T3-C number 1431 |
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takesiteasy
Member Joined: 30 June 2018 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 114 |
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I guess it was common for people to use a cold chisel and hammer to remove/tighten the hub nuts. Mine were in similar condition. I tried cleaning them up with the grinder but eventually opted to buy new ones and new washers. I also got a hub nut socket- cost $10 and makes it much easier to install the bearings. The outside keyed washer is bent up against the nut to lock the nut in place. Took me a while to figure that out when I was taking them apart and for all the old grease in there couldn't see why the nut wouldn't turn. If the washer wasn't bent in yours could be why the nuts were loose.
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Rus Curtis
Member Joined: 25 Mar. 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 1733 |
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These hubs are exactly - by design - like the jeep's front hubs. They are serviced the same way with the same parts.
You can download a digital copy of the military manual on the jeepdraw website for free. I got a printed copy from Portrayal press. TM-10-1281. The differences between the mil/civvie trailers are obvious but the maintenance and operational info are good to have. Unfortunately, my trailer had the same hack-job style of assembly you have on yours.
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Rus Curtis
Alabama 1954 CJ3B Bantam T3-C |
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PackRat
Member Joined: 18 June 2018 Location: Novato, CA Status: Offline Points: 84 |
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FYI...
Just as the WWII jeeps and trailers had some right-loosen lugnuts on the brake drums, the shackles also have one that is not a regular lefty-loose configuration. Try setting your impact wrench or breaker bar to turn it to the RIGHT to remove it before going any further. |
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GPW-17963 4/24/42
Ford F-250 Alaskan Camper Bantam T3-C #21170 |
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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Found that out awhile ago. At least they came off easy so I didn't over torque them accidentally.
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PackRat
Member Joined: 18 June 2018 Location: Novato, CA Status: Offline Points: 84 |
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Many do not understand why when they get out the old, trusty impact wrench exactly why the lugnuts won't come off of their WWII trailer and try again. Since they are essentially tightening that lugnut, something has to give and that will be the combat rim or even a modern rim.
At first, the lugnut just widens the angled rim location where the lugnut is centered, then it continues to distort the rim as the tool continues to try to remove the lugnut but is in reality tightening it even further. At this point the rim gives way and splits. Now the owner begins to think something is fishy and a light bulb goes off over their head because they remember reading something about jeep/trailer lugnuts being a standard Right = Tight on one side and a Left = Tight on the other and switches the impact wrench to turn the opposite way and.....voila! As the lugnuts are removed and an inspection of the rim reveals split or badly deformed lugnut holes, the reality of it hits home....Dude, you just destroyed that rim! OK, you can flatten out the holes if you have a 20-ton press and patience, but the splits going inwards to the drum itself need help. You can weld them up and recut them to get them back to stock but there will always be a nagging thought that one or more of the lugnut surfaces may collapse and a "death wobble" that ends in the rim collapsing while you blithely go down the freeway at 70 MPH starts the trailer to swinging back and forth and as the tire and rim roll off into the other lanes of traffic, your trailer with a big load in it wants to cause your truck to spin and you have nothing but Hail Mary's ahead of you until your rig comes to a stop. This type of damage to a rim from not knowing which way to turn the lugnut can be severe, almost as bad as finding out the internals of your combat rim are rusted paper thin around the valve hole. Welding a flat-washer is an option, but in the end....you have to as yourself....are ya feelin' lucky? Just sayin'...... |
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GPW-17963 4/24/42
Ford F-250 Alaskan Camper Bantam T3-C #21170 |
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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Progress has slowed a bit but we're still moving forward. Many parts have been to the sandblaster and powder coater. The powder coater is backed up a lot due to some industrial jobs in the area. Other parts have taken a side trip to the machine shop. New parts are slowly trickling in. We have some reflectors, C shackles, tailgate chains, bump stops, and a few others. We decided to pick up a set of MD Juan reproduction rims as we couldn't find anyone locally whose insurance would let them weld split rims.
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takesiteasy
Member Joined: 30 June 2018 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 114 |
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Good to hear about progress being made. I was re-reading this thread and saw the earlier discussion of paint color. I too have found out my trailer was originally green. You've got some nice areas of original color. If you are going to do some paint matching I would be very interested to hear what you come up with for a color code or formula. I painted my trailer olive drab for now but if I can figure out the original paint color, I will paint it with that when it needs repainting. I'm enjoying following your progress. Thanks for the reports.
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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We were kind of driving ourselves crazy trying to find that "perfect" color match and ended up picking a lighter shade of green instead. We're not sure how lead based paint changes or holds up over time. The color it is now, while appearing to be a nice shade of green, might not be representative of what it originally was 73 years ago. The trailer has already gone from original green, to rust, to John Deere green, back to rust, to burgundy and black, to semi-rusty again. In the end, it'll be "green" and black. That's all that matters to us right now.
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takesiteasy
Member Joined: 30 June 2018 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 114 |
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I can relate. I found a similar color evolution on my trailer- green to red to a different green to eventually rust. Since the original color can't really be matched with any certainty anyway, in the end all that really matters is that you like the color you choose. I'm looking forward to seeing the new paint job on your trailer.
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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Well guys, spring is finally here and it's decent trailer restoration weather. The rest of the parts have been to the machine shop, sandblaster, and powder coater. The tub finally came back today. It has been powder coated in RAL 6024 Traffic Green and RAL 9005 Jet Black. The frame rail has been straightened, the rear crossmember was straightened, the tailgate was bent back into shape, the "bubba" spring hanger mod was removed, and a few holes were welded closed. (A few too many, but that's easily fixed.) We've had the fenders and wheels for a bit now. Learned some interesting life lessons from trying to mount tubes and tires on two piece wheels. All the pieces are finally ready to come back together. We're short a few nuts, bolts, and washers from the past "bubba" spring hanger modification but those will be here soon enough. The trailer is a bright shade of green now. Nothing is bolted together but we staged a few key parts to get the idea across.
The fenders are not perfect, but this is a trailer with some family history and we wanted to keep the "character" marks it has accumulated over the years. I can't wait to have it back together and out in the sun. Edited by WellFedHobo - 11 May 2019 at 6:48pm |
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Rus Curtis
Member Joined: 25 Mar. 2010 Location: Alabama Status: Offline Points: 1733 |
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Very nice!
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Rus Curtis
Alabama 1954 CJ3B Bantam T3-C |
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takesiteasy
Member Joined: 30 June 2018 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 114 |
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Looking good! It will be fun to see the finished result! Wish we had some nice weather- it's been snowing here for 3 days straight. I am ready for spring.
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nofender
Member Sponsor Member x 3 Joined: 10 May 2016 Location: Maryland Status: Offline Points: 2035 |
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Looks great! Nice work.
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46 CJ2a rockcrawler
46 CJ2a - 26819 46 Bantam T3c "4366" 47 Bantam T3C - 11800 68-ish CJ5 |
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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Progress has been slow. Hard to find time to continue sometimes.
The yoke is finally reassembled. It was not easy. Anyone else who wants to do one of these "full restoration" type projects, keep in mind that sometimes the parts don't fit back together as easily as you'd expect. I figured that without all the rust the parts would just glide back together and be aligned and all would go pretty fast. I was wrong. Those two brackets that hold the yoke on are no joke. I knew they only fit one way and I had labeled them properly but they wouldn't line up for us after powder coating. I thought the two yoke bar pieces were identical so they would be interchangeable but with our project this wasn't necessarily the case. Neither side lined up quite right until we swapped the rails around. After that the yoke brackets bolted on a little easier. One side worked perfectly and the other required a little finesse to bolt together. Looks like there was a slight difference in thickness on those two pieces. Alignment was a bit of a challenge at times but the rubber mallet is your friend. And it's really nice to have a working spring on the landing leg pin for the first time in my life. I think dad said the spring broke when he was around 10 years old. We're putting an 0-6 coupler back on it instead of the more modern one that was there before. Thanks again to Art, who happened to have a spare set of spring hangers laying around back in 2011 and was kind enough to sell them to me so we could put the trailer's suspension back together right. |
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42 GPW
Member Joined: 13 Dec. 2011 Location: Florida Status: Offline Points: 105 |
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Your trailer looks great. You should take great pride in the finished product. They take time between all other obligations but once completed they certainly are worth the time & effort Again Great job Regards Mike
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42 GPW 81835 USA 20186310
1946 Bantam T3-C 10599 (Sold) 1991 M101A2 MVPA Member NICMVPA Member |
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WellFedHobo
Member Joined: 16 Sep. 2010 Location: Little Rock, AR Status: Offline Points: 638 |
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Memorial Day weekend seemed as good a time as any to push through the last of the work and "finish" the project. It was a great Saturday to get this father/son project ready to roll. Dad and I were able to finish the tail lights using Gale Breitkreutz's Model A method, get it flipped back over, and finished some of the detail work. There is still some paint touch up to do, side rails to build, a canvas to source, etc. But the trailer is finally back on its feet, wired up, and ready to follow us around wherever it's needed.
(As a side note on the electrical side of things, it's important to note that when powder coating your trailer, you are creating an insulated barrier between parts... Thus your ground wire is only grounded to the yoke, not the tub... ). We hope to get a few pictures of it out in the sun soon but these will do for now. The freshly applied new logo, which hasn't been present on this trailer in a very long time. We got a copy of the logo PDF from the Bantam T3C site, sent it to our local vinyl graphics shop, and got both a decal and stencil to use. We'll probably save the stencil for a few years from now if the decal doesn't hold up. The diamond plate steel floor cleaned up pretty well. We added side reflectors even though they're technically not required. Also got some canvas chain covers. Restored to its original stance thanks to those spring hangers. And that shiny new data plate. (We're saving the old one for reference.) We also have an 0-6 coupler to put back on it once we finish rebuilding it but the more modern Fulton that was on it will work fine for now. We could have had all the dents taken out to make it look new and perfect again but that would have erased the family history on this one. So we chose to leave almost all of its character marks from the last 70 years and just give it a good clean up versus the full "back to factory condition" restoration. It still has all the dents and dings and wavy fenders, but the frame is straight again.
Edited by WellFedHobo - 26 May 2019 at 1:32am |
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takesiteasy
Member Joined: 30 June 2018 Location: Minnesota Status: Offline Points: 114 |
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Congratulations! The trailer looks fantastic. Nice job on the logo- I haven't done that on mine. Looks good.
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canorisa
Member Joined: 27 Sep. 2009 Location: PSL, Florida Status: Offline Points: 373 |
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AWESOME!!! CONGRATULATIONS on your restoration. Your trailer looks Great!!!! Nicely done!
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Once a Marine!, Always a Marine!, Semper Fi! - Combat Wounded Vet, Desert Storm/Desert Shield - Persian Gulf 1992
E-mail: canorisa@msn.com 1940's Bantam T3-C |
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