UST-24-50 Hull Repairs

[OZM29C]

I referenced a weasel hull that was 'Skinned' in another thread so here is the story of this T24's hull repairs. This weasel is owned by a friend of mine and I did an 'Econo' job on the hull repairs for him. In the end the final repairs turned out a lot better than I expected. The material I chose to use was 1.5mm Zinc annealed mild steel sheet. No spot welding, just plug welds. Here are some before shots of the hull. It was in a sad state to begin with. This weasel came from Daryl Besinger https://www.dlbensinger.com/ back in 2000 Note the early Hull number UST-24-50

[OZM29C]

The first job was to get it into my shed and tip the hull on its side.

[OZM29C]

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

[OZM29C]

Then onto getting the passenger side prepared to accept the new sponson

[OZM29C]

I bent up a new sponson and fitted it into the hull.

[OZM29C]

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.

[OZM29C]

More work on the sponson and I also moved to the hull bottom

[OZM29C]

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

[OZM29C]

As the telemarketers would say, But wait there's more!

[OZM29C]

Time to right the hull, remove the skin, tip it on its side and start work on the drivers side.

[Patrick Tipton]

A lot of that looks familiar!  Great job and thank you for sharing the story!  Super helpful.

Patrick

[OZM29C]

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.

[OZM29C]

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.

[OZM29C]

When the sponson was done I righted the hull and installed a track to make it easier to move/load the weasel

[OZM29C]

I forgot to add these photos that show the repairs to the drivers side sponson

[OZM29C]

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?????

[Patrick Tipton]

That is a daunting project.....great save!  Looking forward to seeing a build thread!

Do you remember how much time you had in those repairs?

Patrick

[M29]

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

[OZM29C]

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

Weasel Sponson.Assembly dwg.pdf

[Patrick Tipton]

15 hours ago, OZM29C said:

Re the upper side, the attached PDF better shows where I made the upper joint weld. It was a Butt weld as well.

Great work as always.

That is an excellent way to fix rot along the lower corner of a hull...welding new metal and placing the seam where the 45 degree angle "gusset" is spot welded to the side.  With the gusset backing up the side and the weld, it is much easier to minimize distortion and hide your work.  I had hoped to do this on my T-24 but the gusset was so rotted I needed to remove it.

Patrick