Great War truck

Yes, i had heard that Jack had bought the new "Time travel App" for his i-phone. Seems he is putting it to good use. I just found this photo and it seems he made his feelings known as the Japanese surrendered on the Missouri in 1945:

hard to say. What would a fully restored sherman tank go for?

Then a couple of friends turned up so with the extra hands available, they decided to try to broach the steering wheel centre. The plan was to pull the broach through by attaching a piece of stud and then just winding the nut down against a thrust washer on the end of a piece of tube. At the first attempt, after a handful of teeth had entered, there was quite a bang and the stud broke throwing the top end and spanner into the air. Everyone ducked! Mike then took the majority of the metal out with a file and they had a second go which worked. The hole has come out a little ragged but is OK and the wheel dropped onto the first 1/4" of the column with no problems. It just requires a final dressing out with a file before fitting it down hard. Finally, they used the countersunk bolts to fit the top rail onto the body and this week, Father has primed it all. Steve is pressing on with the hood bow brackets this weekend so hopefully we will have some photos of those tomorrow. We need to get the hood bows completed now, to enable the canvas to be made as we might have a lead time problem there. Time will tell.

As i have spent far too long reading books like "Where's Wally" and "Where's my Teddy" with my kids i thought i would start up a new thread entitled "where's Jack". Too much time on my hands? Well not really. Too much something, thats for sure:

Last weekend, Steve went down to Devon to join Tony for a bit more work on the lorry. They started off by fitting the last main body brackets. Steve then set up his forge to see if he could make up the hood bow brackets completely by hand. Unfortunately, he isn't good enough with the hammer yet to do this so he settled for bending up some blanks to file to shape instead. While the fire was hot, he took the opportunity to make up some countersunk coach bolts to hold the body top rail on. He simply heated up some opdinary cap-square bolts and hammered them into a previously made die. It worked well and he had six bolts in no time.

This rather splendid 1918 Holt 75 will be coming up for sale by auction on 16th April by Cheffins in Cambridge. I do hope that it stays in this country, but it is quite possible that it will cross over into mainland Europe.

Another one! i will have to go and take a look in Smiths tomorrow. I expect Ben knows about it. Engine? Gearbox? Diff? what else was there? i am a bit worried when you say "near the sea". How near the sea?

No dash, but an oil pressure gauge on the scuttle. Now that we have agreed on doing the fern (although we are still tinkering with the template), we are thinking of putting the club marking on it for food/forage transportation which should look like this: Any thoughts as to colour of the marking? Thanks Tim

Do we know who the new owner is and where it will go to live? it would be a shame for it to be restored as I like it the way it is.

Thanks Hedd that will be interesting to see. All the best Tim

Crikey. Thats a blow for you. Good luck with it. Tim

Outstanding work. Well done.

Our good friend Andy has drawn up the NZ emblem for us for the signwriter. He has done a cracking job: Just as a reminder, this is what we were aiming for:

Just to show that we are keeping Father busy: No - not a magic mushroom farm! Because of the difficulty in getting Imperial Coach Bolts in this country now, these are 3/8" UNC Carriage Bolts brought in from the USA. We have adequate 3/8" Whitworth Square Nuts which will fit. The impressed lettering that was on top of the bolts has been filed off so that the heads are left plain and the bolts then primed so that when they are finally fitted, they should be quite indistinguishable from old British ones.

Here is a rare pair of WD aluminum lamps: In excellent condition too.

Yep. Thats the ones. Where have they come from?

My understanding is that there was no second NZ Division until WW2. All references to WW1 relate to the "New Zealand Division"

Steve has made up the scuttle-mounting, hood bow brackets this weekend. The originals would have been drop forgings so he has tried to replicate their appearance. He started by rescuing some steel from a skip and turning the threaded ends. Then he had to turn the main length down on a taper. He did this by setting the tailstock of the lathe over and turning between centres using a drive dog and catch plate. Next, he dressed the ends with the angle grinder and cut the back plates out before finally welding, dressing back and painting. The overall effect is quite pleasing but once mounted on the scuttle, they will provide another hazard for unprotected heads!

In Banbury today. Two white scimitars on a low loader both covered in moss, missing weapons and looking very sad. For scrap or restoration?

The NZ ASC was formed in 1913. During WW1 it saw action just in Eygypt. Roy is probably right about British ASC's being attached to them: if we were to put NZ markings on the Dennis it would probably look a little like this: I think the "1" indicates the first NZ Brigade of the NZ Division. Not sure what colour the leaf would be or the roundel. Any thoughts or should i try the GWF? Tim

With the final painting and lettering of the lorry coming ever closer, Barry has amazingly come up with the original Dennis Stencil from his collection of Dennis memorabilia that was used in the sign-writing of lorries like ours with the instruction - "Load not to exceed 3 tons". It probably has not been used for well over 80 years and we will get tremendous pleasure in using it on our Dennis when we start the sign- writing! Great thanks to Barry for so generously providing this! How more original can you be?

That would explain the unusual uniforms and willingness to photograph the mangled remains of the driver. Fascinating website. I particularly like the enclosed Nash Quad and the AEC still showing the WD on the side. What route did these ex British lorrys come from? British expeditionary force to Russia, then passed on to the Whites before going to the Baltic states i imagine, or was there another way? Tim

yes, well identified indeed. How did you come across these photos? In M Youngs ASC book he refers to another lorry getting hit by a train and the driver later found to be sitting on the engines buffers several hundred yards down the track. No such luck for this poor chap. RIP.

Excellent news. I look forwards to seeing that one.

Thanks for your support guys. Every time we look at the number of new hits on this thread we get motivated to do a bit more to the Dennis so as to share it with you. So, everyone who looks at this helps us move onwards. We are getting close to the end now. After that, well it will be a toss up between the Thornycroft and starting a decking business. Anyway, further progress with the body building today. The six vertical braces on the sides have gone in - all drilled and waiting for coach bolts to be fitted and the top horizontal rails also fitted but awaiting final fixings. The two front braces - one to go on each front corner still have to fabricated. The access hatch has been cut and fitted in the floor. I have had to return home (luckily the pipes had not frozen) and Steve goes tomorrow. Plenty left for Tony to do - the four fitted steel braces have to be removed, de-rusted, cleaned and painted - and further painting work can start in between the other jobs which he has to do! The deadline for the Brighton Run is getting ever closer!