fv1609

Yes a FV610 Armoured Command Post, not a Pig. But Martin did say he was glad he wasn't asked any questions about it

I presume you are talking about water jerrycans. The earliest British one I have ever seen was 1965, in fact I have a green one & a black one of that date. I was quite excited last year to see a peuce green plastic one dated 1964. The NSN revealed that the NCB was '66' signifying it was Australian.

So Jamie where was the problem? Any particular culprit or was it one of those problems which was little bit of this & a little bit of that all conspiring to cause the problem?

Jamie just a few things to add. I carry 4 brake hose clamps, if you put one on each wheel hose, you should have brake pedal pressure. If not you know have master cylinder or servo problems. If you have good foot pressure then release each clamp in turn & see if pedal pressure goes then you can pin it down to a particular wheel. When you bleed the brakes release the brake shoe adjusters to minimise the volume inside the wheel cylinder. Remember of course to do this all with the handbrake off as that acts via linkages on the cylinders unlike some vehicles with a transmission brake. Trying to keep a bleed tube in a jam jar of fluid is very difficult as the tube usually wants to curl up. That means it keeps pulling it out of the jam jar then you put the jam jar on a block or something, then it gets knocked over. I use a plastic tube about 2 ft long or so then stuff the lower end into a small hole in the lid of one of those 1-litre plastic milk bottles. Once there is a little bit of fluid in the bottle it become much more stable & if you do knock it over you won't spill much. Obviously once bled then adjust up the brake adjusters. If you have the nut type adjust the square nut before the hexagonal nut or if you have the cog wheel type do the lower cog first.

One show last year it was only 0800 & I was on the portaloo. Then I heard the tappers were at it on the roof & bonnet, then they started peering in through the front visors. In a loud & jocular (not) manner I suggested if they were that keen to know what its like inside they could in & assist me in completing the procedures that were under way. Is nowhere private?

I wouldn't have thought the Army would need to do that Adam. The AFS Commers had their specific roles & the Army ons had theirs. My maths is not too good but there were large numbers of Commers in the batches: 00 BH 01 to 42 BH 52 44 BH 01 to 54 BH 00 At least one served in the Falklands.

Or the other way round with smoke discharger covers? As an experiment I put flat rubbers on one set & on the other the pert pointy ones. No surprises which type invited greater fondling & admiration! I managed to reduce silly smoke discharger questions by placing a Dymo label beside them reading "THESE THINGS ARE SMOKE DISCHARGERS - DO NOT TALK TO THE MAN" On a Pig I used to leave a front locker open, inevitably it would get opened. Often I could hear a titter of laughter as the lid was opened & the label inside was read "DON'T BE SO BLOODY NOSEY!" It always seemed to be taken in good humour.

I can cope with most comments & questions of their various kinds from various levels of people, but the thing that really gets up my nose is the incessant flow of people who feel they have to tap the side of your vehicle :argh::argh::argh: Why the hell do they have to do it? It just goes on & on throughout the day. Is it only if you are in something armoured or does everybody get this stupidity? Whether you are making a cup of tea, on the bog, reading a book or just having a nap, there it is tap tap tap. If I am really wound up I lie in wait for the next tapper & then bang back on the inside with a riot truncheon & that can make quite a noise. :evil:

73 de G4MBS

Rich, according to the Holliss & Thompson book, 485 ELM (chassis no 38A5787) was stationed at Barnstaple & was used as a bridging parts carrier. It was sold at British Car Auctions Aug 1988. I have some video footage of a massive CD exercise that took place on Devon/Cornwall border in 1956. When I get a chance I'll see if I can spot yours. As regards the data I have put up, bear in mind that was for the many military versions.

Hope this helps. Publications covering the military Q4 variants are: User Handbook - WO Code No. 17823 Servicing Schedule - WO Code No. 13616 Parts list - WO Code No.17739 Various instructions, descriptions & mods are covered in EMER WHEELED VEHICLES H 150 - H 159, with variants from /1 to /7

Mark, unfortunately there seems to be no standardisation between the designation of a wire and the pin to which it is connected. I got caught out replacing a trailer plug & lead. By chance a couple of wires corresponded to the numbering of the existing wires. I assumed that the rest would also correspond. Melting cables in the trailer as I plugged in the vehicle rapidly dispelled this assumption. If there was such a Standard it should be in very extensive chapters of EMER WORKSHOPS F 100 Terminating & Jointing Electric Wires & Cables and Defence Standard 25-6 Towing Vehicles & Towed Vehicular Equipment. But I can find no such Standard. So you'll need to go round with a meter & connect it up according to the diagram in here: http://www.hmvf.co.uk/pdf/NATOTrailerSocket.pdf

Leaving bogies aside for the moment. Trouble is, if everybody is too polite to mention or to ask about things which to us seem perfectly alright, how would learn if we have blundered? I remember taking the FV1620 to its first show & I think I even got a prize, although it was incorrectly marked. Several people people commented how nice it looked, although one told me I had a lot still to do to it, which was perfectly true & something that I was well aware of. I went to a lot trouble to measure & photograph the Unit & Divisional badges. I then carefully painted them on. But I was rather surprised that someone came & told me that one of the signs was wrong. I thought what possibly could be wrong as I had copied them from photos? But I listened patiently & he explained in a kindly way that he was once a sign writer in 3 Div & he had considerable experience in painting these signs. He pointed out that the sign at the rear was fine but at the front it was upside down. I just happened to have had the photo upside down when I painted it on. Dooh! I don't know whether others had noticed & were too polite to say, but I was most grateful to this veteran telling me about the 'bogey' on my vehicle.

I have been going to the Overlord Shows organised by MV enthusiasts from the Portsmouth area on that May Bank Holiday for 25 years. I have enjoyed them all. I can see no reason to discontinue going.

That's a difficult one, who can tell? I recently was reading a 1908 training manual, it had hardly been read before. But I found a bogey stuck on one of the pages, now was this a 101-year old bogey or did it come from the nostrils of the bookseller? Should I remove it for being modern contamination or should I keep it in situ and preserve the context of the said item? If anyone can determine its age, I am willing to pass it to serious collector together with a collection of repro ones for comparison. CW I knew you would enjoy this but I have to say why do you insist on brown bogies when everyone knows they should normally be black, or are you just trying to be difficult?

The problem with that is that they will assume it is home made! If we are too touchy because they aren't meant to come & ask you about it, they'll go off believing that to be the case. I remember taking my Shorland SB301 to a show & I heard an MV expert of some experience tell people not to look at my exhibit as it wasn't real. How dare he! No other Shorland in the world looked like it, but it was 100% genuine. I would be delighted if someone asked me about its history. Having a board up is no good if the public are warned off it. My first show with it I remember seeing the judge totally blank my vehicle, so unauthentic to his mind that he couldn't condescend to read the history board. I have had the same with my RUC pig because it doesn't quite look any other pig people have seen. I have been in close proximity to a Mk 2 Pig, yet heard visitors walk past my pig & declare that the Mk 2 "is a real Belfast one". Apart from not reading my board, the registration indicates that it was registered in Belfast in 1958, long before the British Army brought their pigs in. I have just returned from a show where I had my RUC Shorland, which again doesn't look like any other Shorland that people have seen. There were quite a lot of questions. The opening ones are mostly "does it float?" (for goodness sake!) & "is it homemade?", once we get past that some quite interesting conversations were made & some useful contacts. So I don't think we should be too touchy, that we are unapproachable. Otherwise visitors & fellow enthusiasts won't learn and just occasionally we can learn something. I try to bite my lip most of the time as some owners are well aware their vehicular embellishments are to their particular fancy rather than something authentic. But sometimes one has to engage in conversation & if you think the moment is right see they are amenable to advice kindly given. In the same way that you would, I hope, tell someone you met that they have a bogey on their nose. One can get "f*** off, its my f***ing vehicle & I can do what I like with it" or a very grateful response. On one occasion a vehicle owner with markings in all the wrong places, met me at the next show & gave me bottle of wine & very pleased that he had sorted out his markings. So lets not be too touchy. Although I know the manner of the "critic" is crucial. But please I am delighted if someone would talk to me about my vehicles, it's far better than being ignored!

Well Jamie nobody could accuse you of not being thorough! The Tracta joint housing should be filled with a mixture of OX-320 and OEP-220. This should be pre-mixed in the ratio of 1/8 pint OX-320 to 1 pint OEP-220. Subsequent topping up should just be OEP-220. If you drain the diff hopefully there shouldn't be a sludge like that. It should just be OEP-220, but some diff failures occured as some pigs were wrongly given the Tracta joint mix in the diff. This caused pinion wheel failures, a failure like this would be indicated by a sludge similar to aluminium paint in appearance. (I know as this happened to me).

We are both right! As Adam said you must top them up with oil EP90. BUT on assembly they must be packed with grease. As stated in Special Servicing Instr. No.7 of Servicing Schedule Army Code No. 13068/1 (Revised 1973): "Hubs should be packed with grease on assembly and on period servicing should be topped-up with oil in accordance with the instructions laid down in the user handbook. The grease and oil specified are miscible." (Grease specified = XG-279, Oil specified = OEP-220) If you change the lubricant in the Tracta housings, there is a different combination of lubricants. To avoid confusion I won't I won't go into that unless you emptied those housings.

Jamie actually the hubs should be packed with grease on assembly & then topped up with oil periodically.

Perhaps it was this? Camouflage, Military Training Pamphlet No. 46 Part 1, General Principles, Equipment & Materials (all Arms) 26/GS Publications/50, 1941. A publication you don't see too often, although there were 300,000 of them printed.

Yes a single phase alternator, 3 kVA 230v 50 Hz.

pm sent, the other precaution I took was to move the fuel overflow from dripping onto the exhaust!

Mike, 05 BK 50 was the FVRDE prototype & sold for £125. But 09 BK 65 has always fascinated me, not just because it was an earlier prototype. As firstly prior to conversion it was taken back onto census, which is odd considering the large number of Humbers available still in service. The repurchase of 200 Pigs for NI in later years is well known, but most odd for a GS to come back into service. Unless it had undergone some form of modification & it slipped through the net. Like 02 BK 87 which was a FV1623 which went for sale & was withdrawn & then got accidentally sold. If it underwent conversion as a missile test truck what was it to test & why was it struck off in 1961, when most of the FV1622s were only built in 1963? I just wonder if it was to test (as in my avatar) Orange William? Given that Hornet FV1620 was originally conceived as an Orange William launcher then swapped to Malkara in 1959.

Mike, because the compressor was made by Dunlop. It was fitted to Truck, 1-Ton, Missile Test, FV1622 part of the Malkara system. It provided compressed air for Trailer, 1/2 Ton, Functional Test Unit, FV2308® 09 BK 65 is very interesting because originally it was a FV1601 & struck off 28/10/55. But it was brought back in service on 30/9/56 & became a prototype FV1622. Then struck off on 6/4/61 which was before Malkara came into service. It was sold for £50. There were a total of ten such vehicles, a friend has 18 BK 91 unfortunately without compressor. Many of these vehicle were at Pounds scrapyard in Portsmouth & the compressors sold off & used for providing compressed air for charging air bottles for divers.