M29

Hi larry Mine are 1/8 on my track guide rollers. Front and rear idlers appear the same. You could probably go to 3/16ths with no problem. Dan

Hi Jim Thanks for stepping in and clearing up some misquotes and erroneous info on my part. Dan

Hi Larry The first thing you should do is get all the manuals you can on repair and parts for the T15 which is aka M28 weasel. Pat Tipton who is the originator of this forum and founder of Portrayal Press has them. Tom who just replied in a previous post in this thread has much more experience regarding the T15 than I have so to have him providing help here is great. By the way Tom could you post some pictures of you T15 restoration? The pictures on your site do not show the detail. I have not removed my radiator yet but it is going to have to be done as my engine plus all running gear will have to be removed to rebuild the body. The wheels that Tom had recast look like the way to go. It would be nice to know where they were done and an idea on cost. The headlight is very rare. It is a Trippe Speed light. Graham Trippe produced headlights for a number of years back in the day so you cab find some parts on ebay. It is 8" in diameter . My lens was broken and I just bought a replacement recently for 65.00 on Ebay. The headlight bucket is the unique part to the T15 which would be hard to come by. As a project weasel to restore the T15 in my view is easier to restore body wise than the M29. It does not have all the hat channels and hidden rust areas that the M29 has to deal with in a full restore. My machine is a rust bucket but all flat panel replacement will make restoring much easier and faster. The issue and challenge is the tracks and bogeys. The springs also can be broken. I recently had a quote to have my springs re-tempered and was quoted about 275.00 per assembly. To remake 4 springs sets was around 1K. The other thing as I ramble on is how much to spend restoring the T15? Only a few were made in comparison to the T24 and M29 so parts are very hard to find if non existent. Larry your machine has tracks and so does mine which is a major deal on the T15. Many don't have tracks or are missing guides and pads. I understand that only 500 T15s were produced and were short lived in field trials mainly because the track and bogey system was not adequate. I am sure it did not take long for The war department to see the problems. I also wonder who came up with the crazy design to angle the bogeys? Maybe if were lucky Jim Gilmore will have something to say about this. As for cost what is the limit? and to others that own T15s what are your thoughts? I think the T15 I see on youtube that is running with every conceivable rare part on it sold for 14K which is a drop in the bucket in what you can spend to bring one of these back to original condition. At the end of the day just speaking for myself I am going to push on with my restoration and try to keep cost down by doing as much work myself as possible. I would like to have new track bands but how much will they cost? and then that only solves part of the track problem. What about the sprockets eating up the guides? With new bands and very expensive bogey remakes it will not take long for the sprocket to eat right through those guides then you back to space 1. Lets face it until a complete solution to the track problem is developed which includes guides and sprockets (which will not be cheap )I think the T15 is at best a limited use or static historical display. Dan

Hi Larry Anytime you go over old rotten rubber with another layer is most likely a failure waiting to happen. Nothing is out of the realm though. If you did the belt as an overlay over your old band you would want to mill the rubber off evenly on the old band down to the top of the cable lugs. A router with a jig fixture would cut the rubber down to an even layer. A very good rubber to rubber cold vulcanizing adhesive is Rema Tip Top SC4000. There is a possibility you could remove bands from a M29C weasel and adapt them to your track I was thinking about that today. I have a couple M29 tracks and will check measurements to see if my thought on this will work. There are M29 tracks to be found with better bands than you have. Another thing you mentioned is drilling out the rivets . To remove the rivets drilling works OK but is slow inmho. I use a air chisel called the big nasty that really works fast and shears them right off. Forget drilling any holes in the pads with standard twist drills. That pad material is hardened even cobalt is slow going. I use a jig with 1/4" holes and do the holes with a plasma cutter. It does surprisingly well and is quick in comparison to drilling. In one of the photos in this thread there is a picture of the jig. If you have a plasma cutter try some practice holes before putting holes in your pads. In one of the pictures I posted I show the holes I did with my plasma cutter. It looks like you have a pretty good T15 body not a rust out one so if you get the track issue resolved you will have a nice weasel. Dan http://www.rematiptop.com/products/remabond-cements/sc4000-cement.html

Hi Larry The T15 on youtube is painted white and is very clean with nice tracks although they have chain on the pads as well like yours but continuous. Your bands are really shot ad well as the guides. The bogeys need a reasonably smooth surface to run on your bands are showing all the cable lugs. new bands would be the way to go. You will obviously need some track guides as well. How is the rest of your T15? Is it complete with all the T15 jewelry like headlight, ski racks etc.I will await further photos. I'm not sure when mike howard will have bands available for purchase. I think the project is currently in the stage of have a mould made. Dan

Hi Larry I re-read your earlier post and you state you want to run the belting the width of the track pad to the guide to the place the Bogeys ride on? That would be hard to do on the T15 because there are raised portions on the pad that would prevent you from doing this. Granted I may be wrong but others that have looked at this as well have also come away with the same conclusion. The best you can do for the track Imho is to replace the center bands with new as Mike Howard is developing or leave on existing bands and belt the 3 inches of pad that is flat on each side of the center bands. Please let me know if you have discovered a way of running the belting over so the bogeys can ride on the belt like you can on the M29. I also noticed you said you had a running T15 (driveable), which is something in itself as I only know of one that is operational and it is on youtube? Are you the owner of that weasel? If not would you mind posting some pictures on this site of your T15? Dan

Larry Use 1/2" belt. 3 ply. It wont cause any drag. Use 4 bolts per pad. I will have mine done in a week or so and will post pictures. The replacement bands will be nice but without a better design on the guides which basically are the wear pads for the sprockets your use of the machine will be short lived once the guides wear through. Many of my guides are worn to 1/16th thickness where the sprocket hits. If you get new bands you will have to break off the rivets which will free the guides.Maybe they are less worn on one side or the other so you could rotate them. Or build up the wear on the guide with weld. Dan

Larry the bands are original but lots of rot and track bands broken in several places on each track. About the best I can hope for for the center bands is that it be a smooth enough surface for the bogeys to roll on. The 3" wide outer band conveyor belt will add the strength to hold the track together. The T15 track even with good main bands is a really poor designed track. The center guides are the wear plates for the sprocket so very thin. In my view to have a usable track for the T15 would mean a complete redesign. I realize in putting the effort into restoring my T15 it is really going to be a very limited use machine mostly a display. So if I can take it to some of the military shows etc that will be the extent of use. Dan

Hi Larry Here is a link to G503 site showing DRH refurbishing bogey wheels. Looks like he was using PMC 780 for the urethane to mold the wheels. I am refurbishing a couple T15 tracks that are in bad shape as well fortunately all the pads were not to bad of shape. I am doing a conveyor belt outer band #" to the each side of both tracks. What I understand about the T15 track it was not very good with only the two center bands the bogeys run on. I feel that adding belt to the outer portions of the track will add much more strength and stability to the track. I will post more pictures as I get further along. It would be nice to see some pictures of your project. Dan https://forums.g503.com/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=311864

Hopefully these files will be readable. Byron Kay Weasel Restore 9.pdf Byron Kay 10.pdf Byron Kay 11.pdf Byron Kay 12.pdf

Glad to help Dan

Hi John What is your thinking regarding the new version seal versus the old leather style? I recently went through some bogey refurbishment and like the CR seals better than the old leather ones. I have numerous old style seals and never saw one do as you show in your picture. My understanding .when installing the new seals is the lip faces out. Dan Bogie info Dec18.pdf

I thought the article I posted would expand to a readable size. Like it does on my computer will see if I can resolve this

here are the you tube links https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmA6vwPhDU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZgEO1Quv0o Dan

One more thing that is critical is getting the right length of band. Most old tracks are stretched so not sure of the exact size. Rob Walsh or Jim Gilmore know much more about the technical details so might ask them. there are drawings of the tracks from the archives so dimensions should be available. I myself would like to know. I know when I belted my tracks I had problems with sprocket tooth engagement. Not bad but noticeable wear on sprocket teeth Dan

I would use the same thickness of belting as the inner band (1" thick I think is the thickness of the inner band) that way you will not change the pitch. Outer band you can use 1/2" I once used two layers of 1/2 inch and went the full width from each inner band to outer band. The LAR track is the same way. If using a double layer you can overlap your joint so it is invisible. Belting is not a bad way to go. The big problem with the belted tracks using the original pads is pad breakage from age of pads and also road pads that are worn causing uneven impact to one side of track pad. There have been numerous attempts at resolving the road pad issue. I have attached an article from the old weasel site on a weasel restored by Byron Kay in England He restored a weasel and installed road pads with a rubber adhesive that looked interesting. There was a youtube video at one time as well of the completed weasel. Dan

Nice pictures of the T15s. The first thing I noticed was that they were olive drab in color. Also the one in the background also has an olive top. Very interesting picture. Thanks for posting it. Dan

Thanks for the pictures very nice!

Looks Awesome Jesse. I would like to know more about how you did your track bands.

Interesting problem. I bought some Acurtite sprockets. They came with chamferred edges. I put them on the same way the front idler was installed with bolts only through the hub. I did not install bolts around the upper edge of the ring although the acurite sprocket was drilled and tapped for the bolts. I have to take the tracks off again anyway so will install the upper bolts later.I will watch the wear on the guide for sure and am glad you posted these pictures Dan

HI John Great pictures got to hand it to you to photo all the detail. I was noticing you overlapped the new floor panel along the lower hull side. It looks like you but welded the seam along the upper hull side? Also what is the paint you are using on the repair areas? Thanks John

Hi Pat Guess I will be one of those. Be talking to you soon. Dan

Hi Jim I have sent you a couple emails regarding my T15. there was some issue with my hull # needing clarification see letter. Dan Can you check the ORD and MFG numbers again? They should be the same number. Could the ORD number be 508? The ORD number cannot be 908 as they only made 766 T-15's. Send me a photo of the data plate if possible. Also.....re-check the USA number again. # 40148630 is a T-24 number. It should be 4048??? and not 40148???..... The USA number should be 7 digits and not 8 for this MFG number vehicle. It should start with 4048..... The 4048630 is to high for this vehicle and I think it may be lower than this. If you can give me the motor number that will help too........it is located on the driver side of the block near the water pump just below the head. Jim

Thanks for the info. I pulled my tank and looked at the inside and all looked good. wiped it out with towels and rubber still intact and firm. So good to go if the fuel pump is working.

Hi Everyone I have the bladder style fuel tanks in both of my M29c weasels. Was the bladder tank add by the Norwegian Army? Both tanks have an electric fuel pump inside the tank. Has anyone rebuilt one of these pumps? The tanks are stenciled on the top mfg by Firestone Dan.