Pete Ashby

Thank you Chaps for your suggestions I'm following them up Pete

Looking for recommendations for a company (name, turn round time and an idea of cost would be useful) to reline an axle set of riveted brake linings 15 1/2" long, 1 3/4" wide by 1/4" thick or alternatively a source of just linings and I'll rivet them my self. thanks Pete

I suggest you might go and have a look on Milweb there are several currently for sale, they turn up on a regularly there for a range of prices Pete

I think it is a case (as is the way with many things in life) of proportion, I agree if this was to be carried out on an industrial scale there would may be a case for pre analysis prior to discharge however, 1 liter total volume of molasses/water @ 1:10 dilution used to de rust a handful of nuts and bolts probably is not worth the effort I suspect. There may be a higher and more continual risk from copper ions originating from the dissolving domestic plumbing in soft water areas, the dilute hydrocarbons are not an issue in this case as for the process to be effective oil and grease needs to be removed before immersion.

I’ve noticed for some time now that a number of US based restoration forums extol the virtues of molasses baths as treatment for rust removal so I thought I’d run a little experiment and see for myself just how good or otherwise it is. I have a whole bunch of rusty wheel nuts and rim nuts from both the Dodge and the Leyland so I used these as a feed stock for the experiment. To start then, 5l of molasses from our local farm supplies shop for £7.50, an empty polythene container with a snap lid from the back of the barn and a magnet with a long piece of wire attached to it, diluted the molasses with water at approximately 10 water to 1 molasses by volume and a drop or two of car cleaning detergent (the sort that has no salt in the formulation) to break down surface tension and aid wetting, add the nuts snap the lid on and put it somewhere warm, I used the poly tunnel now leave for a month or more. Here’s some pics: Molasses Before After fishing out of the brew this is what the magnet on a bit of wire is for although this is a non-toxic process the resultant brew will stain your hands so use rubber gloves for this stage What you end up with is a dull grey finish to the steel with bits of residual paint and a slightly crusty looking surface this will clean off very easily with just a hand held wire brush or if you want to speed things up use a drill or angle grinder mounted brush. I do the nuts in batches using an odd bit of pipe or long bolt as a mandrel and clamping them in either the vice or workmate if you set them so the faces are at 45’ you can do two faces on each nut before loosening the jaws a touch to spin them over re tighten and do another two faces. short length of pipe as a mandrel Clamped in the workmate ready for brushing Less than two minutes later Conclusion: It works very well but is slow. Pros; It’s non-toxic (except where the lead based paint dissolves and contaminates the bath) It’s not a corrosive process like acid dipping for example, molasses works as a chelating agent ( Google it)on the iron oxide which effectively dissolves leaving good steel untouched Non aggressive unlike most blast processes It doesn’t produce explosive off gas unlike the electro de rusting baths It’s low cost and requires minimal intervention The contents of the bath can be disposed of down the drain Cons; It’s not a fast process but could be speeded up if the brew was heated I might try this at some stage. It does stink a bit after a while so needs to have a lid and this will also help prevent evaporation There is the need for very small amounts of finishing with the wire brush after the bath treatment but this is very quick and as can be seen from the photo above it produces a factory fresh bright finish.

PM sent Pete

I may have one James I'll see If I can dig it out of the barn this afternoon and send you a couple of photos by PM OK? Pete

have a look at this posted by Richard Farrant to see what you missed "Just found a cracking video of the 30 Corps convoys in Holland this week, see below:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1Gy7mSv7w Pete

Thanks for the link Richard Iv'e been following some of the build up on FB the range of vehicles attending is most impressive, wish I was there. Pete

One repair that needed to be done at this stage was the replacement of four split rim studs that had broke out while disassembling one of the rims. Fortunately I think it may have been a Friday afternoon job when this particular rim was manufactured back in 1943 as the welds failed and the studs came away leaving the holes clear except for a little residual weld. The residual weld and holes were cleaned up using a spherical Carborundum tool grinder and paint removed ready for welding New old stock studs were sourced from LWD parts Holland (Dirks son Stefan now runs the business) the order was placed using the web site order form and the parts were dispatched that day and arrived four days later at my workshop I was most impressed with the order tracking system that is in use. I was asked how I kept the studs true while welding them so for anybody interested this is my method, it comprises of three copper washers the exact fit for the stud, a large steel flat washer and a rim nut. The copper prevents new weld sticking to the steel washer and nut. you could just bolt the two rim half's together however there is a risk that you'll end up welding them together if there is any burn through. the rim nut is tightened down just past finger tight then to check for true the distance from the rim can be measured with calipers at four points on the rim of the washer Job done and outer rim fitted all ready for new tires. Pete

This project has now moved to the bolting clean painted bits back on phase which is always satisfying after the time spent wallowing around in all the cr#p and grease during strip down so a few pictures to record the current state of play. Front road springs bumper and towing hooks Front axle and brake back plates Rear road springs using the crane made this job much less of a struggle A small detail that became apparent while working on the rear springs was that they are fitted with only three rebound clips per spring pack. Before cleaning I had assumed that for some reason during it’s civilian life one set on the leading end of the springs had been removed from each spring pack….. Odd but ‘none so strange as folk’ as the saying goes. On closer inspection when everything was cleaned up it could be seen the leaves that have clips fitted have square cut ends (as opposed to tapered for non-clipped leaves) and the clip is riveted to the underside of the leaf. There was no evidence of the rivets being cut and no square cut leaf ends on the supposedly missing clips so it appears to be an as built feature. I have a parts book that covers the D15 ‘van’ (GS in British terminology) and that lists four clips each for the rear spring packs so it would appear to be an anomaly regarding the tanker versions. The only plausible reason I can come up with is something to do with helping to control the mass of water in the tank during braking but I’m open to suggestions. Pete

It must be over 25 years since I was at Beamish excellent photos and report it looks like a really good event thanks for posting Pete

I've used this company before and found them very good both on price and turn round. No connection just a satisfied customer.

Could well be

Busy day today getting a couple of spray top coats onto the frame, front axle, road springs and some of the frame brackets. I'm using War Paint's G3 Khaki Green at 15% sheen single pack air dry enamel it matches the original factory colour on the engine bay bulkhead very closely except that is dead flat, it's a nice paint to apply and will take up to 20% thinners for spraying without pigment separation, the paint is a Xylene base but I use a single pack cellulose thinners to speed up air drying when spraying. A few photos: A couple of the frame Front road springs and pintle spring Rear road springs and pintle cast brackets Front axle beam Pete

It looks to me as though there is a second tank at the front of the one on the rear. The RAOC base workshops (prior to the formation of REME) gained a reputation for unusual modifications during operations 'up the Blue' with the 8th Army. The tank that is fully visible would appear at first glance to be a standard 15cwt truck mounted unit mounted here transverse however on closer inspection it seems to not have the fixed brackets where filters and hand pumps would have been located. Interesting Pete

Not seen either of these before thanks for posting, taken in Tunisia perhaps ? Pete

Later production Leyland Retriever post mid 1940 but before 1941. As for the colour it's not an easy one to answer looking at the tone of the sky and the also the tyres on the vehicles it looks like the film used (may be Kodack if it's a US camera man) is more weighted to the blue end of the spectrum so any green hues will not reproduce accurately. The Leyland would have come off the production line in G3 having said that it does appear to be a similar shade to the jeep. Pete

Interesting project always fancied one of these, looking forward to following this thread Pete

Thanks for the info Rick Pete

Well said Bob we are straying into dangerous waters with this turn in the thread. There is enough pain and angst in the UK over the whole sorry mess currently without letting it spill over onto this platform. Gentlemen I think we all respect your views but it may be safer and more harmonious for all of us to steer clear of getting in too deep here

Has anybody used War Paints (Kerry Cheese) British G3 ? If you have can you post a photo that would give me a clue to the shade please and any comments regarding percent level of sheen and thinner used. Thanks Pete

Thanks for the details Ron Pete

Stand back there and form an orderly queue that man This is one of the great debates of the MV world along with what is the correct shade of early OD for US trucks and just what shade was Canadian G3 this is one that taxes me currently. As you have found out getting paint mixed from war time BS numbers often turns out to be not what you hope for. I have a similar issue with early G3 for a British truck and am also trying to match a shade for a Canadian version of G3 which if I compare remaining uncontaminated paint samples from both trucks they turn out to be significantly different canvassing other restores has produced a range of shades and tones all matched from original samples. Mike Starmer as you probably know is the accepted authority on paint colours and has published a number of very detailed pamphlets on the subject with colour chips. None of this has directly answered your question I'm afraid as there is no one stop shop for this and it would be interesting to hear others views and comments with attached photos with details of the paint codes and suppliers used and level of matt bearing in mind that colour reproduction on a computer screen is not always the best reference particularly with shades of green, brown,blue Pete

Attention now turns to the road springs, the bushes have been measured and found to have virtually no ware so they are good to go again without any further work. The leaves are all good, if a bit grubby, there are no cracked or broken leaves and the rebound clips are all good so the decision has been taken not to disassemble completely but to de-grease then rotary wire wheel them as assembled units. As removed from the truck After de- greasing and rotary wire wheeling Nice detail revealed during cleaning the bottom leaf in each spring pack is stamped with the Dodge Brothers logo, part number and the manufacturing date in this case 15 May 1943 ( not sure how visible this is in the photo below) My usual painting regime followed for wire wheel cleaned steel components with a coat of dilute phosphoric acid followed by etch primer then a gloss sealing coat Pete