OZM29C
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Posts posted by OZM29C
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I started with the lower hull by removing the damaged sheet metal where the hull extension was made. I wanted to make an aesthetically pleasing to the eye hull join. In some of the photos below you can see the damage done to the upper hull in way of the extension join.
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In 2007, family life had settled to the point where I could take up the weasel restoration challenge. I had stored the Weasel on my parents ranch for intervening years. Below are photos of the weasel arriving at my place on the family truck.
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In 2002, I came across a fellow in Tasmania who had recovered container loads of weasel parts and stuff from Antarctica. The parts were recovered to help restore a weasel for the Antarctic Division display weasel. See the last photo. I was fortunate enough to purchase a ute load of surplus parts from him. Out of interest, here are a number of photos taken on the day of the visit. The EPF and USN weasel are still here in Oz but I don't think any restoration work has been done on them to date.
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Not much physical work was done on the weasel until 2007. Marriage, children, new job etc got in the way. Having said that I did purchase a number of goodies that were necessary for the restoration. Purchases included an extra windscreen wiper motor, NOS Rudders, A NOS Canvas canopy, a capstan winch (some assembly required!), Front and rear float tanks to mention a few parts. I also investigated ways to repair the existing tracks. BTW The track repair idea was a absolute dismal failure. Out of interest, the front and rear float tanks I purchased from a fellow in Missouri. Paid only $600 for them but the final bill for the tanks landed here in Oz was $3500.
In 2002 I stripped the hull and then literally cut it in half and that's where the restoration was put on hold until 2007.
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I thought that I would start a bog/story on my Weasel restoration. I sold an Amphibious Jeep back in the Mid 1990's and I decided to purchase another unusual vehicle that operates in two mediums. I came across a 'Weasel' and decided there and then that this was the vehicle for me. I was going to import a project weasel from the US of A but before proceeding I had heard of a weasel that was local to where I was living at the time. I contacted the owner and asked if I could have a look at the weasel to give me some idea what I was getting myself into. After looking at this weasel I decided to offer to purchase it from the owner. I came up with the figure of $6500AUD ($2000 for the weasel and $4500 that it would have cost at the time to ship a weasel out from the USA to Australia). The offer was accepted and on the 11/11/98 I took delivery of my new project. I have been restoring this weasel off and on ever since. The colour scheme you see on this weasel was made up by the owner. This weasel was purchased from Consolidated Industries and shipped to Australia in the early 50's. It was to be used on a large Sheep Ranch as a special vehicle for the owner to inspect his sheep during wet weather, however the weasel saw little use out in the far west due to drought. If you look closely at the hull, the owner had the hull raised 100mm/4"inches above the tracks so that mud would not get caught up between the sponson and the track. The damage done by this modification cost me a lot of time and effort to repair/restore.
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No problem with the LAR track.
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9 hours ago, M29 said:
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
The lower side floor panel was actually Butt welded. Re the upper side, the attached PDF better shows where I made the upper joint weld. It was a Butt weld as well.
The paint is just an off the shelf single pack Kill Rust Epoxy paint. Its just there to prevent further corrosion of the bare metal until the hull repair work is resumed by the owner.
Cheers
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To again improve how the track guides feed into the LAR sprocket, there are two schools of thought on how this should be done. I represented the 'shaving' problem to LAR and their advice was to fit a set of sprocket off set spacer plates to add extra room for the track guide. I opted for the second option where I have removed the track sprocket guide plates from the idler wheels (that will be bolted onto the LAR sprocket), machined the guide plates flat and will then fit them as shown in the last photo. BTW the last photo clearly shows an unmodified LAR sprocket.
I hope that my LAR tracks will not prematurely wear in way of the track guides with these modifications.
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When that was done I carried the recommended modifications to the sprockets.
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In the past I had feedback stating that the unmodified LAR track sprocket was responsible for 'shaving' metal from the LAR track guides. @Rob Wrecommended that I modify the LAR sprockets to prevent this problem. Before starting, frustratingly I had to further bore the sprockets as they initially would not fit onto my hubs.
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I refitted the passenger side track and that's where my involvement with this T24 ends. Unfortunately the restoration of this weasel has not been further progressed but I hope one day that it will?????
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I forgot to add these photos that show the repairs to the drivers side sponson
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When the sponson was done I righted the hull and installed a track to make it easier to move/load the weasel
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I fitted a new sheet of metal to the sponson and duplicated what was done on the passenger side. I plug welded the hat channels in place.
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Patrick, thanks for the compliments. Please keep in mind that this was an 'Econo' job so I did not go to the extra effort that you have done with your T24 Hull. I was only replacing the corroded lower sections. Anyway here is more of the story ;
The skinning of the sponsons effectively wrote them off as being unrepairable due to corrosion. The following photos highlight how bad the corrosion was under the skin of sheet metal.
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Time to right the hull, remove the skin, tip it on its side and start work on the drivers side.
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As the telemarketers would say, But wait there's more!
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The lower hull was a boys own adventure to repair. BTW the silver paint was just brushed on to stop the bare metal corroding until the hull is sandblasted
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More work on the sponson and I also moved to the hull bottom
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Then on to adding the hardware to the sponson. The battery tray is not OEM, I just made it ti fit a standard SUV N70 battery.
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I bent up a new sponson and fitted it into the hull.
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Then onto getting the passenger side prepared to accept the new sponson
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Then I had to remove all superfluous sheet metal and start to 'De-skin' the hull. There was a Pandoras box of corrosion to be found under the skin
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The first job was to get it into my shed and tip the hull on its side.
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M29C 7333 Restoration Blog
in Headquarters
Posted
Again this is as far as I got as I was distracted by a number of projects etc over the next three years. I purchased the 'Red Weasel' for $4500 from a fellow in Duluth Michigan and shipped it to Oz at great expense. This weasel almost had all of the floater parts I needed to complete my restoration. On arrival in Oz a friend of mine took this Weasel (warts and all) to the National Studebaker Car meet on the Gold Coast. By amazing chance a fellow walked up to my friend and pointed at the surfshield and said that he knew where one was. I thought that he had mistaken it for a GPA surf guard but no, it was the real weasel deal as a later photo revealed. I organised a trip down to Jindabyne on the Australian snowfields and came away with a surfshield, three rudders, numerous panels, track water ejectors and 5 pairs of track aprons. In the 1950's, five weasel floaters were imported into Australia for use on the snow fields as ski tows. The amphibious gear was removed from the weasels and dumped only to be recovered almost 60 years later by moi. You can see the photos of these weasels on the snowfields here; http://australianalpinoversnow.blogspot.com/2011/09/m29-weasel.html
Finding the track aprons completed my floater outfit. I decided to have a go and repair the Red weasel hull but after removing as much of the corroded sheet metal as I could, I decided that it was a lost cause. The red weasel hull was cannibalised and used to repair a T24 hull that I posted about on this forum awhile back.
In my attempt to repair the red weasel hull I was offered a weasel hull to cut up and use for donor parts. I imported this weasel from Sweden and when it got here I just could not cut it up as it was too good. This weasel became the second floater project.
Before I knew it, 2010 was on me and it was time to get back to reality and again work on my original weasel.