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mitch

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  • Location
    Bicknacre essex
  • Interests
    Airsoft, classic cars, music and films.
  • Occupation
    Supporting artistes and actor in movie industry, and I own my own tiny cab firm.

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  1. There was a bit of a crisis I'm afraid. I was taken rather ill with of all things gallstones, (you can see me looking like crap in the videos-thanks gallstones!) I'm ok now but it effectively halted work for a long time while the doctors faffed about fixing me. Since then I have moved house and currently have to do a 60 mile round trip to go visit my workshop. So at the moment the whole project if on hold. the chassis is effectively finished and I have assembled the engine-gearbox and elements of the steering gear, all of which are stored with the chassis. The plan is to sit tight until me and the missus buy a new house with--one with a nice big workshop where I have mains electric rather than having to use a generator for everything, and then we will resume work. I hope to be doing this sometime next year until then watch this space!
  2. I've been away a while so haven't posted on this forum in a long long time, this has mostly been due to ill health and general busyness. Anyway, today is a sad day,,, Having owned my old ex Dutch army munga 4 since 2008, the time has come to let her go. I simply cant spare the time or money to work on her, and I have recently moved and now have a major commute to where she lives. Its a gutting moment for me as I really enjoyed this old girl Anyway, its up for grabs and will be on ebay later this week, the main question is,, what do you guys think I should be asking for her? they rarely seem to pop up on ebay and I haven't seen one on milweb for ages. Condition wise mines ok, perfect chassis, reasonable body (not rusty!) that I cleaned up and repainted about five years ago before it went into the garage for storage, the last job I did was to install a replacement gearbox after the old one locked up (hi-lo adjuster had failed) since then its not been touched. The engine is a fiat panda-1.3 lump, which is an excellent choice for a power source and the electrics were changed to 12 volts by the old owner. I have managed to find two extra seats for her so she is now a 4 seater, but the seats are in desperate need of re-covering. Its windscreen is in need of new rubber sills and the canvas roof has long gone bye byes, though I still have the roof frame. The vehicle is currently a non runner but that's only because I have not finished putting it all back together, it wouldn't take much more than an afternoon to get her running again, and maybe a day or so to put her back together properly. in addition to all the above it comes with a spare gearbox (currently non functional but I'm pretty certain its a minor issue caused by the hi- lo selector. ) and 4 spare tyres that are average condition.
  3. After Finishing off our mammoth smelting session Paul and I got stuck in on the next part of the weeks build session. From Friday through till sunday night Paul Got stuck in welding in the supports for the floor and its outer skin as well as the suspension axle mounts and their cross members. HE also managed to make the frame for the escape hatch that we are incorporating into the floor of the fighting compartment. This week I will be buying a gearbox to go with out engine and next session we will begin work on mounting the engine!!
  4. After a little breather we have started work again! first step this week was to process all our aluminium, converting it from a massive heap of cans and junk into a nice regular pile of pure aluminium ingots. So having spent Monday hauling all the metal and smelting gear to a "temporary" garage we began smelting on Tuesday. Working on my own I managed to cast 150 ingots of pure aluminium during the course of a long day,, Then on Thursday having collected my partner in Crime (Paul) we got stuck in and did another 215 ingots giving us 365 ingots in total. we would have done more but sadly our crucible melted and thus this stopped our casting. Still, we have enough material now to cast all our road wheels and return rollers. One decision we made after the monster smelt session was that we are no longer going to cast our own tracks. while we can do it, the sheer cost and effort involved is not viable when you consider that a set of cvrt tracks can be got quite cheaply. (Anyone selling some cvrt tracks please pm me-im in the market for some!)
  5. That's not far off how its been done so far, the box section comes from a chap who imports containers from china--the box section is used to make shelves in there--he keeps it all and was selling it to me at a pretty good rate. The small 10mm plates I bought from a local dealer, but bigger plates are harder to come by second hand. Ideally the bottom will need plates that are 2000-1000mm so as to comfortably reach across the full width of the hull (1540mm) also we will be cutting these plates so that their rivet lines match those of the original vehicle. so odds are these will have to be bought new. I plan on using at least 3mm thick for these plates. The vertical and upper surfaces will be easier to do as the plates tend to be smaller and so I can more easily source off cuts,. though Ideally I want them to be in good nick so we will probably go for new stock. Areas of structural strength (the area around the suspension and the drive sprockets) will be 10mm plate. for the sprockets it will be partly as ballast for the engine in the rear but also for re-enforcing the chassis. One of the nice tings about the t26/Vickers 6ton/7tp is that depending on the year they are alternately, riveted, bolted or welded together, leaving us with plenty of choices with regards to fixing things. At the moment we intend to bolt the plates on rather than weld or rivet, as this will allow us to easily access things for tinkering, but theres no reason for us not changing that later on in subsequent tanks.
  6. Thanks! I sincerely hope it does. Soon im going to start hunting down the first plates for the exterior, that's going to be an expensive bit!
  7. lots! this first one will obviously include setup of the workshop, but subsequent ones will cost about £4-5000 in parts. if number one is a success we fully intend to make more and eventually do other vehicles.
  8. Some pics from this weekends build session. We fell a bit short of what was planned but we still did a fair bit. I was unfortunately taken ill again so it was mostly paul on it this weekend. Originally the plan had been to have the plates that hold the suspension on to the hull then do the floor, however they didn't arrive till sunday so Paul tidied up the welds on the rest of the chassis, modified the front of the fighting compartment (our measurements were out on the initial build) and did some final checks to ensure things were straight. then when the plates arrived we started mounting them. in several of the pics the hull is upside down and it was suprising how easy it is to move about even though its starting to get very heavy. over the next week or two health willing I am planning to flatten out all the remaining welds and cut out the members for the floor and make the frame for a hull floor escape hatch. (an essential feature in a vehicle with all its entries on top)
  9. Good tips, I definitely agree on making the calipers the larger type, as for the reservoir, I will hae a look see what I can find. # Thanks buddy, Watch this topic ver the weekend I will be posting more pics of the build!
  10. I'm sure you've though of this but in case you haven't, a common mistake with using a single caliper is to use too large a bore master cylinder, ie. a classic Mini one will work a 4 pot RR front caliper without a servo, with a servo even better. you know I hadn't considered that with the master cylinders but it makes sense.-you may have saved me from some future aggro! (Beer owed!) And yes definitely on changing the sprockets. I'm planning to make the whole diff/sprocket a self contained unit that will be easy to install/uninstall unit after all this is just a prototype and odds are good we will need to tinker and it's easier to do it outside the vehicle. Ultimately I want this geared right down no faster that 20th in top, but lots of grunt. Getting the sprockets right will be key but will mostly be trail n error.
  11. Thanks Grit, ok the drive train,, simple really,, first part--the engine-- I have a 2.7 Nissan diesel engine that will be mated to an lt77 gearbox. this is to be mounted in the rear of the vehicle. next will be a short propshaft leading to the diff. At the moment I am currently seeking a jaguar rear diff (the sort with the on board disk brakes) this will be cut down so it ends just past the disc brakes, and outboard of each disk I will mount a pair of sprockets. (2 a side for spreading load and redundancy). These will have a heavy industrial chain connecting them to the final drives right up hard against the nose of the tank.. To steer I intend to simple operate each of the diffs brakes independently each one having its own servo. when a brakes a pplied the diff will channel the power via the path of least resistance and thus should give us a turn. so far as I have been able to find out this is not far off how the real tank did it.
  12. Some pics from todays bit of work, As Paul is coming down from kent to work on the tank this weekend I thought I would give him some welding to do. So today I cut the 10mm plates that will hold the inner part of the suspensions axles. as wellas the transverse frames for them and also laid out some re-enforcement for the front floor, finally I made two extra number three uprights to re-enforce the after axle mounts. (yes we number all the bits and number three is the standard 430mm vertical member that we used in the sides. The plan for tomorrow if I have time is to cut the steel to make up the fighting compartments floor supports with paul welding it all together over the weekend. Hopefully if we get it all done this weekend then next sessions we can pop the engine in the engine bay and start making its mounts. watch this space though as there will be a lot more pics this weekend.
  13. Thanks mate,, I am a lot better now than I was, so pending a scan I am good to go. We are working again on the 1st, but I am in the meantime getting some specialist bits made up locally for the suspension.. will post the pics as things develop.
  14. Thanks mate, im pretty chuffed about it too, both my kidneys decided to go on strike for about a month. I seem to be better now though still weak. Luckily Paul full of beans so work continues.
  15. After a bit of a breather thanks to health issues (im mostly better now) WE got stuck in this weekend and continued with work on our chassis. This weekends work being mostly concerned with re-enforcing the front of the vehicle and laying out the floor. Hopefully the pace is going to pick up a bit now as we have a little more time free to work on the beasty,, next planned part of the build is the frame for the floor and mounting the supports for the external suspension. .
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