Chrysler Forward control amphibious

[rob love]

Found a shot of the Borden truck on the net. The photo credit goes to photographer Andre Blanchard.

The truck does in fact appear to be one of the Amphibious trucks, but with smaller 11.00x20 or perhaps 9.00x20 tires instead of the 14.00x20s.

[Bob Carriere]

....and second hand information.

Yes the trucks had 11x20 for most road travel.

In the 70s we were deep in M37 as a lot had been liquidated after tje FLQ crisis.

My best "recollection" was that seven prototype were provided to DND for testing. All of them were slightly different as they were hand built prototype. Things like doors and particualrly tops all had slight difference in size....parts would not necessarily interchange having been hand fitted.

The story was, and it was much easier to get good information back then, thatone had been destroyed on purpose during testing. At the saem time they were testing 4 and 6 wheel drive Volvos and Land Rovers. They use to road test them by driving to Montreal and back on a daily basis somethimes using the back farm roads between Hwy 17 and the 401 corridor..... 417 did not exist then.
Some were driven on ski hills at Camp Fortune. It was not unusual to see them cannonballing in Eastern Ontario back roads.

For a brief period there was one at the old street car barn in Deschene PQ but we were told that it had been sold to someone out West and alwasy assumed that it was the one that surfaced on Ebay....location BC somewhere.

As far as I know they were all very similar and were all amphibious.

The civilian model, as far as I am concerned, was never submitted to Lette but came as a byproduct of the prototype and had a regular open bottom never intended for amphibious operation. Call is a cheapened version.

One would have to find the actual contract with Chrysler/DND to get the real number.

But if there was only six then it is even rarer and worth more...hahaha

Cheers

[chris vickery]

Smaller tires, Rob, looks like a base mechanic's / museum mechanic's interpretation of whats right...

[David Dunlop]

Rob Love's Bordon photo poked an active brain cell and I did a little rummaging in my photos from Bill Gregg's CMP Conference day trip to Bordon in the early 1980's.

Sorry it is tucked in the background, but is this the same vehicle? I recall we were told it was the latest addition to the museum and as noted, it was sitting quietly with a full set of top bows and canvas cover on the cargo box. IIRC it still had a full set of tools and all the to be expected fiddly bits.

Perhaps someone else who attended took better photos.

David

[rob love]

I had another look at Vanderveen's entry on the amphibious ram, and the photo there also shows the more reasonably sized tires...likely 11.00-20 or even 9.00-20. The tires on the one on kijiji are huge. I know I said it before in this thread about the size of those tires, but I can't imagine driving down a highway with the large ones on.

Perhaps Clive Law needs to have a pamphlet published on these interesting vehicles. He could easily sell a dozen or more copies.

I saw a Dodge US military prototype from about the same era on ebay back in the spring. Seems to me it went for around $3,000. I was quite surprised.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by chris vickery

Smaller tires, Rob, looks like a base mechanic's / museum mechanic's interpretation of whats right...

Quite often the museum's would use whatever tires are easily available. When you have to start importing tires out of the USA for a vehicle, the costs really start to soar. Other times, the original tires are just not available. When you start talking 5 vehicles, the costs add up. When you hit 50 vehicles, it really starts to get prohibitive. Sometimes one must live within their budgets. I have not had to cross that road yet, although I will admit to installing bar treads where chevrons should be. I have not installed michelin radials where the earlier tires should be, with the exception of one pair on a M114 155mm towed about 15 years back. End of the day a clean set of tires is a lot more palatable to the public than an old weathercracked or blown out, unsafe set of early tires. We try not to display vehicles on bare rims.

However, in this case, between Vanderveen's listings and Bob's recollections, it looks like the tires on the Base Borden vehicle may well be correct.

[chris vickery]

Understandable Rob, I was just teasing..
On an interesting note, you make mention of value once again.
I suppose it comes back to the "rare" versus "valuable" arguement.
In this case, 6 or 7 oddball prototype vehicles would definately fit into the category of "special". Only the most devouted and true purist would take on such a beast, with it's unique design and questionable parts availability.
As they were custom one-offs, surely many of the components would be hand made (body, frame etc)
A fellow such as yourself would fit the bill of course, with capable hands to make things work or jury rig to suit as the situation may entail...
Back to the question of tires, I assume that these prototypes came with manuals and spec sheets, surely correct tire designation should be easy to find?

[Bob Carriere]

It may not have active military history but they were unique prototype made for our Canadian DND.

Parts for the power train and other mehcanical aspect are all early 70 over the counter stuff.

There is no frame to that vehicle.... the rectangular aluminum bilge housing the power train IS the frame.......more of a unitized construction... heavy guage aluminum welded together as a stiff box.

A frame suspension arms(steel) are bolted to the rigid box. The short axle goes through the hull by means of rubber seals.... on the outside of the hull is the U joint, short shaft then the wheel U joint through to the backing plate.

The only requirement is that the owner knows how to work on, repair or fabricate parts out of aluminum. Which explains why the damaged locker was never properly fixed.

Having recent experience as a contortionist with the Cirque du Soleil would be a great plus if you have to do maintenance on the engine....ei change a water pump!!!!

Doubt that much literature would exists on these trucks except for the manual the current owner is including.... which he obtained years after he got the truck.

So who is going to adopt this "special" orphan.......

Cheers

[rob love]

I spent the last two days working on a M113A2. I'll likely be working on it for another day or two. Everything in the engine compartment requires gymnastic abilities. The engine has a way of sucking you in. You start off working from on top of the wooden trim vane, then you have to go a little deeper and your knees are on the hull. Eventually you are twisted into the compartment and only the legs and boots are emerged.

I brought it in just to replace a bad coolant hose. That job has multiplied about 5 fold, with more and more problems emerging. I found my self cussing several times, but not so much at the APC, as it is just a dumb beast that does not know any better. Rather I was cussing at the guys who did not put it together right over the years. Linkages in the wrong spots, hydraulic hoses routed wrong and against the exhaust manifold, an electrical switch held together with electrical tape....it just doesn't end. To top it off the transmission oil is a frothy pink. I'll change that tomorrow, and hopefully it is just water from someone steaming the engine, and not antifreeze from the oil cooler.

Compared to the M113, I suspect the Ram will be a breeze. Whoops, Freudian slip...that should be "would be a breeze".

[Jack Innes]

So who is going to adopt this "special" orphan.......

The orphan has been adopted, delivery expected tomorrow!

From cursory inspection of the 1500 pages of descriptive reports on the testing of these vehicles it is definite that 6 were built. The tires specified were 9.00 X 20 & optional 16.00 X20. The truck has the larger tires on it & a set of the 9.00 X 20s mounted on rims with it. There also is well over a ton of spare parts, mostly suspension & drive train, that in a great part have been removed from an other truck. This would confirm the destruction of at least one of the test units during the testing. Most parts are tagged.

This truck, (number 3), had an engine compartment fire during testing & was rebuilt. Consequently lost considerable test time & ended up with about 1/3 of the mileage that the others had.

The 12 volt conversion was only the ignition system, the rest is still 24v & intact. The original parts are with the truck.


The truck runs well, drives & stops but needs to be gone over completely.
The aluminum repairs should be easily tidied up. The pioneer tool rack that mounts over the fuel tank is missing as are 2 of the cargo tarp bows.

If there is interest I can post some detailed pictures once the truck arrives here in Brooklin. Visitors are always welcome if anyone would like to crawl over the unit.

Jack