Otter LRC CM4647296 comes home

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by Jakko Westerbeke

The other day I was talking to an acquaintance who asked me if I knew anything about the Otter armoured car. This, it turned out, because when he was conscripted in the Dutch Army ca. the early 60s, he spent 16 months in Suriname (which was a Dutch colony/overseas dependency until 1975) having the time of his life. They apparently went on long patrols in the jungle, up to three weeks at a time, and had Otter armoured cars. I’m not sure he meant they did those patrols with the Otters, but I suppose they must have come on at least some. That would probably get quite some distance on them, anyway.

See some period pictures of Otters in this thread: http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...554#post231554

[Jakko Westerbeke]

Ah, yes, I forgot about that thread. I’ll refer him to it, I think

[David Dunlop]

Hi Jordan.

That relay looks bad, but it came from the era when a lot of things were rebuildable, particularly electrical items like motors, generators and a host of different types of coils.

Is there a competent electrical shop near you doing that sort of work you could take the relay to for an honest evaluation? If you could carefully clean the frame assembly and free up all the hardware, could the core and coil be repaired/rewound by them to original specs? Asking usually does not cost anything and if they think it can be saved, then you know the time you then put into cleaning it up will be worth it.

The other possibility is that the relay from the Otter may have seen usage in a lot of other GM vehicles in the 30's, 40's and 50's, as a stand alone item or built into a fancier regulator style case.


David

[Jordan Baker]

The dash rebuild is moving along nicely. The next few posts will be photo heavy with a handful of “before and afters”

First up is the dash as it looks now. The pitting was filled with some jb weld and then carved and sanded down until it was smooth again. The gauge cluster will not be the original one as it was sadly too far gone with the entire bottom portions rotted away.

The second picture is of the parts I’ve rebuilt. See the next few posts for more details on them. The circuit cut out cleaned up quite nicely after vapour blasting. I haven’t tested it yet but it’s on the list to look at.

[Jordan Baker]

The trouble lamp socket is a two wire version. It also has a wider face than what I’ve seen in CMP’s. It was re-plated in nickel after being vapour blasted.

[Jordan Baker]

Next up is the ignition switch. These are available as NOS as they were used in US built half tracks. It was carefully and fully disassembled so that the rusted parts could be cleaned up. It was given a zinc plating then buffed up.

[Jordan Baker]

The starter push button is next up. Again this one was carefully and fully disassembled. It was quite full of rust and fire extinguisher sand. The metal parts were vapour blasted. There was too small springs, one under the brass contact and the other behind the button. Both spent over night in a rust eating solution. It wasn’t Evaporust but something similar. The body was given a zinc plating and the push button and outer retaining nut nickel plating. I still need to get the terminal screws out but they were seized. I don’t want to break the fibre board. So I’ll see how an overnight soak in the anti rust stuff helps.