Northwest_Service_Command.jpg

     

    This was the one I was going to use on my VC 3, before I decided just to go with USAAC markings, though since the Army Air Corps was part of the Army, and the NWSC was responsible for the North West Staging Route ( series of airfields to stage planes to Russia via Canada and Alaska ) it would still be appropriate.

  4. Me ? never ....:-\

     

    The basic principle is that the fourth marking had four points, seventh had seven, and so on. There was one additional Northwest Service Command for Alaska Highway, Northwest Staging Route, and Canol Project area. They used large quantities of logistic type vehicles, 4 x 2 trucks, Carryalls, cars and staff cars, stuff like that, but it does seem that in 1941 or early 1942 they got a big bunch of half ton WC Dodges, either straight off the line, or quite possibly re-issues after active units got the new 3/4 ton WC Dodge.

  5. Oh well, suppose I'd better say what it is, too.

     

    Fourth Service Command, US Army, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Service Command structure took over the army functions and admin stuff in geographical areas of the US where the local units had been mobilised overseas. I had a couple of Service Command Carryalls once.

  6. The first part of the morning was spent on our new project, a LohnerWerke Dodge. As I mentioned last week, this is a WC 51 which was refurbished by the Austrians after WW2 as a radio van and, after spending a part of its new life in the Austrian Army as a chook vehicle, it ended up in Coober Pedy, in the back blocks of South Australia. After various adventures, it was purchased by one of our crew and is our next but one, project.

     

     

    Oh, that would be the famous Brian from Perth, then?

     

    He has a thread running on it here;

     

    http://forum.ww2dodge.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11128&hilit=lohner

     

    I owned a Champ, once, now sticking to a collection of Dodges as I know how to fix them .....:D

  7. It's a tricky process, but satisfying when it works. I tried various tweaks but ended up doing all my rivets up to 3/16" cold just using pneumatic impact. I managed a few hot, by induction, but it wasn't being kind to the spot welder I was using as the source so I went back to cold forming.he rule seems to be to hold the inside and form the outside

     

    That sort of body would originally have been formed in sections, but on final assembly the rule seems to be to hold the inside and form the outside. I wonder if originally those were flat headed rivets with domes formed on the outside and you have achieved the same result by doing it the other way? Are the heads on the inside face of the original body absolutely flat?

  8. I've been known to do a bit of riveting like that.

     

    I found I needed to have the correct snap and set tools, and for best results I had to start with an over-length dome headed rivet and adjust the length by grinding it back till I got the correct head form on the other side. The rule of thumb is you need a length of twice the rivet diameter standing proud before you start work, so for a 3/16" diameter rivet, you need 3/8" of rivet shank protruding after it has bridged whatever you are riveting. No problem usually for sheet metal, but the thickness of those plates would have to be allowed for.

     

    I ground back the riveting snap tool till it fitted my little air chisel / needle gun, and I found that rotating the tool while riveting allowed me to catch any rivet shanks that try to go off line, with just the odd one getting severely out of shape and having to be knocked out and re-done.

  9. Check for leakage down from the main shaft seal. If oil leakage gets to be a problem, and the steering is otherwise in good order, it seems to be standard practice to pump them half full of grease and then add oil to the fill level.

  10. Steve Rivers at Dallas Autos

     

    Same size in 201, 217, and 230 cu in engines I'm sure, and the M37 lump is just a late 230 unit. You could size them and get them off the shelf, but Steve will have a pile and could advise on tricks of the trade.

     

    Get a set of plugs, or a set plus a spare, and drain and flush the block. Do not disturb the water pump unless you are prepared / equipped to change it, but ideally core plugs, block flush, and radiator flush all at the same time with the water pump off so you can get into the back of the water distribution tube with a hose, or better yet a pressure washer.

     

    The ideal Dodge spares box, actually carried on the truck, would be rotor arm, cap, points, condenser, plugs, HT lead, fuel pump, fuel hoses, fan belt, radiator hoses and clips, core plugs, and a spare carb. The theory being that if a fuel pump or carb gives you grief miles from home banging on a spare is less hassle than fixing a broken one.

  11. Pull it.

     

    Do the back of the block core plug, stand the engine up on its nose and back flush the scale out, pull and clean out the sump, check the big ends, look for metallic debris.

     

    I'd be inclined to leave the head alone if it runs well, but clean down and set tappets, etc.

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