OZM29C

BZ on your excellent work 🙂 I had the same problem with short sheets. I made the join under the engine bulkhead. The bulkhead flange helped to reduce the sheet metal warpage from welding and looking from above the join was invisible.

Here is a page from Consolidated Industries that highlights their new track design. One design is similar to what is pictured above.

Yes that is a picture of 1002

The track apron brace retainer clips were originally riveted in place. Unfortunately the rivets had frozen solid with rust which meant that I had to drill all of them out. Rather than re rivet them I have opted to hold the retainer clips in place with M8 button head screws.

A well know Weasel floater owner purchased a set of split pins needed to retain the track aprons. I fitted R clips to the ends of the split pins so that they would not vibrate out and be lost.

Some of the split pin retainers had broken off, so I machined a number of replacements and welded them back in place.

The photos below better show the work needed to restore my track aprons.

Back in 2008 and purely by chance I found five pairs of track aprons here in Australia. They say in life that you have to have a win sometimes and in this case it was finding my track Aprons. As you know track aprons are made of unobtainium and I was not sure at that time what I was going to do to find a set for my weasel. Just digressing from the story, In 2007 my offsider and I brought into the country a dilapidated M29C floater. Anyway before we brought it down to my place, my offsider took it to put on display at a Studebaker Car meet on the Gold Coast. During that meet a fellow walked up, pointed at the surf shield on the front float tank and said that he knew where another one was. The only other surf shield I know of that was available in Australia was from a Amphibious GPA Jeep. Email addresses were exchanged and a few weeks later a photo arrived showing a weasel surf shield. From what I can gather, five m29C weasels were imported into Australia in the late 1940's to be used as ski tows. Here is an interesting link to their story; http://australianalpinoversnow.blogspot.com/2011/09/m29-weasel.html Before being modified most of the amphibious gear was dumped. And that's where it stayed until we recovered it many years later. Included in the booty were rudders, water ejectors ventilator lids, floor panels and a surf shield.

Yes that hat channel cut out is original. It carries over into the M29C. I am not sure why it is there though???

That concludes this post. The photo below shows both my front float tank and track aprons loaded up to take up to friend of mine who is a tradesman panel beater for some TLC. I should have the tanks and track aprons back next month.

I forgot to add that I had hours of fun making the square style nuts that weld to the tank.

Now I fitted the last of the patch panels.

It was then off to the sandblaster for blasting and etch priming. I left three big sections of repair panels off to give the sandblaster better access to the lower areas.

Time to start filling in some empty real estate

Here some random repair photos I forgot to post earlier

I used the water ejectors as templates to weld in place the previously fabricated lower section of the tank.

Next item on the agenda was to weld back in place the lower shelf and then start the repairs to the lower tank areas.

As the telemarketers would say, 'But wait, there's more' 🙂 The upper mounting brackets (tank top to hull) were modified in the past using an oxy/act torch. Also the sheet metal behind the brackets had corroded as well. The pictures best describe the repairs. The blue length of RHS tube visible in some pictures was added to give more rigidity to that panel.

Patrick, are you going fabricate and fit the original style T24 battery tray or stick with the duel battery tray fitted IAW with TB 9-772-FE5?

I decided to fit the tandem tow hitch tow points.

Couple more photos showing the underside of the front deck

I also had to repair the inner tank shelf

I was also fabricating the external tank bracketry

To give better access to the lower hull area for both cleaning and preservation, I decided to fit hand holes into the shelf.

More repairs and test fitting of the Capstan Winch, surf shield and side panels