T-16 S/N 5399 T.D. 97377 Restoration

[horsa]

Finally have had the time to sort out everything that was needed for doing the wiring more or less to match the wartime manuals. Its nice to be able to turn on the master switch and press the start button for the engine to roar to life. No more hot wiring it but I'm still using a temporary fuel system which keeps me busy adding gasoline every few minutes for now

Shots below show the instrument panel before and after, although I am still looking for a correct wartime Waltham Clock Company speedometer.







All of the wires on the T-16 go through conduit and then branch off through braided tubes to reach whatever they connect to. Lots of fun trying to thread all of the cloth loom wires in place on the vehicle. Everything is complete including front and rear lights and siren. Exception being the two wires for the left and right fuel tank sending units. They are ready to go but I don't have the fuel tanks yet. You can see them in the second shot showing the conduit as they are yellow and stick up and out without their braided tubes.

[Neil Ashley]

David

Regarding your markings, I am yet to see any photograhic evidence suggesting British Army use in NW Europe.

Does anyone have any pictures?

[horsa]

Hey Neil,

I'd also be interested in what others might have come across in terms of photos or Regimental diary entries that might reference British use of the T-16 Universal Carriers. The biggest problem with the written accounts I've seen is the use of generic terms for everything. All of the open top, tracked vehicles got lumped together as "carriers" most of the time with no specific identification nomenclature. From a photographic point of view, there is no doubt that the Canadian forces had and used the T-16s from within weeks of the Normandy landings throughout the end of the war. I've seen photographs of T-16s with the "T" and "TD" prefix but they have thus far all been referenced to Canadian units even though they should have been marked with "CT". Another mystery but the answers are out there somewhere I'm sure.

For now, I'll just keep working the restoration and someday in the future I just might have to repaint the fenders to show a Maple Leaf.

Shots below show a little more of my progress. Now that the wires are laid, I have been able to install the driver seat (shown in the high position) and a few of the little detail accessories.



Also finally got around to finishing the work on the rear armor where the pioneer tools go. The Swiss ground off all of the attachment points and welded up the holes where the adjustable shovel fitting sits.

[horsa]

Finally made some free time a few weeks ago so I could assemble the tracks and get them installed onto the carrier. Everything went pretty smoothly and the process was much easier and quicker than I thought it would be. The following shots are some I took that day but its taken me this long to get them uploaded for MLU...


I had a handful of pins which were designed to be welded and knew they would be no good for emergency repairs in the field so used them to make up for my shortage of pins that can be removed which will stay in my recovery kit on the carrier. I opted to heat one end with my torch and then was able to make mushroom caps with a small hammer so they look similar to original factory pins.


The next step was to carefully roll each of the complete tracks between my jeep and the carrier so they would be in front of the vehicle. Fortunately I had no problems but hindsight says I should have moved the jeep to avoid a potential accident.


Both tracks now in place, only to realize I had rolled one backwards when compared to the other so I had to move it across the garage again after pulling the carrier out onto the driveway. Everyone needs to practice moving sets of tracks by themselves to get proficient at it.


Tracks starting to get into position


Tracks all laid out


Having a driveway that goes up hill, I used my truck to pull the carrier out of the garage and then let it roll onto the tracks after I had laid them out.


After having warmed up by moved the tracks around several times, dragging them onto the vehicle over the wheels was a piece of cake.


I used a modern turn-buckle type track jack to get everything tightened up for installation of the final pin on each side. Seemed pretty easy and overall both tracks took about an 2.5 hours to assemble, position and completely install to where I could drive back into the garage. Assembly with the torch probably took more than half of the total time since I didn't have everything in place to start working.


The final thing I did was to put the vehicle up on jack stands again so I could test run the tracks in the garage. I'd done this originally for testing the differential, engine and transmission together so thought it would help ensure I had no problems with the tracks when I actually took it down the road. After about an hour of running and shaking rust dust free, I broke each track and removed a single link. Being in the air, breaking the track, removing a link and reassembling the track only took six minutes per side. After another hour of running, I decided to go ahead and pull a second link from each side which made the track fairly tight but still within the specifications in the vehicle manuals. This way I still have the full range of idle wheel adjustment when I start driving and things continue to wear in.

[pablo50cal]

david very nice job, show the video wen you drive the t16.
atte pablo