Starting restoration on Michael's ’43 GPW.

[1943gpw wc53]

Looking Great Keep up the good work!!

[ILikePlanesToo]

I've made some good progress in the last week or so. I'm still just taking off little bits and cleaning them up as I go. I have a lot of the small stuff removed now. The seat pans were a rusted mess, so I cleaned the seats up really nicely and put new seat pans on them. They look like new now!

Michael

[zepher11]

Michael, looking really good! I like your method. I guess I'm doing mine the opposite way...take it all apart and then clean everything...

How are you cleaning all of your parts? Especially your seat frames. Are you using a wire wheel, bead blasting them or using another method? I'm always looking for an easier way. I have been sand blasting a lot of the larger parts and will be moving into the smaller items like you are working on now. You have really done a lot of work and it looks great!

Keep up the good work..

[thidisbogus]

DOing a great job so far. Like Zeph, I like your organization.

[ILikePlanesToo]

Hey Zeph,
I seriously considered taking it all apart and then cleaning up each part as I put it back together, but this seemed a little easier to store the parts if they were all clean and organized. I’m curious how it works out. In the end, it might be like re-assembly a GPW “kit”. I’m really itching to get into it though, so it’s hard for me to resist taking it all apart at once.

I have been trying a bunch of things for cleaning the parts. I don’t like getting pain dust all over if I can avoid it (is that lead paint?), so I usually start by removing the paint with chemical paint stripper. Methylene chloride paint stripper is nasty stuff though.

On the seats I used a soda blaster that I got from HF. It works awesome for removing paint (it won’t take off rust as all). It’s really fast, but it makes the worst mess (white dust all over the yard). I have also been using a wire brush on my 4.5 inch angle grinder for big rusty spots. Small parts I toss in my little modified HF blast cabinet. I have a mixture of garnet and aluminum oxide in it. At 80psi, it cleans up parts in a hurry. I have been trying to chemical strip even the small parts first if I can.

Overall, I haven’t found a really easy way to clean large parts. It seems like it’s all a bit of a mess.

I’ve been trying to find a sand blast place around my area for the frame and such. I found one place that wanted $1,200 . For that price, I think I could get my own large sand blasting rig. There is a place in LA that quoted me $1,800 to chemically dip the frame, tub, fenders, grill, and hood. That price is out of my budget, but it is interesting. I figure the chemical dipping isn’t a good way to go with those wood filled stiffeners….. Anyone have any experience (good or bad) with chemical dipping?

Michael

[ILikePlanesToo]

Hey Rodney,
Thanks for the encouragement. Much appreciated.

I usually try to have a bit of a plan for projects, and I figured this was the best way to keep the project organized.

My wife has always been awesome about my projects, too. For the GPW, she actually gave up a bunch of wall space is her sawing room for me to put clean parts on shelves. It seems that cleanliness is a small price to pay for a nice area to store all the parts while I’m working.

Michael

[thidisbogus]

Your welcome Michael. Encouragement really helps especially with these long term projects. I didn't think I would be pushing two years on mine now. It also helps a lot with a supportive wife. Mine is a blessing too, she is very understanding and is pretty easy on me about the money too. I think se sees it helps to have something to get your mind off of a stressful job.

Watching your progress. Keep posting the photos. I need to update my thread with some new photos too.

[zepher11]

Overall, I haven’t found a really easy way to clean large parts. It seems like it’s all a bit of a mess.

I haven't either. All one can do is just jump in there and get at it. I have a small blast cabinet that I have been using glass beads for cleaning small parts. It works great, but I learned the hard way in that everything must be free of grease before one starts blasting. It's amazing how often the same chunk of grease comes back over and over again...

[1943gpw wc53]

Very Nice, Keep up the good work and your going to have a wonderful looking jeep!!

[ILikePlanesToo]

I haven't posted in a bit, but I've been making good progress lately. I'm still just refurbishing parts as I remove them. Sometimes it feels strange working on little stuff when there are such big things still to do, but it seems to be working well to clean things up as soon as it is removed. I'm starting to run out of little parts to take off!

Other than all the small stuff, I have the windshield all disassembled and cleaned. It looks pretty good, but the lower part of the inner frame is "puffed-up" from rain water repeatedly freezing inside the frame over the years. I think once I get that all fixed, it'll be about ready to put the inner frame back together with new glass.

I've had to do a bit of welding here and there. There are/were a lot of extra Bubba holes in the windshield frames. Also, I have found a number of cracks in parts like the spare tire holder and the headlight brackets. It's not a big deal to weld them up, but it takes a little more time.

Michael

[ILikePlanesToo]

I've been working slowly on the fuel tank while I'm waiting for paint to dry. I have the outside all cleaned up and most of the external rust removed. I silver soldered up a few small pin-holes.

The other day, I noticed that the fill ring and sender ring were both only partially soldered to the tank. There were small cracks running almost all the way around both. I was really hesitant, but I decided to remov them and re-solder them on. Interesting, I think they turned out really well. It's not the best soldering job in the world, but I took my time and they look way better than I though they would.

There is rust on the inside of the tank still, but I think with a little internal cleaning, the tank will be about ready to paint and put aside. I keep vacillating on epoxy coat the inside or not...

I got a nice old T-62 pintle for $25 the other day. I'm not sure if it's really %100 correct for this GPW, but it fist perfectly, and looks about right to me.

I thought I'd include a full shot for a progress reference. It's coming along.

Michael

[ILikePlanesToo]

I finished cleaning up the axe and shovel toady. They were in pretty bad shape. I don't think they are original, but there are old and they have a lot of cool old personality, so I thought I'd give them a little extra attention. I really don't want them to look new, but I want them to have another healthy shot at life.

The axe handle was really warped and twisted. To straiten it out, I band-clamped it to a long chunk of steel angle and soaked it with water every day for a few weeks. I then let it dry out in my shop for a few days before un-clamping it. It worked great. It's really pretty straight now.

For both the axe and shovel, I removed most of the rust from the steel with a wire brush on my hand grinder and then sand blasted them down to the raw metal.

I sanded the handles by hand. I stopped sanding when pretty mush all the weathered wood was gone and I had a nice surface (I intentionally left all the surface cracks).

For re-finishing, I wiped black lacquer paint on the sand blasted metal and then buffed it off while it was still wet. I repeated the wiping/buffing until I had a finish I liked. For the wood, I gave it a nice wet coat of boiled linseed oil. The clean wood soaked it right up.

I really like they way they turned out. I hope they look nice and still look like the cool old tools that they are.

Here are before and after photos.

Michael

P.s. The axe head looks like it is on upside down to me, but it's the only way that it will fit....

[Fat Albert]

Wow Michael! I'm impressed with your work! I hadn't thought about restoring even the wood handles... you are very ingenious! I only wish my MB had come with the proper tool indents! Bubba really did a number on mine.
And like most everyone has already said here, I like how you're going about this project. I don't know if I have the patience or the organization skills to do it this way... But you are surely an inspiration!

Dutch

[El-Rancho-Decomposo]

This is a fun restoration to follow; have you had any luck on the markings and hood #'s? A jeep from the Manhattan Project time frame would be an extra bonus in the historical coolness factor, and I wonder if any of the Bubba holes might have been for a Unity spotlight or some such. I also once had a brushguard similar to yours that had a B/O light "hood" welded to it; I could never identify what it was for and sold it, so maybe it was a military depot/field mod of some kind. Is the dipping place the one in Santa Fe Springs? Top work, but verrrry pricey.

[ILikePlanesToo]

I was able to tease up some hood paint and figure out the hood number (20385939). I found some cool old photos from Los Alamos showing "jeeps" in use during the Manhattan Project. I'd love to find more photos, so I can get a better plan for numbering and painting details.

On a somewhat related topic, my GPW doesn't have combat rims.... At first I figured that someone along the way put solid civilian (CJ2a) rims on it, but someone told me that because it was intended for use only in the US during the war that it might have had solid rims form the beginning. Has anyone heard of that scenario, or do you think that it had it's combat rims removed at some point?

El-Rancho-Decomposo:
Yup. The chemical dipping place is in Santa Fe Springs, CA. I talked to the guy there for a while on the phone. He seemed to really know his stuff. I bet it would be great, but it seems so expensive compared to sand blasting....

Michael