How To: Restoration of Ford M8 armoured car US Ordnance number 7373

[Big D]

Hi all,

Here a few progress photos along with a quick update.

The hatches are on now but I am still working on the hatch locking levers. The one that was still on the hull is being as stubborn as the other, and is seized. I did the same as the other side and cut a piece out of the top so I could access the workings, without removing it from the hull. I freed up the latch itself but the actuating rod (the one you pull to release the hatch) is seized into the sleeve in the side of the hull so I am still working on that. The hatch locking lever on the driver side is now fitted, although I haven’t yet finalised the actuating rod on that either.

The mine racks are now fitted to the hull and I’ve fitted a strip of folded steel on the left side of the hull for the tool locker mounts. I’ve also fabricated some new mounts for the protectoscope boxes and drilled out a lot of the broken bolts around the hull and tapped new threads where necessary. A lot of the captive nuts around the hull are history, so I need to work out what to do with those.

I removed what was left of the rear of the original floor. The cross member below that looks to be in pretty good shape. As you can see, there are still some remnants of the original front floor under the armoured floor. The sheet front floor I have coming arrives in 3 weeks so I will look at that piece before deciding what I do with the front floor.

Can anyone give me some dimensions and close-up photos of the mounts for the engine cover support rods? These have been removed at some point. I get the impression that the mount has an angle greater than 90 degrees, but it is hard to determine. I thought with a 90 degree bracket, the angle of the hull mightn’t set the support rods up high enough. Can anyone confirm this for me please?

There are the remnants of a bracket near the floor on the co-driver side, as per the photo. Does anyone know what this bracket was for? Am I right in saying this was for a Signal Projector? What is that, exactly?