More pictures - rivets, press and the power station.

The rivet under heating and ready crossmember

After I see I can go well the second frame's time came.
It was in better condition so more parts came from.
Continue to sandblast and paint.

After having most stuff green we started to fix everything together with bolts and continue to press rivets.

Whole the assembly on a display.
Too unpleasurant step was sand blasting of ready rivet's heads. Had to mask them around with plastic film and paper band.
Primered them and coated acrilic olive drab as everything else.

Needed to remove whole the frame from the cold shed into the garage because the cold time came.
Now it looks like on the last pictures, ready to put it on the bogie :)

Amazing!
 

Wonderful to see your hard work Vlad... I don't think I have seen such a complete tear down before.

Thank you for the comment Keith,
I'm slowly making it up.

I definately agree with Keith, Awesome work Vlad and thanks for posting the progress on MLU!

Alex

Well, it's time to make update here.
The project is constantly in work.
It was the time to attach chassis parts to the frame.
I assembled front springs of leaves, got them into position and put I-beam.

Attached the steering knuckles. Had to grind the king pins over for about 0.4 mm
and ordered new bushings to fabricate of brass. Next arranged "elephant ear" bogie brackets and turned the frame from its back to normal position.

Moved the bogie under the chassis and took it into the place.

I followed over the front axle, assembled brakes and put the hubs on.

Rivetting
 

How are you heating the rivets? In a forge like horse shoes or with a torch?

Another part of a long story was the steering gear.
There was a radial play of the shaft so I realized to change idle bearings.
To my big surprize they were avalible on Amazon.com by the same part number as they were marked originally. I got them, added new seal, blasted and painted the body, set steering wheel shaft bearings tightness and put the assembly onto
the frame.

I fitted the tie rod wich was in a good condition but totally rebuilt and put the most nice parts of that story - wheels :)

I've done them just with a torch, you can see it.

Amazing.....
 

Wonderful job Vlad.

The work you are doing is absolutely amazing ......and the size of that truck is mind blowing.

Truly enjoy reading and seeing your progress.

Bob C

Exceptional standards!
 

Vlad, your work is unbelievably good!

I am humbled by your standard of workmanship.

Rivets
 

Very nice work Vlad. My son jake and I did a full re-rivet job on our Ford/ Marmon Herrington gun tractor a few years ago. I would have liked a big press like you used although a bit big for a Ford chassis. Had to do ours by hand.

Thank you guys for a kind words.
I haven't time enough to follow the forum on a constant basis although try to keep the track. Hope some of you migth enjoy seeing this story.

Jack, it's interesting to know you went a rivet path.
If you have it posted anywhere I'd like to see a link to.
I also started trying to hammer them but had absolutely no luck.
As for the press I used I had to fabricate cups to my size of rivets because the original ones were too big. There were 2 type of heads of different OD and I ordered them both and of 2 different length to play with offset inside the U-part of the press.

Awesome work Vlad and good to see the frame back on it's wheels. I like you style of replacing all bushings, rubber and even the rivets. This truck will definately last until the 100th anniversary of WW2.....and probably the 200th Birthday as well :D

Do you have any pics of the truck when you found it? Quite interesting to hear that the truck basically spent all it's life in Russia. I guess it must have seen some civilian use as well?

Alex

Alex, thank you for keeping attention.
I'm shure the truck spent all its life in Russia because I was first told about it in late 80's, still the cold war time and there were no chances to import anything from another country and just make a trip out of the country as well.
After many years I got it because I too liked Mack trucks and couldn't miss that chance. Actually to the end of its service it was not an object correctly to call Mack truck. Original engine was replaced with aftermarket one, gearbox the same way and the cab changed with MAZ-200 post war Soviet truck closed cab.
By the way all the hubs were reworked into 20 inches because of no ability to get another size of tyres in SU. Before to start the restoration I provided wide research on spare parts sources and got myself on this forum. It was a key to success of that story, I found the men who helped. After some time I bought whole other truck wich I used as a spare one. It was supplied in France right after the end of the war. So the product I'm going to end up as a ready vehicle will be a combination of two trucks. I't usual way though. Here you can see Russian chassis as I brang it home about 4 years ago.

the sickness
 

Slava, you are doing good work. We don`t own these vehicles, we just look after them for the next generation. As has been mentioned, not many guys have the facilities or the courage to restore heavy trucks.

I haven't posted anything for a while but it didn't mean I had no progress.
Now it's time for some updates.
I spent a bunch of time making up the fuel tanks. Had 3 of them. Taking the worst one aside one was solid but filled with something like a bitum mixed with fuel and the other had rust inside wich followed some holes in the bottom.
Not bad at all. The first one was washed with about 200l of diesel wich I'll use in my house heating and the second one was filled with 3-4 handfulls of gravel stones, hooked up in two straps and wobbled by hands hell bunch of times.

Than I had to fill it up with water, welded and than soldered those welded spots since they was keeping minor leaks. That part of the story followed by sandblasting and painting.

The other interesting point was the straps. Happily I had them 12 of 8 required. Being unlikely to the rusty T-bolts I drilled off the original weld spots to get those T-bolts out and brang them to the galvanize shop. Than put them back in place and welded.

By the way sandblasted and painted the lower protection frames. The upper hang brackets were ready waiting to use.
Finally got the tanks attached to the chassis.

The tanks on the chassis

fantastic work mate. :thup2: