1943 Ford GPW Build from Rescued 1943 Parts

[70th Division]

Hello,

I have been rescuing Jeeps and parts to save them from oblivion and the elements,
scrappers, the dump, and out of junkyards.

I am now building a 1943 Dallas GPW from a rolling chassis that I have, and from a Dallas GPW body and associated parts that came from a fellow G member. He decided to go with a new body kit for his great restoration.
This jeep will be built from all 1943 parts that I have.

Here is his old post, from where the body and parts came from :
viewtopic.php?f=144&t=239403

The body was picked up from Texas, and the original jeep was found and sold in Colorado from a military jeep dealer there. It was found in the High Desert there.
The body and parts are now in Florida

Here is what it looked like when it was picked up, nice and sandblasted,but was rained on for the 1000 mile trip to Florida, so it got flash rust on it, but no problem.
I have stored it since then, so work now begins.

I will post updates here as I make progress.
I have 5 new Coker Firestone tires and 5 new MD Juan Combat rims I received with free shipping from Summit racing, a WeeBee Canvas top on order as well.
I also picked up an F marked, European made, top bow from dealer in Pa, saving on shipping !
I placed 2 separate parts orders from Ron to take advantage of his free shipping for online orders. Both orders he gave me free shipping, thanks Ron !!!
(Online orders only, over $200, to get the free shipping)
It was done just before the quarantine, but he is still open for orders, so that is great !!

The 43 GPW rolling frame I have is under a slat grill jeep, and was part of a WW2 government rebuild program.
It came from California , and was rebuilt by Moore Equipment Company.
I had that jeep shipped here a few years ago.
Also I do have a slat grill rolling frame that I will transfer everything Slat Grill to as I go along.
That will be a different post

The body tub and fenders I have need to be restored.
The jeep had many holes drilled in it,
and some old piss poor repairs done with bondo and aluminum mesh and pop rivets.
It is a Ford made body, with the F stamp on the transmission hump.
The fenders were rough as well, but F marked.
They are in very restorable shape though, but the hat channels were rusted through,
and were replaced with a stop sign post as a repair,
and metal was cut away for a bondo and aluminum mesh "repair" on the top of the fender.

So I will start with the fender repair with parts from Ron.
The new fender hat channels are from JMP.

I have a Dayton spot welder,a Miller wire feed welder, and a very useful Dremel tool with
metal cutting disks, very expensive little metal cutting disks, but they are a must !
You can really do intricate and clean cutting and grinding that a big grinder can't do.

This jeep will be saved and built into a beautiful, 43 Ford GPW again !!!

Stay tuned

Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Hello,

Here are some photos of the passenger side fender that needs repair and restoration.
This is what it looked like after I removed the bondo, pop rivets, and aluminum mesh.
This fender was really hacked up, but I feel it will be a beauty when I am finished.
It has a very nice F mark on it. I want to save this fender !!
I plan to do all the metal work first, then later when possible, sandblast all the parts and body.
( I am quarantining here, so no getting sand at Lowes )
You can click on the picture to see the larger image.

Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Hello,

Here are some of the repairs that I have done on the passenger's side fender.
I cut away all the rotted edges of rust.
The rust had eaten through the hat channel and the fender itself.
I made patches from the same gauge steel and welded the patches in.
I used my welder on the lowest heat/metal gauge setting, and it welded very smoothly.
I then ground down all the welds, and touched up any imperfections or pin holes
in my welds. I used a big grinder to grind most of the weld bead down, then carefully used the
Dremel tool with metal cutting disks to really feather them smooth.

The new hat channel I got from Ron, it is JMP. It is a nice piece,
however as you can see the reinforcing plate is much smaller than my original one.
Look between my fingers, and it can clearly be seen.

So I had to make a piece of additional reinforcing plate to make up the difference.
I shaped it and fit it.
Then I clamped it tight and spot welded it to the new hat channel.
I then welded the seam between the two pieces, and ground the weld down, blending it in nicely.

I then cleaned the metal surfaces on the fender to shiny metal, and taped it off,
and primed the underside
of the hat channel, and the fender area it will cover, as seen in the pics.
(The red primer stripe)
Then I spot welded the new hat channel, once lined up and clamped tight, to the repaired fender.

It came out great !
I did mark the edges of where the original hat channel was with a marker and that helped me line up the new one perfectly.
There are some more welded area to grind down, and I will get them tonight
I next started to repair the rot holes from rust along the area that bolts to the body.
The tabs also need repair that attach to the frame, as they were snapped off.

Ray

[Ed Roberts]

Ray, when they made the TV show "Bionic Man", someone thought it was a new concept. Not. I believe you may have legal recourse to recover residuals from that program. Due you, of course, from the theft of your intellectual property. Might even pay for all the effort you've gone to.
This is a wonderful Easter story relative to the Resurrection. Good on you.
Stay safe, Eddie

[70th Division]

Hello Ed,

Thanks , Happy Easter to You and all G503'ers !
A good day to post this project, as similar ideas were stated a few years ago
on the original thread

From Michael O. , Nov 26, 2016 :

"I hope you didn't scrap your original tub and fenders. There are quite a few skilled individuals out there who can work miracles on sheet metal. Best to save the original if they can be, and yours are still in relatively good condition."

From Pcas1944 , Nov 26, 2016 - seller of the original GPW body had posted :

"No I didn't scrap the body and fenders. I sold it to another member here, who will resurrect them."

It was an excellent save of these jeep parts, and Pcas built a beautiful jeep with a reproduction body kit from Ron.

This jeep has been waiting a long time to come back together, even though it will be from 2 separate Dallas, Texas 1943 GPW Jeeps, it will come back to life, and will be born again
!!


Best Regards,
Ray

[conrod6]

Really like your ethos to bring together the jumble of parts - other peoples cast offs - to bring back two much more accurate jeeps. Good on you.

Barrie

[70th Division]

Hello,

Thanks Barrie !!
I am looking forward to getting this jeep restored, using all the original
body, fenders, windshield, grill, and hood.
I basically acquired the entire original 1943 Dallas body, front to back,
including many small parts and the tool box lids.
This will be all restored to the best of my abilities, and mated with my 1943
Dallas rolling stock frame.
Cast off parts are to me as important to save as the vehicles,because pretty soon you have
saved an entire jeep just from old spare parts
I have saved a few more body tubs, hoods, fenders,
engines, and parts.
A few years ago I picked up a numbers matching 1945 GPW frame and engine,
and rear axle assembly in the Maine hinterlands. It was a long drive, but I was in New Hampshire already picking up 2 other jeeps, so it was a great trip.
I have a late ACM 2 tub that was dumped by someone, but will be used to bring that parted out 45 from Maine back someday .
The tub is rough, but not too rough

As I tell many people who stop by .... some people save cats .... I try to save Jeeps and all other long neglected WW2 military vehicles that I can regardless of the condition.

I just need to build more buildings to store them in !!!


Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Hello,

More progress pics with the fender, with the top patch welded in, as it was cut out pretty far beyond the channel width.
When I use metallic filler, I will be sure to preserve
the spot weld marks that were made anew when the new channel was added.
The F stamp is solid and protected

Below is the outside edge, and the inside edge was rotted away as well.
Now rock solid. I will finish it a little more before blasting it and priming and painting.
I will use metallic filler on all the ground down welds, and then sand it off, filling in the pitting and grinder marks.

You can also see the repair needed for the inside battery tray area of the fender.
That channel was eaten through with rust issues.

The bottom fender tab was also torn off, so I cut down a repair section and welded it back on
after prepping the jagged edges to a couple clean straight edge joints.
Keeping the original base on the fender, so added the two tabs basically to the existing panel.

Sorry for the less than sharp pics, but I think the new Samsung S20 phone should be able to get better pics, once I figure it out

All the welds have been ground down nice and smooth, and are ready for blasting,
filling, and paint.
I used a dremel metal cutting mini disk grinder to do all the finish work, and highly recommend a tool like that. You can run your fingers over all the welds now, and cant feel them, and won't see them after painting.

Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Ok,

The passenger fender metal work has been completed.
Onto the driver's side fender metal restoration.

Here is the fender in current shape. As you can see that channel had also rotted out pretty
well, and needs replacing as well as sheet metal repair under it.
The fender has the same rust through issues and the passenger, even though most of the jeep
has very little actual rust.

Now, you can see below that there is an issue with the JMP brackets as they are in my opinion
incorrectly made. You can see that they are 1/2 inch too short.
If anyone knows how to contact them to report this, please do, maybe they can see it here.
It takes just as much effort to make something correctly, as it does to make it incorrectly.
The depth of the new channel is also incorrect.
The location of the "center" hole is also in the wrong location, and an incorrect size hole as well.
So what I am going to do for this fender is make an repair using part of the original, and
cut it off where the rust area starts, and weld in a section of an nos M38 fender bracket that came with the jeep. At least it is the correct depth !!!
Also, on the new repro bracket, the backing plate is totally incorrect, just like the driver's side I had to add a piece to extend it to the correct dimension.
I called and spoke to Ron's guy to see if they had any MD Juan brackets available that might be more accurate. He did not have any.
So even though this is going to make extra work, and the fender mounting holes are larger for the M38 than the GPW, I will repair that as well.

[70th Division]

Hello,
Here are some more bracket pics to explain what the issues are.
The green one is for an M38, the rusty one is the GPW, the silver one is the reproduction JMP one. I greatly appreciate all JMP's efforts, but they really need to get on top of things, just like MD Juan has been doing in recent years.
It is my opinion that they used an M38 fender brace as a pattern, as the length is an exact match to it.
So to summarize, if someone has contact with JMP, please ask them to correct these particular parts. It is the same problem for both driver and passenger sides.

And yes, I did compare these new brackets to a couple of my MB fenders, same exact issues.
So it is not an MB/GPW difference thing, it is a manufacturing issue .
I hope they get it fixed, as I have a pile of fenders to restore, that I have collected over the years

Here you can see the channel depth difference.

Here you can see the backing plate difference, totally wrong.

Now, back to work

Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Hello,
Here is some progress to report
The driver's side fender's metal work repair has been completed.
I have done both rotted out fenders, the grill, and hood.
I will next finish the body metal work.
Once I have all the metal work done, and repairs completed,
I will blast all the jeep components and get them ready for painting.
Metallic filler will be applied over the welding grind marks, will then be and sanded off.
More primer and paint and she will be coming along nicely.
I do not enjoy sandblasting, so I found a new type of blaster. It
is called a VAC-Blaster and has a vacuum hooked into the nozzle that captures almost all
of the blasting media and collects it back into the hopper.
This will be incredible if it works as depicted.
Also it will be much safer as no dust and sand bouncing back at you and in the air.
I also ordered 100 pounds of glass bead blasting media to replace sand use.

I was able to mock the front clip up on an MB in my garage that I got with out a front clip.
It came in handy to be sure all the holes lined up after repairs and such.

I am very happy with the way these repairs and welds came out.
After I ground the welds down,
I went back and welded up any pinholes that were there,
then ground them down again, building up enough steel to make a nice solid repair.


Best Regards,
Ray

[70th Division]

Hello,

Here are a couple more pictures of the section of an M38 nos fender bracket that
I used to patch with the original upper section of the GPW one that was still in good shape.
These 2 1943 GPW fenders were basically both rotted in half, and now are good for another 77 years going forward with the repairs. They are both rock solid now !!

I still need to drill the center hole in channel to match the original one.
You can see the marker line where it will be drilled.

The spot welder I have with 12 inch tongs I would recommend to every G member to add to their tool kit to repair their Jeeps !!! It makes things fast and easy
I also welded on new tabs to repair this fender as well.

Along with repair the torn air vent, and the upper corner piece joint on the outside and inside, at the top rear of the fender

Now back to work,



Best Regards,
Ray

[17thAirborne]

Ray, your determination to rescue these many jeeps is rremarkable. I'm enjoying seeing the progress. I'm almost set up in TN. Can't wait to start a thread and actually FINISH something without moving and building again.

Is that Miller welder a small one or very powerful one. I have one of the Hobart tabletop wire feed welders MIG. Hope it works for this.

[70th Division]

Hello,
Thanks Oz,

I do love 'em !!!
I hope you can get back to restoring soon in TN

The Miller is a smaller unit, a Millermatic 140 auto-set .
Normal electric plug on it, I imagine like your Hobart unit.

It works great and I can use the larger and smaller rolls of wire in it.
I was just doing some repairs on an early GPW seat I got from you when you were in NM

Best Regards,
Ray

[17thAirborne]

Yep. Looks like the one I got at Tractor Supply. I have been using .035 wire in mine. I find even on the lowest setting (1) it tends to purn through. I still have to practice on some bare sheet metal before I start on a tub.

What gauge are you using for your body panels, and what size wire do you find works best?