SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

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pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Mon Jan 02, 2017 8:02 pm

Happy New year everyone!!!

I got to work on the G506 this weekend, the Hood/Bonnet specifically. I started with wire wheeling the underside, etching primer, base coat black and O.D. paint x 2.

The hood hinges are a troublesome item, they are always exposed to the elements and they seem to have a high frequency of screw/hardware failures of the ones I've seen. I would use your penetrating oil of choice and let them soak before removal to help increase the chance of normal removal. I used the "Rattle" trick that D.R.H. gave me with a screw bit driver on a lower drive clutch setting that rattles the clutch head screw just enough to have a low torque impact effect. I tried to turn then out with a small ratchet unsuccessfully, they just felt like they were gonna snap off. I soaked them with Kroil oil and warmed them up untill they were smoking the penetrating oil off the screws.

The hood hinges had 2 screws that failed, 1 was removed with drill/extractor/tap and one remained in the hinge hole. The second did not come out with what tools I had at the time. The small drill bit I had to pilot hole failed as it broke through the back side of the screw, even with "light hands" drill bits fail, especially little dinky ones...the broke off piece made my other bits dull and I left further extraction for another day. The body side of the hinges had a gasket made of a graphite/composite material similar to a small engine head gasket, I just used some gasket material I had left over from the differential covers. I'm not quite sure where to get that type of material other than a small engine shop.

The paint was straight forward, it was about 50-60 degrees F (10-15 C) ambient temperature, I painted the hood and used a space heater that I have to warm up the paint for 20-30 minutes and then a second coat of O.D., the primer/ base coats were put on 2 days prior.

Be advised:

There are 3 different screws for the hood side hinge mounting hardware, 1 counter sunk clutch screw (closest to edge/ broken off), 2 clutch head screws of different length (middle is shorter/other is longer). After getting the screws in the hinges I realized the washers were in the wrong locations, flat washers/lock washers in the cab and the shakeproof/star washers on the hood/engine side of the hinge. It is the 3 different thickness of the metal at the hood location that requires the right length of screws.

Oh, and the hinges are left/right specific, but they are marked with a L and R to make them "Mechanic" proof...well let me rephrase that, "Mechanic" resistant when they are installed into their respective locations.


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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech


johnwaz
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by johnwaz » Wed Jan 04, 2017 6:07 am

There is a company in Florida called Gulfway that insures classic vehicles that are too big to fit in a "typical" garage. They're similar to Hagerty, without the "has to be stored in a garage" stipulation. I got a quote from them on my G506 last year, and I thought they had a good price, but I got stalled on the project, so making it legal to drive got put on the back burner.
Your truck is coming along nicely, keep up the good work. I'm hoping to start back up on mine soon.

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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:14 pm

johnwaz, I'll check them Gulfway guys out and see what they say.

Got to tinkering over the weekend and pulled the bulbs out of the buckets finally and Whoa! There was a lot of rust in them things!

I soaked the screws with some Kroil oil, and then got to twisting the screws for retaining rings and then the bulb retainers. Come to find out the botom front of the buckets have a small hole at the 6 O'clock position, It has got to be for draining. Well, with decades of sitting the holes got plugged and would hold moisture and result in internal scaly rust flaking.


There must have been 1/2 to 1 (12.7- 25.4 mm) inch of rust flakes in the left bucket...the left side bucket photo is how the undisturbed rust flakes were after pulling the bulb.

I also got my new headlight harnesses out and checked them. Surprisingly, the bulbs still work after all these years! (High Beams only) They are marked on the top glass face, "191 Top","GE". The bottom is marked "Sealed Beam" and "Made in USA".

The grommet holes are 3/4 of an inch for the light bucket and the inner splash fender where the light harness passes through also.

So be advised:

Occasionally take them bulb buckets apart and inspect them to see if they are corroding internally due to moisture retention by a blocked drain hole!

Also, If you hold your tongue just right...point the bulb 3 prong connector towards the hood retainer, cuss a little bit, the bulb can be removed between the grill and bucket with out loosening the bucket swivel stud. Then you won't have to re adjust the direction of the head lights. :wink:



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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:05 am

Here is some shots on the electrical. I got a Harness from Vintage wiring of Maine.

The quality is high, I thought I was gonna make my own harness with the remnants of the old harness, but the dang rabbits chewed up the wires in the engine compartment and Bubba had chopped off the wiring to something to power a "Dual" horn set-up. I ended up putting some POR (paint over rust) paint inside of the headlight buckets too.

I had put in some new Klixon breakers the dash, they are Caterpillar units. If you look on the original breakers, the old part numbers are still available to this day!!! The company has changed hands, but they are still produced. I see these Klixon "automatic" breakers on heavy equipment all the time in the Caterpillar world, but I had no idea the product has been around for 100 years! One is 5 amps, the other is 15 amps. I couldn't make out which one went to the horn and which one went to the fuel guage. I just replaced them both with 15 amp units since there was a late war update to change them both to the same rating. I checked them at work on a adjustable power source and they still work after all these years!

FYI- the breakers are rated to sustain their rated amperage, but trip when they exceed 135% of their rating. Ambient temp affects their range, there can be a +/- of amperage due to weather.

They are the "C" series, the originals are CA or open, automatic. The ones I put in are "CDA" or sealed, automatic. One of my originals had a broken cover so I changed them as a set to be safe. they cross member behind the dash the breakers was mounted on was painted black under the breakers, so I rattle canned it black until I respray O.D.

The Caterpillar part number I used was: 9M-9085 @ about $54.00 USD (50.47 euro)

http://www.sensata.com/klixon/circuit-b ... rmal-c.htm

I then landed all the wires onto the ignition switch, panel light switch and push-pull switch. It gets pretty busy at that push-pull switch for sure!

You may have to re position the wires a few times to make it lay behind the dash good. I then got the junction block and anti-seize the little screws and landed the harnesses. Order of harness install is: Front Harness, Body Harness, Lower chassis harness. Be careful with the mica boards on the junction block, I had one broken one and the others were pretty brittle, it wouldn't take much to over torque them and break them in two pieces. The back side of the J-block was painted black, so I repainted it black with the terminal boards removed. I still have to make felt grommets to seal the J-box cover. I couldn't find a place that had 1/4 inch thick felt locally, so I'll have to order some somewhere. I'll use the same thickness to make floorboard lever seals also.

The engine side of the firewall had all of the filterettes, so far the generator/ ignition still work and the generator charges normally, so that tells me they aren't shorted thankfully! The brake light switch was incorrect, I got the switch from Napa auto parts, but the terminals are a blade/ bayonet style. The wiring harness have the round "bullet" style so I just made adapters with some butt connectors until I get the correct brake light switch. Good thing Joe at Vintage wiring of Maine put Identification numbers on the wires, it is kinda hard to understand some of the "thread tracer abbreviations" to land the wires...Following the old original wire guages helps figure out which guage wires need to me connected at their respective locations too. The key switch is a temporary unit also, I found a GM 1997760 switch in the glovebox, I took it apart, cleaned the contacts, had a H-700 key made and will put it in later.

Since I had an issue with them dang rabbits I went one step further by wrapping the harnesses with "Asphalt coated cloth" to discourage them from chewing away my new harness. Those harnesses are a pretty pricey item, but well worth it! The fuel guage is giving me trouble, but I believe it is because I have a bad ground to the body of the fuel guage. As soon as the key switch is turned on the fuel guage pegs to "Full".

I got the horn working too! That was outstanding to have it make sound after all these decades! Honk-Honk!! The trailer connector on the bed has power and the input side of the plug, but the small studs are too oxidized/rusted to have power come trough to the brass blades inside the receptical...I will have to dismount the plug and dip it into that Evaporust rust remover for a while to get power to the trailer.

The Blackout drive lights are making me scratch my head though, does anybody know if the 4 front/rear Black out Drive lights get juice from the "BHT" terminal of the push-pull switch or do they get power from an additional "Black Out Drive" switch similar to the panel switch? Also, if those 4 lights get power from the push-pull switch, does the "Blackout Drive headlight" then get power from the "Blackout Drive" switch by itself?


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Last edited by pintelhook11over on Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:42 am, edited 6 times in total.
1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:26 am

Oh, I forgot to ask everybody If they know where to get a condenser for the generator armature post. The insulation on the condensor wire was falling off and I didn't want to short out the circuit. I don't think it will mess up the system to run it without the condenser will it?

I thought it may be the same "Micro Farads" as the one for distributor points, but that would probably be too easy of a solution...
1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:52 pm

Well I figured out why I was having problems uploading photos, the newer the phone I got to take pictures, the more pixels the camera has resulting in too large of photos! I set the pixels to 949 x 533 and it seems to upload like normal.

Here I am finishing the junction block cover. I had to make my own felt with adhesive, I couldn't find a quick local source of 1/4 inch (6.35 mm), I had 5 layers glued together and trimmed it how I needed it to seal the junction block.

Got the Black out drive marker lights and the Black out Drive light working, the front marker lights are kinda rough to get in. I used the asphalt cloth to protect the marker wire, but you have to cut the cloth cover to length first, put the wire through the nut and shake proof washer then ran the wire, after that then slip the loom over the wire. The internal ground was not powering the light until I used the tooth washer, then they would light up.

I followed the pin outs for the trailer socket and they didn't get power to the brass blades until I soaked the rusted terminals to removed the rust and let the 6 volts through to the brass blades of the trailer socket.



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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:19 pm

I got to tinkering with the fuel gauge, new sender, 6 volt RFJP Jeep gauge still no correct operation. Unbeknownst to me they do not match Ohms wise. The Jeep round gauge has incompatible Ohms, the Chevy sender had 30 ohms, the Jeep sender has 148-ish ohms, so the gauges need to be comparable to each other. I thought round gauges in 1942 when they "Standardized" the guages, but they are not all the same. I went back to my original guage and checked it out to find it had 60 ohms on one side and 30 ohms on the other, so the the tank sender has 30 ohms. They they can Balance out ohms wise with the sender in the tank being the variable resistance/Ohms. I had a hard time reading the remaining portion of the "Red" tag on the fuel guage but to my impression the tag stated to not put voltage to the red tag so it didn't burn up the tank sender.

When I tested the fuel gauge to the gauge body the full side was 30 ohms and the empty side was 60 ohms. A little wire brushing to the body got it working to get a good chassis ground. I had to sand paper the hole in the dash where the gauge goes but it now "Jumps up" when the key is turned on. Unfortunately, I believe the float lever is now too Light to let gravity pull the float arm down. If I pull the gauge and move the arm up and down the gauge moves correctly, when I shake the whole gauge up and down the float arm doesn't drop very well...I'm thinking a lead fishing weight to help it drop down to the bottom of the tank, but not too heavy that the float can't lift the rheostat arm.

Also, got the seal out of a spare steering box I had, the seals I have dredged op so far haven't been good matches. The bore is an oddball size, tried some metric ones too, they seem to deform as the seal is smacked in the bore. At least I figured out it doesn't need to be installed from the inside of the steering box...it could probably be serviced with the steering box still installed on the frame if you hold your tongue just the right angle.

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

forestry4evr
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by forestry4evr » Tue Feb 28, 2017 1:47 am

Hey Cody,

Looks like you are making some good progress, it is fun to watch.

The headlight switch operates all of the headlight, tail light, and blackout lights with the exception of the blackout drive light. Joe should have sent you a detailed schematic of the proper harness wire installation, if not I can send you a copy. The push-pull switch is really a very interesting invention. The drive blackout light is on a circuit by itself, including its own dash board switch.

It must have been a little difficult to drive in a convoy during blackout conditions.

Paul
1941 G4112 Chevrolet with Hercules dump bed

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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by rixm37 » Wed Mar 01, 2017 7:22 am

HI Cody . Do you have a part number for the steering box seal?

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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Wed Mar 01, 2017 5:51 pm

Blackout driving would have been pretty stressful for sure! watching out for bullets,Trucks and everything else that goes bump in the night! Not much illumination there, I guess it wouldn't bee too bad after your "night vision" pupils were at full dilatation, I recall it used to take about 30 minutes to adjust from lighted areas to dark areas.

I didn't write the seal number down since it was the wrong size, I got a second wrong size that was metric but I did not write that down either. I did however have an extra seal of each type to have as a spare. Kelly said the one he ran in his steering box was from a M37 but just a frog hair smaller on the outside diameter by .005 inches (.127 mm). I'll take a better photo next time I am at the shop.

Here is a photo without the flash.

I had just learned the "Cat eye" theory to each of the red rear black out marker lights is:

Inter-vehicular spacing is too close if you can see 4 red triangles,
if you can see 2 red triangles spacing is satisfactory, (80-120 feet [24-36 meters])
if you see 1 red triangle spacing it too great...

All those years seeing tactical tail lights on vehicles and I never knew that. I guess that's what I get for wrenching on stuff instead of driving the stuff!

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Thu Mar 23, 2017 4:23 am

I finally got some 1 inch thick Red Oak for troop seats!

One thing I don't recall is the countersinking of the wood, I have some M35 series troop seat Bows/vertical stanchions, but the left over carrage bolts that were on them look to be 3/4 inch. So does that mean they need a 1/4 inch counter sink or flush to go with 1 inch wood?

And I was wondering if every bolt has to be countersunk or just the 4 slats that personnel would sit on?

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Thu Mar 23, 2017 4:56 am

Oh, Here is the photo of the 2 different steering box seals I found at a local vendors "O-rings and Things" and "Thompson Industrial bearing".

The red seal has too large of an Outside diameter so it deforms as it is being installed, I didn't like the way it looked and pulled it back out. Then I got some seals from O-rings and things but the steering box bore size is and oddball dimension aparrently, the books they have seem to jump several sizes in the Outside diameter needed of course.

The black Metric size seal went in better but still wasn't the best fit...the shop guy offered to smack the metric seal into the steering box and he messed up the 1st seal trying to smack it in. The second seal he put it in just flush with the side 4 hole flange of the steering box and it seems to be fine for now.

Filled it with 90W oil and left it sit for a few days and no drips yet, nut I did rattle can the steering box black so the paint may be helping the sector shaft seal some...

Red seal number is: National 47143 (deforms during install)
Black seal number is: NE4773, it also has markings "PIANTK" (mounted flush with side of mounting flange)

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Thu Mar 23, 2017 7:39 pm

Here is how I made an low buck battery hold down out of some 1 inch angle iron:

I still have to notch the positive side of the hold down to not be as easy to arc the terminal to the frame ground, I notched the negative to clear the copper terminals on the end of the cables. The Battery terminals are from NAPA, they are a Military set with a Bolt/nut terminal mount type to put almost any terminal on them. I used to use them quite a bit on HMMWV's in The Navy, I like that they carry them at NAPA, they are good general purpose terminals not WWII correct though.

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

pintelhook11over
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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by pintelhook11over » Thu Mar 23, 2017 8:09 pm

Here is the "USA" numbers on two G506 hoods, the one on my truck and one spare hood that is in rough shape.

The hood number I am trying to recreate is the 4 inch GM numbers, there is ALOT of number variation over the years and Location specific variations too, not to mention just plain lazy/overworked mechanics that didn't care when re-applying the numbers after a paint job...

the 1st character on my truck (389946) is 16 inches from the front leading edge of the hood and 2 inches from the horizontal edge, The spare hood (385750) is 17 inches from the leading edge and 1 3/4 inches from the horizontal edge. The spare hood will help me re create the 3, but there isn't much left of either side of the 4 on my hood. I can loosely use the 3 on the spare hood to copy.

So far on my truck I cant see the "USA" or the "S", I tried light rubbing with some 0000 steel wool, but it doesn't seem to work on the original O.D. paint like I thought. The steel wool seemed to work removing paint OFF of the original O.D. paint though.

I haven't called Rick Larsens stencils yet, I was trying to see If I could pull off making another set from the original numbers...It would give me that warm fuzzy feeling I had the "Exact" font.The spare hood has square periods too, I cant see any of the USA/Periods on may original hood so far.

Spare hood pics first: (December of 1942 hood I believe)

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My hood pics second: (October of 1942)

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1942 G7117 No. 389946
1945 G527 Serial no.9218
USN CM3 NMCB "4"
Cat Field SVC/GPS installer
Cat Main shop Mech

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Re: SNL G506, Truck 1.5 Ton 4x4, unit 389946, 1 ea.

Post by retro-roco » Fri Mar 24, 2017 7:20 am

Hi Cody,

Thanks for the pictures of your hoods. Your original hood seems to be showing primarily later stenciled numbers, but it appears that the original numbers are under there. I used wet sand paper to sand through the layers on mine and eventually got down to the original numbers.

I appreciate the tape measure you used in your pictures because they help me to scale the images.

I recently created a font, based on the letters and numbers shown in the AR-850-5, thinking that they were used at the factory for hood numbers. It became apparent that is not the case. I have reached out to several members who seem to be heavily into graphics, drawings etc. and offer hood number paint screens as a service. I asked for sources, info, photos, etc as I wanted to recreate the factory font. The response has been underwhelming.

As a plan 'B', I'd like to use you hood photos, and others that Ive found and see if I can produce a font of the digits 0-9, U,S,A and probably W also. I had hoped to find enough info to create a complete font of digits and letters, but will do what I can with the info available.

Here is a small pic of the font I created from AR-850-5 (youll note the differences, especially in the three and the five).
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Kirk Gustafson
359th Infantry Regt. 90th Div. WWII HRS

1942 Chevy G506 1-1/2 ton 4x4 Cargo
1943 Ben Hur water trailer


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