Hi Bob

Will do sorry just been busy with the family.

With my “spare” time I have these days I did manage to get a bunch of the parts reassembled. The transfer case lever, parking brake lever and the master cylinder mount. These will all be stored away waiting for their return to the frame once that’s ready.

The last photo is the clutch road with its clevis. It was a nice surprise to come across the KG#3 under all the grime.

Clutch and brake pedal assembly fully rebuilt. Three bushings replaced and everything cleaned up and repainted. One pedal still had its original rubber foot pad. I’ve got NOS ones but they have gone hard. Molding and casting supplies have been ordered to make some new ones.

New pedal pad has been cast. I still have some quirks to work out but it’s getting there.

Nice work, Jordan.


David

Slow but steady. Rear hatch removed for cleanup. Interestingly there were shims behind the hinges.

The Humber Mk 4 and Panzer 3 we restored also had shims under the various hinges

Interesting. Some aspects of these vehicles are pretty crude, then they instal shims under hatch hinges.

Yesterday’s task in the few hours of shop time was spent getting this one part cleaned up and painted. The handle needed a bit of straightening and a small amount of welding done to fix up where the rod was cracking. One day the rest of the vehicle will look this good.

The rear viewing hatch was also removed. I’ve included some detail on the linkage assembly.

Lastly I picked up a needle gun. I needed something that would help remove the old layers of paint. It was proving very slow trying to sandblast off the postwar applied paint. I tried it out on the front hull and was quite pleased with how fast it was removing paint. This should definitely save time and materials when sandblasting.

The rear viewing hatch is pretty much all rebuilt. There were two castle nuts on the arm pivot bolts that needed replacing. They had taken a bit of a beating from weather coming in the open hatch over the years. Thankfully I found some matching ones on EBay. Bounce they arrive, the rusted ones will be replaced and cotter pins put in as well.

Next up is removing the heavy cast antenna cable hole covers. These were used to protect the cable hole in the hull armour. Interestingly when I removed them I discovered yellow paint on the metal under the KG#3 paint. I’m thinking they were shop markings during production of the Otter. There was also the remains of the right side antenna mount that had been ripped off the hull.

When I removed the left cover I noticed more yellow paint under the layers of green. This time it was painted the numbers 277. After sandblasting I found the hand stamped numbers of 326. I suspect these were done during production but as for why, no idea.

Jordan, if you’re having trouble with your sandblasting you may have numerous issues.
I’ve yet to see sandblasting fail.
Your choice of media for starters. Try a more aggressive grit size.
Maybe your compressor isn’t sized to keep up , CFM.
Worn out nozzles can also affect the work.
Looking good

Chris.

Even the sandblaster guy said this paint was time consuming. It comes down to, do I spend 20 plus minutes sandblasting off the really hard thick paint or do I spend 5 min with the needle scaler and then 5 min sandblasting. My plan for the big stuff that won’t fit in the cabinet is to now needle scale it then send it off to be blasted.

Finally got around to making up another engine cart from some scrap lumber. Now the engine can be easily moved around the shop and the transmission can be removed for rebuilding.

Took the top off of the transmission. Still full of very clean oil and the gears all look to be mint and near NOS. The inside of the case is very very clean. I am quite thrilled as this transmission is very rare and hard to find for parts.

I did a short video of how nicely everything turns.

https://youtu.be/Wi64xGNXzVU

Very nice tranny, Jordan.

I wonder if it was a rebuild, or perhaps the Otter got a brand new one late in its service life? Either way, surprises like that are very easy to take!



David

Its hard to say. I can tell the Otter did get a rebuild by the Dutch at some point as their dark green paint was on a lot of parts. The rad has a Dutch company tag on it too. Simply the fact that it has sat for so long and clearly been in the weather for a few seasons, I was surprised at how well it was. Mind you it does have an armoured roof over it so that would go a long way to keeping out the weather.