Gretsch
SILVER Star
Greetings all. Thought I would share my experience restoring a 1946 Bantam T3C Trailer. I bought this back in August of 2015 from a fellow in Arkansas. Found his ad on CL and this trailer seemed to be in fair shape. He had purchased this trailer to restore himself and had done a fair amount of work on it already. He decided it was not a project he wanted to continue so he was looking to move on and unload it. He had gotten so far as to have it blasted and etch primed, had some new spring shackles put on it, sprayed bedliner in the bed, weld a new hitch/tongue assembly on it. I don't think he fully realized the cost of restoring one of these trailers, so he wanted to get out of this project quick once he did. He put some just awful paint on it to get it on the road and sold. Aside from the tongue setup, and the tailgate hinges it seemed pretty original and workable for my needs.
The day I drug it home
I originally wanted this to tow camping gear behind my Jeep, so I was not looking for a perfect trailer. Just one that was not completely rusted through and falling apart. Decent tires would have been a plus but this one was not so lucky. They got the trailer home but I knew I would need to address that immediately if I really wanted to do something with this thing. The trailer sat stored in my garage for the rest of the year untouched.
Again, originally I was just going to put tires on it, have the wheels powder coated, and call it a day. I noticed the hubs were throwing grease all over the wheels, so I figured I would have to get into sealing those up. Well then if I have to do that, I might as well take a look at the bearings while I am in there......and so it starts. The more I got into this thing, the more I realized I wanted to make it something a little nicer looking. I get sort of sentimental with things like this. If this thing managed to survive since '46, who am I to deny it a proper restoration? Or at least the best one I could offer with my limited means.
So I figured for starters I would order tires for it. I ordered a pair of 6.00X16 Coker Classics to put on the wheels. I then found a pair of inner tubes on Ebay which I also ordered. While the tires and tubes were in transit, I thought I would have the wheels blasted and powder coated, then have the tires mounted once they arrived. I also knew I would need a spare wheel and tire for it so I set out to find another Bantam Hayes/Kelsey wheel. I would be dragging this thing long distances so a spare tire setup would be needed. Found a guy on Ebay selling a pair of wheels. So I nabbed them. Just needed one but thought I could sell one of them after everything was done. Price was too good to pass up.
So when I got these wheels, I realized they were not 'period correct' for this trailer. No matter though, it was just a spare. As I got more into it one was a '50's Korean war era wheel for an M38A1 Jeep. The other was unknown. They were not matched though.
So I took the wheels that were on the trailer down to the powder coater. Powder Coater BTW is Unit F14 Powder Coating. I highly recommend them for anyone looking for powder coating work in North Texas. Great guys to work with and very reasonable pricing. However, a few days after dropping the wheels off, I got a call from them. They told me after taking the tires off the wheels, they discovered that both wheels are rusted pretty badly and pretty well unusable. These 40's era wheels are notorious for getting water into the valve stem hole and rusting from the inside out. Well that was bad news. But luckily I had purchased the wheel pair from Ebay. So I shot photos of the wheels I had to the powder coater, and then drug them back out there to get those coated.
I wanted the wheel color to match the color of my Jeep wheels. We agreed that a 'Porsche Silver' would match the Jeep wheels the best. So I left them with the powder coating guys. In the time it took to discover the wheel issue, I had gotten my tires in. As I mentioned, I went with Coker Classic 6.00-16 tires with tubes to fit them. 7.50-16 would have been better, but the pricing jumps significantly between 6.00 and 7.50 for whatever reason. So I opted for the cheaper 6.00-16. I took them over to the powder coaters to have them mounted when the powder coating was done. They are a one stop shop for sure and again do great work. As mentioned the Ebay wheels were not matched and were incorrect for this period trailer. That bugged me a little, but I reasoned all I wanted to try and do is get the trailer really road-worthy. It would not be a show piece and mismatched wheels, although proper Kelsey/Hayes wheels, were OK in the spirit of getting her on the road.
So I after using my Ebay 'spare' as a now promoted full-time road wheel, I was left with locating another spare. I originally purchased a Omix-Ada reproduction wheel for a Willy's Jeep. Those are decent reproductions, but when I got mine it just did not look quite the same as the originals. So I decided what I would do is send that back, and set out to locate another original Willy's wheel. This would give me the opportunity to try and find a matched wheel to one of the ones on the ground, so I would have a matched set on the trailer. I finally found one on CL from a guy in Maine selling a whole bunch of them. He had another 50's era Willy's wheel. I bought it sight unseen and he sent it to me. When it finally arrived, I discovered that it did not fully match the other 50's wheel I had. You gotta be kidding me. How many different types of Jeep wheels are there out there? Turns out many. This new wheel was a 50's era wheel, but it had some kind of Bead-lock rim to it. Mostly the same but if you look close you can tell the difference.
Its close enough for my needs, so I ran this one over to the powder coaters, along with a third tire. Hopefully this would be the end of the wheel nonsense.
The day I drug it home
I originally wanted this to tow camping gear behind my Jeep, so I was not looking for a perfect trailer. Just one that was not completely rusted through and falling apart. Decent tires would have been a plus but this one was not so lucky. They got the trailer home but I knew I would need to address that immediately if I really wanted to do something with this thing. The trailer sat stored in my garage for the rest of the year untouched.
Again, originally I was just going to put tires on it, have the wheels powder coated, and call it a day. I noticed the hubs were throwing grease all over the wheels, so I figured I would have to get into sealing those up. Well then if I have to do that, I might as well take a look at the bearings while I am in there......and so it starts. The more I got into this thing, the more I realized I wanted to make it something a little nicer looking. I get sort of sentimental with things like this. If this thing managed to survive since '46, who am I to deny it a proper restoration? Or at least the best one I could offer with my limited means.
So I figured for starters I would order tires for it. I ordered a pair of 6.00X16 Coker Classics to put on the wheels. I then found a pair of inner tubes on Ebay which I also ordered. While the tires and tubes were in transit, I thought I would have the wheels blasted and powder coated, then have the tires mounted once they arrived. I also knew I would need a spare wheel and tire for it so I set out to find another Bantam Hayes/Kelsey wheel. I would be dragging this thing long distances so a spare tire setup would be needed. Found a guy on Ebay selling a pair of wheels. So I nabbed them. Just needed one but thought I could sell one of them after everything was done. Price was too good to pass up.
So when I got these wheels, I realized they were not 'period correct' for this trailer. No matter though, it was just a spare. As I got more into it one was a '50's Korean war era wheel for an M38A1 Jeep. The other was unknown. They were not matched though.
So I took the wheels that were on the trailer down to the powder coater. Powder Coater BTW is Unit F14 Powder Coating. I highly recommend them for anyone looking for powder coating work in North Texas. Great guys to work with and very reasonable pricing. However, a few days after dropping the wheels off, I got a call from them. They told me after taking the tires off the wheels, they discovered that both wheels are rusted pretty badly and pretty well unusable. These 40's era wheels are notorious for getting water into the valve stem hole and rusting from the inside out. Well that was bad news. But luckily I had purchased the wheel pair from Ebay. So I shot photos of the wheels I had to the powder coater, and then drug them back out there to get those coated.
I wanted the wheel color to match the color of my Jeep wheels. We agreed that a 'Porsche Silver' would match the Jeep wheels the best. So I left them with the powder coating guys. In the time it took to discover the wheel issue, I had gotten my tires in. As I mentioned, I went with Coker Classic 6.00-16 tires with tubes to fit them. 7.50-16 would have been better, but the pricing jumps significantly between 6.00 and 7.50 for whatever reason. So I opted for the cheaper 6.00-16. I took them over to the powder coaters to have them mounted when the powder coating was done. They are a one stop shop for sure and again do great work. As mentioned the Ebay wheels were not matched and were incorrect for this period trailer. That bugged me a little, but I reasoned all I wanted to try and do is get the trailer really road-worthy. It would not be a show piece and mismatched wheels, although proper Kelsey/Hayes wheels, were OK in the spirit of getting her on the road.
So I after using my Ebay 'spare' as a now promoted full-time road wheel, I was left with locating another spare. I originally purchased a Omix-Ada reproduction wheel for a Willy's Jeep. Those are decent reproductions, but when I got mine it just did not look quite the same as the originals. So I decided what I would do is send that back, and set out to locate another original Willy's wheel. This would give me the opportunity to try and find a matched wheel to one of the ones on the ground, so I would have a matched set on the trailer. I finally found one on CL from a guy in Maine selling a whole bunch of them. He had another 50's era Willy's wheel. I bought it sight unseen and he sent it to me. When it finally arrived, I discovered that it did not fully match the other 50's wheel I had. You gotta be kidding me. How many different types of Jeep wheels are there out there? Turns out many. This new wheel was a 50's era wheel, but it had some kind of Bead-lock rim to it. Mostly the same but if you look close you can tell the difference.
Its close enough for my needs, so I ran this one over to the powder coaters, along with a third tire. Hopefully this would be the end of the wheel nonsense.
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