M29C3284

I was thinking of maybe trying to reproduce a batch of this resistor as it seems to often be missing. If you have one that is not broken and can check the resistance value it would be very helpful.

@Patrick Tipton Check the parts catalog it is in there.

Time for another update. The assembly of the hull came to a stop as I found out that I needed several new suspension bolts and bushings, which I believed I had bought NOS several years ago, but appearently I had not. And looking around these seemed to be unobtanium so I had to make them. These parts are supposed to be nitrited so I'm looking for a company that is willing to do it for me. In the mean time I decided it was high time I finished the restoration of all the gauges. I had done the speedometer a few years ago, but left the rest for later. Here's a few pictures of the restoration of the ammeter and fuel gauge. Ammeter before restoation. All parts of the ammeter cleaned. The housing, ring and hardware have been sandblasted and zinc plated. New cork gasket and vulcaniced paper insulators have been laser cut. Installing the insulator on the clamp. Fuel gauge before restoration. Fuel gauge going back together. I put shellac on all the parts that had it originally. My little tool to hold the gauge while I crimp the ring bak on. Two finished oil pressure guages. The one with the repainted face is for the weasel the other one, to the right is for an MB. The weasel gauge had an extra rubber gasket for the glass, which I assume is because the weasel is amphibious. One thing I need help with though. I have a step down resistor for the fuel gauge but it is broken in two. Can somebody tell me what the resistance is supposed to be? I have measured the resitance on the broken peices and came up with 33,8 ohms, is that correct?

@Bravo28 I can supply you with those hoses. https://forum.portrayalpress.com/topic/30-weasel-fuel-and-oil-hoses-for-sale/

The angled cut at the rear is 45 degrees. At the front it follows the same angle as the tub. I got my hinge halfs from Robert Walsh over ten year ago. I don't know if he has any left, but you can always contact him. Here's also a few pictures I took when I did mine.

Nice, I like those oil lines☺️

Here's a picture of the distributor drive. With screw that holds it to block removed you should be able to remove the distributor with the drive in place.

These should be in a higher resolution. Check if they are readable, I don't know if the resolution id lower when posting them. If they are unreadable just PM me and I can email them to you. NO top bow plans.pdf

The oil filter restriction should not cause the oil pump to bleed out. Could one of the oil gallery plugs be missing or leaking? The oil filter in these old engines is not fully filtering the oil as in modern ones, only a quarter or so of the oil is filtered at any time. That is why you should not use modern engine oils in old engines which suspend the dirt in the oil. Old engines where designed so most of the dirt would settle in the bottom of the oil sump.

On mine after rebuild I had same issue, after doing the same as you (filled oil filter housing, pumped oil into the oil passage connected to the oil pump). But after filling the oil pressure guage line I got oil pressure a reading on the gauge.

@Guido Ferluga I have hose sets available if you want one.

If you have all the broken peices it can be brazed back together. Check also for cracks at corners of the keyway slot, mine was cracked there so I had to replace it.

I think those number are the diameter of the cylinders after honing. So 05 I would think is 0.0005" and 1 would be 0.001" over the cylinder nominal diameter. I think those numbers where stamped at the factory so they would know which pistons to use in what cylinder when the block moved to the next station on the assembly line. Pistons made to the same diameter are never 100% accurate on size. Also, I have seen the assembly date stamped on the oil sump flange of the block on earlier Studebaker engine block. You might when to have a look for it there on your engine.

@DonM You are correct in assuming it is a 1943 engine. W 9 9 translates to 9 September 1943 and is date when your engine block was cast. 194322-4 A is the block part number. There could/should also be a date stamped next to cylinder no. 1 exhaust port. I believe that this date is the engine assembly date. I have seen the same stamping on other Studebaker engines, but in a different place on the block, so I that leaves me to believe that I am correct in assuming this.

@darth_kitten Hope this sketch will help. The hole locations and seat hook brackets are the same on both sides of the J channels. I have not measured the holes forward of the bulkhead as I could not access then right now. Please let me know if you need them as well and also if you need the hole locations in the hat channels as well. The drawing numbers for the complete hull assembly are; 952800 - Hull draft - This is for the T24 and M29 954381 - Adaptation Bow and Stern - This is for the M29C

@OZM29CAre all the suspension bushings and bolts on your weasel in as new condition? Just wondering if having too much play/wear in the support arm bolts and bushings would cause the angle of the bogie wheels to shift regardless of how many shims are installed. I noticed on mine, when I started installing the yokes and support arms, that there was a terrible amount of play in the whole assembly. So right now I'm making new bolts and bushings for the ones that are not avaliable.

Great work so far. Will be following this thread with great interest. @OZM29C My weasel had one thin and one thick shim on each bogie.

@Rob W Thank you for the kind words. Well, there is still a lot to do yet😊 I need to build a new rear float tank and fuel tank. I also need to either make new track bands or find someone that is willing to make some. A shop tour can be done. Anyone else that is interested in that?

With all the panels complete I could finally paint the inside of the hull. I had first planned to paint the inside of the hull the same color as the base color out the outside. But I changed my mind and went with the same color as I found on the the steering levers. It's a slightly lighter shade of grey than the camouflage base grey color. I also made these two covers that goes behind the drivers seat. The smaller one I copied a NOS one I have, but the larger was made from the original drawing. All that is missing on the larger one is some felt padding on the bottom edge. With the inside painted I could start the fun stage of the restoration, reassembly😊 I started with the suspension system and put Alumilastic on all the parts and bolts that are below the waterline just like they did at the factory back in 1944. I also try and refurbish and reuse as much of the original hardware as possible. I sandblast and re-plate them. I noticed that went I was going to install the traverse spring that I did not have enough on the point tipped bolts. I thought I had some NOS ones, but they where only the smaller 3/8" diameter ones not the 7/16 bananas I needed. So I just machined the ends of some new bolts. I would have been easier to do this in the lathe, but at the moment it is set up with the four jaw chuck and I did want to mess around changing chuck so I used the mill instead since it was already set with the rotary chuck😊 About the springs again, I made an error in my second to last post. The spring with a tighter arc goes in the middle, NOT in the ends, like in the picture below. So please disregard my statement in the last post. Anyway this is as far I have come as of today. Digging out all the finished parts from the hiding places and sorting all the hardware before installation always takes longer then I think. The two grey spring covers are NOS by the way.

Thanks guys, it's a labor of love. @aktrapperbradThey sure did, on the engineering drawing there is a call out for a separate drawing for the press die.

@Patrick TiptonIt's about time that you get back on the T24😊 I have again been doing one of many side projects in this restoration. I have and original rear floor which is not in the best condition. And I tried to straighten it but I only did more damage to it, so I decided it would be easier for me to make a completely new floor. Since I wanted the reproduction floor to be as accurate as possible, and I also needed to know the correct profile of the beads, I ordered the engineering drawing of the floor form the museum. As most of you know the rear floor has some complicated beads, so I thought the Pullmax be the best tool for this job. When I tried to straighten the original floor I used the bead roller but I did not get the result I wanted. So to be able to form the beads in the Pullmax I made, since the beads are crossing each other, a round nosed upper tool and used a flat lower tool just for support. The table is also just for support. Since the Pullmax is a reciprocation tool it's not easy to control the panel while forming it. Making straight lines by free hand is next to impossible. Some sort guide is needed. My first attempt as to sandwich the steel between to pieces of fiber board. As you can see it did not hold up to the forces involved, and cracked as the panel started to take shape. So I had to rethink and I decided to make the guides out of steel plate instead. So I cut two peices to sandwich the panel in between again and I also added a second piece to the bottom for extra support. The piece was just a flat plate with threaded holes for all the clamping bolts. The guide plates are 5 mm thick so a 15 mm sandwich is quite heavy😊 The next attempt went better. One thing I learned front first try was to use a lot of oil to help the tool slid better and to go slow. I have also oiled the table otherwise the "sandwich" would not move at all. This second panel turned out OK, but I later had a rethink and did not like the beads. They where not consistent and I wasn't happy with the flat area behind the seat pan. I needed to try again. This one turned out the way I wanted. I was really happy with the result. Next step was to clamp it back up in the guide plates to keep it a flat as possible when hammer forming the edge of the access hole and half the seat pan edge. The seat pan was hammer formed between to pieces of wood and then welded to the floor. After the seat pan was in place it was time for the footman loops and all the other details. All these small items did actually the a fair bit of time to make. I had to make press dies for the footman loops and the studs took some lathe work. I also had to make a forming guide to the seat belt hoops and a press die for the weld plates. The part I didn't make was the sear back catch, it was my last NOS one. The good thing about making all these little dies and forms is the I can make more parts quite quickly. Anyway here is the finished rear floor on the bench and test fitted to the weasel. The extra cut out in the back is a bandvagn m/48 modification by the way.

It's been a while since my last post, almost a year and a half time really flies. I did not managed to get much done on the weasel last year due to other prioritizes, but this year has been more productive. I started looking at the springs and as you can see from the picture the front spring, marked no. 1, is incorrect. There should be two spring with a tighter arc not one. The more arced spring goes at the front and at the rear with the two in the middle having a shallower arc. Luckily I had a correct spring in my parts stash. So as I want my weasel to ride smoothly and I decided to take the springs apart and clean and sandblast each individual leaf. I did take a while but over a couple of weekends I had all six spring ready, did the track tension springs as well, for priming. One thing I noticed when I was cleaning the spring was that they had never been painted before installation. Only the ends that stick out past the hull where painted. It kind of shows the short life expectancy these vehicles had. I wonder it the spring on the T24's where painted? I decided that I would assemble the spring before I applied the OD. I used Areoshell Grease 33MS to grease the springs. If anybody has been around this type of grease they know why I mention it :-), because it really stinks. But it was free, we had a full can at work that had expired that I took with me home. Cleaned and zinc plated and five NOS spring bushings that need to be replaced. Finished spring and some other parts getting a coat of OD. Sorry about the dark picture but my camera doesn't like the lighting in the spray booth.

Interesting, I have always been of the impression that the weasel headlight bucket was the same as on the Dodge WC series trucks.

There is a few details that is not correct on those seat backs. They don't have the folded over edge, the cut out in the bottom should have rounded corners, the hold-down bracket should be like the one in @Prc148 pic and the shape of the fastening hooks is incorrect. With that being said, none of these will be seen when the seat back is installed in the weasel, so those details dosen't matter. Unless you are a purist like me. Any reproduction is better then no reproduction.

@crasy D Did your weasel come form Sweden? Wondering since my T24 had the same type of top bows.