restoration Another Pioneer

What:

Scammell Pioneer SV/2S. Chassis number 5964 which was one of a batch of 200 SV/2S recovery tractors built under contract S9552 dated 14 June 1945. That’s about all we know at the moment. More when we’ve finished digging.

Why:

Because we are hopeless at logging restorations. Our record of the just completed eight year restoration of a Sentinel S4 has whopping holes in it. Hundreds of pictures of a firebox followed by a picture of a finished cab with little in between. Not a lot to show for the thousands of manhours burned up in between. This might help instil a little discipline.

Example: Here it is when it arrived:

And this is how it looks now:

As you can see there’s a pretty big hole already.

What’s been done already:

1. Cab, scuttle and body removed.

2. Radiator removed for overhaul – hadn’t intended to do that but most of it needed to come apart to repair the level indicator float and it turned out to be full of mud.

And yes, I know the hub capstan isn't part of the radiator - it just got painted with some other bits.

3. Front axle stripped down for overhaul – in truth little more than a clean and regrease. The old grease goes all vile and waxy and doesn't do much lubrication. While this is a simple job it is one I loathe because there ar few things in the World I hate more than working with any grease. New grease is bad but the pounds of thick, waxy gunk you have to dig out and wash away really gets on my wick. And me, and the workshop cat and everything else youlook at. I really, really hate grease. Anyway...

4. Neate brake mechanism removed for repair. The pawl has worn away by the feel of it.

5. Clutch cover, clutch and flywheel removed to replace the friction plate lining and the output shaft bearings (hardly serious but you could hear them rumbling and there isn’t much point not doing them while it is stripped down. The clutch stop drum needed refaced and the shoe needed relined.

6. Starter motor and dynamo off for a rebuild

7. A load of other stuff we’ve forgotten about already

The engine has been left largely untouched until the sorry mess has been steam cleaned.

Stuff to do:

1. New cab, track box and wings. And all the othe bits that go with them

2. New woodwork to body and various repairs to the body sections

3. Not much to do to the engine. Really just a top end overhaul and a bit of a wash and brush up.

4. Repair fuel tank

5. Rewire it

6. Plenty of other stuff which will come to me and which I'll post as it comes to me.

Advice sought:

1. What shade of green is it meant to be? I started needle gunning various bits and the poor thing seems to have had some odd colour schemes in the past from dayglo red wings to silver wheels as well as modern NATO matt. From what I can see where the original paint it is a low gloss rather than matt finish – any thoughts?

2. What bits are meant to be on it? There are lots of brackets and clips but being MV duffers we're not sure what is meant to be where.

There, that'll do for a first stab at it.

Very much with you on the grease thing. I'm so envious of anyone who can refill a grease gun and remain grease free. Even a change to cartridges and new guns made no difference!

Great stuff Jim.

More please.

MB

I just KNOW I'm gonna enjoy this thread ! Good Luck ! Andy F:-D

yep nice post, what you need is a power greaser, and have someone else refill it

Great to see so much progress Jimh! Let us know how you get on with the history search, I think mine (Chassis 6002) is from the same batch of 200 ordered at the end of the war.

If you want to check anything on mine then just PM me, I don't think you can be more than an hour away from me!

Good luck!

Duncan

A lot of work done , now just dont burn out and give up , must be nearing the point of reassembly soon!

Jimh, thank you so much for starting this already wondrous and totally enthralling restoration thread. I'm sitting back in my most comfortable armchair and can hardly await the next installment. What about a daily video update at around teatime ?

There was someone offering lubrication suits for cats. I'll post the link as soon as I can find it.

A bit like this but smaller and with a hole for the tail.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Army-Surplus-Lubrication-Overall-Waterproof-Extra-Large_W0QQitemZ350141927896QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Collectables_Militaria_LE?hash=item350141927896&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1294%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318

Great to see a proper job being done on this one.

As I think I've mentioned before I viewed this one before you and decided it was too much work to take on. I didn't have the room and facilities.

Glad to see someone else has and giving it the care it deserves.

Please keep on with the updates of progress with plenty of photo's. Plenty of other interested parties here.

There are a few projects ongoing at the moment so burn out isn't really an issue. If you get bored with one thing you just go and do something else.

Not sure that it will be going back together very soon. Getting the rolling chassis finished isn't too big a deal but getting the cab right will take a little more effort.

Some more stuff which needs done:

The csk set screws on the winch drum gear need replacing. Seems that all the crap of the day sits on top of the winch drum and corrodes the nuts away. Need to get some made.

It needs a new set of windscreens. Most of the sections are pretty easy to replicate and there is enough of the old ones to copy but although the hinge arrangement is very crude it is not easy to replicate. Won't need to worry about those for a while yet, though.

When it arrived it looked like the cab didn't need too much work but as it was taken apart it because apparent that while it looked complete there wasn't a lot to save. The channel sections have wooden infills which seem to hold water and rot the sections away from inside. The wooden infill strip at the top of the scuttle has caused the top of the scuttle to rot away too. The upshot of all this is that it will need a completely new cab. Fortunately these are even more crude than the Sentinel's so it shouldn't be a massive job.

Anyone got a CAV regulator? The cork seal had gone on this one and the water running in through the windscreens have reduced it to a nasty mess.

It needs a new rope for the winch drum and the crane wich. Hardly a big job but it does seem to take quite a lot or rope.

Mechanically the thing does appear to be in nice condition. The only things we have found which require replacement or repair is the clutch stop, the brake pedal pivot, the Neate brake pawl and the output shaft bearings. Oh and the float in the still pot had sprung a leak. Not too bad given years of neglect. As far as we are aware at the moment it was given a rebuild in early 1957. This ties up with the date of manufacture on the Neate brake housing and the January 1957 rebuild plate on the engine.

The body needs most of its wood replacing and some sections of angle repaired where the rotting wood has led to some heavy corrosion. Again, hardly difficult just time consuming.

It needs a new rope for the winch drum and the crane wich. Hardly a big job but it does seem to take quite a lot or rope.

Forum member Antar may have a winch cable available but whether it's the correct type and length I've no idea.

The csk set screws on the winch drum gear need replacing. Seems that all the crap of the day sits on top of the winch drum and corrodes the nuts away. Need to get some made.

Jimh, if you'd care to post here the spec. (length, thread type, dia. and quantity), I'll have a look in my dungeon. I seem to remember finding some when I did the same job. They'll be Unbrako hex key type.

what should the CAV regulator look like?

Give me a bit and I'll get you a part number and a scan from the workshop manual.

Great to see so much progress Jimh! Let us know how you get on with the history search, I think mine (Chassis 6002) is from the same batch of 200 ordered at the end of the war.

I see yours has the same compressor as ours. The story we have from one source is that these (or some of these) ended up in the far east after the war on trailer towing duties rather than recovery.

I see yours has the same compressor as ours. The story we have from one source is that these (or some of these) ended up in the far east after the war on trailer towing duties rather than recovery.

That's very interesting, I've got the vehicle record card somewhere and should post an image of it to see if anyone on here can decipher it. Let us know if you find anything conclusive on the history.

Regards,

Duncan

I seem to remember when viewing Jim's pioneer, that the owner said something about the flanges on the hubs only being fitted to ones exported to the middle east. I think they were for straps whilst being loaded on and off ships.

My pioneer must be from same batch as yours same wheel hubs air compressor. my scammell also has a spare wheel carrier and a modified accelerator pedal . I was told by an ex R.E.M.E fitter these mods were carried out for service overseas the uprated compressor for towing trailers for moving R.E plant and civil engineering supplies . My scammell cencus no is H6229157 chassis no 5917 mil reg no 34YZ16 . I have some photos of pioneers towing trailers loaded with large concrete pipes in palestine around 1947 these carry cencus no starting H622 so this series of numbers could refer to vehicles in the middle east . Will try to find someone who can post photos at weekend as you can guess not very up on computers and if i try to do it myself the computer will probably produce more smoke than a cold start gardner 6lw:shake:

Just found sales order and build sheet for my pioneer .sales order lists all vehicles under contract s9552 first one listed chassis no 5878 delivered 30.6.45 last one listed chassis no 6027 delivered 25,1.46 .chassis no 5964 delivered 25.10.45 hope this is of interest

Great to see so much progress Jimh! Let us know how you get on with the history search, I think mine (Chassis 6002) is from the same batch of 200 ordered at the end of the war.

 

If you want to check anything on mine then just PM me, I don't think you can be more than an hour away from me!

 

Good luck!

 

Duncan

Chassis no6002 delivery date 7.12.45

My pioneer must be from same batch as yours same wheel hubs air compressor. my scammell also has a spare wheel carrier and a modified accelerator pedal . I was told by an ex R.E.M.E fitter these mods were carried out for service overseas the uprated compressor for towing trailers for moving R.E plant and civil engineering supplies . My scammell cencus no is H6229157 chassis no 5917 mil reg no 34YZ16 . I have some photos of pioneers towing trailers loaded with large concrete pipes in palestine around 1947 these carry cencus no starting H622 so this series of numbers could refer to vehicles in the middle east .

Good stuff. From what we know at the moment our number is H6229204. If you have those photographs it would be excellent - they would be something reasonably reliable to work from.

Been doing some cleaning. We believe that people wade in a little too quickly with grit blasting. It's fine if you have thing broken down to individual parts because you can get them free of grit without too much effort but grit blasting assemblies is not a good idea at all. There are also downsides to do with cost and having somewhere to work. I think Madrat has mentioned this in his blog but it is well worth doing as much of the paint and scale removal with a needle gun. These are pretty inexpensive (unfortunately you do need a fairly butch compressor to run one) but they are brilliant for removing paint and scale from the most gash Scammell casting. You are often left with little more than a power wire brush before you have a suitable finish for painting.

A centre section of the bogie which has been needle gunned a bit.

They are pretty quick to work with - a wheel was taking about 20-30 minutes to do. If there is too much for the wore brush to cope with (round bolt heads is a favourite a waft over with your gas axe burns the little bits away almost instantly.

Needle guns are great for paint and scale but unsurprisingly aren't really suitable for grease removal. For that you can get hold of a hot water pressure washer. Withthe righ nozzles these can strip off not only the grease, mud and grime but also most of the paint too. Here is an engine after the first pass with the cleaner.

You will notice a distict shortage of green paint.

Close up on the timing case cover. Still some work to go but you are looking at about an hours work to get the engine to this state.

They are also good for working round the more complicated parts which can take forever and a day to clean properly by hand. The engine is now in a suitable state for dismantling for overhaul.

The nastiest part was possibly the winch - here it is after the first pass. One of the problems of hot water cleaners is that they are difficult to see where you are working. You need to work in stages. Clean, let it druy, see where you missed,repeat to fade.

Areas like these can be very tricky to clean. The hot water cleaners get the oil free, pretty much paint free and somewhere near ready for painting for very little effort. For paint removal the best thing to use is a stone cleaning jet - funny thing which operated a little wheel in the head whichg shuts off the flow very briefly and then releases it. It makes a high pitched buzzing noise when it runs.

A gearbox after a first pass. You can probably spot the missed bits. However, look how clean you can get the chassis rails

Anyone getting bored yet? Here is the detail of the axle swivel. Note the paint removal from the castellated nut. Note also the missed bit. Ho hum. Run over it with the pressure washer a couple more times and needle gun off what is left.

Finally, a bell housing after pressure washing. Not much more work needed there.

The regulator - anyone know someone who can rebuild these? Or anyone with one lying around wrapped up in CAV waxed paper?

Finally, from the "I can't be bothered getting up from my desk to find the manual" file - what is the felt held on with a spring steel clip on the injection pump all about?

Great progress Jim! The steam washer is indeed the best way to get all that crap off. I've always been a bit nervous about sand blasting without removing parts.

Ours was misbehaving the day I was washing mine so had to do with a diesel driven one, looks life the scaler is doing a good job. I'll need to dig mine out when I'm closer to paint!

What Paint/Primer are you intending on using?

Tekaloid probably. We used it on the S4 and it was nice to work with. Not a bad choice since the demise of ICI's P383. I think it was Breakwells we got it from last time.

The Sentinel used gallons (and I mean gallons) of undercoat and gloss. Looking at what was on the scammell from the factory it seems likely to need a lot, lot less - one of red oxide, one of grey primer and one maybe two of low gloss whatever it is. We're getting the colour sorted out at the moment. I'll let you know what we end up with.

Just out of interest and completely unrelated to matters military vehicle. this is a happy snap of the Sentinel in the sun for the first time just after Christmas.

Just under 8 years' work.