m718 pick up.

[omen]

Anybody interested in co-driving with me out to bum fuck Tennessee to retrieve my m718 ambulance?

I am planning on leaving tonight or early tomorrow.

i have also arranged for a lay over stop at brett's house as it at the half way point.

[aswayze]

I command a sitrep! 

We own an mutt that we are not obsessing about? 

This is a crime of some fashion, I am certain of it.

[tascabe]

Curfman and Smith stopped by Friday night and then again last night since my place was a nice halfway stop point.

Got some pics of the M718 this morning before they took off for KC.

I will let Curfman fill in all the narratives later - but short story is that there was only a small 4" weld holding the thing together - so they decided to cut that weld for safety when loading/unloading etc.









Engine runs.


And not sure if this was a military hub option or if they just got tired of their tie down ones falling off - all 4 wheels have this type on them.

[aswayze]

Nothing to it. 

All it takes is welding and as it happens Curfman likes to weld. 

Ball hitch...  of course it has a ball hitch...  What Dilbert redneck wouldn't add a ball hitch... 

[Coop]

This one needs to be called 6037.  "037" being the medical code for Tetanus.

[Stagg]

Those hubs are the "Marine" hubs.... Marines (and Navy) just have to be different.  They added A2 style tie-downs like you see on my Mutt's bumper and back corners, but did it 20 years before the A2 was even an option. 
Simpler design I suppose.

By any chance, did you stop at look at stuff for sale by "crazy mutt guy" south of Brett?

[aswayze]

Got it sequestered away in the back of my place now.  Quite a bit of metal work to be done on this one.  Good thing Curfman is into that kind of thing. 

I suspect once we are done, this one is structurally going to resemble the zombie like husk of Mutt body being used to conceal an entirely newly build Chenowith rail buggy style frame.   

Top was crap.  it was just a standard top that was so sun struck it crumbled when molested.  It got binned. 

Doors were equally crap but the frames were good.  NOS door skins abound, it's the frames that are tough so that part of the fight is won already. 

Side curtains had jacked up window but were otherwise serviceable.  Cam had mentioned that the best solution for windows is to edge the window holes with Velcro so you can quickly replace (or remove) them.  This looks like a good one to try that out on. 

Seats were ok, actually has a standard M151A2 back seat which Curfman will likely eventually come off of for the guys who have normal A2s and no back seats for them.    Although he does have a set of rear seat brackets, this on is an A1 family vehicle and would take an A1 seat anyhow.   Ambulances don't have back seats anyhow.  The ambulatory patients sit on a troop seat on the left side and the litter patients go  on the right. 

For reasons not particularly clear to me, this needed to get dropped at my house.  Sean and I had literally JUST gotten done getting my mutt and Staggs mutt in place and settled down secure in the fact that everything was in place when we got the news.   

We ended up cooter bobbing a system with the medium tow bar and zip ties that allowed us to move it up the hill to the back yard with my mutt.  It was...  odd...

The neighbor lady came out and said "now I know you've lost it!  What are you going to do with half of a car?   

We explained that is is all perfectly normal, why the other half is just over there you see! 

Still not as weird as my initial plan to just stick the front half in 4wd, squirt fuel in the carb, start it up and drive it up. 



Picture time: 








Run Curfman run! 



Ooops!  How many zip ties does it take to cart 1/2 a mutt up a hill?  More than 4 per side anyhow! 


Well since that didn't work, I say we just try exactly the same thing again. 



Finally got it tugged over the crest and were able to rickshaw it into position from there. 



 

[d.thomas]

so, curfman gets a mutt and the first thing he does it break it in half? AWESOME!
lets drive the front half around!

[aswayze]

As mentioned earlier.  Curfmans top was a standard M151 top not the ambulance specific one.   Same thing with his bow set.

See here: http://www.surplusjeep.com/M151/group_22_chassis.htm

Good news is we can make all the tubing bits and in a pinch probably modify a cover a-la how the old Elmo top was.  Happens that I have a good bit of general cover hardware in that giant bin of randomness I got from Tent Dave a while back. 

[Master Chef]

http://g838.org/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5546

Some pictures of the top and plenty of red crosses.

[PECEMKR45]

I have been wondering , If you cut a mutt in half , does it grow into 2 mutts??

[aswayze]

Short answer:

Yes. 

[omen]

It does but only if you plant them in soil with the right iron and ph levels other wise you get a cj 5 or if your really unlucky you get a m882

[aswayze]

Work grinds to a start on M718 6037

Curfman made it by today to start cranking on his M718 which has, per Coop's suggestion, been numbered 6037. 

Big thing for now is to knock off all the horridly rusted metal and get down to the base unibody bits and make sure that there is enough here to even start trying to make a Mutt out of. 

Curfman started off with the angle grinder then from there shifted over to the air grinder and has now settled into using the air hammer to peel away sections of rotted out floors. 

This is an odd one...  Most of our mutts have semi-rotted frame sections and mostly solid bodies.  This one seems to have almost NO body parts that are not rusted to bits but the frame is oddly intact.  I wonder if there was some sort of horrible anti-dead-people-stink-spray that they always washed out the ambulances with that caused the bodies to rot off of them or something...   

Weird...  Regardless, the unibody frame parts are pretty solid so we'll be able to tack it back together just fine.   Once all the old shit is peeled off, we'll weld the framey bits together solid as a rock then set about repopulating all the body parts with new metal.   While we certainly COULD spend the big bucks and get correct OEM parts, I strongly suspect that we'll end up making entirely new floor pans out of diamond tread plate. 

Gas tank came out of it and not surprisingly it is packed full of rust and evil.  We pumped it out using the diaphram pump and it is sitting there awaiting the arrival of all the gas tank refurb stuff I ordered a few days back. 

Picture time: 


Peeling up the rear floor pan


Rear framing


All that is left if the rear floorpan.


Gas tank removed. 

[Coop]

per Coop's suggestion, been numbered 6037.

Epic! I've named several airsoft teams before... never named a vehicle!