CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

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DUKW_Woody
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CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by DUKW_Woody » Mon Oct 10, 2016 4:16 pm

Dear Forum members,
I am new to the forum, we own a 1945 DUKW fully restored and operational for our tour business here in the CNMI on Saipan. Saipan is located due North above Australia and in between the Philippines and Hawaii. Woody is awesome and lots of fun to drive. My name is Mike Dilley and I work for and own, Island Turtle tours. The name of our DUKW is Woody, we bought her from Chicago in the states from a well known vendor who has been nothing more than miraculous at helping us to get everything done and prepared for our business. Woody is the 1st original DUKW to operate or even go into the waters here since the Battle of Saipan in 1944 over 70 years ago. She is all original, with the exception of a raised canvas canopy.with original, GMC 270ci engine, all framing, bulkheads, and running gears, she is a marvel to look at and see operating. For this location she is very historical as most other items on island that are her age are lying on the side of the road rusting away. I believe she is the only original DUKW operating within the pacific region, as i have not seen or heard of any other originals, just the aftermarket types like Ride the Ducks which are a combination of vehicles refitted together to look like a dukw and usually with diesel engines, which produce 3 to 4 times the torque of the original 270 engines and cause all kinds of mechanical issues for the running gears. If you are interested you can see our 7 minute video of woody's 1st splash down here in the CNMI, we are very proud of her and she did great for her initial try out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsf5w69dPNk You can see in the video we are quite excited and proud of this moment. Since this video was taken woody has undergone a complete change of appearance from yellow to patriotic red, white, & Blue with murals depicting american icons. Not sure if anyone else has ever spent this much time or money trying to make a dUKW stand out like a sore thumb but I have to say I have learned a lot about the DUKW's, their uses and operational capabilities. what fun they are. We are still looking for original schematics for the DUKW's if any one knows where I might be able to download. I got one but it is to small to blow up, I think it was called schematic 402 from Sparkmen webpage, but even they did not have a big copy as they told me it was locked away somewhere in a military vault, lol So if anyone has any cool paperwork or other documents not commonly found, please let me know.
Thanks for reading the post and i look forward to hearing everyone's comments good or bad, its all a learning curve :D P.S. I will post some pictures of the new paint job shortly, need to get them loading online 1st.


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Re: CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by Steve Greenberg » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:22 pm

Hello,
Nice video. What type of paint did you use on your DUKW. Salt water is very bad for the sheet metal and brakes etc. I only take my DUKW in fresh water. They are a lot of fun.
Steve
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44 GMC 2 1/2 Ton Amphibian Truck (DUKW)

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Re: CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by W. Winget » Wed Oct 26, 2016 5:18 am

Really happy for you, wish I could get around to rebuilding my DUKW, it will have to wait till the 1918 Liberty Truck is done 1st.
Congratulations.
W Winget

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Re: CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by DUKW_Woody » Wed Oct 26, 2016 3:52 pm

Hello Steve, we used a metal coating called Chassis saver on the bare metal, then followed that up by putting marine grade industrial white primer and paint coating then we followed that up by repainting the whole outside with extreme quality car paint and 5 coats of clear with glass coating all in order to try to combat the salt water. We spray her down with a salt inhibitor after each splash into the water in between tours. Its a lot of work but she is worth it!

Mr. Winget, Thank you so much for the compliment on the video, yes we are quire proud of our DUKW and have since this video repainted her in patriotic Red white and blue to match her historical significance and to pay tribute to all those who have fought to keep our nation safe from tyranny past, present & future.
here are a few pictures of her in her new colors:
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As you can see above, we have spent quite a bit on our branding of our original 1945 DUKW and as she is the only original still operating within the pacific region after 70+ years we are extremely proud of her. She runs great, swims great, what can i say she's a great piece of history.
here are a few of the paint job being done.
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It was quite a detailed paint job task for our guy who worked for Picasso here in Saipan, CNMI and painted our whole vessel. Thank you so much for the great job. and thank you to all of you for letting us share these pictures with you of our original 1945 DUKW named Woody here in Saipan, CNMI

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Re: CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by jack neville » Thu Oct 27, 2016 3:17 am

Are you running original size tyres on it?

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Re: CNMI DUKW 1st water entry in nearly 70 years.

Post by DUKW_Woody » Mon Oct 09, 2017 4:23 pm

@redcross184, thank you so much good sir we will do our best.


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