fv1609

Didn't know I was being snapped! Caught marking my territory on the trig point at the top of Mynydd Maen in 1972. Managed to drive the Minivan up there, you can see one of the guys for the mast with two X-Band dishes using WBFM on some klystrons modified to work in the 10Gc/s band. A very good spot for that sort of thing. In those days the public display of dishes was rare & considered scary - beaming microwaves - death rays, communist, IRA (1972 was when violence really escalated) etc & I had long hair! So tried to transmit from not just high places but remote areas to minimise eagle eyed public calling the police out.

OK Chris yes I can see that now, all seems the right sort of era.

Or only £18.77 + VAT from Blanchards. Trouble is the site wants me to buy a quantity of 8, but when you correct that I can't find the true P&P. I'll ring I think is best.

OK Chris that's worth knowing. Although with p&p + VAT it'll be pretty close to £50. There is a small-job plater a friend uses where it would attract the £18 min charge, so might do that. I don't know what models would use it but what variation there is probably is length which isn't a critical thing.

Found my Shorland parts books civilian & military. The filler tube is 277261 (LtWt is 231188, 90/110 is 504656) but of course they will keep changing part numbers. It corresponds to 2910-99-850-1767 & was only used by UK & Malaysia. However it does have a RAF Vocab No 61RV40909. But also a VAOS no LV7RU27761, that means it was around before NSNs were fully implemented in 1965. So this points to early Rover. In both IPCs the fuel tank only has a Shorts number 552301-1. There is no mil no. of any type, nor a Rover no. I have no doubt that the tank was based on a Rover part to start with! I'll take some pics to see if anyone recognises what it was before modification. Then see if its within my scope to modify it although I have to remember to lose an inch in height to get it back in again!

Well it could be right. 1979 was the "Fiscal Year" which could have extended into 1980. I should wait til you get your vehicle history once you've joined the EMLRA:-D

Field Service Pocket Book (India) 1940 is quite a good read. A lot of things done quite differently from the UK version.

Mark within than particular contract, of the variants that are the same as yours, there was a big batch from 17 HF 55 to 21 HF 11 for the year 1979. "Code" is the Asset Code which seems to have greatest use in Ordnance depots. The first part comprises the Establishment Code Number & the second part the Vehicle Code Number. Introduced in the mid 1960s it replaced an earlier codification of 6 digits + 2 digits + 3 digits. It is more convenient to use that the "NSN" (NATO Stock Number), which again is a unique identifier but has more usage in documents & identification of vehicle type & matching it to components that are themselves codified with a NSN.

It’s not a military Land Rover it was a Police one, although no doubt the tank has been constructed from components used for military contracts. Even if a new tank appeared I would prefer to use the present one. The bottom rotted out & I had to cut it off in order to extract the tank through the rear boot hatch. An owner of a Mk3 has said he dropped his tank down through the chassis, but this is not quite feasable on my Mk1. So the replacement base, which is still in good condition, was fitted to allow an inch height reduction to allow easy removal. In manufacture the tank was fitted to the chassis then the armoured body fitted over. But the way things are going I think I might use Metal Ready then PO15 http://www.frost.co.uk/productList.asp?catID=25&frostCat=Tanks Not sure what to do about the filler tube. I’ve degunged the worst, now I need to wire brush it but not sure if there is a problem with bare unplated steel in contact with petrol? I don’t know if this is a standard part or not?

Graham, they are quite a way from me. But if all else fails they might indicate if its possible at all.

It's petrol

Yes but it wouldn't have been so much fun & besides I wouldn't have an excuse to talk about the structure of NSNs:-D

The correct NSN for a Canvas, shelter, end section is J1/8340-99-120-8577 Quite different from the Franklin's own cat no 8401-1201

Mark if it doesn't accept a charge it does seem likely to have failed for good. However I started a thread on these lines about 6 months ago. Various suggestions were made like special battery reconditioning tablets, ingenious but complex chargers - commercial & home constructed, a couple of people suggested just leave it on charge for a few days. I had three batteries that seemed to have died. So charging one at a time after a couple of days of being connected they gradually took on a charge, yet for over a day or two, there was no detectable movement of the ammeter needle. What is more all three batteries held their charges for several months when I next tested them with the discharge voltmeter. One is in a tractor, the other in the Shorland & the other is spare. I wouldn't want to use one as part of a 24v set up as there you are relying on the batteries being of equal characteristics. So I think you are right to buy both of those. Not as cheap as you might get at a vehicle show, but you need reliable batteries now. Be mindful that some batteries have terminals & some have bolt on lugs. Also the position of the terminals can vary. These variations are often denoted by a suffix of some sort. But I should think you have some scope for latitude.

Mark the batteries originally specified were a pair of Lucas GV9A. These are no longer available: http://www.lucas-batteries.com/tech_spec/Car_battery_specifications.pdf But the properties were 44 a/h. 038 implies a battery that is 38 a/h http://www.tayna.co.uk/batterygroups/45/038-Car-Batteries-page1.html 265A is the current it can give when cranking a cold engine So I am sure what you have will be alright. More important is the state they are in & whether they can attain their full charge & hold it until needed. You can fiddle around measuring the specific gravity of the battery to assess charge status, but a most useful guide is from a voltmeter that puts a load on the battery like this: http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/cvt1-battery-tester/path/battery-chargers-engine-starters-2 Using just a voltmeter gives no indication of battery performance under load. Although a way round this would be to connect your ordinary voltmeter across just one battery crank it over & see if the battery does a reasonable job at keeping the volts up. Then do the same to the second battery. If you found the first battery a bit low just try it again as the first cranking will tend to draw the heavier current.

Andy I don't think the part no has been shortened, I think that is the Franklin part no. It doesn't resemble a NSN even a shortened one, which would only have 7 digits. It would be unprecedented to have a part NSN like this that splits the 2-digit NCB, which anyway for the UK would give "9" as the start digit. Why not e-mail/phone them & ask? http://www.franklin.co.uk/

J&S Franklin were the pioneers in CP tentage. They developed the Land Rover 12x9 tents before they were reduced to 9x9 & I believe make newer "Wolf" versions. TUM fair enough & if it was for LWB Wolf it would be TUM(HS) Might it be Tent Universal Marquee perhaps? But I wonder whether this is a production military item at all because of the part number: 8401-1201 which is preceded by their initials. Suggesting it is the manufacturer's part number. There is a horrible practice of using the back end of a NSN, which destroys the uniqueness & defeats part of the object in providing not just a national identifier (NCB) but the NSC identifies the type of product & broadly its area of use. So if you have the NSN of 13 digits & remove the NSC that leaves the NIIN. Remove the NCB (99 for UK) then you are left with the "non-significant number" of 7 digits usually expressed as 3 digits + 4 digits. But here we have 8 digits 8401-1201 ie 4 digits + 4 digits. If there is no NSN to be found I am not at all sure this is an issued military item. I have the User Handbooks for 12x12: Shelter GP Shelter GP Extension Shelter, Portable, Mobile Air Movements But none of them have any components with any codes like 8401-1201 Can you try erecting it, to see how it looks when strung up against something?

Now you know why I haven't gone rusty - despite rumours to the contrary.

Degsy thanks, I had a look there. It seemed interesting until it got to the Fertan bit. I used it when it was first launched & recall it had a pleasant sweet aromatic flavour. Whether it worked or not I didn't know. But it was a major point in advertising that the product had been used to preserve the submarine Holland 1. But that turned out not to be successful: http://www.rnsubmus.co.uk/holland/conservation.htm There was a thread on MLU about using electrolysis to remove rust. I must revisit that, but I was hoping there was a plating company around that might remove the rust & then reverse the process by sending metal back into the surface of the tank again!

So that's in the order of £500, my only experience is a £25 one from Argos.

Has anyone got their fuel tank electroplated? I know that one could buy a new tank but this is for a Shorland & is not a normal tank, so I want to preserve what I have got. About 20 years ago the bottom was rusted out & I had it replaced professionally. An inch of height was lost but this was a good thing as it meant the tank could now be removed from the vehicle rear hatch. (On manufacture the tank is fitted then the armoured body lowered on) It is about to be steam cleaned the lower half is good as it has been preserved by petrol goo that has formed over 12 years. But the upper half internally has rust. I know there are sealer fluids that can be rolled around inside to stop leaks but that isn't the problem here. So are there treatments chemical or electrical that can remove or deactivate the rust that permit electroplating? What led me to think on these lines was that the filler tube/filter is fairly rusted. Wire brushing it would be of short lived value I can't cover that in gunge preservative. So I thought about electroplating then I thought why not the tank as well?

Every year I ask NOT to be given anything. But none the less I got given things of limited practical use which I have in effect had to pay for. My present to me was a LCR meter, which is meter for measuring inductance, capacitance & resistance. I had previously achieved this with separate devices based on a Wheatstone bridge. But this thing is much easier to use. Although it is common knowledge that most ignition coils have a resistance of 3 ohms, I now see they have an inductance of about 12 mH (milli Henry). Of more significance perhaps is that the total capacitance for an individual plug & its HT supply on a B Series engine is nearly 300pf. That is where some of the HT goes in a screened system - charging up that capacitance! Of slight relief is that the equivalent reading on the Shorland is 200pf. But that is not good as the Shorland is a 12v system unlike the B Series that, although it runs at 12v, is supplied with 24v via resistance that helps offset the effect of the inductance in the coil. BTW has anyone measured the inductance of the HT winding? I can only read up to 20H on this meter & most of them have 20H as the upper limit.

Fair enough, wasn't trying to nitpick for the sake of it. But of course if the two batteries were in parallel at any time they would balance out the voltage by the stronger discharging into the weaker. As for the automatic "intelligent" chargers I agree with you. They are anything but intelligent & they get into their mind that the flat battery is "charged" there's nothing you can do! 6v is a problem these days. I was lucky enough to buy a Danish Army generator made by Honda that is 6/12/24V only & giving up to 20A. Nice little thing just the job for topping up batteries for a short while in the morning or going off to a shed to revive a vehicle where you have no electricity. One thing I don't understand is the H&S requirement that is often stipulated at shows. A generator such as this, which is exclusively low voltage & from which I could not electrocute myself, why must it be earthed with a spike into the ground? From a H&S point of view, in this instance just seems to increase risk of tripping over the spike or its wire!

Adam, would you really want to stand upright with (six I think) IRA gunmen within range?

Not really because if one battery is undercharged, by say using a take-off to run a 12v radio/CD player, then it needs more more current to flow into it. This current has to get there by flowing through the other battery. When this other battery is fully charged it can't pass any more current, so the weaker battery doesn't get charged up fully. Provided one doesn't take liberties by pinching 12v off then in principle always charging them in a series at 24v should be satisfactory. Unfortunately things don't always work out like that. Although I never pinch 12v off (as I have 24v radio/CD player) I had two 'identical' batteries same make, type & installed at the same time. I noticed after 3 years that one was not doing so well & despite the charging from the vehicle & supplementary top ups at 24v, this one battery would not maintain its full charge. That could only be realised by charging the weaker battery at 12v from time to time. The trouble was that I would forget to do this & inevitably the weaker battery became weaker because it was mostly (unless I topped its charge up at 12v) undercharged & eventually died. The other battery a year further on is still performing well in a 12v vehicle. So this one battery clearly let me down after 3 years & my lack of attention to its 12v needs accelerated its downfall. Although I have now put two new 'identical' batteries in the vehicle, from time to time I just check that they are behaving as equal partners. BTW, there were when I last looked, 13 companies selling 24v radio/CD players on line in the UK. You need to compare prices as there is quite a difference....but actually all these different companies share the same address!