15-CWT, 2K1, WIRE 5 Body Details

[Robert Bergeron]

My friends,

1- Here we see the aerial chimneys and ceilling lights.

2- Here is an interior plan drawn up by our friend Bruce Parker a long time ago .

[David Dunlop]

You are another genius at work here, Robert.

The passthrough still present in the Cypher Clerk's window screen suggests it is probably still the original copper screening. There would have been a spring loaded flap covering it on the outside to keep the weather out. A number of years ago, there was an apartment block here in Winnipeg built in the 1920's and each apartment door was equipped with exactly the same mail box slot assembly. It was torn down about 20 years ago, but very carefully salvaged of all the beautiful woodwork in it. I could not find out where the doors went because it would have been nice to know a source of supply for those mail flaps.

Yes, that is the coil isolation point under the hood. The two holes on the right (vehicle right) held an extension of the coil box that mounted a large filter cap. The coil box would also have it's own cover assembly.

Nice work Bruce did with his sketch. It jogged my memory once again regarding the 110-Volt Onan set up and now it is really starting to puzzle me as to what is so special about that particular configuration for the 2K1.

As I mentioned earlier, the Onan also had a 12-volt feed that I had thought was tapped into the circuitry to cross charge the wireless batteries located on the floor of the box in the front right corner. Not quite so.

I found the Wiring Diagram from inside the lid of the panel box I had duplicated and had a closer look at it to refresh my memory. The 12-volt feed from the Onan actually has it's own dedicated armoured cable line which runs from the bottom of the gen box, along the right side wall/floor line, passing under the 2 x 4 supports for the wireless battery trays and along the front wall/floor line under the wireless table. Once it passes the large grounding strap of the big copper bus bar assembly, it jogs up the wall and ends in a standard elongate electrical connection box. Bruce has it very nicely drawn in. On the floor at that point under the wireless table would have been a bracket holding two Grant Batteries. Those batteries are pretty specialized bits of equipment back in the day, which just adds to my curiosity about the whole Onan setup. What purpose was being met with all this specialized equipment?

Got some time before dinner, so I think I will try scanning in the shielding installation info I found earlier and see if it takes OK.

David

[Robert Bergeron]

David,

Grant batteries , you got me there again.

What are they ?

In the pictures , taken inside Mr. André Gibeau 's ( whom i highly respect ) box

at the War Museum we see the bus bar you are refering to.


Robert

[Robert Bergeron]

Still in Mr Gibeau's marvelous truck in the War Museum we see the 12 VDC feed of the + and - poles with external feed to the table just outside the box.

The cable that feeds the power looks like it's coming from the front wall and thence the right side wall where all the current is regulated through the panel .

Mystery solved ?

[Robert Bergeron]

Gents,

- 1- Wartime picture in Canada of a C-15 A cab 13- round hatch Wireless 5 .

Snow on the ground , so winter of 44-45, H Huts , so a base in Canada , canadian civilian cars , so active base not a storage yard.

The best picture i have ever seen of the ''Gin Palace ''

-2- ( unrelated to the subject ) The Bomb from the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regt ( 27 th Armoured ) , the only Sherman to make it from D Day to VE Day.Also, from the unit that killed Wittman, the Nazi idol . Broadside , from a Firefly variant of the Sherman . Wittman tought he was rolling through wheat fields in Ukraine pushing back retreating reds. He met the Canadians in Normandy instead .

[rob love]

Here is what the design branch records have to say in the entry for this vehicle. Note there is no tow hitch on the truck. It was considered as self contained, and the weight already likely taxed that poor little stovebolt 6 to it's limit.

[rob love]

Below is the text from the entry for this vehicle.

[Robert Bergeron]

Rob, great pictures.

On the first picture i see a square hatch , so earlier model with all metal ( heavy ) box.

On the third picture we clearly see the blackout lights kill switch for the rear door and the 110 VAC outlet in the front of the inside of the box.

[David Dunlop]

Interesting mod with the four large guards protecting the antennae chimneys. Must have been working that truck in heavy bush country. The mail slot in the side window shows up quite nicely as well, Robert.


Thanks for posting.


David

[David Dunlop]

Gosh Robert where do I start?

The Grant Storage Battery Company came into being in the late 1800's, possibly a little later than the Excide Company. Grant's claim to fame was development of a super rugged, what they called 'Deep Discharge' or 'Deep Cycle' Lead Acid Battery. They became very popular for use in submarines, electric street cars and other vehicles, as well as in the communication sector, back in the days when distributed electrical power was almost non existent. They also developed an excellent line of battery chargers. I think they were eventually bought out by Excide just before WW2 but the Grant Charger and Battery line survived well into the 1960's.

The sign image I posted shows the battery we are talking about here.

The two basic, critical features of a lead acid storage battery are it's capacity (how much power it can hold) and it's discharge cycle (how long the battery can deliver it's full capacity before reaching full discharge).

Your typical car battery can be considered at the low end of the performance spectrum. It will only give you it's full capacity for about 20% of it's discharge cycle. This is great for starting your car, even if you have to crank it a few times. From that point on, it capacity to deliver power drops off fairly quickly. If you work one of these batteries too hard ( deep discharge it) too often, you significantly shorten it's life expectancy.

By comparison, the Grant Battery was designed as a deep discharge battery. It could deliver full capacity for about 75% of it's discharge cycle, though I think it was recommended to recharge at around the 50% point to maximize the life of the battery. The huge advantage for the military with these batteries was you could run a wireless set off them for a hell of a long time without needing to recharge. But they were expensive in the day.

The standard 'Wireless' batteries the military used with their wireless equipment probably fell somewhere between a car battery and the Grant in terms of performance.

Which brings me back to wondering what the heck specialized purpose were some of these 2K1 equipped Wireless Trucks used for?

A purely wild thought, but if you have both penthouses deployed on a 2K1 Truck, there is a huge problem with the right side penthouse. The gen box muffler will exhaust directly into that penthouse. Could the Grant batteries have provided enough run time of the wireless equipment to be able to cycle the generators when the penthouse was not being used??? I'm really reaching here not aren't I…???!!!

[David Dunlop]

I think the scan of the Ignition Shielding Information worked out OK so here (hopefully) are the first five pages:

[David Dunlop]

Last four pages are here:


David