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The German Wartime Kettenkrad (an abbreviation of KettenKraft Rad) was a vehicle that was developed starting in 1939 by the NSU Company of Neckarsulm Germany. The NSU Company was a manufacturer of motorcycles and had started designing a small tracked vehicle for the forestry and farming trades that would be small but extremely capable off road. Initially thought to be developed for the civilian market they found the German military interested in the vehicle and with the out break of WWII further developement and field testing refined the vehicle so it was accepted by the Wehrmacht. By the Autuam of 1941 the need from the field in the Eastern Front saw demand for the kettenkrad to counter the mud of Russia rise. During WWII the Kettenkrad saw service on all fronts, from Norway to Italy and North Africa, from Russia in the East to France in the west its served in all fronts by all services. So capable was the wartime design that a further, neat order of 550 more kettenkrads where produced post war right up till 1948 (not so uncommon, as Opel Blitz trucks, Kubelwagens and even six Schwimmwagens where built post war).
If the interest is there I would like to show the restoration, in detail, of my Kettenkrad 116714 which was built in December of 1944 and is said, but undocumented, to be a Battle of the Bulge veteran. Currently there are only two Kettenkrads in Canada, the one at the CWM and mine that has come a long way from the day a sad pile of expensive rust was deposited in my driveway. In N.America there is about a dozen or so Ketts and only about two hundred more "out there". As I was looking for a restoration project, I certainly got that and then some with my kett that had lived a hard life, been abused to no end, and was at that fork in the road of being either 1. parted out or 2. restored and brought back from the grave. Traveling from Belgium to Texas and onwards to Ottawa the big day arrives when I see the vehicle that would take up the next three plus years of my life, and uncounted $$$, to make new again.
One of the first orders of business was to take stock of what all came with the kett as the seller sent a big box of "stuff" that he had been setting aside if he may have been thinking of restoring it but thought otherwise after seeing it
The next thing to do was break track so I could roll the carcass about, suprisingly it rolls like a dream on its road wheels and when I opened the hubs the grease looked new and even more importantly about thirty sets of bearings I would not need to buy. That was all the more amazing as the kettenkrad had been found abandoned by the Germans by a farmer post battle then converted into a little bulldozer like vehicle to keep a creek running free to drive a water wheel at a mill. Note the angle iron pieces crudely welded to the front tow hooks where a blade had been fitted.
Working on the track was trip down memory lane sound wise it it certainly brings one back to pounding Leopard Tank/Lynx or 113 track at least sound wise. Track rebuild will be the next installment.
Here is my Kettenkrad while it was in Belgium. Trust me it does not look anything like this now.
I just love the rusted panels flapping in the wind as its loaded on the trailer.
My helper (son), help generally boiled down to him sitting in the seat telling me what to do next.
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Last edited by Claven2; 04-14-2014 at 10:29 PM.
Reason: fixed spelling error in thread title.
Ok I am going to put one more up for now but I am jumping way ahead of the restoration time line of this vehicle that I wanted to project. But first we have to get some more "kettenkrad knowledge" downrange. During the war, and even the 550 post war built ketts. NSU Company was the primary builder of these vehicles, like the American built jeep, it soon grew in roles as it was such a capable and usefull vehicle that could handle just about any terrian going be it the snow and mud of Russia or the sands of N.Africa. In 1944 the Stoewer Company received orders from the German government to produce Kettenkrads for the war effort alongside NSU. The French company Simca also had orders placed, actually produced ketts but they gamed the Germans so none never where handed over to the Germans (Simca built kettenkrads have a few subtle manufacturing differences but are still ketts). My kettenkrads serial number 116714 tells me it was the 6714th kett built by NSU which is identified by the 11 prefix. Stoewer built ketts are prefixed 41####agj, while the actual numbers of kettenkrads built by NSU and Stoewer have been lost to history (and more then a few bombing raids) its safe to assume (approx) 9,500 where built. Any vehicle that went eastwards, was gone forever, I am sure if the Belgian farmer know what a restored kett (or any kett for that matter) costs today he would have taken better care of what he found abandoned in 1945.
Anyways I have to download a ton of pics and get them on PB so I can continue the restoration timeline. Kettenkrad track, like Demag D7 and SdKfz250 and 251 track is the most complex track on the planet earth AND the most miserable thing to work on and restore, more to follow on that, till then and to whet your appetite here is snippet of the end result, but before that moment ALOT of work had to take place, as you will see.
First test fit of track.
---------- Post added at 06:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------
Breaking track on 116714.
Rolling the old kettenkrad off its pallet, amazingly it rolled like a dream and most all of the bearings in the road wheels where in great condition.
Once the kettenkrad was off the pallet and tracks I learned it still had a little life in it. Working with my back to it it silently started rolling down the driveway and was half ways to the road when I turned around and chased it back. Hence the strap to the MB.
I had to vacuum the driveway as I have made a previous one turn orange with rust and not allowed to do that again here. Yes there was rust galore and I must have had a couple hundred pounds of kettenkrad (and a couple thousand European Hazel and acorn nuts also) go through the shop vac.
Breaking down track, first thing is to depad the track, no easy job as most of the bolt heads had been well rounded into dome shapes by rust and wear. It came down to hammering on undersized sockets (thank gawd for that replacemnt/exchange thing) or welding on a nut to the "bolt" head.
All the "high tech" tools used to work on track.
Track all broken down, next thing is to knock apart each section of its races, bushings, seals and bearings, degrease, sandblast and reassemble.
A nice big gooey pile of races and needle bearings. In all a kettenkrad track holds 4,800 needle bearings. Trust me by the time your finished rebuilding kett track you will never want to do another in your whole life. I am in contact with three other owners restoring kettenkrads and they are all saying the same thing about track being a miserable, soul crushing, unending job. I took that on first and glad I did as the actual vehicle restoration was kind of fun while being challenging to step outside your skill level.
All the little bits and pieces that make up one section of track.
Of note in this picture is the track section in the Part Book on the left side, that is the special "Gleiskett" for winter and snow with a flat extension welded on, The Germans also had a chain set that would be affixed to every second section of track, Seems they learned a thing or two after the first winter in Russia.
Track sections after sandblasting, vetted into three piles Good, Marginal and Crap (rust perforated and holed). Sandblasting lays bare all the evilness, if it survives blasting its pretty much good to go.
While this earlier picture does not show all my finished track, I have it all done and then some now.
---------- Post added at 07:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:58 PM ----------
THE TEARDOWN (PART ONE)
After I had removed the tracks and the kett was moveable by hand and brute force I had to start thinking about taking "ol rusty" apart, the kettenkrad is driven with the time proven Opel 1.5 L, liquid cooled, four cylinder engine of 36Hp. This motor first was used in the Opel Olympia car of the pre war years and was the equal to the Willys "Go Devil" motor used in the wartime jeeps of N.America. By equal I refer to its use in other applications besides use in a vehicle such as in generators, compressors, welding units, etc. The Opel Olympia 1.5 stayed in production post war right up till 1956 in four "phases" (P1,2,3,4) with my kett obviously having a P1 engine. Amazingly, according to those who restore kettenkrads, my kett came to me with the original motor that it left the NSU factory in Neckarsulm on its way to the front lines in Belgium in Dec 1944. Why this is so amazing is the wartime engines are by all accounts pretty shoddy, thin walled and poorly made, all things that one would expect to see in a engine built under wartime duress with forced and slave labour. The Opel Company (A division of General Motors USA) built the motor in Russelsheim then it was shipped by train or canal to Neckarulm and NSU. There the motor would be mated to a NSU made transmission/drive train and the whole placed within the kettenkrad at time of assembly. My original motor was two serial numbers, one for Opel (44-TR-XXXX for Opel and then a six digit stamped just under the drivers seat for NSU) and has a casting date of 1 DEC 44. With the various phases of motors being similair many ketts today are being run with post war car engines. By 1944 the Germans where harvesting and rebuilding engines and my research shows the CWM kett was built and issued from NSU using a Olympia 1.5L engine from 1939 (not that they care). So without further ado the motor comes out.
The kettenkrad drive train is from rear to front Engine-Transmission-Differential-then Final Drives, left and right. As everything was going to be stripped out I pulled the Drive sprockets, that incorporate a large brake drum off first. The kettenkrad has two braking systems, one for steering and one for stopping, with the vehicle being fairly heavy the stopping brakes, of which there are only two of unlike a car/truck with four wheels are big.
Nice to open up the drive sprocket and see some factory paint, not that I get to excited about old faded paint, but there it is Dunkel Gelb.
Order of removal, drive sprocket-backing plate-final drive, accessing the umpteen, rusted headed bolts to do so was a total #####.
After just about breaking my back doubled over cutting and grinding a frozen bolt head off I was finally able to hoist the drive train out. That one bolt head took four hours to address, then about five minutes to pop the works out.
Out of kettenkrad 116714 the original motor for its first time in 66 years. On my garage floor now.
The steering brakes are the drums leaking oils from the differential, a common failure of the seals there (check out the CWM kett its doing the same) Easy enough to replace those seals AFTER one pulls the drivetrain complete out to access.
---------- Post added at 07:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:01 PM ----------
B]THE TEARDOWN (PART TWO)[/B]
After pulling the drive train out of the body I had to start thinking about how to remove the suspension from the kett. What I though would not be all "that hard" to do turned out to be anything but as it was a combination of bolts and screws either being firmly rusted in place and/or screw slots and bolt heads deformed by rusting into new shapes other then what left the factory. A kettenkrad uses a torsion bar suspension of eight torsion bars of two bars per road wheel set, new made bars are available at 80 to 100 euros a pop.
This picture shows the kettenkrads torsion bars, swing arms and track adusters after I had refurbed everything, but I am getting ahead of myself here.
Removing the road wheels was pretty straight forward and took no time to do as the hubs held grease in great condition. The worst part was taking the torsion bars carriers off as the aforementioned rusted hardware caused no end of work, I used a O2 and propane to heat bolts and screws. Nothing gives greater satisfaction then hearing that "ekkkk" sound of a bolt finally coming free.
One thing to note is the very late war cast tow hooks mounted low on the vehicle, the early welded flat steel versions, mounted higher on the body tended to rip off. The cast version solved that problem, Euro Bubba had welded angle iron for his little dozer blade, this was one of the first thigs to get cut off.
Here is a closer look at the "trianglish" shaped torsion bar carrier held on with two large screws and a bolt, the bolt is threaded into the torsion bar for the opposite side with the bars set at a 12 and 6 oclock configeration to each other.
One thing that seized the carriers on was the phenolic bushings on the swing arms (see first pic above for bushings) swelling up over the years and seizing the inside of the carrier.
Here I am hammering out the rear track adjusters seems liberal use of BFHs was called on more more often then not. The trick was to get the first one off, the second, while still firmly seized in place, just took a thick walled pipe and Mr Hammer to drive it out.
Track adjuster coming out. Just needed a bigger hammer, hmmmmm I am starting to see a theme developing here. Every strike of a hammer brought a small rainstorm of rust flakes falling off the body.
Using a modified motorcycle fork wrench to take apart the road wheels. Lets just say that the wartime specs left alot to be desired, nothing went on, or came off without a struggle. The good thing was the two bearings inside each set of road wheels where all good and hence I saved a small fortune not having to buy new.
Next Update, cutting the body down.
---------- Post added at 07:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:05 PM ----------
THE TEARDOWN (PART THREE)
With the motor out and the suspension all removed it was time to tackle the body and salvage whatever was salvagable. I had bought the "vehicle" without seeing it myself but had a fellow in France assure me that it was a great vehicle for restoration and on his word and description took the leap of faith and bought it. In retrospect I see this as a double edged knife if I had seen it I probally would have walked away from it and 116714 would have been parted out and lost forever. So looking back, although its been no great fun at times, I did save this kettenkrad. Looking at the thousand or so pictures I had a "goodish" idea what panels or areas of panels that where savable and what was going to be replaced with new steel. The thing is while a panel, or a section of panel, may look OK its the sandblaster that has the final word.
Like firearms owners I wanted to save the serialized steering knuckle as thats something, someone, back in the day had hand stamped into the vehicle at time of build.
The upper half of the body was only good to provide details and measurements off of and using Bubba,s favourite tool, the angle head grinder, I chopped that off and set aside for future referance. At this point I thought, silly me, I could keep the lower half of the body in one piece and had braced the bottom with a section of old TV tower to prevent the vehicle from folding into itself.
I can see why Bubba likes the angle head grinders so much as once you get chopping away its so hard to stop. Here the upper half of the body is gone.........worse, much worse, was yet to come. After looking at the carcass and wondering just what I was going to do AND how to do it I decided the best way to restore the lower half was to section that in half so there was a front and rear lower body section. The rear lower section was all important as it has four formed housing for the torsion bars and the floor panel has square formed areas that all important to save.
The rear lower after sandblasting and refurb showing three of the four torsion bar houses (fourth is under the cooling fan).
The all important rear lower half.
Further chopping gave up the front lower.
The last of the three really important sections to save, the panel with the steering knuckle, with these three cut off and sandblasted the corner has been turned at the teardown, now its time to use whats left to build the vehicle back up.
The bone yard, nothing is discarded as the rusted panels hold a metric ton of information and measurements. In time this fine pile of historic rust went to Alberta, Hi Darcy.
In a vid I have on the ME-262 it shows this type of vehicle moving them around the airfield using a special 3 point towing arrangement as the front nose wheel of the 262 was pretty weak and would fold if to much lateral load were placed on it, appreciate the thread.
I appreciate the thread too. But one question. I notice the front 'motor cycle' part is missing. Was this motor cycle part that's missing similar to anything or other motorcycle part produced after the war?
When they ceased production of these things in 48(?) was anything used on any other vehicle produced by them afterwards so that some spare parts might be easy/easier to obtain?
Peter - I believe this restoration is already finished and the OP is recounting a story as time permits to post. I do know he sourced the right front end, but not sure where
Союз нерушимый республик свободных Сплотила навеки Великая Русь. Да здравствует созданный волей народов Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
Question for the original poster - was the late-war Kett slightly different in the body panels than early Ketts?
This is a dwg from a German manual, most of the ketts I see look like this where there is a continuous ledge running from the too of the front fender back to below the rear handrails. (yes, I know the dwg shows hollow handrails vs. the later panelled versions)
On your restored body though, the ledge is not there. Is that a purposeful or necessary result or expedient of your restoration, or is it a late-war time-saving mod to that style of body on 1944 ketts? Just curious
Союз нерушимый республик свободных Сплотила навеки Великая Русь. Да здравствует созданный волей народов Единый, могучий Советский Союз!
There was a variety of trailers to drag around behind these, not to forget the very light "squeeze-bore" anti-tank gun built for the Fallschirmjaeger types.................
. The NSU Company was a manufacturer of motorcycles and had started designing a small tracked vehicle for the forestry and farming trades that would be small but extremely capable off road. Initially thought to be developed for the civilian market they found the German military interested in the vehicle and with the out break of WWII further developement and field testing refined the vehicle so it was accepted by the Wehrmacht. By the Autuam of 1941 the need from the field in the Eastern Front saw demand for the kettenkrad to counter the mud of Russia
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Originally Posted by CINDERS
