updated pics of my hemtt restoration

[Offroadfabworks]

Gotta love the Hemtt... Hows progress coming on yours?? Stubled up on a few of them today. Making me fall in love bad with them... Finally gotta sit in one today... and see it first hand... ........ Now just gotta wait for them to be delivered

 

[Bobert]

That must be what god drives on the weekends.

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

I hope we get an update on this project soon it is one of my favorites. I was talking to one of the mechanics the other day and asked if he had a HEMMT Wrecker and he said Oh man I wish, I only have an MTV one. The HEMMT may be the truck that won the first gulf war like the CKWW was the one that won WWII

 

[saddamsnightmare]

March 1st, 2008.

Man, I looked in the Dictionary for the definition of "Money-Pit", and it said see DMA251's HEMTT restoration. Now I know what a man with disposable income looks like, to restore an Oshkosh HEMTT takes huge KAUHUNAS and obviously he needs that HEMTT to carry them around, no mere Deuce or 5 ton can handle that.
All I can say for us Multifuel Deuce owners is that when Diesel gets to $5.00 a gallon, at least we can burn whatever the HEMTT guys leave us to use!!! When I say BIG KUHANAS, I MEAN BIG!!!! That's coming from a guy that owned Penn Central Railroad GP-9 #7049, a couple of passenger cars (railroad), cabooses and I almost bought a 195 ton, 1650 HP, 107' long, 1948 Lehigh Valley Railroad barge handling Tugboat! I KNOW BIG KAHUNAS!!! These HEMTT guys have them. At least the rest of us guys can go WOW!!!, but I can still find more parking spaces that'll fit a deuce, and I can beat the Texan's in their 3500 pickups to the spot and make it stick.
HEMTT guys are good for performance art, they turn every other idiot on the road into higher quality road-pizza, we deuce take care of the KIA's, Toyota's, Honda's Dodge's Ford's and Chevy's, and We KNOW to stay out of the HEMTT food chain!!! In any case, I can see Thurston Howell III saying" Lovey, have my chauffer bring around the HEMTT, I want to take Skipper and Gilligan golfing- Skipper can light my cigars with these $100.00 bills, and Gilligan can get the gold plated golf balls out of the sand traps!!!" Way to go, Big Guy!!!

It's about time that the , and the rest of you MVPA types quit ing, it's unseemly!!!

Sincerely,

Kyle F. McGrogan

1963 Swiss Mercedes Benz Unimog S404.114 Pritsche "The HUMMER eater"
1971 Kaiser Jeep M35A2 Wo/W "Saddam's Nightmare" Desert Storm and Vietnam Veteran Deuce (HEMTT Light in Northeast Texas) opcorn:

 

[joec]

Lol...Great job when can i drop my Deuce off..?

 

[pa.rich]

Aaaaahhh!!!!!! I drooled on the keyboard again!! Even tho we were warned.

 

[dma251]

Thanks for the compliments guys! I am as excited as you all to see the finished project, believe me!

Here's the latest update -

I just got back from a midnight run to Lamar, CO thanks to the great tip from CrashAF. I found many great hemtt parts rigs there and was able to get several items I had previously planned to have fabricated due to unavailablity. The owner of the place, John, seems like a good guy and was very willing to spend a couple hours driving me around the yards and picking parts off trucks here and there. He had about 6 hemtts that were all missing engine/transmissions and had been on a train during a derailment. That's how he got them.

Meanwhile back home.....

The cab had a little issue at the sandblaster. An unnamed employee was moving around the shop and it accidentally tipped off the forklift and the front corners of the cab visor were slightly bent. The owner is a good guy and fessed up to it, and told me he would make it right no matter what it took. He sent it a couple towns over to a company called Fenders and Fins, that specialize in sheet metal repair and fabrication on hotrods and musclecars. They fixed it up like brand new and all was forgiven. That killed a couple extra weeks at the sandblaster.
The good news it that during that time I was able to have the doors, inner door panels, and a ton of other smaller parts sandblasted and powdercoated.
Two days ago I stopped at the sandblaster and found the cab COMPLETELY repaired and sandblasted. I paid the $1300 bill, and made arrangements to have it delivered to the powdercoated across town for the final stop before I park it in the garage at my house and start reassembly. It will get two thick coats of powder. One that is a zinc-rich primer powdercoat, and a second coat of medium grey matte textured color. (this is the ultimate interior color, but they will spray the outside too, even though I will be painting over the outside with 383 od green. The matte finish is very similar to the rough texture of carc, so it is a great base. I have tested this out by painting 383 green on the inside of the finished inner door panels. It's very nice, and a lot more scratch resistant then when painted over the redox primer.

Here's a few misc. pics I've taken over the last few weels. I'll have better pics of the stripped cab on Monday night. I forgot my camera when I visited it on Thursday.

There will be much more coming very soon.... I will have the cab back from powdercoating on Thursday or Friday, and then I will be updating you guys regularly as I put it all together.

Here's a hint about one of the late-model additions I am adding to it....

Anyone know what DVE is?
http://www.transchool.eustis.army.mil/ADSO/ADSO_DVE.htm

 

[alphadeltaromeo]

Thanks for the report and good work! It's always good to hear how things are developing with the project.

 

[dma251]

March 1st, 2008.

Man, I looked in the Dictionary for the definition of "Money-Pit", and it said see DMA251's HEMTT restoration. Now I know what a man with disposable income looks like, to restore an Oshkosh HEMTT takes huge KAUHUNAS and obviously he needs that HEMTT to carry them around, no mere Deuce or 5 ton can handle that.
:

Oh yeah - one more thing -

As some of you already know - I am a 3rd shift security guard at Boeing's everett plant. I have two kids (one's autistic) and a wife that works part time at Jamba Juice... No trust fund, no other form of income.....

The secret is this.... Keep it to yourself....


I don't waste all my money on driving late model cars and trucks... You guys wouldn't believe what you could do with that $400-$600 a month plus $100+ per month insurance a lot of guys are totally wasting.... After 6 months a brand new rig is still a used truck that smells just like any other truck, new or old.

Sorry. I just had to say that.

BUT I DO HAVE HUGE KAUHUNAS !!!

 

[alphadeltaromeo]

No pics please...this is one case that "this thread is useless...blah blah blah" that I won't ask for

 

[cranetruck]

If mv restoration was a contest, my towel would be in the ring...

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

Way To go this just keeps getting better. I am with ADR keep the picks of the kahoonas private....

I really like the powder coat very good way to protect it. I agree on the saving bucks advice my 98 Burb is doing fine and paid for.

You picked up a DVE what a great find you will love the view it gives now just add a PVS14 with head strap and you can really go fast with BOD.

 

[dma251]

Here's a couple pics from the sandblaster before it headed out to powdercoat.

 

[joec]

Nice...!!!!! Gonna look sweet when it's done.!!!

 

[FreightTrain]

Man,look at all those holes your gonna have to fill with gauges,and buttons,and screws,and switches......that is a lot of holes!

 

[littlebob]

Great work!
littlebob

 

[emmado22]

DVE is cool, but the problem is that the viewer screen is bolted to the top the cab, and when your going over bumpy terrain, the screen moves one way, the seat moves the other, and you move several times in a second, and it litterally can make you sick, as your brain tries to process all the "moving information" It works great, but keep a barf bag with you if it gets really bumpy... We'd put the DVE equipped HEMTTs on the perimeter for stand to.. Works great...

 

[Jones]

DVE = Driver Vision Enhancement; fancy name for FLIR.
FLIR = Forward Looking InfraRed; fancy name for being able to see in the dark.

 

[cranetruck]

Why not wear night vision goggles, or is that a stupid question....

 

[dma251]

This is a system I can use in addition to headlights while driving under regular circumstances. It will see out 3-4 times farther then the headlights will illuminate.

I rigged up a magnetic test-mount that allowed me to mount the camera assembly on the roof of my pickup when I went to Colorado last week. I velcro'ed the display to the dash and used it on the drive at night. There where very large herds of elk and deer in Utah and Colorado, and twice I was able to see freshly hit animals in the middle of the lane well before my headlights even hinted that they were ahead. Not only that, I could also see the warm blood trail where one had crawled halfway across the lane before expiring.

Both of these animals I probably would have hit had I not been using this equipment.

Besides, it's just plain cool...