Chorehorse restoration project

[Jordan Baker]

A few years ago I managed to find this wartime Canadian contract Chorehorse Generator. It was made in July of 1943. Featured the Cnd weather shield and the spark plug cover. The only thing done to it was a 1950’s Canadian Army gloss green overpaint. The bonus was that it was still in its original 12v. Today I started taking it apart to strip the paint off and bring it back to its original 1943 look. It was originally painted in a variation of SCC2 as found under the data tag. I’ve been using a product called Zep industrial degreaser. The paint is coming off right down to bare metal within a few hours.

[Jordan Baker]

Pulling the generator side cover off revealed that pretty much everything was in great shape. One wire had suffered from the covering coming off. There was a few mouse droppings inside so I’m not sure if the wire had been chewed at some point.

[Jordan Baker]

I read about about this ZEP degreaser product online. It’s a great degreaser and if the parts are left in longer it also removes the paint. These parts had been soaking for a few hours in a diluted mix of the product and water.

[David Dunlop]

Thanks for posting about this Zep product, Jordan.it just might be the answer for stripping that NATO Green paint off my Remote Receiver Case and Carrier No. 4 parts without damaging the Satin Nickel finish on the inside of them all, when I get to those points.

I assume it is cleaned/neutralized with something simple?

David

[Jordan Baker]

While a few parts were soaking, I did a redo on the frayed wiring. I took the original off and then removed the original terminals. Using new made vintage looking wiring I was able to make up a replacement piece.

I also removed the field coils so I could strip off the paint on the generator housing. Two more wires are showing a bit of fraying, so these will get fixed up another day.

Lastly for the day was the air breather. This was in NOS shape. The top had suffered some damage at some point and was slightly crushed. However with some careful metal bashing I was able to get it looking pretty good. I did a partial repaint on this as I didn’t want to disrupt the original decal. Interestingly, these were all originally gloss black and given a quick paint job of the SCC2 brown including drips and smudges. On another one I’ve seen there was even a few finger prints in the paint.

[Jordan Baker]

As for the final paint colour, well when I removed the data tag I was pleased to see that the 1950’s army painters led the tag in place. I was greeted with pretty much NOS SCC2. A fellow restorer/hobbyist put me onto the fact that RAPCO paints Camouflage Field Drab Brown 30118 was a near match to the paint used on the 1943 chorehorses. Thanks also to a couple of OMVA members who had gone to the MVPA convention and picked up the paint for me.

MLU and the hobby is a great place.

[Mike Kelly]

Nice project.

Re the colours: the NOS chorehorse I bought in 1980 in the shipping crate. The horse itself is factory green and the spares box is brown. The exhaust flex pipe is a silver colour. Outboard Marine brand. Cloth bags for the leads and small ancillaries.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Nice little project, Jordan!

[Jordan Baker]

Here is how the parts came out of the degreaser after spending close to 24hrs in it. I gave them a rinse off with clean water then air dry in the sun. Give them a quick coat of grey primer then the final brown. I also had time to remove the coil plate. I ended up scraping off the 50’s paint with a razor blade down to the metal. I didn’t want to soak the assembly and wreck something. Interestingly when I was removing the 50’s green the original colour was KG#3. So when I repainted I went with that.

[chris vickery]

I’ve been using ZEP Purple for a couple years now. It works great but remember, SAFETY FIRST!
As it contains lye, very important to rinse and dry your parts thoroughly and to take the appropriate measures like gloves, goggles etc.
It works great on ferrous materials but you don’t want to use on delicate items like aluminum, copper etc.
It’s great at stripping grease and paint. I always start by mixing up a batch with hot water. It would likely work even better a top a burner with a pot.

[Mike Kelly]

Originally Posted by chris vickery

I’ve been using ZEP Purple for a couple years now. It works great but remember, SAFETY FIRST!
As it contains lye, very important to rinse and dry your parts thoroughly and to take the appropriate measures like gloves, goggles etc.
It works great on ferrous materials but you don’t want to use on delicate items like aluminum, copper etc.
It’s great at stripping grease and paint. I always start by mixing up a batch with hot water. It would likely work even better a top a burner with a pot.

Lye known here as Caustic Soda. It dissolves Aluminium like butter melting on a hot day. I buy it in 5kg buckets at the Ag supply business, soak your old wheel rims in it with hot water and they come out looking nice and fresh. Then go to the Citric Acid bath, this removes the rust - hot water makes the process far more effective, you can use the 200 litre plastic drums, the dairy farmers buy the teat wash in these drums. The acid need a oil free surface.

[Bob Carriere]

....with a lye solution, in a plastic barrel, using DC current to remove rust, grease, paint and skin if your are not serious. We used a large battery charger and a bank of old 12 v batteries...... it really bubbles off with hydrogen gas so you need a sunny day outside. I used a circular SS plate wrapped to the inside of the barrel. I did both axle housings, one half at a time suspending the axle castings from the tractor bucket....high pressure spray wash/rinse......metal prep ( phosphoric acid ) then POR 15 all in one warm sunny afternoon.

Mike is right you can by the solution in 40 pounds bags in agriculture/feed store a lot cheaper.

If you notice that the skin of your hands are getting slippery, it's your skin fat dissolving in lye......... a very quick rinse in water will resolve the solution.

Goggles.... good thick rubber gloves and old clothes you plan to junk is best.

Dispose of the barrel content one a heavy rainy day.....keeps the weeds away for the rest of the season.

[chris vickery]

In my shop I have a rubberized apron, face shield with goggles and high cuffed PVC gloves whenever I get into heavy duty cleaning.

[Jordan Baker]

More parts out after soaking for a few days. It was interesting to see three different colours of paint that had been applied.

[Mike Kelly]

Originally Posted by Jordan Baker

More parts out after soaking for a few days. It was interesting to see three different colours of paint that had been applied.

That is very typical of any equipment that was painted by the army. I recall the many times I sanded back the old paint on various ex-military vehicles , usually two or three distinctly different shades of green appear one after the other.

I just spotted another Horse FS on facebook ..

The project is coming along nicely.

[Mike Kelly]

This Horse needs some Oats and a warm stable .

I have contacted the seller . Will see if I can save it .