fv1609

True but not comparing like with like. The civilian figure includes half a tank of fuel whereas the Lightweight includes two fuel tanks both full. Not to mention a FFR with a second battery, a generator panel, a heavy generator, pioneer kit etc. But it does seem a paradox I know:)

Mark welcome. I'm glad you are developing sensible tendencies. Text book fuel consumption on road for Mk 1 is 9mpg. I did manage that sometimes on the one I have just sold. But the one I am keeping is slightly under that & that is with electronic ignition. Heaven only knows what it is for a Mk 2 which has nearly 2 tons more armour. But once you have got used to the ball park figure, just accept it, relax & enjoy it. I prefer Mk1 apart from all that weight, there is less room in the rear of a Mk2 & generally a Mk 1 will not have the barricade ram & servicing is a bit easier. Yes there is that one on milweb, it has been around before & has some signs of non-originality. There is actually a Mk1 for sale in Dorset. It was made into a Mk2 & has been retro converted pretty well; you would have to look pretty closely to spot this. Wherever possible try to buy locally, because you have to think transportation costs or at least fuel bill if you decide to drive it home. I wouldn’t want to drive a great distance with a new vehicle like that if I had not owned one before. Absolute essentials: 1. Good engine or one that runs & has reasonable compression on all cylinders 2. Good tyres - not bald, not split & not cracked. You cannot buy new original runflat tyres. So if the tyres are ropey, I think that wipes £1000 of the value. 3. The rear axle is not broken ie it can be driven with 4WD lever in 2WD position over a few hundred yards without funny noises. Bodywork is not that important it can be fabricate & instruments, lights, dynamos, starter motors etc can be obtained. Lovely as pigs are, don’t fall in love with a vehicle & allow it to distort your judgement. If sometime you want a pig indoctrination/what to look for I can show you mine – I am, near Salisbury. But I think the one for sale in Dorset would be a good one to go for rather than the ebay one. Always worth asking about the servicing procedures of the owner as a lot of servicing forgotten about, which may have later consequences. Below is a list of things to look for I have on file as the question you posed has cropped up before. Although to lubricate the points around each wheel station, it is best to get the wheel off. Depending on the Mk & mods there can be up to 9 lubrication points per wheel & appx 50 lubrication points in all. There are no clutch cylinders to worry about, there is just a pedal that goes via a chain to the clutch! Now that I have electronic ignition it runs very sweet. Much easier to work on than a Land Rover. It doesn't have the awful Girling brake system; it is Lockhead & is much easier to bleed. My advice on buying one is to have the engine run up, and then do a compression test. See what state the plugs are in if any are oiled up or rusty! The head gaskets tend to blow between 2 & 3 and 4 & 5. The gasket is narrowest there & the other problem you cannot get a 9/16 socket on the studs on the exhaust side of the head to torque it down properly. Of the 39 cyl head nuts the row along the exhaust edge have to be adjusted by a box spanner & a 6in tommy bar. Which is not very scientific, but that’s what Rolls Royce & Army advice. Check the engine oil level is correct. If low - not being serviced. Or high does it look watery? or is it thin & smell of petrol? As it was intended to wade if the fuel pump diaphragm fails fuel is dispensed into the sump. I once had this & the explosion blew the dip stick 30ft into the air. Check the exhaust manifolds are not cracked or gaskets blowing. Check the exhaust down pipe is ok replacements are now extinct it is not easy to make it goes close to shocker & has to have an asbestos heat shield. Build into the value if there are good tyres, they are difficult to get hold of. Check that it moves in 2WD from the rear axles. As broken shafts & tracta joints were a problem. Sometimes pigs are sold with a broken rear axle but is put into "4WD" but is only then running on the front axle! Ask the owner to describe how it has been serviced, including the injection of OIL into the tracta joints as described in the handbook. Very commonly a lot of servicing is not carried out & the Pig abused. When lubrication is done it often has grease injected into all the lubrication nipples. Not all are grease nipples some are oil nipples. If you don't get sense from this scrutiny. Does not bode well for past care of vehicle. One of those two MV mags advised to check that there are no oil leaks. I disagree, if there aren't some oil dripping you may find that there is no oil left inside I would undo the filler bolts on each diff & feel then that there is some oil in. If not its not being serviced or if it is then there are problems. Check that the transfer box level is ok & that it has not flowed into the rear diff. Check the oil doesn't have a silvery appearance ie as in mangled gear wheel. Check the gearbox level, this should NOT have gear oil it should be SAE30 engine oil. Look for evidence of off roading; check the torsion bars are not corroded. There are painted with rubber paint. But this will flake off in places & particularly if it has been off roaded there may still be mud/crud eating into the torsion bar with dangerous & expensive consequences. Look inside & under the fuel tanks for signs of crud, rust & leakage. Make sure that if it has old petrol in it (6 months or more) that you pump it through & discard it. I had an exhaust valve tappet shatter from old fuel which caused a lot of work to replace & remove head etc. Forgot to say about prices. For reasons I don't understand they are valued below what I think they deserve to fetch. But I think £3k is pretty much top whack, in the US the rarity value increases the price & someone over there was asking over £10k for one.

Here is the spec as in 1969

The Heywood Williams shelter detailed earlier was dated in 1973, no mention of NBC protection. However by 1976 they were producing the Mk 2 shelter with claims for NBC protection and note it is now referred to as MEXE.

Nope.

Perhaps they were just trying to be polite :cool2:

Here's a bigger one for you Tony, set up as a Regimental First Aid Post.

FU! the earliest one I have found:

Ah well you can't always find everything on Google. It does it so fast if it produces no hits, I often feel like asking "Are you sure? You can't have searched everything in that split second?" Anyway my analogue search here took a couple of days but I knew I had something. Improbable as the shelter might seem I think it was based on components supplied by Heywood Williams in the early 1970s. Supplied in man-portable kits various configurations could made to suit the circumstances for a forward shelter. It was said to be safe against small arms & machine gun fire & against all but direct hits from shell fire. So Neil was it something like this?

Obviously 4/7/80 was the delivery date to Hilton & you can see it was a month before it was put on the computer system. CON probably means conversion to a data system from a manual one. I have seen ADP interpreted as Administrative Data Processing but in Ordnance usage it means Automatic Data Processing. The ADP was originally VESPER (Vehicles, Equipment, Spares, Provision, Economics, Repair). This later developed into SALOME (System for Accounting & On-Line Management of Equipment). Vehicle depots were equipped with ME29 computers with the main frame at Bicester. Further changes took place in 2005 with the introduction of JAMES (Joint Asset Management & Engineering Solution). JAMES acts to: Store equipment documents, details of use, servicing, inspections, faults etc Allocate equipment daily & future commitments Forecast inspection & servicing requirements Allow tracking of equipment & where it is needed Hold records of driving & specialist qualifications. That was JAMES 1, which should be completed by Nov 2009. This year saw the introduction of JAMES 2 which should be running by Sept 2010 this adds: RN & RAF vehicles Deployable system into the field Engineering function to manage repairs & mods Linking with other systems, including supply chain

Often interpreted as that but no & although that's what it amounts to, actually in Ordnance usage VSD = Vehicle Sub Depot

High gloss DBG can't beat it & real galvanised finish (silver paint never looks right). Well done for taking a rear shot as well, nicely in context including the RAOC caravan. You were obviously impressed, so did they manage to recruit you then?

Can't remember who made mine, Trailer, Cabin, Simulator, Radar Target No.2 Mk 1, 2-Ton built 1962 part of Yellow River radar for Red Shoes that became SAGW (Thunderbird)

Ivor there is such a unit in a WOT at RAF Cosford Museum, but I couldn't bring myself to look at it too closely:shake: http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/cosford/collections/vehicles/vehicle_info.cfm?vehicle_id=21 Maybe the archives of the RADC at the Army Medical Services Museum might help. Are you sure about the reg no? http://www.ams-museum.org.uk/

RSN8 are fine, they were specified for Rover 10 & 11. See page 22: http://www.hmvf.co.uk/pdf/IGNITIONMATTERS.pdf

I can remember when HMG boasted that they had abolished Purchase Tax, which seemed to be on big purchases like cars. Then this VAT thing appeared on nearly everything at 10%. Then it increased to 25% for leisure items. That hurt because I remember I had just agreed to buy a caravan & the price suddenly shot up. The silly thing was some electronic components were previously 10%, but some components rose to 25% because they might be used in a TV set or a gramophone! Oh how wicked getting pleasure from a high voltage capacitor! There were lists provided for resistors, capacitors etc that were for normal electronics & those which might find their way into equipment used for leisure purposes. But I was using the 10% rated components for amateur radio, which was leisure. So was I cheating the taxman?

I was at an establishment recently. A worker told me that an inspector informed him he had just infringed the Materials Handling Policy by lifting a small oil drum. It has to be a 2-man job, he replied if that is so, why is there only one carrying handle? The answer it seemed was to empty some of it out so as to comply, but to do that somebody has to pick it up...... & so it goes on. I just wish if any of these issues end up in court, which is presumably the final sanction of infringements, that a judge would have the courage to say "Oh for goodness sake, don't be so damn silly."

Maybe you have something slowly discharging the system? Have you a battery isolator switch fitted so that you can kill battery power when not in use? Put an ammeter in series with a battery lead with everything turned off & see if any current is drawn. Or easier still use a clampmeter like this: http://www.digital-meters.com/Tecpel-DCM-033-Clamp-on-Amp-Meter-p-16509.html Just open the jaws & clamp it over one of the battery leads you can test leakage current, measure current drawn by lights, starter etc & of course measure current going into the battery when charging. Amazingly this is a problem on wife's Hilux Surf. There is a constant leakage of at least 0.1 amps. If the thing isn't used for a few days then in this cold weather starting is a struggle particularly with short trips, lights & heater on. So it never gets charged upo fully. So I have to top up the charge every couple of weeks in the winter. Ah yes could be a new battery. This new battery lasted a year, second new battery only "lasted" a year until I started topping it up in winter now its on its third year. If you go on the owners site you find it is a very common problem. But people "cure" it with a new battery, so it "must" have been the fault of the battery! Nobody seems to think about the discharge, so much for modern technology!

The problem for these people seems to be keeping things in perspective. The first H&S course that I went on was set to be a boring day. So much so that whilst people were settling down & chattering the lecturer put on a video. Unfortunately for me it was a football match which only compounded the intense boredom & resentment for being there. Not just having to watch football, but losing a day’s pay & having to pay to go on the course. Whilst we sat there chattering, gradually eyes became fixed to the screen & the conversation dwindled away as we stared at the screen to see smoke was engulfing the crowd in the stadium. What we were being required to watch was a football match on 15 April 1989 at Hillsborough Stadium in which 96 people died. Having softened up the audience we were told that there were no H&S policies in operation, no risk assessments etc & that was why H&S is important. Fair enough. But I contracted a H&S consultant to draw up a policy for me at work it all got rather silly. Legally I didn’t need one as I had under 5 employees, but I must have considered all the H&S implications of my business. But I couldn’t prove that I had done so unless I had a written policy, so the exemption meant nothing. He expected me to draw up a H&S committee of 5 members & post notices of our monthly meetings. Well I only had two employees. Various stuff like how often did the fluorescent light cover get cleaned. I said when it is dirty or if I see a dead fly in it. Although it was clean, as I had cleaned it the week before, that was invalid as I hadn’t a written protocol. So I was in effect guilty of not having cleaned it. By some irony a very much living fly flew at the H&S man, so I quickly dispatched it with a puff of fly spray. I thought he would be grateful but no, I had broken the rules as the fly spray didn’t have a COSHH label. Anybody could go into Superdrug can buy the same thing but apparently it is illegal to use it in the work place, even after hours if was just me & a fly there. I offered him a cup of tea, but he asked where would I get the water from? I showed him the tap but he said there was no sign saying that it was ‘Drinking water’. I said I would make up a sign. No that wasn’t good enough, “How did I know it was drinkable?” The fact that the flat above me & the business premises below used the same mains supply from our water supply company was not definitive proof that it was drinkable! I was advised to contact the water supply company seeking confirmation that the water supplied to my premises was fit for human consumption. The water supply company declined to do this and instead sent me a 14-page chemical analysis dated 2 weeks before. They suggested I seek the services of an analytical chemist to advise me on the suitability of the water for human consumption. This of course was only valid for the water drunk 2 weeks previously. I thought I would be pretty safe with sterile water in sealed glass ampoules. Although even this water ‘expires’ after a while & must be safely disposed of. But I suspect these water molecules have been on the planet for some millions of years without expiring. Anyway every substance I used had to have a COSHH data sheet & this includes the poor old harmless (unless it has expired!) water. The sheet tells you the action to be taken if you spill any on the skin or in the eyes. Yes it has to be washed away immediately …with more water. Now the dilemma is, do I wait 2 weeks for a report from the water company & the analytical chemist to report or do I open another ampoule of sterile water & wash it away ah but ……. That’s what devalues the whole concept of H&S into bureaucratic zeal & intrusion into the realms of common sense.:argh::argh::argh::

These pictures are dated December 1950

and now here's one that's understated! (well at least they didn't put 17 on the bridge plate)

"Army Badges & Insignia since 1945" by Guido Rosignoli 1973

Erskine produced two designations of similar generators in close succession (as the NSNs are very close) this EMER relates to 6115-99-209-3481 but what you have apparently is 6115-99-209-4550 - but can you check that? If you did happen to have a different or improved starter that would on show up as variation on the EMER covering the engine, the Erskine EMER would probably remain the same. Or it may be that one NSN is for the generator itself & the other for the "generator c/w repair kit" which the EMER quotes. As the various indexes POWER A 001 over many years don't list any other EMERs for the generator or the engine.

Here is a page from the EMER As you can see there is a catch, this EMER covers all the Erskine items, but the engine itself is a Villiers & that is covered in EMER POWER S 470/2 - S 479/2 ........unfortunately I don't think I have it unless I have it as a FEMER.