Chenowth Desert Patrol/Light Strike Vehicle - Pics Added

[TimS]

If you could get pics of the bearing setup, too. I don't know, but am curious.

Camburg makes some 40 spline hubs with both 2.25 and 2.5" bearings, but they are for ford 9" rear axles. I'm curious if it's a full floater type setup or typical micro stub setup.

[JUSSUMGUY]

Take a look over at Gear One. They have some pretty hefty stub axles for their micro stub set up.
This is a really unique vehicle and I like seeing all the various bits and pieces of it. Take lots of pics! Post often!

[Lawdog734]

Tim, before I pulled them apart, I snapped a couple of pics of them while still mounted up. They cleaned up really nice even with as ugly as they are here. As I recall, the inside diameter is almost 2.75".

[Piledriver]

I kinda doubt is a custom part: The Army would likely have spec'd an off the shelf part for wear items.

[Lawdog734]

I spoke with Ryan Thomas about a month ago, he was the GM of Chenowth until it closed. To your (Piledriver) point, he said just about everything on the vehicle was commercially available.

I do have some good news though. I spoke with Gary at B&R Buggy in Oceanside. Gary maintained the Marine DPV's that they had and is the current caretaker of the vehicle that is located at the Marine Mechanized Museum. He mentioned that the hubs and axles are from Summers Brothers - which are no longer made.

I did speak with Jose at Summers Brothers last night and I have to say that their lack of a website sucks, but the woman who answered the phone was nothing short of professional and polite. I eventually spoke with Jose - who also provided extremely professional and competent information. What's this have to do with the hubs - nothing, but I love good service when I see it. Anyway, Jose said that they don't make the hubs anymore but offered to have me send them back and he could have new ones cast up in about 2 weeks. No idea what it'll cost me yet, but I'm glad to see that I have a good option. I may just run with what I have (they're not that bad) until I have a reason to replace them.

Fortunately for me, my bearings are good to go because according to Gary at B&R, 4 new bearings and the spacer run about $1000.

[jps1145]

Fortunately for me, my bearings are good to go because according to Gary, 4 new bearings and the spacer run about $1000.

You're lucky! Lot's of guys like to power wash their vehicles and that is a sure quick demise of those bearings.

[uh60ce]

Holy crap those are some expensive bearings!

[TimS]

Wow, you have all the connections. The believe it on the bearings. The ones I was looking at last night were $200 each.

[Lawdog734]

Wow, you have all the connections. The believe it on the bearings. The ones I was looking at last night were $200 each.

This work reminds me of my days as a Police Officer/Detective, it's been getting little leads here and there which eventually turn into big leads and a more complete picture. It's all about the puzzle pieces when it comes to this vehicle. I spoke with Ron Hemphill, who used to make the DPV chassis's for Chenowth and he mentioned that the 6-seat vehicles were actually made by UMP using Chenowth parts. Now I'm just trying to figure out who UMP is.

I still don't have the most complete picture on these, but it's been forming very nicely as I know significantly more about them now than I did when I got them.

[TimS]

If you don't mind. I'm kind of curious about the hubs/stubs still. It seems like a semi-floater hub - summers made a bunch for trucks. Anyway, just to complete my research journey, would you mind giving a spline count and diameter on that stub? My guess is 40 or 44 splines. A lot of desert racing trucks at the time were using 40 spline, from what I gather, summers was one of the first to offer a "monster" 44 spline axle and hub used on trophy trucks. Thanks.

I'm glad you are going the restoration route. To think you got these for next to nothing is boggling.

[TimS]

http://www.uniquemetalproducts.com ?? It's still in action, but not building buggies.

[Devastator]

Did you get those cracks in the hubs checked yet?

[TimS]

Just let me know if you mind the clutter on your build page.

I actually had a samll piece in building those cars back in the day....a very small piece. When I was a teenager Chenowth would build the cars near complete, then send (6) at a time on a truck to German Auto. German Auto built all of the Motors, Trannies and Assembled the drivetrain before the cars were shipped off.

My brother and I would take a huge shipment of CV's, disassemble the CV, remove the stock cage and reassemble with a race cage. It was very small part but I saw alot of those cars come through there.

This was a poster on Race-desert. I know it conflicts with your intel, but might help you...

I did many different parts on those in the late 70's. I worked at UMP and did all the fixtures for the Mastercraft seat frames and made about 120 seat frames. The first cars had Mark Stahl box tube trailing arms. After that I built the fixtures and with Don Primm, designed the 4 tube rear trailing arms. We even built fixtures for mounting the body panels as well as fabbing the brake and clutch lines. The parts were interchangable from car to car. We also did all the dashes, roof panels, airboxes and many other misc. parts. We even drilled cv's out on a six bit auto drill press. Don Hatz did the engines in the original cars. Don Primm And Mike Thomas went to Iraq to teach the Military boys how to get the most out of the vehicles. They were pretty cool for their time.

[Lawdog734]

Did you get those cracks in the hubs checked yet?

I haven't had a chance to do so since this past weekend - that's on the list for this weekends activities.

Tim - info is info, so I'm appreciative of anything that can be dug up. In addition to this thread being a build/restoration thread, I'd also like it to be a good source for anyone else looking into these vehicles. Every other location you look at is just so lacking, it'd be nice if they can find it all right here.

[JUSSUMGUY]

UMP= Unique Metal Products