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Aussie f3 tanker

Hi guys,a bit of info etc required hopefully. In the last 12 months I have purchased and transported home a steel cab 43 stamped tanker project, in a sad but sound condition.
It doesn't actually have f3 stamped on chassis rail but ends with -2 ,which i understand may have been a truck waiting for a specialty body. It's stamped 4/43 on build plate but i assume a 42 contract vehicle going by some fittings and frame No etc.
The truck was in RAAF service until about 1958 probably after being transferred from USAAF at wars end, all suposition on my part as the orig green had been resprayed with the dark grey/blue of the period plus an old RAAF tanker maintenance book with tanker No 209369 on the cover and last written entry dated 1958.
Having stripped down the cab/chassis/tank and cleaned and repainted chassis and mechanical parts i have been pleasantly surprised to find nearly Everything to have very little wear,including motor which had exactly 130psi on 4 cylinders( but blown head gasket between 2-3 ) and 50 psi at idle (had not run in last 20 yrs).
After removing the sidecover and head the block has no sludge buildup and almost no wear/lip in the bores and the oil was still clean.so new head gasket to be fitted and hopefully all should be good.
I am hoping someone may have bumper markings for Australia/Sth Pacific tanker specifically,i have ascertained 80 is the first in numbers on the bonnet/hood and then a serial No. but in the event of not getting (proper) markings , I was thinking of something along the lines of a 380th bomb group vehicle who operated out of Australia and to which my father was attached , Australian crews being trained for our own B24s.
Pics up when i can get my son to load them
 
Subscribed and awaiting photos to drool upon.

This sounds like a wonderfully fun historical restoration to follow!!!

Carry on.
Thanks guys,i have one more day of work then am taking long service leave with my wife to travel around Aus,so will be able to let my son have my phone with all the pics on it without needing to take it to work with me,photos should be up saturday our time.(Perth, Western Australia).Previous owner had tank sandblasted and painted 20 yrs ago,it is missing one top lh panel and is rusted out internally but is in good cond otherwise and will display quite well at least externally,no pump gear etc present.The farmer who owned it a few years ago removed tank and it just sat out in the weather for 15 yrs with cap open as he fitted a tipping body to it.Luckily it survived as well as it has.
!1 brand new bar treads were fitted on blasted and painted rims,so that was a BIG bonus,no (growing) or rust between the overlapping metal on the rims unlike a US6 wreck we have which has basically no useable rims at all.
Cab has had a half skin fitted to drivers door and apart from some dents and a really crap yellow paint job is quite sound,the whole vehicle is in extraordinarily good cond being more like a 20 yo truck than a 70 odd year old. John
 
Truck could also be an l2 lube truck as its last known RAAF job was removing used oil from aircraft, the farmer called it a (blubber-used oil truck).the rear steps on tank were cut off but retained presumably to let it sit flat on the ground and apart from a chunk of metal cut out of 1 of the rear bumperettes they too are still in existence
 
How would bumper markings go? this is just off the top of my head,but could it go something like this : truck number in order of march say for an example trk2_ -Qm or ord -380BG on RHS, 6" white star in the centre, USAAF on LHS.
European vehicles that have been restored have marked their cargo trucks , TRK so and so, stencilled on but would it have simply been the number 2, or maybe not even numbered at all?.
I would like to get it reasonably correctly marked up,does the Chassis No have any bearing on the hood numbers or is that a completely separate thing altogether with no bearing on the painted numbers?.
April 1943 is build date so i would like to mark it for that period
i am assuming drab blue on hood still with 4"lettering size but with a mid 43 change to 2" sizing imminent ,maybe 2' would also be ok.
I am looking for any suggestions,or photos.what may seem commonplace in wartime(or now even) USA or overseas ETO is not all that common in Australia to try and gauge things by, as most of our stuff was mainly British or Canadian based vehicle wise ,and with our colonial ties followed, mostly UK markings etc
 

m1010plowboy

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Those round cabs drive me nuts so I poked around for pictures. That's just a great looking project so thanks for taking the time to share it. Here's a cool Aussie site with camo markings.
http://anzacsteel.hobbyvista.com/othervehicles/aussiecamlw_1.htm

The primary 'images' search leads to all kinds of websites and I haven't spotted another tank like that yet. I can span into airfield photos later if you haven't found the bumper markings.

Here's the images search,

https://www.google.com/search?q=ww1...UIDigB&biw=1680&bih=936#imgrc=UsKWLxgB4YM8bM:

Old cars of Australia is pretty cool too. I found the Ute's a little more than half way down the page but the bumpers are clean. There's more hunting to be done!
http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/AustralianCars/
 
Thanks again boys, the truck will receive the rather large- US army air forces -on the tank itself along with the -No smoking- within 50 feet -on the side. I am going with US markings rather than the RAAF as it looks far more impressive and orig than our marking IMHO.
the 750 gallon airfield refueler body has a nicer style to it i think some of the other ones just look like a tank stuck on the back which is just plain functional.
Dmetalmiki my son has a Diamond T 980 awaiting resto ,it is minus the ballast box ,winch and starter but is still quite solid plus he is halfway thru restoring a 1954 m35 REO which is on the deuce pages here. A local military museum has a rodgers trailer and would like to see the 2 re-united for a meet with a General Grant tank on the back next year but i dont think it will be ready in time as the M35 is taking up most of his time, it will be the inaugural Western Australian rally for the Nungarin museum, all is still to be finalised etc but I think they are aiming for March- ish next year and i hope it draws a lot of interest as most large military rallies are in our Eastern states and are 2 or 3 thousand miles out of our way.
 
If you think the exhaust manifold doesnt look quite right you would be correct,someone has fabricated one at some time in the past out of steel ,its a good job but doesnt look right,fortunately the parts truck with seized motor has a good orig one so will just be a matter of freeing the stuck flap between the inlet / exhaust and new hotbox gasket(hopefully)
 

silverstate55

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I'm sorry but your photos are extremely distracting...I am continually drawn to all the other "goodies" in the backgrounds!! I sure wouldn't complain if you were to post pics of all your other treasures around your yard.....:grin: [thumbzup]
 
I will get my son Colin to post some pics of his 50% restored M35 and his diamond t 980 just for interest sake.
I will be off travelling for approx 2 months before i can get back on to CCKW for the last month before back to work,will be leaving 4th or 5th May on our way up northwest and eventually to Darwin then across the top to Townsville QLD ,we are undecided on route of return journey so we will just wing it i guess.
I know of a few ww11 wrecks etc that i want to photograph along the way,both vehicles and aircraft that are well known, but also some truck remains i found 20 odd years ago and will be interested to see if they still exist,or if the "crusher" found them.
The following pic is our Toyota troop carrier which will be our home for the journey20190204_152430.jpg
 
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