My wife and I today (4-5-08) began our work trying to restore the 40mm that Vaughn got moved to the aft bridge of the Batfish. Originally, it was pointed aft at about about 40
O above level. Today, after a little elbow grease, were able to get barrel to raise from level to almost 60
O above level. We were also able to get the gun to swivel on it's base. I've attached photos below.
This is pretty good (and much better than hoped for) since it's been sitting outside for who knows how many years. We opened several gear boxes and the grease needs to be removed and replaced. All grease zerks (sp?) were able to be removed (except one...and one more was missing) so it's just a matter of unplugging them and add more grease.
Both handles are missing and will have to be fabricated. The connecting rod from the upper gear box to the lower gear box (port side) is gone and will have to be fabricated. However we used a pair of channel locks and were able to move the gun horizontally and vertically.
One gun sight is there, the other is gone, so will have to fabricate it. Both seats are there (non-original) and those will be cleaned, primered and then repainted.
Overall we are happy as we were thinking that the gun would be totally locked up. Next time down (probably the 19th of April) we are going to clean out all the old grease we can get, unplug the zerks (sp?) and put new grease in the gear boxes. Hopefully Vaughn will be there and I'll discuss the fabrication of a connecting rod to the port gear boxes.
Lance - could I get this as a sticky in the BATFISH section for those who might want to keep track of this (like me so I can find it easily when I have updates
)
