M4A3 Sherman Restoration

[Danger Ranger]

Bump for more progress and pics. This is a pretty sweet restoration. Keep it up.

 

[Paladin6]

A great thread, restoration, and photos. Thanks for sharing and look outward to next ones.

 

[lilreddodge]

I have been working on painting some interior parts, but nothing exciting for the viewing public. I did get the return idlers cleaned up, painted and reassembled. Here are a few pictures. I will keep the up dates coming, but at a slow pace. I spent the last week running around getting sheet metal, etc. to be able to start working on some of the interior storage boxes.

 

[Aerialfred]

Please keep the pictures coming!

 

[muthkw25]

What's interesting is we had the resources at the time, because we produced everything ourselves. We could only produce so much because most of our factories were converted for the war effort. On top of that all the food resources that were rationed out so our troops had food and supplies. There was also No out sourcing to other countries for our products. All US made.
The Germans had much more superior technology and much better tanks. They just couldn't produce as many and in a global war, numbers win battles. Look at the Battle of Kursk and how the Russians just plain outnumbered the Germans, but if you look at the kill ratio. One Panther tank could kill on average over five T-34 tanks.

 

[muthkw25]

This is a beautiful build by the way. How did you start restoring tanks? Were you a mechanic in the military?

 

[Paladin6]

Coming along nicely it looks. Thanks.

 

[Another Ahab]

Brief historical sidebar about the m4:

- My tank commander Uncle mentioned to me once that they could be cold-as-Christmas to be in.

- He was referring to a maneuver he was in during The Bulge: Patton turned around his entire command some 90 degrees (East bound to North bound I think it was). The orders were given that evening, and then they rolled all that night to arrive at their mission destination the next morning. I can't recall the total distance travelled.

- I'm guessing the hatch was open the whole while (at 35-40 mph?), and my Uncle steering his driver from the hatch (foot-taps on shoulders?) the whole time (because how could you drive tanks at night through vision slits only?). And THAT'S the reason (I'm guessing) that he said it was SO cold. Evidently I'm supposing that no accommodation was made in the m4 to divert engine heat to the interior for winter operations (or likely for that matter to cool the interior in summer operations either).

- This was a famous episode of Patton's: the Allied command thought he'd need at least a few days to pull it off, if not a week (as did also the German command: it just couldn't be done). I think Patton pulled it off within 24-hours of his first notice (or something close to that).

- All the evidence seems to point out that Patton was good. He was really **** good.

Just wanted to add this note for the record before I forgot the whole story. I learned it only about 5 years ago, when my Uncle slowly began to incrementally end the silence about his war experiences.

My Uncle only just recently died (peacefully, at 90) a few weeks back in September. And if we don't record these stories for the record now, then they will all disappear forever. I don't want that to happen. So, let the record show (please), that at least one m4 tank commander of WWII remembered that it could be really some kind of cold in an m4, during winter operations.

 

[Paladin6]

A very fitting story for this Veteran's Day weekend. Many thanks for your uncle's service.

 

[Dipstick]

I made a model of the Sherman as a kid. You're pictures really explain a lot about the brilliant engineering behind the design. I'd like to know more about your mechanical background, profession, and the fantastic shop you're doing this work in. People like yourself are an inspiration to me.

 

[Danger Ranger]

Whao, just caught that you are in Ashland! My cousins went to school there, and we are from Twinsburg area. Great job on the resto. Keep it up. O-H!

 

[Another Ahab]

History sidebar to this excellent thread:

- Ran across this text (and photo of an m4 with a hedgerow "rake"), in the book noted.

View attachment 463813View attachment 463814View attachment 463815

 

[lilreddodge]

Sorry it has been awhile since I put any pictures up, here are a few to show that I have not abandoned those of you who are following this page. I have been working on interior sheet metal parts. Below are pictures of the drive shaft tunnel and battery box. I had to weld patch panels along the bottom 2 inches of the tunnel and completely remake the battery box. Slowly but surely I'm moving forward. I have at least another month of work on interior bins and shell holders to do before I can actually start putting anything in the hull.

 

[lilreddodge]

Here are some more pictures of a couple interior boxes and one of the shell holders.

 

[lilreddodge]

This is a beautiful build by the way. How did you start restoring tanks? Were you a mechanic in the military?

I little background on me for those who want to know. My avatar is a picture of me when I was less than 1 year old in my dad's M38. So you could say I was born in to military vehicles. I have restored more jeeps, mules, M37's and M880's than I count or remember. I started out by picking up bolts when my dad was restoring his jeeps and I moved on from there. I loved to build armor models when I was a kid and have a deep love for armor. I retired from the Army National Guard as a CW2 with 21 years service. I was in aviation for all of those years. I started out as a aircraft armament technician. I became a aircraft maintenance officer when Ohio got rid of the Cobra's and got Chinook's. I knew that is was better to work in a warm clean hanger than chip frozen mud off of tracks so that is why I went into aviation and not armor in the Army. Other than getting a good electrical background from my Army MOS, I'm pretty much self taught as a mechanic, welder and body repair man. I did work as a structural engineer for a company that built equipment for the aggregate processing industry, until I got laid off a couple of years ago. With my engineering background I'm able to design my own support equipment for my restorations, like carts and stands to hold the heavy parts like the final drives and turrets.

I started out with a M114 as the first piece of running armor that my dad and I had. I ran the tracks off of it and really do love them. Since I didn't get much respect in the armor owners club with the M114 I moved on to a Stuart tank. It was a aborted effort from a guy who bought it in the early 80's and started the restoration. I tore it back apart and redid everything. Since then I have restored 2 more M114's which I recently just sold the last one to help finance the restoration of the Sherman.

I'm working out of several buildings, since I'm more set up to restore jeeps and mules space is a premium around here with the tank parts. The picture I showed of removing the turret was in a friends shop who let me use his 5 ton crane.
Anyways stay tuned I will post when I get more parts done and hopefully will be able to show them install in a month or two.

 

[zout]

Your expertise and professionalism shows.

 

[Dipstick]

I'm with Zout. You are doing a top notch job. Your craftsmanship raises the bar for me. Your Sherman is going to be like new when done! What an education it will be for folks who see it. Thanks for sharing your personal history with us. My son Dan also grew up around nuts and bolts with me and now he's a talented electrician.

 

[steelypip]

You're doing great work. As I was looking at the driveshaft cover parts, my first thought was 'well, at least there aren't any compound curves' followed by 'but those flanges and the bellhousing cover (or whatever that is) don't look like any fun at all.' Beautiful.

I'm guessing there was standing water in the hull for a long while given where the metal loss was.

 

[Another Ahab]

Hey lilreddoge, eagerly awaiting your next post, and figuring that you're hunkered down for holidays, of course.

Ran across this in yesterday's Washington Post and thought it might entertain.

Mr. Schwarzenneger apparently owns an m4 (and of course the photo in the Post is NOT a Sherman - is that an Abrams?- hey, you can always believe it if it's in the newspaper right?!)

Wonder if Mr. S is on the roll here at SteelSoldiers?

View attachment 466577

 

[Al Harvey]

Mr. Schwarzenneger apparently owns an m4 (and of course the photo in the Post is NOT a Sherman - is that an Abrams?- hey, you can always believe it if it's in the newspaper right?!)

That looks like a T-90.