How To: Ford CMP "Blitz" miscellany

[hrpearce]

Jacques, your family are in our prayers at the Pearce house.

[Jacques Reed]

Good Day,

To Tony, Rick and Jill, Cliff, Robert and all others who have offered their kind words of support Sue and I thank you for your thoughts and will pass them on to Emily our daughter, and Ricky our son-in-law.

For those that follow Aussie Rules football, Ricky is the older brother of Jordan Bannister who is a current AFL umpire and the first former AFL player to become an umpire. He played for a few seasons with Carlton before making the change.

Jordan wrote an article about Ricky in the Melbourne Sun newspaper this past Monday 29th in the Sports Confidential section. It may be readable on line.

I will try to continue this thread with restoration info when I get the chance.
I have a folder full of drawings so will pull them out and see what I can post which may be of benefit to others restoring the Ford CMP's such as the dimensions of the .303 rifle butt holder. This wooden item is usually rotted away on most vehicles.

Thank you all again for all your support.

Cheers,

Jacques

[Ryan]

All the best to ricky and the gang Jacques. All hope to his prognosis getting better.

[Jacques Reed]

Hi Ryan,

Thanks for your kind thoughts.

I never met you but I think I may have visited your place two years ago to see a CJ-2A Jeep you had for sale which your wife kindly showed me. Hope I have the right person?

Just another project to be put on hold for the time being. A 1946 CJ-2A was dad's first car after the war and the first vehicle I ever drove (at 12 years of age)

Lot of sentimental ties to that type of vehicle so maybe somewhere in the future I will restore one. Probably have to be a US import job though, not a lot in Aus.

Wife also "suggests" I finish the Ford "Blitz" first which is not such a bad thing. Eventually I'll get there.

Cheers,

[Tim Lovelock]

Dear Jacques,

I'm very sorry to hear of your son-in-laws accident. Remain positive medicine has come a long way in our short life times, as a paramedic for 18 years I know of no other place in Victoria which could offer better care to your son-in-law.
All the best, reading the posts above it is nice to know there is a fraternity of others that can offer support in this time, cheers.
Tim

[Jacques Reed]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for your kind thoughts and words of encouragement. We are remaining as positive as we can be. We hear lots of stories from people who knew someone in similar situations and remarkable improvements in their mobility have occurred with time.

We have been overwhelmed with the support the family has been given. From a benefit day held at their local pony club to people volunteering to look after the horses, everyone wants to pitch in.

Their good neighbor has leant me his hydraulic wood splitter and that's my weekend project to split a pile a wood that arrived on the day of the accident.
Most has been split small enough for a guy to manhandle but not small enough for a 5 month onward pregnant woman to handle. With chilly Kilmore winters approaching the stove will be burning 24/7 shortly.

We never gave the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) much thought until two weeks ago but now we realize how important it is. These things affect the whole family and should have been in place years ago. You would see stories on television and think that can't happen to us- but it does.

Although I am not a big fan of Julia Gillard at least the NDIS will be a decent lasting legacy of her time in power should she lose the next election which looks almost certain.

Cheers,

[Jacques Reed]

As I previously mentioned, truck restoration is on hold due to our son-in-laws serious injury but in quieter moments I will add things to this thread which may be of use to fellow restorers. At this stage there is no progress to report after three weeks unfortunately but we are remaining positive.

Here is the first one:

Making small cotter pins used in Ford "crab" distributors:

I found these tiny pins almost impossible to find or else exorbitantly priced due to postage and handling. At one model engineering supply house they worked out to $5 each with the P & H.

I found a few methods on the net on how to make them by model engineers but most involved using a milling machine or a Unimat machine which I don't have.

Borrowing some ideas from them I used a mounted stone in my drill press and ground a piece of tie wire to a "D" cross section then bent it around a small jewelers screwdriver shank to the shape of a cotter pin. Probably all up it took half an hour to make them.

I used and old pipe flange mounted on the drill press table but only to prevent damage to the table if things went wrong. With care, the edge of the table could be used if it is a round table with a machined edge. As shown, I clamped the wire to the flange, set the drill speed to maximum and lightly brought the wire against the stone and rotated the table about 30 degrees with a bit of drag set on the table clamp. A few light passes is better than one heavy pass. A bit of a rub with emery on the sides to tidy it up and you cant distinguish it from an original.

Hope you find this interesting and/or useful.

Cheers,