Ford Blitz Restoration/Rebuild

[Private_collector]

Originally Posted by Hanno Spoelstra

Tony,

Perfection is great, but when you come to a point where perfection is not defined one should make choices. Anyway, I will anser your question: the ends of the wheel studs most likely were red, as the nuts were painted red by the military using a brush.

Unless one of your ancestors was a soldier and was a perfectionist like you. He would have removed the wheel nuts and spaypainted them red, thus leaving the wheel studs green - that is, if they had any paint on them to begin with. . . .

Keep up the good work!

Hanno

Cheers for the info. Red they will be!

Funny you should jest about soldier ancestors, because my Father was WW2 veteran, and was trained as driver / mechanic on Blitz's! I'm no perfectionist, not by long way, but Dad really was. I know he thought very fondly of both the Ford & Chevrolet CMPs. If his stories were an indication, I do believe he fancied the Chevs over Fords. I'm not sure how he tolerated the jungle mud on his trucks without going insane! When Dad left the army in 1946 he started a new career as a builder. THAT'S where his perfectionism really paid off. Any close look at my restoration work will show nothing is perfect, some things nowhere near it!. With these trucks I am working on the premice that everything deteriorates the moment you finish working on it, so I try to start high. I do appreciate your comments and input.

Terry, I do believe you are right! I'll order a few bits in coming couple of weeks anyway. Might as well stick these onto that list. In meantime will keep my eyes open for nearer source. There was a swap meet at Gympie last weekend & I had asked 2 suppliers but didn't have a sample with me for them to look at. May photograph & email to them just out of curiosity.

Keith, Those seat bases look nice & chunky. I have only seen the spring frames without the padding or covering. I have plans for manufacturing some seat pads & canvas one day, but thats a while off yet. I will need to learn upholstery before I attempt that. The two sets of tabs was a great idea, but i'm don't know why they didn't just attach one set half way up the side. Then they would still be reversable but use less material. That secone pair of tabs just hanging out there would annoy me.

P.S: Keith, i'm still needing a set of F60 data tags. General hint!!

Andy, You cheeky bugger! No manual for chook house. That one came from inside my head. Your logic about the nuts makes sense too, but i'm lazy & am gonna make a hex shaped template to fit over the nut and spray the whole thing red.


There probably won't be any progress this weekend. With the recent rain & temperatures going up, it's mowing time.............yayyyyyy! Bloody grass, taking my truck time away from me.

[Andy Cusworth]

I still prefer green centres

The dip stuff for tool handles is also marketed as a do it yourself wiring connections sealer and is stocked at i think BCF and Supercheap, it comes with a small brush attached to the lid and i think its about 20 bucks.

Look on the bright side, once the truck is done you can attach a gang mover to the back and impress the neighbours with your giant green mower !

[Private_collector]

Originally Posted by Andy Cusworth

I still prefer green centres

The dip stuff for tool handles is also marketed as a do it yourself wiring connections sealer and is stocked at i think BCF and Supercheap, it comes with a small brush attached to the lid and i think its about 20 bucks.

Look on the bright side, once the truck is done you can attach a gang mover to the back and impress the neighbours with your giant green mover !

Andy, whats a gang mover??

I will look for the tool handle stuff tomorrow afternoon. Also going to truck tyre place to order some new tubes & wheel liners.

[Andy Cusworth]

3 or 5 gang mowers used for cutting grass, were popular for towing behind Grey Fergies etc.. A lot of cricket grounds and councils still use them in England.

[Andy Cusworth]

This is a Timber Crane conversion i am always banging on about

no confusion over the colour of the wheelnuts either

[Private_collector]

With the nose panel & second seat not ready for return from sandblaster due to a machinery breakdown, I went back to work on the rear axle.
PA020257.jpg PA020262.jpg
This weekend I got the drivers side hub off & removed all bearings from both sides. As with the mates side, the drivers side hub nuts showed signs of chisel marks in direction of loosening. Nuts are OK & needed only a filing down to remove burrs. Notice the 'dimples' on the stub in the 2nd photo? Only short axle end had these. Other end would have been done by someone else & I guess they had other ideas.
PA020272.jpg
With the inner seals removed, it was easy to see why the insides of both hubs were dramatically fouled with oil/grease and dried dirt mixture. The seal shown here was the worst of the two. The extent of gunk buildup has been shown in a previous posting.
PA020273.jpg
The short axle shaft has been damaged at some stage. It's not the damage that concerns me so much as how it happened. There was no metal pieces in the drained oil, at least none that fell out with the oil. May be best if I crack the two halves of the diff open to check the crown & pinion. Are the correct gaskets still available or will I need to make my own???

Hopefully, I can take the hubs to the blaster next weekend with some other pieces. Won't have to worry about sand in bearings, but will pack these areas heavilly with rags so no damage occurs.
PA020271.jpg
The bearings have been checked, cleaned, given a coat of light oil (until i'm ready to repack) and mothballed on the shelf while I await new seals, gaskets and wheel cylinders from RockAuto in USA.

I've got 2 weeks off in mid October & hope to have the diff back together by then, so it can go for blasting and priming. There is a sodablasting Co local, BUT they charge $210.00 per hour. An old mate of mine reckons thats more than prostitutes charge........................I wonder how he knows that for sure.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Tony


Having played the game of broken axle shafts I would suggest that you go ahead and remove the Diff Carrier and clean it well. When an axle has broken often it leaves lots of small bits of metal. You may find that the marks on the end of the axle shaft didn't even happen in your truck and that the shaft has been changed from another truck.

I've never seen the big diff gaskets, what I've done is gotten a couple of good grade lithograph paper from a print shop and cut my own. Then I use a good spray gasket sealant to soak them and let them dry then give them another coat both sides and install.

If you get to the point that you need another axle, then obviously looking for a donor is always a good idea. Down your way that should not be to hard. Where I live there are not many CMPs so I actually had shaft made by a racing equipment outfit, they make axles for race cars and drag tractors.

Cheers Phil

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Private_collector

Attachment 44132 Attachment 44133
This weekend I got the drivers side hub off & removed all bearings from both sides. As with the mates side, the drivers side hub nuts showed signs of chisel marks in direction of loosening. Nuts are OK & needed only a filing down to remove burrs. Notice the 'dimples' on the stub in the 2nd photo? Only short axle end had these. Other end would have been done by someone else & I guess they had other ideas.

Tony,

Looks like the stub has been worked over with a centre punch, creating raised dimples. This is sometimes done to give the inner bearing race a bit of grip to prevent it from rotating.

HTH,
Hanno