1940s Bantam T-3 Resto Mod

#1
Picked this beauty up last weekend after seeing a few cell phone pics of it. It looked to be in decent shape, but needed a lot of love.

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It had a wooden frame in it that had been used to hold a sprayer tank and you could tell the tub had been holding water for a good protion of its life, well that is until it couldnt hold it any more due to the rust holes.

It also looked like they towed this thing full of rip rap over washboard roads and slammed on brakes to fast at some point. The tub sides were all bowed out like santas bag of toys.

I started piddling with it sunday and was able to remove the lunette to clean it up and also used my dads kubota to lift out the old wood frame. That didnt happen quite so easily, it was really more like beat on the wood with a 5 lb sledge till it broke into a million pieces. Then lift the pieces out.

This thing has more holes than sheet metal, but it should work well for transporting stuff once I patch some of them. A collector would cry looking at how abused this thing was.

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On the way home from his house I stopped by the pressure washer to see what some high pressure water could do to take off some of the nearly 70 years of paint. Turns out it took off most of the last tan layer to reveal the brownish redish color it had been painted at one point in its life.

It was at the carwash I noticed that the ID tag was still attached. Though bent and mangled because that corner of the tub looks like they used it as a jackstand for a tank. It was held on with one half of a rusted rivet so I pulled it off and took it in the house.

I was able to clean up the data tag last night and found the numbers.

its a Bantam T-3
Serial number 954
Date of delivery 7-10-1945 or 46 I cant tell.

The data plate looks like this, but in much worse shape.

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The trailer has been painted at least 6 times from what I can tell. One of those times it was bright Orange and another Bright Red.

My plan is to fix most of the holes and get rid of as much of the rust as possible. The plan is for it to make a good utility trailer. Ever since I put the lid on my M416 trailer its just not as good at hauling big stuff around because it takes two people to remove the lid and tent. This trailer should solve that problem perfectly.

Plus there is just something about putting some old iron back on the road. When I was pressure washing the paint off this thing it got me thinking of how many people have probably worked on this thing. More updates to come.
 

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#3
It looks like your current trailer (style wise). Besides the different fender style, what is the difference between the bantam and the M416?
 
#4
It looks like your current trailer (style wise). Besides the different fender style, what is the difference between the bantam and the M416?
The Bantam T3 and Willys MBT were the grandfather of the m416 that I have. They were 3" narrower and made to follow an early Jeep/Willys/MB. They also have the body welded to the frame in stead of body on frame like the 416. They have no lift handles on the outside of the body.

if you want to read some quick info about it, this site has some good info:

http://bantamt3c.com/images/hubbard/Pages/Bantam.html#Resources

its also 22 years older than my m416
 
#5
sense you are going to use it as a utility trailer, you should put a tail gate off of a cj2a or cj3. would make it more user friendly as a utility, and still keep that vintage coolness
 
#8
Any thought of a straight restoration? If the date is 45, it is a WW II veteran. It would be cool to bring it back to original condition. I'm guessing you didn't buy as an investmemt, but a restored T3 is becoming a rare bird indeed.
 
#9
Any thought of a straight restoration? If the date is 45, it is a WW II veteran. It would be cool to bring it back to original condition. I'm guessing you didn't buy as an investmemt, but a restored T3 is becoming a rare bird indeed.
I spent some time tonight trying to stop off the many layers of paint. I got down to bare metal in a few areas but the green. I see is not original army green. I think at some point it may have been stripped to bare metal.

I did find an interesting symbol on the back that looks like a yellow diamond with a red outline. That's all I can find on the back.

I'll try to get some better pics tomorrow of the condition of this trailer. There is not a straight panel on it. And it's full of rust. I would gladly trade this for a 416 if anyone is looking for a t3.
 
#11
Did some more digging this afternoon and I did find original military green I think. I found some more yellow numbers that match the diamond symbol.

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Also here are some pictures of the whole trailer. This is after spending 3 hours with a hammer and block straightening the front and back.

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#17
took a look under the trailer today as I prepped it for sandblasting tomorrow. It seems someone added 2 rows of c channel and a 3x3 angle iron for extra bracing. after looking at the floor and realizing I have a piece of expanded metal plenty big to cover it I decided I plan to cut our some of the hacked in braces and weld in some clean straight ones, then cut out the floor and install expanded metal and a rubber mat. That way it can never hold water again, but I can still hold stuff in there with the rubber mat or plywood. There is only about one area of floor 1'x1' that is even usable at this point.
 
#18
spent a good part of the day sandblasting the T3. Next step will be cut out whats left of the floor and weld up all the cracks and holes. I took some post sandblast pictures I'll post soon.
 
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