1941 K18-C GMC Recovered today

[rickf]

Ok, I am hooked, I see another 62 pages coming. So did you blow the EGR cooler in your Pickup?

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

Papabear is not old!!! He, like myself is well seasoned.

I have consulted BOTH the online dictionary and the online thesaurus to abate my detailitis concerning vocabulary.

Are you talking about our beloved PapaBear, donner of the Pink Tutu, purveyor of perfectly restored green iron, and one of the most up-standing troops the SS has ever known???

If so, then I believe from consulting those online knowledge bases that PB should actually be described as
WELL MARINATED, rather than simply SEASONED.
But I digress.

Luv y'all, Brothers!

 

[Elijah95]

Thank you my true Brother...well...I consider you that.

SO.....First let me tell y'all about the trip down:

WELL.....Doc, Craig, and I met at the hooch at 07:00hrs Saturday and mounted the noble steed (also known as my F350) with the equipment trailer (8 tires, 20K GVW) and headed out for a hardy breakfast before we embarked on our most excellent adventure.

The stated mission was to transport one each K18-C Communications Truck to Davie, Florida and release her to roam with many other military vehicles and live out her life in bliss. SS member Bill W kinda sorta arranged the handoff and vouched for the feller at the receiving end and after texting/talking to him by phone, I was kinda sorta convinced the "receiver" was a good troop and would give the K18-C a good home where she could be seen and appreciated instead of sitting in a dusty ole warehouse feeling she was no longer loved. (That was not true...but she didn't get much attention).

BUT....I digress....I forgot about the day before....Friday.

Craig came by the hooch to help me get her cleaned up and running and to load her onto the equipment trailer. We replaced the dead batteries with a new one but the engine was so tight the 6volt battery wouldn't turn over and I couldn't remember how to use the 12V "kicker" system Zout had installed...

SO.....I told Craig to bring the forklift and hook a tow strap to me and we would pull start the ole girl. I took off the engine cover forward of the shift tower and he pulled me about 10 feet and I saw fuel rush into the clear filter Zout had installed and then.....VAROOOM!!!!!!!!!!!

THEN.....we bled the brakes and got them working again and drove her over to the wash rack for a bath.

OK....at this point, I was getting the willies and regretting my decision...but....I knew it was the right thing to do....so we continued the mission and loaded her up.

Now...for the trip.

We had been driving for about 3 hours when suddenly bells, whistles, and all kinds of "WARNING WILL ROBINSON" kinds of stuff happened and the temp gauge pegged all the way out!!!!

Luckily, Tony had put a few gallons of coolant, a gallon of oil, and a gallon of transmission fluid.....just in case....

There were no signs of a leak other than from the coolant reseviour...and we checked....BUT....no leaks found. I thought maybe the cap was bad so we stopped at a parts house and bought a new one.

BUT NO!!!! That wasn't it....so fast forward:

We went thru 12 gallons of water/antifreeze on the trip down (plus...I turned the AC off) but we made it by 9:30 PM and went straight to the receivers house to drop the trailer and then go to the hotel....but where do you find a repair shop for a 6.0 diesel Saturday night or Sunday morning??

Oh....and some of you asked for pics of what the feller has so I'm gonna tease y'all a little at a time.

ALSO...the owner asked me to remind everyone that ANY weapons you see on the vehicles or sitting around are replicas and can NOT be made to fire nor are they in any way a "destructive device"......unless you bump your head on it....like Doc did....

Oh...ALSO...we should get some sort of recognition for doing a 1200 mile round trip in 48 hours with a sick truck, viewing priceless vehicles, not pi**ing our wives off, and getting back home semi-intact!!!

Power stroke specialty in Atlanta would be THE place to have that 6.0 taken care of permanently


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Robo McDuff]

Forgot the camera but took some pics of most of the REALLY cool stuff with my trusty phone. I'll try to post some tonight.

Driving 1200 miles in 48 hours and touring a facility like that may take a little while before my mind will focus on reality again...

Like they say, forgetting a camera or not knowing where your car keys are is no problem, when you don't know anymore what they are used for, then you really have a problem. And doing 1200 miles in 48 hours, things can't be that bad really.

 

[Bill W]

I've been "Kinda Sorta" wanting Fred's Saladin Scout car for years!

 

[papabear]

Ok, I am hooked, I see another 62 pages coming. So did you blow the EGR cooler in your Pickup?

No Sir. I had the EGR delete done a few years ago and the "bullet proofing" done as well.

I'm suspecting the water pump and we think the water must be "weeping out" and vaporizing on the hot engine before it can drip to the ground but we haven't had time to check yet. Also, there was no white smoke, no antifreeze smell at the exhaust or wet/clean exhaust pipe....all looks normal there.

 

[papabear]

The quality of the pics is not that good because there simply wasn't enough room to get a good shot of the entire vehicle in most cases. There were 4 HUGE quanset hut type buildings and a HUGE more modern metal building....all jam-packed with super goodies.

PLUS....I didn't bother taking many pics of the more modern type vehicles.

 

[papabear]

You may see more than one pic of a vehicle from a different angle because I tried hard to move and get a better shot:

ALSO....believe it or not...the Chevy ambulance in the pic is one that was an "overbuild" on a military contract and was never issued. I think he said it had about 20 miles on it when he bought it.

 

[papabear]

We finally found someone with a more severe addiction then we have:

 

[papabear]

We had to put a helmet on Doc because he kept banging his head on things...but he wouldn't let me take his pic with it on.

 

[papabear]

The 1941 International tractor and maintenance trailer in pic #2 above was worth the trip to me.

 

[papabear]

OK, I still have a few pics I haven't downloaded from the camera but it will take me a little while to check which ones I haven't posted yet....so for now enjoy these.

 

[rickf]

Gross weight 5 tons and max capacity 6 tons? Something wrong there?

 

[Tinwoodsman]

Wow! What a place. Makes you want to cream your jeans.

 

[Another Ahab]

OK, I still have a few pics I haven't downloaded from the camera but it will take me a little while to check which ones I haven't posted yet....so for now enjoy these.

These pics are all so AWESOME! What a collection. Thanks Mr. PB, you are a Champ!!

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

Saw this "history" posted on a Facebook MV page.......



Not sure if anyone had shared it here before.

 

[Another Ahab]

That is very cool that GMC had an historian on the payroll. Brilliant.

The stories that get lost in big long-standing companies is almost a crime. I used to work for J.A. Jones, a global construction operation that was once pivotal in the production of Liberty Ships during WWII (literally just PUMPED them out).

There was not a whole lot of historic record about all that, beyond what was just coporate memory from the old-timers. Kind of a crime.

 

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

That is very cool that GMC had an historian on the payroll. Brilliant.

The stories that get lost in big long-standing companies is almost a crime. I used to work for J.A. Jones, a global construction operation that was once pivotal in the production of Liberty Ships during WWII (literally just PUMPED them out).

There was not a whole lot of historic record about all that, beyond what was just coporate memory from the old-timers. Kind of a crime.

Indeed, those lost stories are not unrecoverable.
Case in point.... Our 1960 vintage 220KAK 26' Box Van Semi-Trailer was built by KINGHAM TRAILERS, Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Our search for both the company's history AND any hope of production details of this trailer has yielded only a very few online or paper documents.

She's a rare MV for sure.
Quite possibly the last survivor of her pedigree.

(see link below)

 

[Wolfen]

Love the pictures.

 

[saddamsnightmare]

January 11th, 2020

Ford Motor Company is one that kept its archives pretty much intact and has a historian, so I am told.