The restoration of Kettenkrad 116714

[XRCD011]

Many thanks for the interest folks, here is another install of the restoration.
B]Gas tank refurb[/B]
The kettenkrad has to 21L gas tanks that will give it a 260 Km on road range and 160 off road. As the two tanls had a large amount of scale, rust and dirt inside and are impossible to shake this out due to the interenal baffles and braces I had to cut the tanks top off to expose its inside for sandblasting. Cutting the tanks along the inside weld is fair straight forward but cutting the weld under the flange is less so. Note the bullet strike on tank flange behind the strap.

Cutting the tanks open.

The easy side.

The not so easy side.

And what mysteries will I find inside the tank?????

HOLY-H-CHRIST !!! I Don,t believe it!!!!
note bullet strike on sheet metal.

Actually this is a little inside joke between my "restoration mentor" David Crompton of Clio MI as he keeps asking me if I have found any Iron Crosses yet. He restores German wartime vehicles and finds all manner of "stuff" in the nooks and crannies of vehicle, coins, spent casings, bit of equipment, even a BMW motorcycle grip lever that was driven into a Kubel door sill, And then patched over, now theres a story lost to time and history. So what I do now is "salt" a vehicle with war dated coinage and casings in the semi captive areas or spots that things may hide in.
After dollying out dents and sandblasting I painted on POR15 rust treatment/tank sealer, suprisingly the tanks where very solid and no holes what so ever. Note to self, wear gloves next time as POR15 on the hands takes 3-4 days to come off on its own, till then you walk around looking like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz.

I had some left over paint that I wanted to shoot on before winter so I had at her.


---------- Post added at 05:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:53 PM ----------

And here is another round of werk.

Steering knuckle plate and dash pod
All work was of a "concurrent activity" nature and it seemed that everything was on going and over lapping work wise so it was not a case of finish A then on to B then on to C, etc. there where three areas or sections I felt where of some importance and hoped they where not to far gone, they are lower rear and front and the steering knuckle (with the vehicle serial number) and the plate it was mounted to. In this pic it does not look "to bad" all things considered.

^ the square hole with the framed area is where the steering linkage for the steering brakes passes through a leather boot to steer the kett
Inside of the dash pod, seems that to has a few issues, go figure.

Outside of dash pod, the years (and Euro Bubba) where not kind to this vehicle.

More rust.

Pod on and ready to be cut off, will the cutting and rust ever end?

Steering knuckle plate and pod cut off, now to delaminate the plate further to make new.

This shows the bottom pipe I had to cut out, make new and replace and the plate on plate to be delaminated. The upper pipe had enough remaining for me to repair the missing end and replicate a new bottom to the correct profile. That was alot of work.

Whats left to work up from.


Relaminating plate to steering knuckle plate, new end to upper pip installed and all new lower made (after about ten trys to get that profile right.

More clamps, more hammers, starting to come together now.


New dash pod installed and front lower plate (where steering linkage hole is) test fit of fork parts.


Note the correct Magura diamond pattern grips.

I think its starting to look a little "kettenkradish" in the garage (finally).

[Aussie48]

Great stuff, what a hoot to drive that thing

[Patt1903]

Nice restoration, keep it up!

[Bob Womack]

To quote Apocalypse Now: The horror... the horror...

[Peter Laidler]

There's loads of great engineering ingenuity going into that restoration project that's for sure. Great project

[Cwcoolcow]

Any updates???

[villiers]

I´ve always wanted a Universal Carrier (Bren Gun Carrier).

[Peter Laidler]

Is UK stuff easy to obtain in Germany Villiers? There seems to be plenty of ex UK Military Landrovers etc etc on the roads around Dusseldorf/area. We used to dispose of literally tons and tons of vehicles from the big Ordnance disposal depots in Hamm. I understood that a lot of it went 'east' for its spare parts value and the US stuff that we were disposing of all had to go back to Wiesbaden/US authorities for disposal.

[villiers]

None left, as most were scrapped during the last gov. ex. which doled out funds when they were handed in. I once had a light weight Land Rover with a diesel that was nicked from my parking space. Police said it had probably gone to Poland and been taken for the diesel. Very difficult to register anything not E3 and I´m having probs with my latest bike (CCM street tracker).

[68GT390]

My God that restoration work is over the top. I got to drive a Kettenkrad years ago, what a blast. I owned a 1943 BMW R75 with sidecar. The BMW for me, was much more comfortable. Those Kettenkrads were built for short Germans. Not a lot of room for the knee's.
I heard the transmissions were very complicated. There is plenty of info on these from Peter Hommes in Berlin.
He may be able to locate those hard to find parts.

Keep up the good work!