Jesse Browning

Waiting for some pistons to be made.

I’m thinking about an RD-450 engine locally here. It’s in a 56 truck. Truck is scrap. Engine is stuck. He wants $2800 for the pile.

55 gallon drum. One gallon drain cleaner. Immersion heater. Boiled for one hour.

Easiest way to fix something when you dont know what your doing: grab the torch.

They are good for a parking brake. To stop the vehicle they have to be applied gradually, or likely as not they will snap the drive shaft. We’ve got 2 transmissions in the junk pile with shaft snapped off.

On a happier note, the guys are making progress.

I ordered headlight mounts from BAIV. Trying to get my money back. Holes should line up. Headlights point off to the side. Dealing with parts dealers is the worst part of restoring vehicles.

Parts are available. Mostly in Europe. We fabricate anything we can. The tracks had pieces welded to the guides at some point. They must have been hardened pieces because they tore up the bogey hubs and other parts. We got original replacement wear plates for them. Tracks are available. Every few years someone makes a bunch of them and the price goes way down. They are kind of scarce right now so prices are high. I think its been about 20 years since Israel made any.

IH made over 13,000 halftracks in WWII.

1943 M9A1

Maybe when they did the “valve job”, they didnt clean up the grinding compound. I acquired a supposedly rebuilt Herc JXD. Fortunately I suspected something and took it apart. Their idea of rebuilding was to pull the head and hone the cylinders with lots and lots, and lots more compound. Found it running down the inside of the block and into the oil pan. There was about a quart of compound in there. That wouldn’t have run for long. Maybe it would have looked like yours.

43 IH halftrack.