New to this Forum and M715 Ownership

[68bluegreen]

Been reading about your 715-1 and all of the differences with the earlier models.Don't have any answers just another question...My knowledge about the Kaiser is limited to my cargo 715 and a 2 Jeep station wagons 52 2x and a 58 4xW/W but the wagons went away after I got married.Is the ratios on the differencials the same as the earlier trucks ? I had heard on the last trucks to be produced that they had been made change to 4.9 or higher...Thank you for your time ...AJH Lou.Kentucky

[Rocntj]

I am back after a 5 year absence. Just checked and I think my last post was in 2009. I had to shelf the M715 restoration for a while to work on restoring a WW2 M2A1 halftrack. That project took 4 years of restoration effort, most of it performed by me, and an incredible investment - about twice what I had originally budgeted. Needless to say the wife says no more halftracks in the collection and I should not even think about a tank. After restoring one I tend to agree with her I am one and done on halftracks but it was a very satisfying restoration and I am glad that I was able to stick with it until completion. I had it judged at last year's MVPA convention and went home with a gold medal in motorpool class. Here is a picture of the completed vehicle displayed at the convention.




Here is a picture that you M725 fans may enjoy. This was the halftrack and the M725 being loaded on the transport to head to the convention. I also displayed the M725 but did not have it judged.



I am back actively working on the M715 E1 restoration and will be posting some progress photos soon. I read through the Kaiser proposal to the military that was recently posted on this site and it reminded me how rare and unique this vehicle really is. I am going to do my best to restore it to its original military condition and will try to document the upgrades that differentiate it from the production M715s. My goal is to return it to original condition and then display it at car shows and in parades. I may also do a hardware store run it in now and again to make sure it gets some use

Tom

[Rocntj]

Before I quit working on this truck back in 2009, I was able to get the engine running. It still needed some tuning but it did run and sounded good mechanically. Since I had the front end apart to work on the engine I decided to go ahead and go through the front suspension, steering, winch, brakes and steering knuckles. I have disassembled most of the sheet metal and pretty much everything is in great shape. Their were two small rust spots on the driverside floor board but I was able to get good access to them and weld some solid metal back in. For that reason I have decided not to take the cab off in this portion of the restoration. If I get bored in the future I can do that in stage 2 but I do not think it will be necessary. Here are some pictures of where I am currently:



Winch has been removed and I am nearly done rebuilding it. At some point ion this trucks life some had hit the winch shift lever and jammed it all the way back to the mounting brackets. When I disassembled the winch I found that the shifter shaft was damaged beyond repair as was the shifting fork. Fortunately a quick ebay search source both of these parts NOS and the rest of the winch innards looked nearly new. Winch pics to follow later.



Since I had things torn apart this far I decided to remove the leaf springs and rebuild them. Disassembly was very easy but what a PIA the reinstallation was. The beefed up spring mounts did not want to open up at all so getting the springs back in position to get the bolts in resulted in a lot of cussing and throwing tools Here is the finished result:



I took the leaves apart, cleaned them up and applied a coat of slip plate in between them. I went ahead and replaced the spring bushings while I had it apart but the originals still had some life left in them. Here are the old ones next to the new ones.



The front springs have two different sized bushings in them but they are both still available at Napa. Pressing the old ones out and the new ones in was fairly painless. Here is a picture of the new one in the spring:

[Rocntj]

If you look closely at the previous post you can see that the spring perches and the bump stop have been considerably reinforced from the production models. Here are some close-ups comparing the two:




Rear spring perch on the E1 model. Compared to the same perch on an old frame I have:



As you can see the newer one is substantial more stout. The newer one is both riveted and welded to the frame. There is also a piece of 1/4" metal welded to the top of the frame over the rear spring perch.



This was not present on the production frames.

Here is the front perch:





Again the newer one is both bolted and welded to the frame as the production version was just welded. They also modified the bump stop moving it inboard on the frame and mounting it directly under the frame. They also added a heavy plated welded to the axle above the u-bolts for the other side of the bump stop. This was not present on the production models.





I am curious if this is a known failure point on the M715s. I have not noticed any cracks or failures in the trucks that I have owned but obviously it must have been an issue for Kaiser to go through a significant redesign of the front spring mounts. I would be interested in knowing if anyone has torn a front spring mount off of their frame.

[Rocntj]

Well I have encountered my first restoration dilemma with this truck. As was noted earlier in this thread it appears that Kaiser used a lot of Civilian body parts to assemble these 40 prototype trucks for the next military contract. I wish I could find another one of these trucks to confirm that assumption but that appears to be the case with mine. This includes the use of a civilian grille face panel. Although it looks the same from the front the production M715 grille panel was modified significantly from the civilian versions to accommodate the modified fenders and the different radiator setup. Below are the pictures showing the differences:



The M715 grille was notched out to match the fenders the civilian version was not. Kaiser apparently did not take the time to trim this grille they just let it stick into the inner fender well.



This is what a production M715 inner fender well looks like. The grille panel is trimmed to match the fender flare.



The civilian version had a large notch cut in it to accommodate the radiator. You can see the notch in this picture.



On the production military models Kaiser filled in this cap so it was tight up against the radiator.

The civilian models had tabs to mount the grille on the military version these tabs were eliminated. On my truck these tabs were left in place even though they serve no purpose.



Kaiser did not even take the time to drill the holes where the welded nuts were located on the radiator support they just drilled two holes through the turn signal opening and bolted the two panels together. It seems like they took a lot of short cuts on a prototype truck that could lead to another government contract.



So my dilemma is: Do I restore the truck as it was originally built using a shoddily installed grille panel or do I replace it with a grille panel from a production truck? I definitely do not like the metal sticking into the wheel wells so I may at least trim that off if I decide to keep it original but I also do not like the big gap in front of the radiator. This will just allow mud and road debris to get up into the front of the radiator. So if I take the time to fix these two issues I may as well just replace the entire panel.

I will need to sleep on this one for a while. I may start looking for a replacement panel to see if I can even find one in the meantime. I have a lot of other things to work on before this stops progress. Opinions on this matter are welcome.

Tom

[Rocntj]

Here is another interesting modification that Kaiser made to this truck. They bolted and welded an additional brace to the radiator support. Not sure why this was required but the workmanship leaves a lot to be desired.



Here is the same location on a production truck. No additional brace.



They took the time to add this seemingly unnecessary brace but did not take the time to trim the grille panel to match the fender flare - odd.

Tom

[Nailhead]

Tom, this is a great write-up on a fascinating truck. Thanks for going to the effort, and keep the updates coming.