Finally starting the M151A1 restoration PICS

[ida34]

After the detailed pressure wash I decided I would chemically strip then run over it with 80 grit and spot blast it. The pressure washer exposed the weak areas. I think spotting the rust is enough. Except for a few problem areas, there is only rust where the paint was scratched off. Today I got the top of the rear fenders back into shape. I have to do some work on the dash tomorrow. I got all the brackets off the passenger's side and located all the spot welds. I going to work on getting the side and front passenger's side fender off tomorrow. I know it looks like the dent is still on both rear fenders but they are flat. I just need to grind off the rust.

 

[ida34]

Today I got the rest of the exterior brackets off and removed most of the side along with the fender. The fender had been replaced once and was brazed in. The rear of the front fender lip was rebuilt with about a gallon of bondo. Next to get the interior brackets and reinforcement off and transferred to the new panel. I have a small spot welder and hope to do most of the work with it. The rest will be plug welded. Before I can get that done I will need to make a patch panel for the seat support and the firewall. I also have to clean up the panels then treat the rust. After the rust converter they will get some weld through primer.

 

[ida34]

Last few.

 

[Westech]

wow Ida.. that looks like a lot of work. I searched for years and found a 99% rust free body. Mine came from GA and was covered with red clay mud and gear oil. The trans seals were all blown out and leaked there oil out and it looks like it has been like that for years. Good luck on the resto, looks like you know what your doing with the old girl.

 

[BFR]

Looking good Chuck (I love threads like this)

 

[ida34]

I probably could have done with only putting on a new fender but the other owner already bought the panels. You had to look real close to find any rust problems on this one. Most of this is collision damage. Look real close at the first pic of the side panel off. The white patch is bondo. There was an old collision fixed with buckets of bondo and the fender was replaced. It will be like new when I am done with it. I hope to start putting this side back together next weekend.

 

[ida34]

I will have more pics this weekend as I plan on cleaning up the residue from the spot welds, getting off the rest of the side along with the residue of the front fender, and rust treating all the rust. I hope to also prime the welding areas with weld through primer. I will do some more dent work on it. I plan to fabricate panels to repair rust in the seat mount and the side of the dash and maybe get then on.

My big score was yesterday. I wanted a blast cabinet to do all the small stuff. I have been watching HF. The other day I got their newest sales flier and found the cabinet I wanted was on sale for $219 down from $299. I also had a 20% coupon with made the thing $186 after 6% Michigan sales tax. I wanted to wait until after the first of the year but this was too good a deal to pass up. It is a 40 lbs floor model.

 

[ida34]

The nice weather out kept me out of the garage for the most part. I assembled the blast cabinet and did some rearranging in the yard. I had my donor M151 in the weather with a tarp along with my new deuce tires. Both tarps dry rotted and opened up so I moved the stuff a few doors down to my mom's barn. I also broke out my spot welder I bought last year. I should have gotten it running for my cucv project. I tried it when I bought it and it did not fire up. I found a problem with a connector for the activation switch. I fixed it and checked the contactor along with cleaning the electrodes. Fired it up and tried it on the 10 setting. It automatically times the weld time. The setting was to much and puddled the weld too much creating cracks around the edges. I then tried the 1 setting and it worked great. I need to test to get the right setting for the right dimple. I massaged the bent panels some more and got the rest of the dash support panel off. I hoped to get more done but had housekeeping tasks to do. I am trying to decide if I need to replace the rear quarters or not.

I got the welder for only $150. One just like it just went for over $500 on ebay. Guess I did well. It should really speed up the attachment of the panels compared to plug welding and grinding.

 

[ida34]

Next installment. My work today was cut short. I had help my son fix my cucv M1009 that he drives. There were some dash lights out. It was also hard starting also so I tried checking the glow plugs. The connectors were so rusted a couple broke off at the glow plug. This led to changing out all the plugs. I had some spares sitting around. It still was having glow plug issues so I checked a few things then installed a bypass switch to activate the plugs manually. I will have to do a little more work on diagnosing this tomorrow. I was able to clean out the panels on the body of the M151. Got rid of the spot weld residue and massaged the lips back flat. I need to replace some metal on the seat support near the bottom and a small part of the body lip in the same area. I also cut out the rest of the old fender. I still need to measure and do another rough cut on the remains of the old fender. Then I can try for the final trim and then weld it in. I am going to replace the edges of the dash panel and firewall that I had to cut up also. There was a lot of damage in this area that was hidden by some Bondo from an earlier fender replacement that I think was done by the military.