Wanted: "Unstucker" Flanges

[Scott Bentley]

Hey Fellas,

I'm on the hunt for a pair of "Unstucker" mounting flanges. No need for the whole kits, just the flanges that were usually left mounted on the rear wheels.

These minus the spools:


Thanks

Scotty

[Colin Alford]

Scott,

About a year ago Marcus Schneider from Willys Acres had a "Garage Sale" that I attended. In one of his tri-walls of Iltis parts he had a number of partial UnStucker kits including the flanges that you are after. To the best of my knowledge he doesn't do a lot of business in Iltis parts (I do note that your photo is an M151) so he may require some close up shots of the flange in order to identify them.

Hope this helps,

Colin

[rob love]

I believe the Iltis and M151A2 unstucker flanges were the same. Just the stud extensions were different. I have spares of the plates I think, but when I get to the scrapyard next I'll see if I have any of the long nuts. The nuts oculd be made form regular hexstock if need be. They would need to be drilled and tapped.

[Greg]

Hi,

I believe that I have some.
They would be $20.00 for the set of 4.

Cheers,
Greg

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Stuart Fedak

I guess with an M series vehicle, you need the unstucker kit... with the Iltis I find that we do not need the unstucker kit.....

Cheers!
Stuart

Two replies to that jab:

1: That is because the Iltis cannot get far enough into the thick to get stuck. But then again, I have seen them stuck on level ground (in sand) when towing a trailer.

2: You do not need unstuckers for an Iltis, but rather a towbar or a flatdeck trailer would suffice.

I must point out that the M38/M38A1 did not have unstuckers. One in a hundred of the Cdn2 or Cdn3 maybe had winches, although there were none here in Manitoba.

Then again, the whole idea of an unstucker was just an economical method of pretending you had fulfilled the need for a winch.

[rob love]

Well, I wouldn't say "nice"!!

As to the shovel under the hood, more than once we had to chisel the hoods open for the drivers who went on ex without the key to the hood padlock, and now had a flat, or had run out of coolant. Makes one wonder how they managed a DI before the road move. Most of them had the answer though, and threw it at us as soon as we pulled up to them: "I am not the driver". I would look 40 miles up the highway, and 40 miles down the highway......the driver must of vaporized because he was nowhere to be seen. No idea how the Iltis and this poor fellow got here.

I love the scrub oaks of Shilo. They run over nicely and leave a smell that's better than a car freshener. Now if the tree actually gets bigger than a couple inches one must rethink the running over part. I recall running over poplars so thick it almost stood my old 3/4 ton up....then I hit that one oak. Stopped the old dodge dead.

The unstucker was actually well suited to Shilo. You could dig a small slit trench in the sand, drop in your spare tire with the little unstucker wrench in the hole, tie the drag line of the unstucker kit to the wrench, and then winch yourself out. Try and do that anywhere else that had rocks in the earth. Once done, you could recover your spare tire, then throw the remaining unstucker kit into the slit trench and bury it. You could now say you used one, but knew you never wanted to again.

That method would actually also work with snow banks. I had to do it once with my CJ7 on a lonely country road in Saskatchewan. However, I had a Warn winch, rather than a mess of plates and ropes.

[Scott Bentley]

Thanks for all of the replies, and PM's sent!

Hahaha! Nice to see some sibling rivalry around here. What a great a read

In my experience, the Iltis usually only got stuck in the VOR Line outside the Maint Hanger. Fortunately, this was paved or hard surfaced, so a few Sappers could just push it inside when the parts arrived later that fiscal year.

As a side note, the Trailers however were very handy for Regimental Sports Days and Unit PT, where they were used as part of an Obstacle Course, Relay Race, or filled with water using Jerry Cans.

Scotty

[rob love]

Prior to the inter-company competitions, we would call in the trailers the other companies were going to use and mix around some of the left hand and right hand wheel studs. This was on the M100 mind you. It gave us a bit of an edge during the wheel change portion of the trailer race.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Stuart Fedak

Nice,
I was wondering how long it would take you to bite.....

Note the timelines of your post, and the hour or so it took me to respond. Normal people are in bed at 03:58 in the AM. I was awaken from my sleep by the thought that someone somewhere was badmouthing the (real) Jeeps, so I was out of bed at 0500, which is quite early for a long retired guy like me. Thank goodness I did and was able to set the matter straight before the google spiders copied your post without a reply (elapsed time 1 hour 3 minutes from your insane post to my thoughtful and informative response).

[Scott Bentley]

Originally Posted by rob love

Note the timelines of your post, and the hour or so it took me to respond. Normal people are in bed at 03:58 in the AM. I was awaken from my sleep by the thought that someone somewhere was badmouthing the (real) Jeeps, so I was out of bed at 0500, which is quite early for a long retired guy like me. Thank goodness I did and was able to set the matter straight before the google spiders copied your post without a reply (elapsed time 1 hour 3 minutes from your insane post to my thoughtful and informative response).

Rob, I love you like a brother, but i'm calling BS on that one.

Lets be honest, you were up taking your 3rd pee of the night and decided to check MLU after you were done rummaging around in the fridge.... Close?

[rob love]

I thought I would reply to Stuart's last post just to set the record straight for those who may not know any better about the difference in capabilities of the different vehicles. While the friendly hype and camaraderie is always a hoot, I would hate for any potential owner to have any misconceptions as to which vehicles were best or worst for true off road driving.

The Willys family of Jeeps, with it's 5:38 to one gearing, and despite it's antiquated smaller engine, is hands down the greatest of the military Jeeps when it comes to hill climbing. While the M38A1 does have an extra 12 horse power, the M38, with it's lower hood profile, cannot be beat for visibility of what is coming, especially when traversing those 60% slopes.

The M151A2 boasted a much better engine, the smoothest ride possible on a cross country military jeep (until the humvee came along) but did not have the hill climbing capabilities of the Willys. What it did have was very good highway speed.

The Iltis, despite it's gazillion built in glitches, did have the ability to lock the rear differential, which did help it overcome some of the loss of traction and lack of power of having too heavy a body, and gearing that was meant for the highway. Perfect if you had an autobahn to get you to the battle, but hill climbing.....not really. Operators used to complain to the mechanics that when the Iltis got airborne (extra speed to overcome the under-powering) the engine would cut out. This was true.....there is a governor built in to the rotor which would ground out when you overspeed the motor.

We were climbing some reasonably serious hills this weekend here in Shilo. In a Wilys, you pointed the truck up the hill, and in low range could just touch the fuel pedal and at slightly above idle the truck would walk up the hill. I can guarantee you could not do that in a MUTT, and no way it could be done in an Iltis. You would need a serious run with either to make it up.

In summation, if you want a vehicle with good highway speed, then either the M151A2, or the problem plagued Iltis will do it for you. But for serious sand or rough going, it is hands down, without debate, the Willys.

The military attached those unstucker plates to the M151A2, the 5/4 ton, and the Iltis. In all three cases, it allowed the army to pretend it had supplied winches on vehicles not designed to support them. The 5/4 ton project had originally intended to purchase winches, but the smallish front ends on them would not support the extra weight.

[rob love]

Yes Stuart, there is a place for the Iltis:

******Insert photo of car crusher here********

If a guy wants a pavement cruiser for the city, with the capability to go over 6" curbs with reasonable ease, then the Iltis will fit the bill. It has the advantage over the M series that it will travel to the next city with speed, and decent fuel mileage.

Unfortunately for Iltis owners, their vehicles will have to be cannibals. It is doubtful that any company will be making new Iltis parts, and as the stock of NOS parts dries up (in many cases they just about have) vehicles that fall will be used to supply parts for those owners who have the determination to keep them going. I suppose it is not unlike CMPs.

But for serious off road capability, as well as simplicity in design and repair, and NOS or reproduction repair parts available now and in the future, the Willys takes the trophy hands down.

It may well be the initial purchase price that sways potential Jeep owners over to the lesser Bombardier product. Even poorly restored Jeeps seem to be commanding more and more obscene prices these days. On the other hand, I just saw an Iltis on Kijiji for $700 the other day.

[David Dunlop]

Pure curiosity at work here, Rob, but is there much about the Bombardier Iltis that is compatible with the original VW Type 183, and how would they compare up against each other?


David

[rob love]

Yes Dave, there was a fair bit the same. But in a lot of cases, it was the differences which were the initial weaknesses. We took the original and changed some of it to North American components, which generally did not work out well. The original taillights, which were built in to be protected by the rear bumpers, were replaced with the US military type taillights, which were mounted higher and unprotected. The vibration inside the lamps caused early failure of the bulbs, and as well they were not so well protected in this location.

We added blue foam balls into the fuel system, which came apart and wreaked havoc in the fuel system.

We added an inline fuel pump of North American design which did not like where it was mounted, and failed often. Especially the early ones....it got better over time but never cured. Our first design fuel filter did not work either, and was later replaced by an oversize spin on type.

We changed the German alternator. Ours was poorly mounted, and tended to break the mount, or quickly wear out the upper bushing. It also had voltage spikes which would burn out headlamps.

One of the biggest problems, though, was the location of the batteries under the floor of the passengers. Terminals constantly worked loose, causing the alternator to overcharge and destroy the batteries and the alternator's internal voltage regulator as well.

Broken seatbacks, dead ignition modules, plastic seatbelt covers, air cleaners erupting into fire all by themselves....I could go on and on (as Stuart well knows) but these shortcomings have been brought up elsewhere on this forum. Do a search under my name along with the term Iltis.

[David Dunlop]

Re your quote:


"Do a search under my name along with the term Iltis."


Wouldn't that end up covering over half of the issues on the forum??? :roll eyes



David