teletech

Loooong overdue update: Heat didn't seem to be working well and rather than risk slagging a giant hole in the panel I opted to break out the saw. I cut a kerf through the middle of the distortion, pounded it flatter until the kerf closed up again and then ran through it with the saw again. Repeated that process several times until the sponson was flat, well flat for a 50+ year old CVR(T) sponson at any rate and better than some other areas on the vehicle. Broke out my 5556 rod and TIG welded over the saw cut.

I haven't forgotten about this though having a running Ferret might be a distraction. 🙂 After pricing having the vehicle moved I bought a ramp-truck to be able to transport my CVR(T) and Ferret at a whim. I got the hull up on the truck and there it sat for the winter while I tried to find a sandblaster who wanted to take on the work of stripping the hull at a price I could afford. Finally the stars aligned and the hull is now blasted. I'll have to clean up where the two remaining roadwheel stations were left but otherwise I'm ready to start painting and then reassembly! The fellow doing the work did miss a few small spots but I'm far less upset by his omissions than pleased by the areas I thought it unlikely he'd be able to manage. For one thing the inside of the cavity for the fuel bladder is surprisingly decent on all six sides. I also asked him to leave the reg number so I could accurately reproduce it's shape, size, and location and he also left the UN mission markings as well, which suits me fine. I can't quite see my way to painting the vehicle UN white but I'll make a white panel in the area of the markings to commemorate it's service history. OK, now it's time to break out that surplus PPG aluminum primer I bought from Boeing during the shutdown and have at it.

Indeed, quite a few of the welded areas on my hull show interesting corrosion. They look almost termite-eaten and some areas. It's concentrated in areas that had a lot of standing water so I'm hoping that with a good paint job and keeping things dry I can forstall further degradation of my welds. I do wonder how much of it is mismatched alloy and how much was failure of technique. Whatever the case, I did finally get all my welding done. I can't say it's pretty but I beat on the motor mounts with a sledgehammer with a reasonable amount force and couldn't break them loose so that's going to have to suffice. Similarly the rear sponson took a bit of pounding and seems quite well anchored. The welds will want a little putty to look better. It's hard to see to lay a nice bead when you are running that much wire that quickly! Here are some shots of the corrosion around the existing welds:

I finally measured the timing and thought how I did it might be worth a mention. I turned some plastic rod to slip into a spark plug and have the plug end of the wire fit into it, turned a waist into it so my timing light pickup would fit over, and drilled it through for a #10 bit of threaded rod. .5" dia and .8" long for the plug ends and in my case .3" dia for about an inch to clear the pickup. Then it was just a mater of connecting the timing light and looking at the marks on the flywheel. Measured at 750RPM I started around 3 degrees of advance and it was running quite poorly. Things got better with more advance. At 7 degrees it didn't backfire as badly, almost usable but did stumble. At 12 Degrees I actually felt some acceleration. I went up to 18 degrees and I can't say if that was better or worse. It was decent so I decided it was time to go over on the other side and fuss with the carburetor. There's still more work to do since my top speed is 46MPH.

Thanks very much particularly to Doug and also a few others who in addition to Ebay provided me enough parts that I now have a running-driving Ferret. It's not running particularly well as yet, top speed of 45MPH and getting 2.5MPG, but it's a start!

The OP doesn't specify which model Jeep, some transfer cases are reasonably tolerant while others will die an ugly death in mere miles. There is some difference in opinion on this topic. There are some brave souls who will flat-tow with the transfer case in neutral and report they were fine, others report damage. My great-grandfather always pulled the rear driveshaft and unlocked the hubs and that does seem the consensus for the only truly safe way. It takes but a couple minutes to remove the four bolts and wire or zip-tie the driveline to the frame and is cheap insurance against catastrophic transfer case failure. http://www.earlycj5.com/xf_cj5/index.php?threads/how-to-get-true-answer-on-flat-towing.117211/ http://www.earlycj5.com/xf_cj5/index.php?threads/flat-towing-trying-to-separate-facts-from-all-the-hype.95173/ https://www.fourwheeler.com/how-to/tech-qa/flat-towing-a-jeep/

There now exist driveways made of recycled rubber. It would be gentle on the track pads but I've no idea how it would take the weight. Might be worth contacting a contractor who does that sort of work and see if they can speak to that.

I'm sad to say that we in the USA are slow to understand that there are other pronouns than he/his. Thanks for all your knowledge and support.

If you get serious about the Ford, I might be able to help. I've owned a '44 GPW in the past and helped a friend with his 2-owner GPW, but I will say it's cool to see someone with something less common. I've noticed a number of "Burma Jeeps" for sale in my neck of the woods and found those very tempting. This is what I see for Jeeps near me just as a data point: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/d/bodega-bay-1946-willys-jeep/7273684668.html and https://sfbay.craigslist.org/nby/cto/d/windsor-1945-jeep-ford/7258999914.html You might also check EarlyCJ5.com as a forum. It's lower traffic than G503 and flat-fenders are only a small part of what's going on there but that means it's often not as picked-over with respect to stuff for sale. Of course, it's mostly on the wrong side of a lot of water from you gents.

Funny how we in the US are exporting Jeeps and importing Ferrets and CVR(T)! I understand wanting a Jeep and all. Thing is, original parts are pretty well picked over by this point so it's easy to build a Jeep if you don't mind repro parts. I applaud your desire to keep it original but it is a hard road. If you wanted original and WWII at this point it might actually be easier to get a Dodge WC or something of that stripe since repro parts aren't so common and there are still a good many "barn find" condition vehicles out there for little money. Just a thought. Good luck in any case. A local example near me, Pretty complete, unrestored, sort-of running 1943 Ford G8t for $2500. hhttps://sacramento.craigslist.org/cto/d/wheatland-1943-ford-military-g8t-truck/7271582462.html

I wanted to measure my timing with a light but of course the wires make that difficult. I turned a bit of plastic and ran a section of threaded rod up the middle, worked great. .5" dia inside the plug and recessed on top for .8" of length, then a .3" dia section for the light about an inch long. Before that I had to have a friend hold a screwdriver in the circuit with the clamp around it, not as satisfactory... but amusing.

Zeke, greetings. Nice to see a youngster taking an interest. I'm just a bit south of you, down in CA.

Excellent work and congratulations. I have a vehicle that was a flatmate to yours. It's the one behind yours in the photo in Terry's facility. After two tours in Somalia and one in Rwanda it's seen some better days. In fact based on your pics yours was much cleaner and more intact! It's taken far too long but I've finally got it down to the bare hull and most of the welding done. Your success is an inspiration.

As a note, a couple decades back I did happen upon some WRA 18 .303 and I can corroborate Captain C. Shore's observations in this regard. It has held up much better than most other .303 surplus I've used over the years. I have yet to experience so much as a detectable hangfire from it, though I very seldom use what little I have left.

I'm rather surprised nobody really mentioned alcohol to any great degree. Old military vehicles are actually well suited to run pure alcohol, just re-jet your carburetor, replace a few seals, and off you go. You take about a 15% loss on power but you get to keep driving. As for diesel engines, Mr Diesel envisioned peanut oil from the farm being the main fuel. It's not hard to cook biodiesel at home in quantities sufficient to take one's MV out for the occasional weekend jaunt. If you were trying to fire up your Chieftain, well you already have trouble unless your pockets are quite deep.

Thanks very much for this. As you say, there is a parts breakdown, but no illustration. So I'm still in the dark as to the mounting of the front post. I might just have to cobble something up I suppose. For simplicity sake I'm taking advantage of modern battery technology and putting them both in one box. Handy also since I just have one box (though I do have both lids). One more thing to add to my list of things to locate at some point, then I can use it to store spares or something.

I dearly wish I had one, but not sure where to get it. I have several chapters in digital format but not wherever the battery box is covered.

Oh terribly sorry, I'm working to make a FV58430 mount for a Mk1. It's the lowest bar so I thought it was a good place to start. I'd like to know the dimensions of the round section supporting the whole thing as well as the overall length of the mount at least. That said, any dimensions would be a help.

I want to set a Bren on my Ferret but of course the mounts are scarce and costly. This is exacerbated by my being in the USA. So I've decided to fabricate one. It's a lot like a crossword puzzle, if you get a couple parts it's easier to figure out the others. I found the dimensions for LV4/5340-99-812-5812 and LV4/5340-99-812-5813 in the parts catalouge and made one of each. I found a seller who had the LV4/5340-99-812-5814 wood washers. The socket in the Bren is about 1/2" wide so I know the body steel is 1/4" thick (based on the pictures I assume it's 2" wide) and can measure the socket in the Ferret. It would be lovely to know the heights of the turned part that fits into the socket in the Ferret and the length of the mount from where it goes into the socket under the Bren back if someone has one to measure. Of course any drawings lying around that folks could help out with would be even better! I actually used chunks of an old barrel demilled off a Lithgow FAL for the stock.

I do have a box, but I really don't see a place to attach the front hold-down. It looks like there might be a spot to attach something to the back of the gearbox side trunnion but there isn't space for it to be these.

That's what I thought and now that I look again it's obvious. I kept looking at the front of the tray was my mistake. OK, so these hold the back of the box, what holds the front of the box? Thanks,

I've got a couple small bits I can't figure out, I'm sure they are obvious but here goes:

What worked:I used the fan to rotate the motor and looked through onto the flywheel to find the TDC marks. Then opened up the distributor and set it to just be triggering. Then I measured the timing with a timing light by unscrewing a plug wire and putting a metal rod in the circuit so I could use a timing light pickup. Setting the static timing to TDC-ish yields 7 degrees of advance at 700RPM. It idles great but I can't speak to how well it runs as yet since I'm having fuel issues so running really lean if I try to accelerate, but it's nice to have some way to measure things.

I would try welding it before grinding it off and bolting on a replacement. If it dosen't work out you can always go back to grinding and bolting. I'd use MIG rather than TIG. A spool of pretty thick 5556 aluminum on a spoolgun, *very* high feedrate and lots of amps, it will be something akin to casting a new one in place. Use a copper rod to keep the hole open and extant.