Patrick Tipton

Great writeup - ty! ...results look outstanding!

Sorry John - but it sure looks sweet all sandblasted!

John - many thanks. Yes, it has a hex nut. That sounds like the right answer - I tried to find a picture on the web but could not - I will take a look in the manual for a picture to confirm. Other than the cutout for this cable and an access hole on the front lower right corner of the dash, are there other differences between the T24 and M29/C dash panel? I am not seeing anything else and since this is what I have, I will need to fix it to be correct for the T24. ...and thanks for the kind words John - you inspired me to go deep 🙂

Here you go. Not totally easy to see, but IGN OFF HEATER The picture in the manual looks like the decal has a darker outline which looks to have been painted over in the picture....

I began adding captive nuts to the inside corner hat channel for the new side. In the process, I realized that I missed one on the other side so I will have to do a little creative welding over the next couple of sessions. I got the rear floor panel captives installed and drilled almost all of the holes for the front. The hat channels I got were cut short to fit in a shipping box so I need to weld it together. I am going to do that on the bench when I install the hat channel - probably this weekend. These hat channels did not look all that bad until I started working on them. I am glad that I replaced everything on the floors - worth the effort in my mind. Another big milestone mounting the engine cover/dash today. I purchased this T24 already disassembled so it is neat to get to see her start taking shape. I have a lot of metal work to do on these components, but they are all salvageable with some effort. The stretcher mount will come off. The dash lines up with the new captive nuts well - it has been welded in its earlier life in a few spots and is distorted.... I will probably have to remove the driver heat door section in order to repair it - more spot weld drilling! There is a strange little brass bolt on the lower edge of the dash. It looks like a wire is supposed to pass through there. I don't think it is correct for the T24 - anyone recognize the part? I snapped this shot as I was leaving the shop yesterday evening. I am excited but all I can keep thinking about is how much time with a hammer and dolly it is going to take me to get that front panel looking nice😂 I also popped it off of the rotisserie to make a few changes. My balance adjusting mechanism/attachment for the front are pretty sorry designs. I need to do some refinement so the hull goes easily around - I want to be able to turn it 90 degrees to weld in the side and I need complete access to the bottom to fix a bunch of spots there too.

Dan - fantastic! Love to see the project and am looking forward to seeing you get this T15 restored and running. I am always amazed at how much abuse these old engines can take and still function. I would have never imagined, though, that one could stand up to years of Alaska without a crack. Congrats! Patrick

I am actually looking forward to getting to work on the mechanicals. All this tin bashing and welding is fun, but.....ready to be turning wrenches....

I mostly finished fitting the new side and began adding hat channels. First, I installed the 45 degree gusset. I ended up leaving about 8 inches off of the back so that I can fit the side over the angle iron gusset that connects the bottom and side of the hull to the rear panel. I will add that piece after I weld the new side in place. Overall, it is progressing nicely and I am pretty happy with how the side fits. This weekend's project is adding all of the captive nuts to the inner hat channel pieces and getting them installed. The plan is to add all of the hat channels on the bench and then do the final installation of the side. I could do it either way - but doing the hat channel install on the bench is a lot easier from an access perspective - the only downside is that I could distort the panel and then have problems with the final installation. I will do another test fit after I install the inner hat channel and I don't think the seat/control hat channels are likely to cause distortion.

Looks great. I was able to see a couple of factory engine photos of the T24 that a friend of mine owns - I am trying to get copies. I don't think the manifold was painted black.....but they are B&W photos and it is a little hard to tell. The engine paint is a very dark grey - what I would call a Pewter Grey - I have heard folks say it has a little blue cast and I could see that. The intake manifold and carb extension look to be the same color as the engine, but maybe a little darker. The engine has been run in the photo so the paint is mostly burned off the exhaust side of the manifold and the heat may have slightly darkened the grey paint on the intake. The intake is clearly a different color than the generator/fan etc...the known black parts. Hopefully I can post copies of the pictures at some point..... Patrick

Nice John. I have not opened mine up yet.....hopefully it is not too bad. Keep after it! Patrick

I made a lot of progress over the last several days on the the new side. Other than being unwieldy, the process is not too hard. I have to finish cleaning up the back joint, do a little more trimming on the front and then I will install the hat channels. Onward!

Thanks Alexander. I have a couple of spot welders - a tong style 120 volt which doesn't work so well and a "PanelSpotter" 220 volt machine that has two handheld grips which allows two spots on the same side. It works pretty well, but again, everything needs to be just right. It does a great job of leaving spot weld dimples though - so I did plug welds in some areas of my jeep and then went back over them with the PanelSpotter - looks factory but I didn't have to worry about the quality of the spot weld. I may upgrade yet again - I am looking at a couple of bigger machines here for pretty good prices.... The biggest challenge with the side is that you need a solid 24 inch throat to get down to the bottom of the vertical hat channels. To be continued....

Glad to see you got that removed. I think that is probably repairable. Looks like you have enough thread there to run a die and clean those threads up - when tightened down, I think you are going to be past the damaged section with the main nut anyway.

More cleaning in preparation of installing the new side. I also received a nice package from @M29C3284 Alexander with the radiator support hat channels for my project. He did a fabulous job on them including replicating the original style nut plates. Awesome! I am pretty seriously considering using a 3M panel bonding product in addition to the spot welds when I install both the hat channels and the side. I like that this product offers rust protection beyond the weld thru primer. The only downside I can see is that it would make any future repairs much more difficult. I am going to order some today and play with it a bit to see how it works.

Greetings gents. After a couple of misstarts, I finally found a local shop to bend up the new side. I was looking for someone who had equipment that was capable of adjusting the bend radius so we ended up with a nice, tight bend. The drawing calls for a 3/32 bend...about .093" or a little less than twice the metal thickness (18 gauge/.050"). I am no fabrication expert but I did some research on bending and I gather that the minimum for plain steel is around the gauge thickness. In any event, Studebaker engineers called for a pretty tight bend. In looking over my hull, most of the bends seem a little looser than 3/32 except for the hat channels - they are a pretty tight radius. The die on a brake determines the bending radius. Some CNC machines have universal dies and adjustments. The old manual brakes with the huge weights have adjustments. I was about to buy an older 10ft machine to use and resell (no space for that) when a friend gave me another name to try. These folks make duct work and generally work in 18 to 20 gauge steel. They had a hydraulic vertical press with unlimited throat (another issue) that made nice, tight radius bends - probably not quite 3/32 but close and certainly the bends look good up against the original hull sections that I removed. I then started fitting the side up. I needed to cut two relief angles on the lower side - front and back. I made a template for the rear and cut it per the original factory drawing. In this picture, the side is too far back - the "peak" of that cut goes about 3/4 of inch in front of the vertical welded seam on the lower hull. As there is a lot of stuff going on in the front, I just trimmed enough to get the side in place. Because the side is tapered, after you bend the rectangular piece of steel, you end up with an unsquare floor where it meets the rear and the front. You can see what I am talking about in the outside lower corner of the hull here. The one challenge here is that a 10ft piece of steel is just big enough to wrap around and close up the bow...I think. My guess is that Studebaker was using rolls and would have made parallelograms to bend rather than rectangles. They may have stayed at 10 foot length, but that 3/4 of an inch you see two pictures back would have made the difference. The shop I used to bend the steel has roll steel - if I ever do another one, I am going to figure out that angle and we will shear the rear edge so this fitment is not an issue. I may have to add a little triangle of steel to the rear floor to get everything in the right spot. I am hoping what I have will just fit, but if not, I'll TIG in a triangle and no one (except you folks) will ever be the wiser. I will head back to the shop over the next few days to finish cleaning up the vertical hat channels, seams etc. and getting everything on the hull ready for the new metal. My plan is to finish this clean up, get the new side properly fitted and then screw it/Cleco it in place with just enough fasteners to ensure it goes back on in the same place every time I remove it. Then I will add all of the hat channels and finally install the side.

Guys - sorry for the quiet. We lost power for 4 days early last week due to a storm and then I spent a few days digging out. Then the shop that was going to bend my side could not because they could not bend a tight enough radius. Then another shop could not bend the side because the throat depth of their press brake was insufficient. I think I found a local shop that can do it. It will all be worth it once done, but a pain in the meantime. One good thing - I spent a small fortune on the blueprints for the left side from the Studebaker archives. The plans are full sized. I am in the process of redrawing them in CAD (with help). My measurements were close, but it is nice to see the originals and get it all right. Does anyone have any interest in new sides? Once I am done with this project, I will have worked it out and could make up individuals or sets without too much trouble. Shipping would be a problem but where there is a will there is a way. PM me if you would be interested. I think the M29 sides are the identical in form and the difference is hat channel locations and the addition of the skirt on the outside but someone can correct me if that is incorrect.

Take a small punch and put it inside one of the screw holes and try and tap it loose. You should be able to just catch the edge of the seal (and not damage the threads) if you are careful. Otherwise, you could tack weld a little bead in a couple of places to grab with the pipe wrench or grind a flat as suggested above.

@OZM29C Outstanding! Coming along quite nicely. I am looking forward to seeing it driving again!

@OZM29C Very interesting John. I would not be surprised if this repair was done by the military. The repair was reasonably well carried out - workmanlike but not fussy. They reskinned the sponson from the "bow" to the bulkhead - and likely arc welded it along the seams. The front seam looked almost factory....the others were both less visible and less pretty. Most of the area was cut away by the time I got the Weasel , but the corrosion is really bad in the area. As in the case of your Weasel, the doubled skin seems to have increased the rate of decay.

More progress on the cleanup and starting to think about repairs and the assembly sequence for the new side. The front floor and bow section around the drivers compartment had been reskinned at some point. Lots of extra welds and sheet metal that needed to be removed. Underneath, there are a few doublers that need to be repaired, but overall the metal is in fine condition. I cleaned up two of the 4 vertical hat channels - I will prime the flanges (at spot weld locations) with hi-zinc. I like the rust converting primer better for the areas that will not be welded. This is an untouched section of the inner hat channel. I amazes me that any metal is still shiny and clean after 77 years. I have seen discussion over the years that the entire hull was dipped in linseed oil prior to paint. Perhaps this process explains it. I am going to wire wheel the cavity and prime it before putting the side back on.

These pictures really give a good view of basic hull structure of a Weasel. For those of you contemplating a similar project, it really is not so bad. Note that the sides of the upper hull are just lapped over the lower hull. This means that within reason, the shape of that overlap (ie the side below the floor) is not particularly important - which means that fitting the side will be easy as long as the floor/sponson width is bent correctly. I "overcut" and cut a little of the lower hull sheet metal when I cut through the weld seam - no problem because it is double thick with the inner hat channel and I will add metal back when I weld the lap joint. Overall, the hat channels are in nice shape. The pressings that make up the front and rear of the center tunnel of the hull are pretty pitted, but are still fine for the use that this hull will get moving forward. I will treat the metal. I am still thinking about using a good seam sealer in here just to help minimize the opportunity for moisture in these areas.

Gents: I am looking for T-24 undercarriage parts, particularly the early bogie yokes. I am also looking for a BC1136AW and related parts. TY!

If I am looking at this correctly Steve, there is a seal/cover. Look carefully at a screw hole and you can see that there is a flat piece of metal that is a part of the seal. You need to take that off and then you will find bearings, nuts and lock washers. You should be able to gently tap it or take a putty knife and gently separate.... ...and welcome aboard! Awesome that you have all those original markings!

I think the pictures tell the story. I will have the side & floor removed in another hour or so of work and then will be working on details.