Cantigny Liberty B

[Great War truck]

Some members may remember a post on here about a Liberty B coming up for sale in the USA a few years ago. This was purchased by the 1st Infantry Division near Chicago. After no doubt wondering what on earth they could do with it I am pleased to see that the restoration has commenced:

 

 

 

 

 

They were missing a lot of bits so it will be interesting to see what they have done about them. if you are ever up in Chicago area I would recommend a visit to this excellent museum.

[mucmz]

Gentleman,

There is a lot more progress on this vehicle that is notseen. All the wheels are fully restored, the engine has been completelyreworked and many parts have been found - even the hard to find ones like thecenter search light. The museum probably has the largest collection of libertytruck parts, having six of them and all parts. All the crates and rack systemthat is seen behind the truck (last pictures) is all liberty truck parts – series1 and 2. The goal is to have it completely done and running by 2017.

[Great War truck]

That is great news. I have not been up to the museum for some years, but always rated it as one of the best military museums I had been to.

 

I had no idea that you had so many Liberty B's. Where did they all come from? Is the one that you are restoring the one which came with a Pierce Arrow radiator?

 

What do you plan to do with the others? Restore one of each type? How many engines, gearboxes do you have?

 

Sorry, lots of questions, but very excited to see progress on this one.

If you need help with the body plans let me know as I have a set.

 

All the best

 

Tim

[shane.c]

Any more pics and info, very interested to see more, :cool2:

[mucmz]

Tim,

yes, the one we are restoring is the one with the PierceArrow radiator. We are not going to use that radiator because it is notcorrect, so we scrapped it and melted it down for money ..... just kidding. Butwe are not going to us it and hoping to find someone that might want it (intrade, buy, etc.). We got the rest of them throughout the states, many inmilitary bases that we going to scrap them. Most of them were to damage to eventhink about restoring (frames bent and broken, etc). But what I did is removedall the parts to save them to include oilers, radiators, rear-ends, springs,transfer cases, etc. As you could see in background of the last picture, thatis all parts. I even have an extra search light in mint condition - which youprobably know is very very hard to find. We have all the lights for the truckand even have the Series 1 electric light system too. We have really come along way from when you last saw it.

As for the bed drawings, are the drawings you have the originalsor a copy of them? Are they the engineer drawings that have the measurements,etc.? Since you have been to the park before and know the history of it, whatwe plan on doing is use Cantigny white oak to build the bed. I have a source that might have originaldrawings, but have to go digging through a warehouse of archives to find them.Any help on that front would be great. Attached are the completed wheels.

[Great War truck]

Scrapped it! You had me going there for a moment. I can think of one person who would quite like that.

Those wheels look very nice. Where did you get your tyres made? Dread to think how much all six cost.

Nice touch to use Cantigny white oak. The drawings say that “The sides, head and tail board and floor to of best quality yellow pine, poplar, cottonwood or gum. The side stakes, bolsters, sills, top bows and ridge pole may be made of best quality white oak, ash, rock elm or hickory”.

The drawings for the B Type body were published in the Automobile in 1917. We became friendly with Gordon Clare who with Hayes Outapalik bought the old Furrer collection which included 2 FWD’s and I think 8 Liberty B’s and Gordon sent us a copy of these drawings.

 

 

The drawings do have measurements but are a little basic so my Brother Steve sketched out the bits that were not clear or visible like the stake pockets.

 

 

 

 

 

Overall he did quite a few drawings.

 

 

 

We later provided these drawings to Steve McGeorge who used them on the Liberty he was restoring for the NG (was it in Ohio?). I am going to do a copy of the set to send to New Zealand. Happy to do you a set as well if you like.

 

It makes perfect sense to save what you can from the other chassis. You never know what you might need. The Solar or CM Hall searchlight is as you say very rare. I managed to get one in the USA off a militaria dealer but paid a lot for it. A friend bought one on E bay for £300 a few years ago which was more than what we paid but it was in great condition. Have you got the gas generator for it? I have only ever seen one of these come up for sale and that was another £300 as well.

All the best

Tim

[mucmz]

Tim,

That would be great if you could send me the drawings, wewill pay for the shipping and copies. As for the wood types, we have all ofthose species of woods on the park, so we can still easily use Cantigny wood.My email is: czielinski@firstdivisionmuseum.org. Just shoot me an email and Iwill get all the need info.

As for the search lights, yes not an easy thing to find.Like I said, I have two in almost mint condition. I won't tell you what I paid,you will be mad. Got one very cheap. As for the generator, we have one. Oneday, possibly next week, I'll shoot a photo of all the parts and send a pictureto you. As you know, parts are not easy to find for this project, that's why Ikept it all.

Give that person who would like that radiator my contactinfo. I want to make sure it goes to someone that can use it.

The tires were a pretty penny - roughly $7,300 - got themdone at Canton Bandag in Ohio. Great guys, but it is expensive process. Theyare original wheels, but they needed to be redone.

The other truck you are talking about is in Oregon with thatNational Guard Unit. Nice guys, okay truck .... they took some short cuts thatlowered the restoration quality of the vehicle. But overall not to bad of ajob. You'll find that I am very particular about the quality of work during arestoration. I have spent five yearsalone just doing research on the vehicle. I actually found an original list ofall manufactures of parts, how many they produced and the amount the chargedthe military .... really cool find.

Chris

[Great War truck]

Oh yes. Oregon of course, not Ohio. It looked ok in photographs, but I have never seen it in the flesh. Anyway, it is good that it has been saved and if there are things that need to be corrected later on they have a good starting point. But I would agree that it is best to do it once and get it spot on first time around.

 

That is probably not too bad a price for the tires. When we were looking for tyres for our Dennis it was about £1,500 each for them. That equates to £9,000 or about $13,000. A ton of money. We settled on Polyurethane ones made by a Co that did forklift truck tires. I think we paid about £100 each for them. When we road tested the truck from London to Brighton (60 miles) we were concerned that they might disintegrate or drop off as they got hot but we had no problems at all. They are a bit shiny but otherwise seem to have the same properties as the rubber ones.

 

 

The Liberty electric lights I know nothing about and wouldn’t recognise one if I saw it. I find it strange that they replaced them with those minuscule ones (by Dietz?). It does not look like they would provide much in the way of illumination.

 

Helpful that you have your own stock of lumber (even if it is still growing). We had trouble sourcing the planks wide enough for the body sides. Now if anybody else is reading this and not fallen asleep yet this will finish them off. The plans show that for the body sides there are two planks of wood on each side each with a width of 25” and 3/16th. We went to great effort to find four bits of lumber that wide and in the end resorted to joining four lots of two planks together and using a sander to them making them look like one. The end result was like this, apparently showing two planks on each side as per the plans instead of the four we actually used:

 

 

However, looking at all the photos I have now of the B type body (on Liberty’s and FWD’s) they must have had this problem previously as all had three narrower planks rather than the two wide ones. You will have to use the drawings as a starting point and compare them to photos to see if the drawings were modified in anyway as production started.

Anyway, I will send you an e-mail in a moment.

Tim