Old Warrior Comes to New Home - T-62

[Augdog1964]

Hey all,

Well an old warrior came to her new home today... Syrian T-62 captured during the Yom Kippur war, during their drive to the Jordan River...

Battle damage galore all over her... schrapnel, 20mm hit on the barrel, MG round hits... she's been there and done that for sure...

We pulled her top armor off today, drained everything, and put new coolant, and oil in. Tomorrow new batteries and hopefully a puff of smoke and she'll be moving again...don't believe she's been started in at least 7 to 8 years... but Russian stuff is VERY robust.

Plans are to mechanically bring her back to speed, and cosmetically restore back to Syrian desert and highlight the hits on her...

Welcome T-62! Thanks to my wonderful friends who always help... BiffJ, Chuck and Jeff! Couldn't do it without you guys!

 

[foxmike]

Wow! That's neat. I don't know what would be going through my head if I looked out the window and saw what you have in your first picture.

 

[Augdog1964]

Pictures

Yep! Truck driver said if he had a $1 for every picture and screeching tire of someone trying to snap a picture, he could have made the haul from the west coast to Indiana a free one!

Wish he had... believe me!

 

[silverstate55]

WOW that's a rarity in private hands, how in the world did you come about getting her?

 

[kcimb]

Amazing! You'll need to rent server space just for your aignature now. I can see why you're busy!

 

[Augdog1964]

Acquisition

Well I got her from another collector... as far as I know its the only one in private hands in the USA... there just aren't too many of them...

 

[M35A2-AZ]

Nice!!! I would love to have a tank!

 

[sigo]

Augdog, what do you do for a living and do you have room for one more? sure don't see many T-62s around. Awesome collection.

 

[kcimb]

I think there was a t62 out in California but it wasn't a battle capture...

Can't remember the site. It was a movie company that had a lot of armor.

 

[kcimb]

I think there was a t62 out in California but it wasn't a battle capture...

Can't remember the site. It was a movie company that had a lot of armor.

 

[smashcrashy]

kcimb, Might be army trucks inc that you are thinking had one.

 

[1 Patriot-of-many]

I like!!!!! How much do they go for?

 

[Augdog1964]

Movie Company

The movie company has / had a T-55AM... in fact I think its still for sale on another military vehicle site...

I've never seen a T-62 anywhere, except the Bovington Tank Museum in the UK. Of course I haven't been to Israel or the Tank Museum Mecca... Russia... but have been to one of the best collections in Europe in CZ... Lasarney...(sp?) and they did not have one... but did have a Merkava?

 

[L1A1]

I think APG had one in their field of hulks....Oops I mean "tanks". I remember being able to drop in through the loader's hatch(?) and have a look around inside.


Augdog1964

Would you care to adopt a middle aged man as your son?

Matt

 

[combatmech]

Awsome score!!

 

[saddamsnightmare]

September 20th, 2012.

A definite conversation piece, see if the sledgehammer is still in the driver's compartment! One of these dismantled up in Detroit in 1967 for the Army had a sledgehammer in the drivers compartment chained to the transmission, with the Russian instructions "Use hammer to shift transmission lever into reverse"! I have it from one of the ordnancemen who dismantled it, first hand!

Still, something to brag about, and you must have the most tolerant wife on here yet! Good Luck!

 

[Augdog1964]

T62

Well we got her together today.. all fluids in and new batteries...

And after all these years she actually started on the FIRST CRANK... Russian stuff is so tough...

Unfortunately we then lost the oil return line out of the oil tank.. and had a geyser 30 ft. tall of oil... well had a redrain and an all day fix to change two hoses, 8 inches long, with just 2 inches in between!

WOW, you had to have triple joints to get to it! Well that done, water and oil back in... started first crank, and off we went into the barn...

She smells, feels, sounds, and looks like pure history...

Now on the adoption... sure how good are you with diesel engines! LOL

 

[Stan Leschert]

Sweet. One of the guys around here has a T55.
Very nice kit.

Tall and laterally large soldiers need not apply for a ride ... It just doesn't work.

 

[BiffJ]

September 20th, 2012.

A definite conversation piece, see if the sledgehammer is still in the driver's compartment! One of these dismantled up in Detroit in 1967 for the Army had a sledgehammer in the drivers compartment chained to the transmission, with the Russian instructions "Use hammer to shift transmission lever into reverse"! I have it from one of the ordnancemen who dismantled it, first hand!

Still, something to brag about, and you must have the most tolerant wife on here yet! Good Luck!

Sounds like another of the old wives tales. The transmission is about as far from the driver as possible....its in the back almost against the rear armor. Driver is up front. No way to swing a sledge against the shifter either....unless you're about th size of a 3 year old. Just not enough room. Having spent some time now with Augdogs collection I can say I'm really glad we didn't get into it with the russians. All the stuff they told us back in the 70's and 80's about how the russians had junk for armor, planes and electronics has proven to be false. That old crap about them having 10,000 tanks at the east german border because only 5000 would make over the line and most of those would break down before they made contact with our M60's was truly a line of BS. They are simple vehicles compared to ours but the armor is good, engines and systems are reliable and with a trained crew they can be pretty effective. When you take into account the numbers of them we would have had some trouble had they come across the gap......
Augdogs point about this baby starting on the first crank is a case in point. This thing sat for 7 or 8 years and yet didn't even turn the engine over a full turn before starting. The 115mm Smoothbore gun in this thing gave the isreali's some pause as well. The first of the smoothbore high velocity guns was found in the T62 and it knocked out a good number of isreali tanks before they figured out these weren't T55's and 2000yds wasn't enough room......



Frank