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T16 T101331 restoration


eddy8men

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hi fella's

i finally got round to starting the restoration on my t16, i bought it a while back from a dealer in staffordshire with the understanding that i could store it at his yard until i was ready to tell the wife i'd bought another carrier but my little lad grassed me up a week later anyway :nono:

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i got a mate to drop it off at my workshop the last week in january, the first couple of days were spent cleaning out all the crud and cutting out the rusted plate i then measured up and ordered the cutting list from the profilers. next we'll get welding the patches up.

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At least you'll be able to put it together with sensible welding and not endless rivets. Do the front idlers hand on just those few visible bolts?

 

I vaguely remember that the Farand and Delorme tracked armoured Snowmobile and the Penguins derived from it both used the T-16 drive / transmission unit too.

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gordon the front idlers do hang on the 3 bolts you can see but they are quite substantial and have a backing piece on the inside of the hull, mine have been cut down by some bugger in order to remove the idlers no doubt.

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the tub was a little out of shape due to the sides being cut and the generally poor condition of the floorpan and sponsons not to mention the engine and chassis rails because of this i've had to pay attention to the lines before welding the plates back in, not really difficult but it does slow the job down.

 

 

in the pics i needed to pull the rear armour plate before i could weld the rear sponson, so i welded a bracket to the back plate (it's actually a churchill track idler tension shim) and used a hoist to pull it before tacking it.

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We'll need plenty of pics, take your point on those idler mounts.

 

I'm a big fan of rivetted construction - when I don't have to replace it. My Snow Tractor roof is aluminium sheet held to the steel frame with a couple of hundred 3/16" rivets. Individually they are not a problem, but my attempted repairs round the corroded edges of the roof sheets ( it is absolutely fine in the middle, of course ) just look like mince, so it is all coming off. I'll be riveting the roof back on, but this time I'll be using mild steel sheet so at least I can weld it too.

 

I don't know of any T-16s up this way, in fact I only know Nigel Watson up here with a carrier, but at one time every Scottish estate had one or more tracked carriers of some kind.

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thanks pierre although it's not really a new project as i've had it for a year or more but it's taken me this long to get round to starting it and to be honest i've had to crack on with it as i need to sell it to fund the cromwell restoration :-( which is a real shame as the more i talk to people about it the more i like it but money talks and bullsh1t walks and right now i'm walking !

 

i tried my hand at vertical welding and it turned out pretty diabolical so i shoved the carrier on it's side and will weld it from above which gives a better weld and has the added bonus of exposing the underside for de rusting and priming.

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Rick,

 

I understand what you mean. It's often heartbreaking to sell a piece of a collection when you really like and appreciate it. I was lucky enough not to be obliged to sell any piece of my own uniforms and weapons collection yet and will probably never do if I'm not required to, even for a WW2 vehicle restoration project.

 

Pierre-Olivier

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Hi ..How on earth did you get it on its side ??? Andy B

 

 

thanks pierre although it's not really a new project as i've had it for a year or more but it's taken me this long to get round to starting it and to be honest i've had to crack on with it as i need to sell it to fund the cromwell restoration :-( which is a real shame as the more i talk to people about it the more i like it but money talks and bullsh1t walks and right now i'm walking !

 

i tried my hand at vertical welding and it turned out pretty diabolical so i shoved the carrier on it's side and will weld it from above which gives a better weld and has the added bonus of exposing the underside for de rusting and priming.

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andy you can see a piece of angle iron welded to the hull which was there to stop the high lift trolley jack slipping out as it lifted it up, once it was as high as i could get it i chained it to the bucket on my mini digger and shoved it over, quite simple really and now i can work on it with no great hassle and get a decent weld hopefully.

 

rick

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........i tried my hand at vertical welding and it turned out pretty diabolical so i shoved the carrier on it's side and will weld it from above which gives a better weld .........

 

Know exactly what you mean ! :) ..

Given the choice I'd always tip something up so that I could get at it good and proper to get a nice deep horizontal meatball of a weld into it !...

..Years ago I used to have an old fella that did all the big welding jobs in my yard or on site for me ,the kind of chap that wasn't fazed by any materials and would root about in the back of his van for a box of a certain type of rod ...then simply adjusting his set accordingly would nonchalantly get on with it with a roll up dangling from his bottom lip. :-D

I was always in absolute awe of how incredibly good his welding was... no matter what angle he had to work at, in whatever light available, under any conditions , wind, rain , storm etc....

.....I'm afraid I'm the sort of welder where maybe 1 in 6 of my vertical or upside down ones are

'not too bad...sort of ok really...I think...'

the rest would be more of the

" of fer christ sake!...get the grinder!...." variety :cool2:

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nice job your doing there mate. need to get my arse into gear and get myself a carrier. waiting for couple of replies ive posted. would love this one but out of my budget!

 

Most carriers will be out of most peoples budget at £30,000 plus so don't dismiss it. You could buy one in Canada but the shipping charges would be at least £3500 in container charges plus incidentals

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  • 2 weeks later...

managed to do a little bit more on the carrier last week. the under side is now de-rusted and painted and although it's no big achievement it's really nice to see a bit of green on it at long last. the 2 left hand suspension assemblies have been removed for blasting and painting, i was worried that i would be in for a fight trying to get them off but they slipped off as if they were fitted yesterday.

the axle will need to be stripped down and de-rusted for although it was a new assembly it wasn't filled with oil so there is surface corrosion from condensation but at least the pinion backlash will still be factory set so it's just a case of wire brush then fill with gear oil.

i had the controls professionally rebuilt and i'm pleased with the result, to be honest i doubt i could have set them up properly myself as the linkage is quite complicated and the tolerances don't allow for guestimating.

i hope to get it looking something like with the tracks on by the end of the month but then again i am a little over optimistic at times :-D.

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