How To: Restoration of Ford M8 armoured car US Ordnance number 7373

[Big D]

Hi all,

I’ve been busy with work and life for the last few weeks and I haven’t posted for a while, so here are a few updates on what I’ve been up to on the M8.

I have stripped and reconditioned the transfer case. Overall it was not in bad shape and I don’t think it has been that long since it has been apart. All the flanges came off easily which I’ve found is a good indicator. The gears had some light corrosion on them from the transfer case sitting around with little oil in it. As per the photos, some of the teeth on a couple of the gears had some pitting resulting from the corrosion from that sitting around. I have cleaned that up and the pitting shouldn’t create any issues.

The bearings looked good and just required cleaning. I cleaned up all the gears and flushed and cleaned the internals. I found some oil seals ‘off the shelf’ from a local supplier which were the correct size for the bearing caps. The same seal is required for the handbrake drum bracket but the fit on this was a whole lot tighter, and it needed some persuasion to get it in there.

I did notice a very fine hairline crack in the front axle declutch housing. Looking back at my pre-disassembly photos, I see the crack was there and just visible under the old paint, so it might have been there for a long time with the paint and dirt holding it together. I have covered it in some epoxy adhesive which should seal it. I made up new gaskets, and cleaned all the shims from each bearing cap and fitted them as they were. All clearances seemed pretty good. I cleaned up the rest of the transfer case and a coat of paint freshened it up nicely. Let’s hope it doesn’t leak!

I fabricated some retainers for the rubber mounting cushions out of a bit of channel with some angled steel which will form the mounting strips on the sides. I will finish the welding and tidy them up over the weekend and then hoist the transfer case up into place on the hull.