2008 at the Hammond Barn

[RHClarke]

Another year has come and gone...but there was some progress this past year at the barn. Grant got deeply into the hobby, Bob fired up his truck for the first time, and we all got new tires.

Christmas was fun - having a young son means playing with a lot of great toys (me playing, not him...). Just a word of thanks to Bob and Joyce who bought Jesse a set of very very noisy RC tanks...payback is coming, Bob.




This Saturday Bob, Grant and I got back into the hobby with gusto. First task: clearing away some of the snow from trucks and shelters (or, cat urinals as we now call them).






Next was the restocking the wood pile in the barn for Lucifer. This lead to a discussion of Jay Leno and his car collection. A lot of envy there...Bob recalled something that Jay mentioned: After a day in his garage he walked into his house covered in grease, oil and sweat - much to his wife's disgust. Leno is supposed to have said "At least they know you aren't messing around" or words to that effect...The conversation deteriorated (as it usually does) with Bob indicating that when we were young, all we wanted to do is **** and now all we want to do is "truck". Can't disagree...

This was followed up by a hot roasted nut fest in the barn. Bob and Grant successfully removed all of the old nuts - separating the rims was another story.




Meanwhile, I refurbished some more rims in my unique black livery.




Accidents do happen - particularly with 60 year old metal. The air gun was just too much for one of the studs on my rim.




Grant performed the "studerectomy" and we will be replacing the weird thread stud (14tpi) with some off the 43 HUP.




All in all, it was good to get back to basics at the barn. Who knows? All three of us might have rolling frames this spring! Stay tuned...

[gordon]

Tell us what those trucks are under the snow, and that loose cab too.

I just associate your barn stuff with CMP, and I'm normally more concerned with Dodges and GMCs, so enquiring minds want to know.

I'd guess they were M37's of some sort, but just a guess.

Gordon from (largely, but not entirely, snow-free Scotland)

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by RHClarke
The conversation deteriorated (as it usually does) with Bob indicating that when we were young, all we wanted to do is **** and now all we want to do is "truck". Can't disagree...

ERGH!! Speak for yourselves, ye gits!! Some of us are forever young*...

Speaking of such things... Mr. Chairman, can you please set a date for your Winter Gracie's Call soon? If I buy by the end of Wednesday I get a great rate on Porter Air...




*c'mon, Rob... you gave me that one, didn't you? Happy New Year to the Rotters! "Rolling Frames by Spring" it shall be...

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by gordon
Tell us what those trucks are under the snow, and that loose cab too.

I just associate your barn stuff with CMP, and I'm normally more concerned with Dodges and GMCs, so enquiring minds want to know.

I'd guess they were M37's of some sort, but just a guess.

Gordon from (largely, but not entirely, snow-free Scotland)

Gordon,

The snow covered Dodges are M37 radio truck variants, and were featured in past threads just in different locations near the barn. The loose cab is a Dodge Power Wagon cab, which is resting near a M37 Ambulance.

The snow covers a lot of faults...

[Bob Carriere]

The radio trucks are unique to Canada I am told.

We refer to them as M 43..... same body as the Dodge Ambulance but with side windows and a single centered rear door. South Wind Heater in the same palce as the ambulance. When surplus most of them had less than 10K miles and usually with rebuilt engines of less than a 1000 miles. Most of them were surplus after the 1970 FLQ crisis..... seems the radio shack where usually parked and not driven much.... engines were worn at 10K on the odometer ....worn from running to recharge the batteries.

In 1975 going price was $2300 CDN in top conditions. Mine were driven about 15K on various fishing trips..... now to be restored.

Rob is now the proud owner of one needing a rebuilt engine and total restoration..... he claims he will be doing it for Jessie his son....

Meanwhile they shiver in theCanadian snow!!!!

I have been a Dodge PW fan for decades.... I also have, under shelter, a 1956 C4 PW complete..... running engine but needs total restoration.... one day if I live long enough....

Bob

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Bob Carriere
... I also have, under shelter, a 1956 C4 PW complete...

Bob

Bob failed to mention that his '56 has a modified fuel delivery system that is 6'4" high, and weighs 220 lbs. It greatly affects the drivers field of view and tends to fall out of the engine compartment when one accelerates or brakes quickly...but, the truck does indeed drive. A rare vehicle indeed. Perhaps we will demo the system at BB3 (given ample beer beforehand...).

[gordon]

I've seen an M43 ambulance before, but not a radio version. In fact all M37 variants are quite rare this side of the pond (versus the US WC stuff)

Buying them cheap while available is the thing to do, but round here if you can't store them under cover the wildlife run off with them...

Back to work then

[Gordon Yeo]

The Dodge 3/4 trucks with windows that Bob Carriere has are Truck, Panel 3/4 Ton 4X4, M152 CDN an I got that information out a reproduction of the Preliminary Data Summaries And Equipment Characteristics Sheets that I got from Alex Blair. I also have an M152 CDN utility that was incorrectly registered as an M43 when I bought it even though the identification plate is present and in excelent conditon plainly showing the model number as M152.
The m152 has side windows with B/O curtains and usually expanded metal exterior window covers and one rear door in the middle of the rear of the vehicle,
The M43 has no side windows but has two rear doors that open the full width ot the rear of the vehicle for ease of stretcher movement. Basicly the same body with those variations

[Grant Bowker]

...Bob and I had a second go at installing the flexible coupler for his winch drive. We now have more respect for the poor fellows who had to do the job under a truck in the mud and rain. The manual that is otherwise so valuable is a little optomistic when it comes to installing the flexible couping between transfer case and winch. The removal is decribed roughly as unbolt and take the joint out as an assembly, with installation being "reverse the removal process". We should have known better given the effort required to remove the joint a few months back. We did try assembling the joint and wiggling it into place. Not even close to fitting. Rob had the idea to compress the joint using threaded rod through holes the makers had thoughtfully provided. The joint did compress surprisingly well given the stiffening of the rubber over the years, but was still far from fitting into place. so we took it apart again and started over. The parts that mount to the transmission and transfer case were installed and tightened (after putting the brake band for the winch into place) followed by the discs containing the rubbers and finally the metal center segment. The process was straightforward after we figured out what order to do things in and improvised more tooling. Bob can decide whether the tooling aspect is a trade secret or not (after all it was his tool that was used). Once the coupler was insalled, we paused to appreciate our efforts and moved on to the shaft mount parking brake. I'm sure a purists will chime in that C15A s were not equipped with either winches or driveshaft parking brakes, but that is the way Bob's truck was found and that is how it's going back together. The completed installation, less linkages looks like this:

[Grant Bowker]

I wanted to make some progress on the small bits for my truck so afted sandblasting some of them on the cabinet, phosphating them and aiding the phosphate to dry by hanging the parts in Lucifers warmth stream I brought the parts home with me for painting. No prizes for guessing what the parts are, most of you will recognize them instantly, having done similar things yourselves.

[Bob Carriere]

......hang them to dry on the Siegfried line????

BooB

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by Bob Carriere
......hang them to dry on the Siegfried line????

BooB

BBBBBBoobee...
Grant is Air Force...He obviously used the "Hanger" line..

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Grant Bowker
...Bob and I had a second go at installing the flexible coupler for his winch drive. ... The completed installation, less linkages looks like this:

I guess we can now call you and Bob the "Odd Couplers". Nice job, tho.

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by RHClarke
I guess we can now call you and Bob the "Odd Couplers". Nice job, tho.

Rob..
Quit slacking off..
Get the Feb.Gracies thrash going..There are plots to hatch..!!

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by Alex Blair
Rob..
Quit slacking off..
Get the Feb.Gracies thrash going..There are plots to hatch..!!

Alex, I don't think he heard you......

Rob... quit slacking off! Get the damned Gracies thrash going... there are plots to hatch!!

That oughta take care of things.

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
Alex, I don't think he heard you......

Rob... quit slacking off! Get the damned Gracies thrash going... there are plots to hatch!!

That oughta take care of things.

Tabarnak and and a six pack! Hold yer hosses!. I just polled some of the charter members and the consensus is Saturday 16 Feb 08, 1700ish hours at Grace O'Malleys on Olgilvie Road here in soggy Ottawa. Alex, I will call ahead and book a table for 10.
An announcement will be duplicated in the Events section.

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by RHClarke
Tabarnak and and a six pack! Hold yer hosses!. I just polled some of the charter members and the consensus is Saturday 16 Feb 08, 1700ish hours at Grace O'Malleys on Olgilvie Road here in soggy Ottawa. Alex, I will call ahead and book a table for 10.
An announcement will be duplicated in the Events section.

'Bout time you did your job the proper way..I was getting tired of going early and scrapping with all those young waitresses about where to sit ...
I'm sure it was the tip(T)s ....
I'm in..
16th at 17:00hrs...The big hand,....

[RHClarke]

What a difference a week makes - lots of rain and high temperatures knocked the snow back down to reasonable levels.



Sunday was a busy day. Early in the morning we had a visit from the scrap dealer. He was surprised at the amount of snow remaining in the Ottawa area - he is from Winchester, just north of the St Lawrence River. At least one old car made its way south with the promise of more car removals this spring...



Grant joined us bearing gifts (inner tubes!) just in time to see the scrappers off. After saying goodbye to Joyce's old Ford, Bob and Grant decided to attack another frame. They stripped down one of the old Chev frames to restock the parts bins.



One interesting aspect of the strip down was the discovery of wooden spring spacers. I wonder if it softened the ride??





While the boys sorted out the old frame, I played with rims - again. Here are some shots of the wheels I had to take apart - keep in mind that one must make sure that the air is out of the tire before disassembly...







Off to Chez Marie we went. We found out that Bob's birthday is coming up, so Cheri gave him a big hug. We will be celebrating his aging at Gracies in February. We also ran into Gunner who joined us for lunch. His ulterior motive was to visit his tires which we are holding captive - just might have to take a trip out to the museum to drop them off for you, Mike.



After lunch, we returned to the barn to take apart a rear axle and to finish taking apart some more wheels. A sandblasting date will have to be picked in the near future. After spending a very busy day at the barn, I hit the road.

[Bob Carriere]

Just a few side lines of my own.....

It was nice to see Mike safely on Canadian soil and have him visit the "Barn"........

Lucifer got the temperature to 60 F in the barn..... quite decent.

Interesting note on the frame..... this was the frame we got from Stew which had already donated engine one way, transfer case somewhere else..... not we are still salvaging good parts from it.

I needed the cast iron dodad that holds the emergency cable to the backing plate...... one of the internal brake lever... the one I call the horse jaw bone...... is going out West to Dale Law.....

....and Grant salvaged other trinkets by grinding the rivet heads flush and punching them out with a drift pin..... safer than the hot wrench....

..... the only panic was when I was holding the cutting torch flaring away at the frozen brake drum..... and Rob yelled...
"Turn it off I just puched a hole in the ether spray can...."
Things smelled a little sweet for a few second but no "BOOM"

Last I saw of Grant when I left the barn around 4:30, he was till cleaning up parts in the blasting cabinet......

Another productive day...... a good time with good friends.

BooB

[Gunner]

Gunner submits the fol IG report of his insp of the "Hammond Barn":

Tidiness- Rob carefully swept the floors in order to have Grant dump more rusty, snow covered CMP rims complete with frozen tyre carci (carcussesseses?)- E for effort

Lucifer pumped out immense qtys of heat- C for cozy

Boobee explained in careful detail how to get the rubber baby buggy bumper thingy into the space between the tx case and the wench 'er I mean: winch- D for damn! It fits!

Rob dripped sweat all over as he whaled away on the freeze dried carci- B for bye she's wayrm in here, byes!

Grant spent an hour struggling with a seized brake drum and finally got the bugger off- D for determination

All were the most hospitable bunch of loonies I've spent a Sunday afternoon with in ages- A for allright, I had fun!

By the by, byes... them there tyres sure look nice... can't wait to get them onto the quad polsten and the C15TA.

Yippee!

Mike

PS- Happy Burpday, Bob!

[RHClarke]

COLD! -20oC with a brisk wind. I had to feed Lucifer lots of wood to even crack the 0 degree mark... As such, most of the day was spent indoors. This weekend we tackled tires - again. Seems to be our obsession these days.


It got a little crowded inside the barn, so I headed out into the cold to remove 60 year old rubber from the 43 HUP rims. It is amazing what a bunch of chisels and a sledge hammer will do to old cold rubber. The exercise was good enough to keep me from bitchin about the cold, but the two outside halves of the rims are BLR with significant rust thru on the outer flanges. The inside rims are in good shape, tho.


After a good soaking with penetrating fluid, Grant wrestled the nuts off more than a few larger rims.


The HUP is now shod with the newest rubber boots available. She stands a little higher, but that is not a problem for us gentlemen of stature...




Bob spent time working on his brakes. His visit to Mac Tools was profitable (for Mac's). He will chime in with his recommendations.


After the usual fare at Chez Marie, I parted company and headed home to the dreaded "honeydo" list.

[RHClarke]

Yep, it is getting a little boring out at the barn. The cold weather limits us to mundane tasks mostly conducted inside the barn near Lucifer's hearth.

Tasks such as trying to figure out why our container of oil froze...


Fixing the sandblasting cabinet - Bob continually calls Grant and me cheap...yet he was going to reinstal the view glass without a plastic liner ... talk about cheap! After convincing him of the error of his way, the plastic liner was installed. The new ceiling mounted cabinet lights really made a difference. Now all we need is a hose heater so that we can move the grip. Ever practical, Bob decided it was easier to move the work piece than moving the air gun. He blasted some of his many linkages, Grant cleaned up an old bracket, and I blasted my wheel nuts.



After loading Grant's truck with some much need plywood (which was delivered - many thanks, Grant) we headed down to Chez Marie to bother Cheri. Following lunch, I hit the road for more flooring fun.

[sth65pac]

Hmmm
Looks like Bobs done his nuts !!!!!!!!!!!
That will make a proud stud happy
Wheel look forward to see the finished product assembled!

Ian

[Phil Waterman]

I guess that Canadian squirrels store their nuts differently from the ones down here. But storing nuts so that they are kept heated ready to eat shows that Canadian squirrels must prefer hot food and are smarter.

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Phil Waterman
I guess that Canadian squirrels store their nuts differently from the ones down here. But storing nuts so that they are kept heated ready to eat shows that Canadian squirrels must prefer hot food and are smarter.

It would take some big, tough squirrel to chew on those nuts. We prefer not to call them nuts as the New Democratic Party (which is neither new or democratic, but does like to party with tax payer money) has the claim to that title. Instead, we like to call them Liberal Party calling cards...

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Originally posted by RHClarke
Instead, we like to call them Liberal Party calling cards...

Yes, but only when dropped from atop high buildings on the heads of unsuspecting Liberals!

[RHClarke]

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
Yes, but only when dropped from atop high buildings on the heads of unsuspecting Liberals!

Is there any other kind?

[Grant Bowker]

As seems normal these days, first order of business was snow clearing. Rob lit up Lucifer and the burn barrel to dispose of surplus from his flooring project. Bob sauntered out of the house to the barn where he and Rob discussed the latest Hammond hat trends. I cleaned more small parts (both solvents and sandblasting and considered what my next sub-project should be. Truck restoration seems easier when it is taken in small chunks so that a project can be claimed "complete". More parts came home for painting as well as a starter for cleanup. Rob continued his wheel project before an early departure for domestic duty. Bob stood, sat (everything except standing on his head) and scratched his head over how he was going to install the forest of levers in his truck to operate the transmission, transfer case, front axle engage, PTO, winch brake, cable parking brake to the rear axle and driveshaft parking brake. In the end he decided that the front axle engage was best handled by hooking up the lever that already handled transfer case shift and PTO engage to the cross shaft mounted on the transmission. I suspect he may still have a challenge to get both parking brakes working but we won't know for sure until he builds up the linkages and checks for space conflicts. Bob should be posting more photos of the linkage soon.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

Looks more like Rob is ready to take a piece out of poor ol' Booby with that thingamajiggy in his hand! And Booby... looks... pregnant? Say it ain't so, Bob!

My gawd, is this a lovers' quarrel in Hammond??!! Shades of Shakespeare!





(Boob, get the abortion... you're much too old to have kids!)

[Bob Carriere]

No I am not pregnant even though Rob looks like he has been told he was the father......... I am fat....plus padded for Winter and have a black camera bag on my stomach.......

Nothing special with the Hat....... just trying to funnel my thoughts about CMP shift levers...... my hands were full so I used the old noggin'.... been shopping at Princess Auto Again.........ssshhhhhh Joyce may be listening.

For a person my age I sure get no respect.......

Boob
Ps.... nice job on the forum Jiff