1940 Chevrolet 15 cwt

Long story. 

I had a 1946 Dodge DD1-116 ute for years , in original condition with its 1946 number plates, was my everyday car for 10 years. Never let me down , very reliable., went on interstate trips. The wooden bits in the body were half rotted and the tailgate fell off on a rough road near Canowindra NSW in 1981. On one trip in 1979 ,  I tracked down a rare Dodge command car body , 1/2 Ton model, lying beside a railway track in NSW. The 46 ute trailered  the CC body home.  Also flat towed a 1941 Ford WOT2 British army 15 cwt , i was given the Ford for free, the butcher in Canowindra had it sitting in his Lucerne paddock. A guy in Orange, I got a nice 1941 Chevy ex army 1 Ton truck for $50. The poor 46 ute struggled towing  the chev up the hills to Cargo, my BIL steering the Chev. 

The CC in ANZAC day Melbourne 1982.  

I found two 1940 chev 15 cwt wrecks , been a long project. Hoping to replicate a army 15 cwt GS van  . 
 
 

 

 

Going through the Sydney Council pics, I came across this pic of a very rare 1941 Pontiac utility. The pic takes me back to a motoring adventure .

I spotted an advert for a Pontiac ute , down Geelong way. These utes (Pontiac and Chevrolet) were built by GMH for military use , the body was a wooden frame with masonite panels , and a canvas top roadster cab .

Getting to Geelong my friend and me , peaked into a backyard to see a large, long green ute with battered front guards. The elderly owner came out , he explained he had owned the ute since 1946 , he said , it had come down from Townsville , a RAAF base. He had just a few days earlier handed in the 1946 reg plates .  We went for a test drive, it ran OK, tyres needed some air, he wheeled out a Wirraway main wheel and used a air hose to inflate the car wheels from the big Wirraway wheel. 

The water pump leaked, so he went and got a chev kit and installed it before we came back for the drive home, the ute cost $180.  Anyway, next weekend, we arrive and off we go , up Geelong road , the Pontiac had no problem keeping  up with the traffic. I got some petrol and the attendant didn't blink an eya lid , he was talking about the footy and Geelong was winning

The elderly owner, Mr DeGrandi,  ran a caravan hire business, he told me the Pontiac had  hauled a caravan up to QLD each year for annual holidays. He had fitted metal panels over the masonite, this preserved the original wooden body. It was in good shape. 

I fitted new king pins and rebuilt the brakes. The motor, turns out is was tired, cracked exhaust manifold. A club member also had one, I passed the ute onto him. Colin had found two 41 Pontiac sedans, ex wartime hire cars , taxis. He salvaged bits from them. Colin appeared at many events , in the yellow Pontiac.  

Most of these utes were issued to the RAAF and the US forces in Australia.  The number built was very low. A single Chevrolet survives. 

Pic from the QLD library, this ute has had metal panels fitted over the wooden body , 
collections.slq.qld.gov.au/viewer/IE131742

 

 

This is the Geelong Pontiac after Colin's wonderful work . The car was sold to South Australia,  sadly it was damaged when it caught on fire, the horse hair seats , the exhaust muffler was under the seats.  

 

 

Seen in this wartime Australian film, a Pontiac ute . 

I have attended a few HCVC displays. I was at the 1986 event, with my 1946 Dodge ute, the display was held in the International Harvester car park in Dandenong . The meetings were at the Boronia Fire Station. Also, I went to a few displays at Sandown . Have some pixs somewhere.

A great read, thanks for sharing the story


Paul

Hello Fighting Rust,
The HCVCA now has it's own clubrooms at Unit 8, number 4 Macquarie Place, Boronia. Meetings are held at 8pm on the Fourth (not necessarily the last) Thursday of each month.
Annual Displays are now held at Yarra Glen Racecourse on the second weekend in November. The set up day is on Saturday and the main display day is Sunday. There are usually over 300 vehicles on display. We would love to see you there, you will no doubt catch up with several old friends and acquaintances.

The above also applies to everyone else reading this.
For those of you not familiar with Melbourne, Boronia and Yarra Glen are both in the east of Melbourne.

Morris.

Discovered  a problem in my diff. The carrier bearing on one side has collapsed and the inner end of the axle shaft has wobbled . The face of the carrier where the brass thrust washer runs, has been scored, the brass washer has been spinning and eaten into the machined face . The other side is OK .

I've seen this problem before,  mainly in gearboxes where the countershaft end thrust washer has been spinning and  has scored the gearbox housing.  Seen this scoring  in WW2 JEEP transfer cases too. 

I've done a bush repair job  on scored faces a few times. You mount a precision flat round stone on a shaft , poke the shaft through and use a drill to reface the scored area flat.  Having access to a lathe, you can machine up a new thrust washer out of bearing bronze. You make the washer slightly  thicker to allow for the scored area being thinner. 

Any comments ?  I'm not driving this ute around Australia,  so my bush fix might work out OK . Maybe 50/50 it will be OK.

,  

Alternative to hard chrome and machine to correct size. Hardchrome Engineering in Clayton used to do this type of work.

Machine it flat ,and use thicker washer .........you can see the barrel roller on the carrier .......GM refused to use any Timken taper rollers ,as Henry Ford was thick with the Timkens ,and owned a substantial interest in Timken......So GM used barrel rollers or ball bearings .

So is from were spider gears go ??
I'm not familiar with this diff so am not real sure were everything fits in the photo
A normal diff I would of guessed that's were it went

Paul