since buying my torpedo, weatherby has talked me into sharing some pics of a 423 tucker retoration we did last year. unfortunatly we did not take nearly enough pics....only the ones the wife took when she came down to the shop late at night to see if i was still alive. heres some from when it first arrived. more to come dave
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last years 423 resto
- Thread starter thepooguy
- Start date
northerndave
Member
This is gonna be good. I'm all tuned in & waiting for more.
Mtn-Track
Member
Its hard to get the full extent of the condition from the pics but she was ROUGH. The hood had been wrapped over the top of the roof several times and had the texture of a sack of small potatoes. the roof at some point had the luggage rack ripped off, leaving 4 holes with cracks spreading from them in all directions. The pontoons were absolute junk....someone at one point welded a piece of a road sign to the bottom of them. The drive spools were also beyond repair due to rust. The teeth on the spools were completly worn through as they were the very early thin crude type. The tracks were rolled into a ball some 25 years ago and were frozen solid. The good news was that all the rollers had grease in them ......dried up and hard but after some soking most of them were tight and smooth running. Unfortunatly we were still about 40 short of a nice tight set of rollers. We were also in need of about 10 grousers as the ones that sat in the dirt were rusted through in spots. The original wood skis were gone, of course, and someone had welded some 1/4 in flatstock in their place and curled the ends till they looked like elf shoes lol. Most of the sheet alluminium on the sides and doors was damaged enough to require replacement vs repair. This was the point we looked at each other and said........IS IT WORTH IT.
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now the good news! After about 2 hours of having the cat in the shop we had the engine purring perfect....had to clean the carb of course as well as free up 2 exhaust valves.....but it ran perfect. Spirts were now higher and we started our search for parts. I made a road trip to upstate new york and picked up the rough torpedo which had the pontoons and track parts we needed. Then went to cooks in vermont and grabed what Bill had. One pontoon needed some metal replaced and both were dented in on the fronts from hitting stumps and what not. These were the early pontoons with no track adjusters so we cut the ends open on them to weld in nuts for the adjusters and beat the dents out and then welded them shut and glassed them back in. (again...sorry about the lack of pics...we lost alot of them on a computer failure but the cat really came out nice!) hmmmm now its not letting me load pics? says upload failed? Im no computer guy. ill try in another post here
Most likely, the pix need to be resized. There is a max size that VBulleten will take. The easy way to do that is to download Easy Thumbnails It will quickly and easily resize all your pix in one fell swoop for easy posting.
Can't wait to see the pix.
Andy
Can't wait to see the pix.
Andy
some more. only thing not original to the machine is the carpet on the interior. we bent the skis by soking them in the hot tub for a couple days. i should mention....we made new drive spools on cnc as these are the early smaller ones and are impossable to find. if someone needs any let me know. the engine runs soooooo smooth and doesnt smoke a lick...not bad for having sat for 25 years plus.
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Excellent work! Nice top see a peice of history brought back to life.
northerndave
Member
Wow that is really nice!!
Alaska Snow Cat
Member
Considering what you started with I would have to say that is the nicest restore I have seen yet! Very very nice!
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thanks guys! the decals were made by a lady that makes truck logos for us. i gave her a picture and she somehow scanned it and wallah....an hour later we had em. the tucker came from the upper peninsula of michigan. the "michigan department of conservation" used it to travel to drummond island in the winter to feed deer. it was then sold to an excavator that used it to travel back and forth to his crane on the ice while he was dredging the st marys seaway. it was then parked for aloooonnnng time. then the gentleman i bought from purchased it. he got it started and took it for a small ride and then pulled the tracks as he was gonna fix the pontoons......thats about all the farther he got and that was 25 years ago. dave
that is a verry nicely done machiine i love the fact that your minime is like mine helping dad and wearing carharts that's something he will remember for life
Great Work!
benz9
New member
That is an awesome job.
The part I noticed most was the spotless flathead in some of the last pictures. I hope someday that mine (my engine) will look as good as yours!
Really awesome job on the rest.
How does it drive with skis? Probably as tough as a B7, make some good forearms when turning sharp corners
The part I noticed most was the spotless flathead in some of the last pictures. I hope someday that mine (my engine) will look as good as yours!
Really awesome job on the rest.
How does it drive with skis? Probably as tough as a B7, make some good forearms when turning sharp corners
Broken Grouser
Member
Mr E.M. Tucker would be proud!
thanks everyone for all the nice complements! we are looking forward to some snow now. we finished it around the end of january last year.......right about the time the snow melted so we have yet to drive it anywhere but on frozen lakes. does anyone have any expierence with the two track tuckers? im wondering how well they do in deep snow as well as climbing ditches and banks when crossing roads. thanks again dave
wow thats a pretty straight looking old cat. do you have tracks and pontoons? If you need any pics or info on anything just let me know as i would love to see it come to life! Did you ever get to drive the 423? Im wondering how they do in deep snow as ive only driven mine on frozen lakes.....so far........still waiting for some snow here. cant wait to hear more dave