Patrick Tipton

Looks great. As you know, the dread of going that far in a restoration is way worse than the work and it usually saves time in the long run. I usually cut in pieces but end up going "all the way" over a series of progressive steps. I like that you just jumped in and got after it.

That is great that you found the original numbers. Robert does nice work - he made up tags for my Willys MB. I am hoping the PO of my T24 founds the original hull tag.....he promised he has it......

I made good progress yesterday fitting the new floor. There are still gaps that need to be adjusted, metal that needs adjusting and some patches that will be needed based on how I installed the floor in three pieces, but it is coming together just fine. The front section looks ugly, but pulls together pretty well - I will probably cut original metal into a more rectangular area and patch that. I have a lot of welding and grinding to do.

Gents: I am having some front hat channels and the gas tank hat channel made up for my T-24 project. I will post pictures shortly, but they are being made from CAD drawings that we made off of several Weasels. The gas tank hat channel is T24 style (no indent) but are otherwise the same as the later M29 style. They are easy enough to modify if you weld. Not sure yet about price - guessing they are going to be around $25 plus shipping, but it depends on how many we make. If you are interested, kindly let me know and maybe we can get enough to get a little break in the price. Patrick

Excellent information. TY!

Do you have any pictures of your floor? I am knee deep in it...love to see them. Patrick

The weather was unseasonably warm here in the NE yesterday so I spent a bunch of time bombing around in the Willys MB and playing with the TIG welder instead of working. I did manage to work for 2.5 hours though and finally quit cutting out metal. If you have done restoration work, you may be familiar with the "I can save that because removal is a real PITA" phenomenon? Then you start getting ready to repair the crusty area and your better sense kicks in and you realize you will spend less time removing and replacing than you will repairing plus the results will be a lot better. I do this a lot. So I was trying to avoid replacing the inner hat channel with the captive nuts and all of the welds to the bulkhead. The more I cleaned it up, the worse it looked so out it came yesterday. Getting the steel out wasn't too bad and I saved all of the captive nuts. The great thing about removing this hat channel is that the sheet metal corner in the area is pitted but still very solid so I have a great run of original floor to ensure good alignment. This and getting the outside corner "square" have been my biggest concern but I am much less worried because I now have a lot of original points to work from and the new steel is bent with the corners and very rigid. It will go in more or less one way and one way only. I still need to cut away a bit more of the floor right by the bulkhead but I got a little tired and stopped. Lots of rust cleaning too, although I am probably going to have the entire hull media blasted after I finish the repairs and before the primer goes on so mostly I am cleaning direct welding areas and not much more. On the subject of captive nuts, these look like two pieces - a nut and then the flange, that have been brazed together. The picture was hard to get, but the color is pretty visibly like brazing. They also could have been spot welded - you can see a "dishing" on the nut in the second picture (by the nut, not the cut I ground in the center of the flange to remove the spot weld). I need more of these for various areas so will likely make some more up. I have several others that have come out in various states of decay and the two pieces looked spot welded together. Not a big issue, just curious if anyone knows how they were put together. I did play a little with fuse welding 18 gauge with the TIG. Like all of this stuff, there is art involved, but the joints came out just fine and I think with a little practice will be easy to hide. Joint #1.... . The vertical hat channels that support the lower hull seam are solid, except for one. I went ahead and cut out the hull metal (it had some rust through anyway) so I have good access. It is a little hard to see in the picture, but both side walls are totally compromised and there are lots of pinholes in the face side. Not sure whether I am going to make up a partial hat channel, a full hat channel or clean and insert a doubler on the inside and then finish weld on the outside. I am going to have some time this afternoon/early evening so that is next up on the agenda. That floor piece is going in this week if I have to pull an all nighter!

I spent the afternoon with my new/old TIG. I picked up an old and pretty used Miller Syncrowave 250 a few months ago for a song. I needed to buy consumables, a foot pedal and an argon bottle, build a cart, etc. I finally get everything ready and my professional welding buddy stopped by today. Other than a leak in the coolant line (we farmer fixed it) and a reversed argon solenoid (previously installed backwards so it just leaked....), the machine works beautifully. I can oxy/acetylene weld but have very little experience with TIG. Based on this afternoon's experience - TIG is magic and I am looking forward to doing much of the T24 work with it. I spent the afternoon running beads, looking at penetration, playing with tungsten stick out, fuse welding 18 gauge, etc. It really is an amazing process and gives you so much control that making seams disappear and otherwise fixing holes becomes a pleasure. Tomorrow I fix a little more rust and remove the damaged section of bulkhead so I can start fitting the new floor. I may even tack it in if I get that far.... Patrick

Sorry about the outage this afternoon. I did not have the autopay set up correctly and they just turned us off! All fixed. Patrick

Makes sense....I was worried about the side hull seam and opted to use the same thickness....but I was tempted!

Welcome aboard Murray and thanks for joining! Be sure to use the "like" (heart) button and join in the conversation. Patrick

Corner fitted. Just need to spray some high zinc primer and tack it in place. I will do the finish welding once the entire new floor is installed and I am sure that the alignment looks good. One challenge with marginal shop heat is spraying in the winter - I use a wood kiln I have (woodworking projects) to warm up my spray cans and then use a heat gun to warm up the area I am going spray. Not good for a final finish, but I think acceptable for protecting seams.

Thank you sir! I like that approach. Unfortunately, the lower bulkhead/flange on the right side of this hull is full of rust/pinholes and needs to be replaced with new sheet metal. It also suffered a blow from underneath so it is also bent out of shape/plane. I wrestled with various repair ideas and finally decided that I am going to use the strength and straightness of the new 8 foot floor run to locate the right position for the bulkhead. I will make a new flange/lower bulkhead and then fit it to the floor and tack in place - probably untack the floor, finish the bulkhead weld and then mount the floor. One step up and two steps back sometimes but I don't know how else to proceed.

Right? We usually receive between 50 and 100 inches in our corner of the world. I think we have gotten maybe 25 inches this year. That being said, I am not really complaining because my modest shop heating system has been keeping it warm enough to work on the T24....

I spent a few more hours working on the rear corner. I repaired the side/rear gusset and floor/rear gusset. I also cut a section of sheet metal to repair the first foot or so of the hull. I would prefer to replace the floor in one piece but several factors contributed to a slightly more piecemeal approach. First, because the lower hull corners had already been removed, I was a little concerned about getting the floor geometry correct. By leaving this rear section in place, I have a plane to work from. It isn't guaranteed to be perfect, but it really makes the alignment process easier. Second, I purchased 8 foot sheets of 18 gauge and they are a little short to do the entire length of floor. If I do this again, I will get 10' pieces bent. This process makes for more welding and a couple more seams, but I think should work out just fine. I need to finish trimming the new piece and then weld it into place. There are spot weld details that I will worry about after the floor is fully installed. I am only going to tack this section in so that I can make any necessary adjustments with the whole floor fitted. Patrick

I worked on the T24 a bit more last week. After poking around the rear area of the right side of the hull, I went ahead and removed all of the 45 degree gusset and the remaining bits of the lower corner. I also removed all but the rear most hat channel - which has a few issues at the edge but I am going to repair. The rear corner had been hit and was pretty thin so I had to remove some bits back there as well. I am not sure what Studebaker was doing, but those spotwelds are both large in coverage and tough. I have found that drilling just takes too long - a carbide bit makes quick (ish) work of them. I am looking forward to cleaning the rear corner up a bit today and adding sheet metal.

Hi Tom: Thanks for jumping in here. Sorry to hear about the health issues - this aging game is not for the faint of heart. There is a growing crew of T15 owners looking for a track solution as well as the usual suspects for the 15"/20" tracks for T24/M29 varieties. Besides the LAR track - which is an excellent and highly functional choice, there are a number of folks on this forum with band replacement options in various stages of completion. Hopefully we will get some results back soon and have some additional choices for folks interested in staying with "original" tracks. Patrick

Thanks!

Interesting....must be early/late feature.......is that picture from 1003? TY!

Hi John: The plan is to go with the original design. I am going to try and get this T24 back to the condition it left South Bend back in '43. I may fail, particularly when we get to tracks and some suspension components, but that is the goal. By the way, is that cut out in the "gas tank" hat channel original? Here is T24 #7.....theoretically unmolested, but the battery tray was messed with so who knows.

Not much work done over the weekend on the Weasel but I did make some progress. I drove a few hours on Saturday to take pictures of the details on a friend's T-24. I was mostly concerned with the front floors/sponson area, particularly around the gas tank and battery tray. I got good measurements and lots of pics. His battery tray has been modified but fortunately, all they did was weld a new tray on top of the original. My friend has some nice NOS Weasel parts: I also upgraded my shop lighting by moving one LED to a higher point because it was too low and too bright and adding a second LED in another bay. My shop is wonderfully bright now. Worth the time investment.

Super job and thanks for the great pictures.