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

[Big D]

Hi all,

I’ve been tied up working on some other projects so it’s been a while since my last update.

My brake guy has hopefully worked out a solution for me. You might recall in his testing he couldn’t fault one of the wheel cylinders I sent him but believed the other one was leaking between the cylinder and the sleeve. He has changed tack a bit and now believes some different cups will do the job. He supplied me with 12 x English made cups and 12 x Spanish made cups. These are about 1.5mm shorter than the Japanese cups (still good quality he thinks) I was using with the new kits. He fitted these in the two cylinders and had been testing them on the bench at 100psi with no leaks. They are noticeably freer in the cylinder bores than the other cups. I have now replaced all the original pistons and cups with these new pistons, springs and full cups. I’ve made a note that I’ve fitted the English made cups on the driver’s side of the vehicle and the Spanish made ones on the other side. I bled the brakes using the pressure bleeder and I will monitor the wheel cylinders now for leaks. I have my fingers crossed!

After bleeding the brakes, I moved the M8 under its own power in the workshop for the first time today. That was quite a feeling but the elation quickly disappeared when I realised I have some tweaking to do and need to sort a number of things out.

The transfer case linkages are not right as I could only select low range today and got no movement in high range. I also couldn’t engage the front axle using the lever. Hopefully it is not an interlock problem in the transfer case but I’m more inclined to think I have the lengths of both fabricated control rods wrong so I will need to adjust those.

I’m also not sure about the gearshift lever. I mentioned this some time ago that I had two different shaped gearstick levers, and both appeared to be originals. I had fitted the one that seemed to be a better shape but it really limits where you can have your legs without clashing with the gearstick lever and the steering wheel. I am going to try the other one which has a lower profile when in the forward position (reverse/first gear).

I’d have to say to that having never driven one of these vehicles before, they appear best suited to someone smaller than me! I am 184cm and 93kg (6 ½” and 204 pounds) and it feels a real tight fit in that driver’s area. It seems there is little room between the left side of the steering wheel and the side of the hull and the right side of the steering wheel and the gearstick. It also feels like you’ve just about got your knees up around your ears when you have your feet on the pedals. I think the fact that my body is well over 50 years of age doesn’t help either! LOL. What are others’ experiences? A slightly smaller diameter steering wheel would help I feel.

Thanks to Brian for supplying me some working ammeters. I’m not quite sure what I changed with the shunt wiring but after some experimentation, I now have a working ammeter in the instrument panel.

That is all for today…