C15A Restoration

[John Stokes]

Hi All,
Well its Sunday night and the Chev is almost rolling.All the brakes,hubs,etc are back on and all is coming along nicely.I would say you have to be dedicated to wrestle with those brake,hub assemblies when checking for correct bearing tension on the front axle.A couple of new brake lines for the front and mount the master cylinder this week and the old girl will have brakes again.Another run around with the spray gun,wheels on,then its time to concentrate on getting the engine and gear box sorted.In the mean time i am sorting out the cab etc more sandblasting,rust patches welded in etc. I'm pretty sure I'm not telling you guys and girls anything new as by the look of the other forums we are all in the same boat.More to come later.The white C60s is my cruiser,well i had a few beers last sunday and thought it would be a good idea if i took a mate of mine for a spin around the block (no brakes) All went well until we ran out of fuel and had to call the wife for a tow.All she asked was where are you? and hung up.A few minutes later arrives the Toyota with chain and wife! well you can guess the rest.(NOT HAPPY WITH ME) oh well that was last week.She is happy i worked on CMP not drove one this week.

[Stuart Kirkham]

Great stuff John. Keep this thread rolling along as we all love a good restoration

BTW, those 12.00 x 20 tyres...are they the same as the Army Unimogs as the tread pattern looks similar?

[John Stokes]

Got home a bit late so not a lot done only fitted up the winch.Because its a C15A wireless van it didn't come out with a winch.We use the original plates and bearings that came out of one of the C60s i wrecked that was too far gone.We let the left hand side plate into the chasis by 6mm so it formed a box section.The right hand side was fabricated so it fitted between the top and bottom rails and bolted.Very neat and accurate job if i can say that without boasting.The tyres i am not sure but they came from the army as new old stock could be unimogs but nut sure.Dunlop Australian made if that helps.I will post a picture of the old C60 i wrecked for parts.The one with the round counter weight is the Chev the other is a Ford F60 with a very rusted side valve.

[John Stokes]

Rain sent me home early today so straight into the shed to work on the C15A.I installed the kit into the NOS master cylinder and fitted the remaining pipes and hoses.Filling the master cylinder with fluid and a bleed here and there it was all good news. I removed the tie rod ends and cleaned the threads and adjusted the toe in something wasn't right.It seemed not to have enough turning angle.I thought about it for a while as i disconnected the drag link from the RHS hub still not the same as the left side.Then the penny dropped the backing plate retaining bolts were fowling on the knuckle.Pulled the drum off shortened the bolts and everything is fine.Not sure if this was always like this or i had lost the shot bolts.The old saying comes to mind check,check,then double check.

[Phil Waterman]

Hi John

Looks like you are making very good progress, as you will probably remember the area around the master cylinder gets crowed with brake lines, fuel line, wiring harness, battery cable and the speedo cable. It also gets very hard to work in once the engine is place.

So now is a good time to get the routing for each of these figured out and locations for all the cable/tube clamps located and sorted out. Consider putting all of the cables and lines in place even if you just put the clamps in place loosely.

I mention this as I had major problems with my Pattern 12 when the speedo shorted out on the brake light switch lugs. Burned out the speedo cable, battery cable, wiring harness, and almost through the RUBBER fuel line, about the fuel line be sure to run steel through this area. Cause for all the problems was that I didn’t have all the locating clamps in place on the speedo cable.

Cheers Phil

[John Stokes]

Thanks for the advise Phil i will take it as it all makes good sence to me.Where do the speedo clamps go if you can recall ?