Otter LRC CM4647296 comes home

[Jordan Baker]

Seat mounting parts and drivers seat base all painted up.

[Jordan Baker]

Turret basket seat getting some rebuilding love. The original seat pan and back rest frame had taken some heavy rusting due to the open top of the turret. Initially I was going to weld up all the rust holes in the tray. However after looking it over again I decided to replace the seat tray. This involved cutting off part of the frame mounts and then using the original angle iron brackets from the Otter seat. The Otter also had a third lift the dot stud along the front of the seat. One had to be removed from the back of the seat and I soldered it in place at the front. The seat pan also needed 8 holes drilled in for the turret basket and Bren magazine parts to bolt in place.

[Jordan Baker]

The turret gunners foot rest getting the full rebuild. It was in really great shape and just required a strip down, some minor welding and a repaint. The part was held in place by 4 rounded head slot screws that had seen better days. Access to the nuts was blocked by a frame cross member. I ended up using a Zip disk to cut off the heads of the screws. The downside to this was cutting a bit into the steel base just below the screw heads. So once the part was cleaned up I welded up the cut marks and ground them back down to make the mounting blocks flat again. As for cleaning up the part, it was given a quick needle scaler pass and then dropped into the citric acid bath. After 4 days I pulled it out and power washed it off. Pretty much all the left over paint came off and I had some pretty nice clean metal. It was given a spray of Zep degreaser, hosed off then finally sprayed with POR Metal Prep. Finally for painting I brushed on the POR15 and once slightly tacky it was over sprayed with the white paint.

[David Dunlop]

Were you loosing your marbles in that first photo, Jordan?


David

[Jordan Baker]

Originally Posted by David Dunlop

Were you loosing your marbles in that first photo, Jordan?


David

Haha. They were the turret ball bearings that dropped everywhere when I was removing the turret ring.

[Jordan Baker]

Really enjoying this citric acid bath for rust removal and now also a caustic bath for paint removal. These parts had some serious heavy rusting to clean off. It would have taken a few hours of work in the blasting cabinet. Instead I left the parts soaking over night and they came out pretty clean. A few spots still had the heavy post war Dutch paint. However the needle scaler made short work. The caustic bath was made up using Purple Zep cleaner. With the heater in that tub the paint is simply melting off the seats. Tomorrow morning I should be able to hose off the remaining paint and then leave them in the citric bath for 24hrs. The stuff will then be ready for painting. The finished up parts comprised of the two antenna mounts, shovel handle bracket, pick axe handle bracket and combination bracket that held the shovel blade, pry bar end and pick axe handle.

[Jordan Baker]

Parts being prepped for painting. Most of these are for the radiator shrouds. Also some side and brake light mounting brackets. The larger parts were all cleaned up after soaking in the citric acid bath. I’ve also created a caustic bath for removing all the paint. It’s working great as well on the parts that don’t fit in the blasting cabinet.