fv1609

Clearing some old holiday snaps. Seen next to RNLI at Burry Port, South Wales. Is it military?

I think that's too far to push a wheel barrow John.

Unless it is near a nearly extinct bird you got me there John, I don't go up north very often

Just trying to workout how far I would have to push this wheelbarrow :-D Do some of these Saracens & Pigs have blue crosses painted on the front by any chance?

Ooh stop it you teaser! Got wait until March have we?

wow wow wee

Welcome Carl always nice to have more Humber owners. Well there were 487 Pigs up-armoured in Op Bracelet at completion on 29 June 1973. The process started in Sept 1972 (there were no up-armoured Pigs in 1971). You see very few Pigs of any Mk at shows these days, but there are quite a lot that for reasons of fuel costs don't travel great distances. Value is difficult. It depends if the tyres are any good if not that is at least £1,000 off the value. It also depends whether all the wheel station tracta joints work, the engine of course & whether it has been properly serviced regularly. It also depends on the originality, often some of the armour is stripped off or there have been attempts to make it look like a Mk 1 which is generally rather unconvincing. Value also depends where you are & how far a would be purchaser has to travel. Because transport costs of maybe £500-£800 will be added to selling price in the purchasers mind. So who made you paint it grey? Did you get to drive it in the film? If you didn't I hope they treated it with respect. So are you thinking of selling yours or buying another :-D

This was lifted from the Royal Engineers Reconnaissance Pocket Book 1944

Very well done Bob. I think you have broken the record!

That would probably work quite well David but it's not the official reason for this

What's this all about?

Ok Nigel it was originally Struck Off BAOR 23/3/69, then Recovered 8/9/72 then finally Struck Off SPTA 19/8/93

Yes any Pig pictures very welcome. I took a picture of 12 BK 36 when it was at Ludgershall some while ago.

Yes I remember him recounting that but I couldn't remember the exact purpose to which he used his Drawers, cellular, short as he very correctly described them.

I think one of the editors is/was a member on here.

Nigel the FV numbers actually relate to the Panel, Generator in the cab rather than the Generator itself. But yes you have a single & a twin speed. So it is nice to find differences between what might appear to be be identical vehicles & of course bodies by different makers ROF & Sankey. In addition to that one was built as a FV1611B & the other as a FV1612A I wonder whether 27BK99 still has the original engine S/N 8564? Unfortunately the main register has a batch vehicles (05BK01 - 05BK41) where the engine S/N was not recorded so I can't tell the number for 05BK18 I'm afraid.

I've never seen a Mk 2 still with a winch. Does yours still have the single-speed dynamo or has it been upgraded to 2-speed? Most Mk 2 Pigs end up with a 2-speed, I have seen a few that are still single speed. Same with the double-servo not all were upgraded from single. I don't know whether you have explored your rear wheel stations but not all were converted to Birfield joints. They ran out the special steel from Germany. Anyway here is another Nottingham one that once had a winch

Ah a Nottingham one. Does it still have the winch fitted?

Yes and why is there only one Competition and Markets Authority?

Ah so that one's an early Sankey. Wonder what the other one is?

No leave the poor chicken alone!

Sealed relays are quite cheap these days anyway.

Nigel what a super collection you have there. Yes that front cab armour is a pain & a lot of Mk 2 Pigs have had this armour discarded once in private ownership. I wonder if you have tried to investigate what debris may have accumulated within the spaced armour? I found large numbers of wrappers for Jaffa Cakes, crisp packets etc but I did find a typed CES of the kit for a heavy mob of some sort. It detailed numbers of pistols & rounds, crowbars, hammers, torches etc. So you never know what gems may lie hidden. It would interesting to see who made your Pigs. If you look on the cab contract plate, there will be a serial number eg: ROF/N123 = Royal Ordnance Factories Nottingham ROF/W123 = Royal Ordnance Factories Woolwich S/123 = Sankey As you may know there were 1,700 Pigs made, I have never been able to find or deduce a relationship between the conversion contractors & the chassis numbers. So if you could take some pictures of both the contract plates that would be nice for my collection.

Thank you for posting those Nigel. I've photoshopped it to give: This is 27BK99 I assume, which in normal parlance is a Mk 2. I suspect you said it was a Mk 1 based on the body contract plate above the mesh cable protector in the cab below the passenger window. That relates to the original conversion to a Pig in 1959-60. Normally this would be covered up by the front scuttle armour in a Mk 2. The Mk 2 plate, which is larger, would be in the vicinity of the driver, these plates tend to get nicked at an early stage. (Wayne is probably chuckling because to complicate things further some Mk 1 Pigs that were never up-armoured to Mk 2 status but have the original cab plate stamped as Mk 2. More commonly no Mk is stamped. The reason is that the original Mk 1 was actually the FV1609, the production Pigs FV1611 & FV1612 were the real Mk 2. But when the MOD proceeded in Op Bracelet to up-armour the Pigs they didn't realise this & designated these modified Pigs as Mk 2 whereas they should have designated them Mk 3) Probably best to ignore the last paragraph as it makes life easier

Jack I've just had a rethink! Sorry my mindset is stuck into vehicles where there is provision for supplying 24v directly to the coil by means of an isolated contact. I don't know what form of additional contacts there are within your starter switch, but if it is just a single contact arrangement there would be a problem. Because during normal running the junction of the ballast resistor & coil would in effect be energising the starter solenoid, albeit at a reduced voltage (due to the ballast resistor). The voltage supplied to the ignition coil would be reduced because the current flow through the ballast resistor would increase the voltage drop by the current drawn by the solenoid as well. So there might be three ways around this: 1. Does the starter switch have an additional contact that could switch a direct supply to the ignition coil? Or could you replace it with one that does? 2. Wire in a relay energised by the starter switch to switch in the direct 24v supply to the ignition coil. 3. Use a high power diode (rated at least 5 amps) with the anode to the solenoid & the cathode to the ballast resistor junction with the ignition coil. It's amazing how the brain works better waking up in the morning than last thing at night!