Gordon_M

Sigh, forgive him everyone for straying from the true path....:nono: Let me put it this way Tony, if your favourite toy gets stuck in a muddy puddle, and yes it does happen, even to the best of us, are you going to be able to push it out without some help from that nice Mr Braden and his best bits of machinery? I think not.:n00b: It is perfectly possible to get a Dodge stuck on even very mild going, but personally, even operating a vehicle alone, I've never had to leave a Dodge in a hole as long as it had a winch and the engine would run, and that's before you get to other uses like winching new toys onto trailers, and of course helping those less fortunate than ourselves (e.g anyone NOT driving a Dodge) I'll go back to sleep now. By the way, seen Rick's latest progress with the VK62B? http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/dodge_rebuild/part28-restoration.htm

Not only does he have two Antars and a Sno-Cat, but I've recently sold him an MH-Ford SnoGo too..... It's the Snowy Mountain area of Australia (well it would have to be, with a 1960's Tucker 443 Sno-Cat, wouldn't it?) and equipment like this was used in the contruction of the original dams and power plants thereabouts, although none of the original equipment survives, apparently. Antars hauled the heavy gear, MH-Ford SnoGos cleared the road, and so on. So if you want to re-create it, just go out and buy it all again. Gordon

Always, always buy the truck with the winch. It'll cost more to buy, slightly more to maintain, it will be slightly noisier (unless the PTO was fitted exactly right with the correct shimmed backlash to prevent the idler gear from droning) and be a little heavier to steer. But... it'll have a winch :-D The winch trucks look better, sell for more, attract more positive attention, and insane ordinary drivers are much less inclined to argue with them (the front at least) Do check you are getting a real winch truck though. It is entirely possible to weld the winch onto a non-winch chassis, and that is very useful if done well but worth a little less. Sometimes people do half a job and don't bother with the correct (different) radiator side panels and tow hooks. Right at the end of the war a winch conversion kit was made up so the last batch of WC 6 x 6 trucks were all 'non-winch' chassis, some of which were equipped with bolt-on winch extensions which survived post-war as options on the Power Wagon. I used a set of these to mount a winch on my WC53, and they have the added atraction that if you ever need to get the truck back to factory stock condition you just unbolt them. Gordon (four Dodges and one honorary Dodge in the garage at the minute)

The Channel might still be in the way, but you are closer to Steve's place than I am...:cool2: i just buy new from him when I need it. Feel free to hone out the bore of the original and check it. (There are always rust spots at the bottom of the bore which need to be honed away - the only usability criteria is how much metal you have to clean off and whether that takes the bore beyond the usable diameter for the seal / piston)

Young Steve Rivers at Dallas Autos should be able to sell you a new master cylinder off the shelf, job done. You can put the old one in storage for when you really need to get it sleeved, but that'll be a year or three yet. Dodge cylinders are always a problem and not cheap to rework. The master cylinder has the internal relief holes which need to be put in, and the wheel cylinders are stepped-bore which can be endless grief. Think your self lucky you have a standard truck. You can still buy new wheel cylinders for 1/2 and 3/4 ton WCs, owing to the large amount made, but all the civilian trucks (and militarised civilian ones like mine) used slightly different stepped bore sizes for 1/2, 3/4, and 1 ton. It turns out that the stepped bore cylinders used on the civilian one ton are unique to that vehicle and no longer available, so you really HAVE to get the originals reworked which is quite expensive. I don't remember the step sizes, but it's actually only one end of those cylinders which gives grief on bore size and seal availability. My two one tons were both standard civilian trucks used by the military (1939 TD20 and very late 1940 WD21) The 1939 truck was absolutely factory and everything was kept original on that by rework and rebuild, but the 1940 truck is getting a mixture of 1940, 41, and 42 springs, hubs, wheels and shocks as I've putting a 1940 drive line on the front axle. Anyway, just buy a new M/C and shelf the old one?

Tony, Tony, Tony, if only you'd buy a VC like me you'd have a lot more room to work under the hood.:stop: There is a remote reservoir available, but you'll have a heck of a time finding it, and it isn't military. Dodge did a MOPAR accessory remote for the 39-47 series which mounted on the firewall for just this situation. I have an image somewhere, but it isn't great. The reservoir was glass, with a metal lid and hose to lead down to a master cylinder cap that was basically a dummy with a hole through it. Uncle Sam wouldn't have fitted it - he might have had a metal equivalent but never seen one. Just fit a new master cylinder and do a by-the-book adjustment and bleed, you'll be fine. My WC 53 brakes worked perfectly from the day I got the truck till the day I sold it - never did more than check the fluid. My WC56 brakes always worked fine, for about a day after bleeding. I replaced master cylinder, wheel cylinders, lines, hoses, but it was always the same. Gordon

Nice to know I'm useful for something. I am indeed a trained foundry and patternmaking technician, but it's been 30 years since I admitted that. First - gunmetal is the right choice for that. Second - as drawn and photographed it wont be made in a simple two-part mould with one core. If I had to guess I'd suggest that it was made upside down from the photo, with the main bore being made by the single core (the side flange bore would be drilled from side I expect. The clue to this is the three 'ears' which will only really draw conventionally in that orientation. So how did they do the fiddly bit of the outside profile that won't draw - basically under the main tube? Well the joint line would have been down the main tube, kind of S-bend across to the middle of the side flange. The outside profile under the main tube would be formed by a second 'core' It could be done by techniques such as 'drawbacks' or 'oddsides' but simplicity would suggest that the whole outer rim was formed by a circular sort of external 'core' (ah - how it all comes back :-D) Since we are in the real world, and you will only want one or two of them, I'd suggest the lost wax process, but without the wax. Carve the thing out of high density polyurethance foam, not the packaging rubbish, but the denser type they use for floatation rings and life preservers, then just pour it in gunmetal. Speak to the foundry first and get their advice too. I wouldn't even bother with a core, I'd do it solid and then machine out the main bore from both ends and the side bore from its own face.

The CMP gauge is an interesting case. If it is the early full civilian gauge block then it shouldn't have Radium on it anyway, so no problem. You can get replacement faces for these early ones from (Keith?) on the Maple Leaf Up Forum, but since he re-finishes originals I'm not sure if that would entirely solve the problem. Postage from Oz shouldn't be too much for a gauge face plate. If it is the later type with the round military instruments as far as I know the modern jeep / Dodge repros will swap straight in. The water temperature gauge repro comes with one or more adapters which should fit the head. You probably already know, but on CMPs like the one pictured above, it isn't just the speedo that has Radium on it - all the gauges do.

Not personally, but I know why. It's the Radium that was used in marking up the original dials, and as far as I know there is no safe / compliant method of reworking / decontaminating them, given the half life. I use these extensively on my vehicles, but since I spend minutes per year exposed to them I'm not overly concerned. I tend not to dismantle or maintain anything that would have had Radium on it originally, but I don't throw it away either. (that's probably some sort of offence these days) Fortunately there is a safe fix for the problem. You can replace all the instruments and dials on your jeep and truck dashboards with modern high-quality reproductions, and just put the originals in safe storage somewhere - off your site, obviously, just treat them like asbestos. You're Glasgow-based? I would have thought you knew about this stuff, as I'm sure there was one factory in the Glasgow area before / during WW2 that did all these Radium-painted dials?

1/8" contraction per 12" would be about right. There are various considerations to contraction like this, mostly to do with avoiding cracking and warping of the finished castings. Cast wheels are good examples. Rims and hubs solidify, but the spokes tend to crack as contraction sets in, but there are various ways of dealing with it; Curved spokes; which allow the rim and hub to rotate slightly, relative to each other, when contraction sets in. Odd-numbers of spokes; having three, five, or seven spokes means that there are no two spokes directly across from each other, minimising the tendancy to crack. Gordon (who had a career doing this before he discovered oil rigs)

Most likely the first series tandem in the image above. Eminently rebuildable and no real problem. Only had to do one, for somebody else, 20 years ago, and it worked first time. Never had to pull or rebuild one on my GMC or DUKW. Original rebuild kits aren't that easy to get, however the special bits aren't the bits that normally go. You can rebuild one and just replace the ordinary seal bits (as you would in a master cylinder) and it should work. (The special bits are cylinder seals, felt, and rear piston pushrod seals that are like master cylinder piston seals but have a hole up the middle for the power assist rod.)

It's one of those gas producer units, across the back of a truck cab, with cab to left and leading edge of body to the right. They did all sorts of this stuff, basically burning (charcoal?) in a low-oxygen environment to give off hydrocarbon gas which would run the truck. Or - something totally different......:sweat:

Might be more aggro, but I'd suggest binning the whole section and replacing it. You might want to check the other lines too.... Gordon

It's very like a Dragon Wagon trailer, isn't it? The holes are for lightening I assume, the stepped front, spares on the neck, even the style of the front drop feet look to be styled after the M15 and M15A1 trailers. Two different sizes of spares up on the trailer neck do you think, or both the same? Gordon

The Salamander was the fire truck. they basically made the first Stalwart by teaching a Salamander to float...

Plenty of room up here, up you get. I had a full set of kit on my DUKW, (Dusty) but a DUKW is a big vehicle and came with a lot of kit originally. I did hand-make the fenders (not difficult) and you're right, they do look like that string the jeep owners love. I remember one original wartime image I saw of two jeeps in service with no headlights. In the accompanying text it said the using troops took them off and used them to light up their tents at night. When I interviewed a WW2 DUKW driver, he told me that the DUKW canvas was absolutely wonderful and that it made a great tent - it was removed on day one and neither the hood nor the canvas was ever refitted while he drove one. Mind the step down from the soapbox, you'll trip over that canvas waterbucket ..... oops, too late.

I don't care, I'll take the intention over accuracy any time. I do get fed up when people get markings wrong, particularly when it is normally quite obvious what it should be. An example (he's off again, everybody duck....) at no time, in original photographs, were US bumper codes EVER carefully applied and neat. Bumper codes were army, unit, company, vehicle number, and were applied in fuel-soluable white paint, to be wiped off (for secrecy) before any unit shifted location and re-applied when at destination. I'll bet they were wiped off and re-applied much less often than they were supposed to be, but find me a photo of a US WW2 vehicle in service in WW2 with NEAT bumper codes (Sits back and waits for flurry of replies ...) Gordon, that's GORDON, the Sno-Cat and Dodge person:coffee:

The DUKW sits in 2nd or 3rd gear plus marine drive and churns away till it gets there on the hand throttle. You can move it in the water by churning the wheels, but that's only in an emergency if the prop is fouled. Of course the front wheels change direction naturally with the rudder and help steering. A DUKW transmission is fairly carefully matched to the work it has to do, replacing a DUKW engine with a big diesel will just chew up the transfer case, pillow block, rear diffs, or all three. In fact we once did a speed test on water with a standard DUKW matched against a German one that had been re-engined with a BMW 2 litre unit (to save money - road tax based on engine size in Germany at that time apparently) The BMW version kept up with the GMC motor no trouble at all. When coming out of the water you also need to use loads of revs on a DUKW, so it pays to have your governor in good order and just hold the loud pedal down. I have seen DUKWS with big slow-revving diesels that wouldn't climb out properly, and standard DUKWS with 20" wheels and tyres for extra road speed that couldn't do it either because of the extra gearing effect. As a Dodge person, I'd have to admit that the GMC 270 is my favourite engine - if I could stick one in a Dodge I'd give it a try. Gordon

The amount of white paint varied during the war, but the basic reason is visibility as apparently more people were killed in accidents in the blackout than the blitz ( true? not really sure ) Let's take a Dodge truck that was shipped to the UK in '42 and follow it through to '45. 1. It left the factory with neatly painted serial numbers, maybe basic stars in accordance with AR850 if that was part of the supply contract. 2. It shipped, maybe from Virginia, at which time if it was shipped as a single unit it would get the shipping stencil. 3. Unloaded in the UK, checked over, supplied to using arm and marked up with their bumper codes, unit marks, and the CAUTION- LEFT HAND DRIVE sign. 4. Some white paint added to bumper ends and bumperettes for visibility in the blackout. Standard at first was 1" wide 5. Overpainted with even more white paint (2" ?) on bumper ends, plus maybe fender and tailgate edges included. 6. Painted with invasion star in broken circle - the breaks just being stencil marks. Lots of them, everywhere, but quite neatly as there was time to be used up. 7. Repainted markings after D-Day, very approximate, breaks in circles disappear, more and more white paint used as Axis air power (can't spell Luftwaffe) is overcome and friendly fire becomes a big issue. 8. Post war, tidied up, painted green again with neat numbers. If it is staying in mainland Europe the CAUTION -LEFT HAND DRIVE isn't re-marked. So the basic principle is that white paint markings start off small and neat, more and more are added with less and less care just to make sure it is identifiable.

In WW2 standard procedure was to paint it with pretty much anything that was available - then throw sand at it so that the surface was covered. Not a great 'finish' for a restored vehicle, but apparently that was what they did, and seldom ran out of at least one of the materials...

I don't buy anything other than UNF / UNC for my trucks unless they are really impossible to find. Even then I've been known to buy metric and re-thread it. You can find almost any UNF or UNC thread, but there are a few exceptions, such as wingnuts and coach bolts. 7/16" stuff normally has to be bought and re-threaded, and there is one sub-1/4" UNF size that is impossible - either 10 or 12 gauge - I forget which. That size is common on WW2 Dodges, especially doors, locks, bodywork, and rear window winders on Carryalls. I learned over the years to take all my vehicles apart with a gas torch, and in extreme cases to sacrifice fittings to retrieve fasteners of a pattern that you can't get any more. E-Bay for nuts, bolts, taps, dies, spanners - you name it. Gordon

The added bonus is that when I'm driving mine, no-one else is moving, but I'll admit I don't do a lot of miles, with or without the M19 trailers, on wheels or skis:);

I can see the sense in the added mud flaps, probably a legal compliance point, but is the orange flasher a legal requirement or just a good idea to stop high-speed pillocks rear-ending you? (Shows how long it's been since I had any of mine on the road - ooops) Gordon

It's not from a DUKW, and it isn't big enough or having a long enough shaft to be off a K-43 Chevrolet pole truck. Vague chance it might be from a K-44 earth augur truck but not sure. Gordon

... that to tie up this thread you need to post a couple of images of the item in question in full operating order. We've seen dozens of images of bits, how about some shots of the whole thing in one piece? Gordon