Most liked posts in thread: "New" work truck

we will go with a matte green finish, but the original paint must be freshened up. i wish i had your metal working skills.

my partner was reminded that a friend's father lives in the Czech Republic half of the year. we were looking for a translator and a possible parts procurer. as it turns out, the father used to own Tatra. he sold it in 2001, but obviously has ties to the marque. he stopped by to look at the truck. he was impressed with how complete and original it is. he told us that he will send us a manual and will be able to get any parts that we need! huge score with an obscure project like this.

beaner

 

thanks! that is good to know.

 

it lives!

with surprisingly little effort, we got the 57 year old engine to run! it idles well and seems to not miss a beat.

i'm still a bit interweb naive, so here is a link to the video of it running....

[ame="http://s166.photobucket.com/albums/u103/beaner2147/?action=view&current=011.mp4"]011.mp4 video by beaner2147 - Photobucket[/ame]

if anyone wants to teach me how to post a proper video, i would appreciate it and the quality of future updates will be better.

 

Yes, that is a gun turret! Why would one have a military vehicle without one?

 

update.....

we have started to make a little progress on the truck.

after driving it aroung the block and deciding that all was sound enough to continue, we pulled all of the rotten wood off the back and pulled it into the toy shop....



pullling the wheels and brake drums provided more encouragement as things looked good. really only a removal, cleaning and reinstall required for the most part. there is a bit of bearing noise on the off-side, rear. we will investigate further.

the truck (and all Tatras) have a very unique suspension. there is no frame. there is only a "backbone" around which the axles rotate.



they are torsion/porter axles. since only gear-heads are still following this thread, i won't bother to explain. the above pic shows the configuration.

here is a link to how this suspension works. ours is somewhere between the earliest and latest.....

[ame= Tatra Backbone Tube Concept - YouTube[/ame]

beaner