Old WC's never die - they just move on! :-)

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

sometimes you win, sometimes you loose: the new marker lights are all in place but the new gas shockabsorber for the hand brake is too long - because it's the wrong part (choice of two and the wrong one has been ordered). So the trailer shop "expert" was wrong.
So I contacted now the manufacturer directly and hopefully I will get the part no. for the correct spare part....



So I started now the inspection of the brakes of all six wheels. The drums look like the ones of an 20 years old Mini Cooper and I have to think about what to do with them: replacement or getting them milled out inside.



But as with the shock absorber are the part no. rather confusing, because the cast no. of the drums is listed on a British supplier site - but shown is a 4 bolt drum not a 5 bolt.
- So I have to check all measures today to make sure that I don't order the wrong stuff.

To be continued...

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

another missing part of my "basic trailer kit" is on a good way: my colleague Eckhard has started to build a new fitting part for the HD Jack with it's wheel.
The old was made of stainless steel rectangle tubes and screwed to the frame, but the construction and the welding of the anchor plate was to weak and had cracked.
So Eckhard has the task to re-design that construction and the first part, the adaptor for the anchor plate, is now finished.
See:



In addition I have ordered 6 new wheel bearings and decided to get the old drums partwise sandblasted by Fritz next week.
Then respray and new bearings fitted and all six original drums back in place.

As I found out, has the trailer in the rear two HD Jack's for use during loading/unloading, that can be folded down with a crank.
Nice extra - but the previous owner destroyed the right Jack and all that is left is it's bracket. So that's the next part to identify and to find then a replacement. The remaining Jack has no crank and is useless that way. No idea if it is possible to wind it then down...

To be continued...

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Friday 13 continued: got the powder coated 5 rims back today...

...in the wrong colour (mice grey instead of silver)!!!

Even with a discount because of the mistake: the overall solution (sandblasting and powder coating) did financially make no sense because the overall investment was EUR 235,- and for EUR 50,- each you would get a brand new rim via mailorder. Thing's like that REALLY suck's.



So tomorrow I have to buy a can with rim-silver and a second one with clear coat, then some wet grinding of the surface of the outer part of the rims and respray in the correct colour. Great fun and a lousy waste of time...



The only positive thing today: I got the correct part no. for the gas lifter for the hand brake from ALKO - and the trailer dealer is ordering now the correct part...

To be continued...

By the way: did you know that Porsche was producing the 911 in a special "Sahara desert version" with additional floor ventilation?

Our new garage colleague with the T1 "Milk Bar" VW Bus arrived today with his Porsche project car on a trailer.
Well: it's a naked hull and one of the most rotten vehicle wreck's I have seen in the last 30 years....
- The complete floor section is missing and after all I think the only original part will be in the end the roof.

I think I have to post some photo's of that "Porsche Zombie" in the next day's.
If it would be a rare 356 okay. But an early 911 (that came from New York City)???
No way!

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

PS: Finished wheels are now piling up in my Garage...

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

the gas lifter is now in place too - with the support of a 1.5 m long steel pipe because the lifter is made for 2,000 kg max.:




To be continued...

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

I updated my Dodge related link list today.
See: http://www.steel-toys.com/Links.html

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim


PS: two days left to see Ciney again.

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

after a Sunday with "heavy shopping" at Ciney I brought the tire's and resprayed rim's to the tire shop and will get them back tomorrow.

In addition I dropped the corroded brake drum's at Fritz' sandblasting Co. for a "refreshment":



So that's the "nearly as new" condition after sandblasting and respray with heat resistant paint:



Then I took down two of the 4 rotten wooden panels of the plattform. So I have now a better access for the "wire-salad" and other work that has to be done. See:



To be continued,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

maybe this is interesting to all of you that are located in central Europe:

Next Sunday my Jeep colleague Stefan and I will "scouting" an USMVC tour to be held in the end of next March (Operation Silent Crossing 2016).
We want to find a nice route for a two day's MV tour and make a scribble for the roadbook.

The Tour is starting at Bingen on the riverbanks of the Rhine. There you can find the remainings of the Hindenburg bridge, that's the "sister" to the legendary Ludendorff bridge at Remagen. With more than 1,000 m lenght was the Hindenburg bridge north of the City of Mainz the largest Rhine bridge at it's time with more than 1,000 m lenght.




Like the one at Remagen this one has not been repaired after 1945 and the bridge-head at Bingen is very similar to the one at Remagen - but is nearly forgotten today.

From Bingen the tour is going thru the vine-district around the City of Mainz, passing the village of Saulheim (half way of the tour) and ending at Nierstein on the river Rhine banks south of Mainz.

At Nierstein Patton crossed the Rhein (Operation Silent Crossing) and pissed into it while standing on the ponton bridge. *haha*
So the tour will take place the weekend before the 71st anniversary of this legendary photo (22.03.1945).

The plan is to stay at Nierstein over night and to visit the point of the Rhein crossing on Sunday after breakfast.
Maybe with a guest speaker from the local historical association in place and a guided tour at a vineyard from "16hundred-something" that has been used by Patton and was then a Motor Pool at tis time.

The US Army MV tour "Operation Silent Crossing 2016" will take place on the weekend 19./20.03.2016.



If someone is interested in to join us please feel free to contact me via PM or e-mail directly.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

winter is slowly closing in and it's time for some of the smaller projects as the replacement of some of the corner bow's of my Dodge that are partwise damaged because previous owners used a hammer or a ax to fit them to the truck.
So I bought a pair at eBay lately with a good one and a ruined one that is as bad as my old ones. See:






So I can now make the stick's a bit shorter to get a better fit of the canvas and exchange the damaged bow's at the same time with the replacment corner bow's.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

today I fixed the heavy bent eBay corner bow and started the replacement of the worst ones on my Dodge:







Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's

while waiting for new paint for the respray of the last remaining corner bow's I finished the "wire-work" on the "aircraft carrier".
So the XXL trailer is now looking with it's new LED marker light's a bit like some homes at X-Mas time:



So the "wire-work" is finished in time before the frostbite is coming and making such work more or less impossible.
I have now to hurry up to finish the respray of the brake anchor plates that has to be finished before it is too cold.

To be continued...

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[motto]

You may well be aware of it Joakim but the bow corners in your photos are M37 and not WC. They do interchange so it doesn't really matter but they are of very different construction.
I quite envy your proximity to such historic sites and the possibility to organise tours to see and learn about them would be wonderful. It looks like pretty country, I hope the weather is kind.

David

[12th Air Force]

Hi David,

yes, we have some places around that are worth a visit.
The sad thing is, that most of them are nearly forgotten and the group of WW2 MV collectors and historic-interested folk's in Germany is quite small, compared with the BeNeLux countries, France or the U.K.

So I'm trying since a while to find some other WW2 MV owners in our area (Rhein-Main = Frankfurt + 80 km around) and to organize some Events with them.
The nearby located USMVC has some WW2 MV owner too and now I have sort of "local mailing list" as a basis for a better Event coordination, without forcing anyone to be a "member of something".

As mentioned before: If you - or some other Forum members - are visiting Frankfurt I can offer a small sightseeing tour or support with recommendations etc. (as those: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11137&start=150).

Keep 'em Rolling and greetings to "nearby Melbourne",

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

after the finished work on the Dodge corner bow's I returned this weekend to the trailer project and replaced all 6 wheel bearings of the "aircraft carrier". To get the new bearings in place I used an old bearing that I converted to a tool for that task. The construction worked very well. - You have only to be a bit "creative" if you have no professional press at hand.



So in the end I had a nice pile of old bearings for the scrap metal container:



Then I started to get rid of the corrosion of the brake anchor plates and to paint them.
A quite "dusty business" - but with good first results.
See "before and after":



So again a step forward.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

hopefully you are not "bored to death" because of the "off-topic" trailer project.
So I decided to post some more photos of my growing collection of personal items of WW2 Veterans and my research on those forgotten liberators of Europe.

Some month's ago I found at eBay a single Dog Tag of Salvatore Enterlante from NJ. The second one and the chain was missing and the Dog Tag in a very sad condition. Probably digged up "somewhere in nort-western Germany".
I was a bit concerned that this one might be from a soldier MIA, but my research showed then, that this Veteran survived the ETO and passed away on May 19, 1999 at the age of 78. - R.I.P.



The next find was then at the Militaria Fair at Ciney and - so to say - "the find of the day": a complete set of Dog Tag's with a early type chain in nearly mint condition. No idea on the background of those Dog Tag's but they are not a find from a foxhole. The good condition indicates that someone kept them for many years as a keepsake. So it might be that they are from Belgium and someone (a Lady from Belgium?) kept them all those years until she passed away and all of her belongings have been sold. That's only my personal (romantic) theory - but might not be so far from the truth behind.
The Dog Tag's belonged to Henry A. Dunphy from Hampden County, Massachusetts. As I could then find out he was born in 1913 and passed away 1995 at the age of 83. - R.I.P.



Find no. 3 is again an personal item that I could buy via eBay and another very, very rare item in Europe: a silver bracelet and as far as I know very common among AAF personel. The bracelet is in a quite good condition but the engraving is still not decoded. So I'm actually searching for a WW2 Veteran from Como, Miss. with the initial's E. G. that served in Europe in 1944.
If anyone has a hint - I would be thankful for some help to get this initial's decoded.



So I'm still unemployed and (even worse) my long time companion is splitting up after 9 years of beeing together - so that I have "plenty of time" for doing research like this.

In addition I support actually the City of Erlensee (nearby Hanau) as a volunteer in a Museums project: the plan is, to convert the former Tower building of the Hanau AAF into a Museum. The planned Museum is focussed on the history of the AAF and the German-American community as well as the time as a German Airforce Fliegerhorst from 1937 up to 1945. So it's a very interesting mix of themes and a chance to present parts of several private militaria collections in the future.

If the key questions (financing the project, legal and organization issue's etc. etc.) are answered in a "positive way" it might be that we have a new, interesting Museum nearby within the next 2-5 years from now. Due to the fact that it is a public project processes are "complicated" - and quite slow...



So this Museum might be a new home for those Dog Tag's and other parts of my WW2 collection - to be preserved and presented to future generations. - We will see.

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim

[12th Air Force]

Hello Folk's,

I just added some photo-link's to the Glen E. Just research.

See: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11137&p=75151#p75151

Keep 'em Rolling,

Joakim