Great War truck

My current car is on its way out and i am looking for a replacement. I have got several different ideas in mind. However, my wife has suggested that because of the snow and ice we had this year that we should consider a 4WD. I suggested a war time Dodge but that did not go down very well. Anyway, my query is with modern cars, is 4WD really that much of a great help in snow and ice? The roads around me turn in to sheets of ice in Winter and some moron usually wraps himself around a tree early in the morning only to block me in the village. When the roads get bad i usually phone in, but if i have a 4WD then i really have no excuse not to go in - until of course i catch up with the early morning moron. What shall I do? Thanks Tim

Right. Now has anybody seen a large pile of tires?

Yes, Kempton Park is more likely, or possibly Rouen.

For a CB, are you sure? A CC should give 5 Mpg, compared to the FWD (the worst of the lot) at 3.5 Mpg. cant see a figure in the Automobile engineer for it.

I agree that 30 miles a day for five days a week would be exhausting for us (just doing London to Brighton for one day in 365 is exhausting), but i think these drivers had to do a great deal more. Ron Harris has leant me his wifes uncles memoirs (he was an ASC lorry driver from 1915 to 1919) and he refers to a hundred miles a day journeys. In addition he gives a fuel consumption of his Daimler CB (two ton) as between 18 and 22 gallons miles a day. A document I found at the IWM gives an average fuel consumption of the CB as being 13 mpg. So that equates to between 234 and 286 miles a day. Of course the roads were all shot to hell and he may have spent a lot of time sitting in traffic so the actual distance travelled would be a lot less. It is very hard to find any good evidence of what the life of a lorry driver was like, but these memoirs are very informative indeed. Tim

What a picture! is that Slough?

We had a reshuffle of the MV's until we found an appropriate WW2 lineup: Followed by a Champ lineup: Then we moved on to Enstone airfield for another barbecue and some drinks in the flying club house: A brilliant weekend away and many thanks to everyone who came and made it so special. We will see you all next year. Tim

The next day was warm and sunny (compared with the showers we had had the day before): As we were getting ready to go this Foden Drops squeezes in through the gate and unloaded: We then set out for our road run to Ditchley Park: Ditchley Park was used by Winston Churchill as a residence during WW2. It was believed that he was staying at Bleheim Palace, but he would go through the gates, transfer to a truck which would drive him out of the back gates straight to Ditchley. He used it for meetings and wrote many of his best known speeches here. The windows above the door was his office: We parked our vehicles outside the house and had a talk about the history of Ditchley. This site is not open to the public and it really was a major coup to be able to get in.

Thanks Chris. It was great to have you and all the Champ owners there. Here is another picture of the MT shed: or is the fire station? We went in to another shed, where John examined the electrics so we could work out how the building had been used. The roof was collapsing so we had to look in through the windows only. I said it was a mini airdisplay: This was I think a Super Sabre jet. It's speed was incredible as was the ability of the pilot. Quite amazing Then back to the club for a barbecue and prizes. Chris got the prize for coming the furthest (Brighton) and the Humber won the prize for most interesting vehicle.

The next stop was for lunch at the Mill Inn at Withington. This was a great pub and the staff were not at all phased by being invaded by such a large number of people in green who filled up the car park with MV's. Next stop was the airfield at Chedworth, where we lined up on the peri track and were treated to a mini flying display. Here you can just make out a Lancaster and Spitfire: A few of us went on to explore the buildings and came across this fine hut: And also this shed. We think it might have been a stores at one end and MT at the other:

Once again the North Oxfordshire and Cotswolds MVT had their annual road run and get together at Swinbrook. This year we had our highest number of attendees with 37 vehicles. On Saturday morning we set off for our road run. This had been organised by Don, Tony and Bill. Our first stop was at the village of Asthall Which is where the Mitford family (as in Adolf Hitler and Oswald Moseley fame) lived. We stopped while Bill gave us a brief talk on the history: Then we drove through Burford up to the Windrush airfield where we explored the control tower and had another brief talk by Bill on the history of the site: Then I went on to explore a pilbox which was in very good condition: I forget the designation of it but it has an AA position inside which you have to climb up to: A bracket for something on top. I see the person who took away whatever it was had carefully replaced the nuts: While up there Chris took an embarassing photo of me which i am sure he will post later on. Not sure what he is doing here. Some sort of hand gesture thing: Phew, he's going away now: Many more photos to follow.

This pic shows all of the pieces that were made up for the job including a lock nut and also a pipe connection. This was M12 x 1.5 one end and 5/8 UNF the other. The metric thread was non standard and a Dennis wouldn't have had a UNF thread on it so it was replaced with 5/8BSP. We did have to buy a special metric tap though. It was finally reassembled this evening Now there is just a water pipe to make before the engine can be run.

The pin to locate the float chamber lid was missing so that was drilled out and replaced. Then came the lid itself along with the bob weights and pivots. As you can see, the holes and the pins really had suffered some excessive wear and it was a bit of a puzzle to know how to tackle them. In the end, some bushes were turned up and soft-soldered into the holes before drilling through at the final size of 2.1mm. New pins were cut and crimped at the ends to retain them whilst the bob weights were reversed to wear on the other side.

The first part to be made was a replacement choke. The original had survived but had had to be cut off to remove it. A replacement was made and fitted. Next was the new mounting flange. Many years ago, Father had picked up a piece of brass from the local second hand tool shop for a few pence. It turned out to be exactly the right size and was quickly milled square, drilled and bored. Something we have only just found out was that Claudel (of Claudel Hobson) was French so the whole carburettor is metric. Now we are not tooled up for metric at all so it began to cause some problems. The mounting flange has an internal thread of 44mm x 1.5mm pitch. The only way to create this was to screw cut it so Steve had to go out and buy two 21 tooth gears for the leadscrew on his lathe. Oh well. They are now in stock for next time.

As you may have guessed, Steve has been working on the carburettor recently. We were very fortunate to be able to buy a whole (more or less) 32mm carb and and a 28mm carb body at the spring Beaulieu this year. Following that, a few weeks ago, another 32mm turned up on our old friend 'Ebay' and that was purchased very reasonably too. As it was complete, Steve decided to tackle this one. As you can see, it was pretty filthy but basically all there. First job was to strip it down and with a little heat, this was successfully accomplished. However, the bolting flange had the holes at the wrong pitch and needed to be replaced.The flange is screwed onto the body casting and then soldered but in spite of plenty of heat, it refused to budge so Steve decided to use it as a donor to rebuild the 28mm body instead which had the added bonus of being exactly the right size for the engine. After an hour or two with a rotary nylon brush in the pistol drill these were the components. More to follow.

Surely that leaves me on the right side of the tracks? Its the ones who live up the hill who are on the wrong side. Anyway, Tony had a very productive day today: So now we have a matching pair!

Thanks Richard. Those are great images. I think i have another one to add to the collection. I will try and find it. Tim

I see that Chet Krause is selling off "The most complete Jeep collection in the world". http://www.aumannauctions.com/index.php?subp=1&sct=2&pg=ap&pid=16579&ap_sub=fp he has some very interesting items there. He claims that his GPA restoration was "the most expensive restoration in North America" which probably is something that i wouldnt brag about (but that maybe because i am British). So, which in your personal preference is the one you would most like on your drive?

What a great picture Richard. Thanks. I understand that there are two potential "Y" Type lorry buses in the restoration pipeline.

Ah, you beat us to it. This is Headlamp Bracket Bending Former Mk 2! All it is, is the original Former with some 16 gauge mild steel wrapped around it to protect the wood from the red heat - and it works OK! We semi-straightened the "U" that we made yesterday by getting it red hot again, and then re-bent it around the Mk 2 former. We now have to make a second one for the other headlamp - hope it will be more straight forward now that we have "cracked" the method of doing it. The bottom of the narrow parts of the "prongs" will be fitted with collars where they join the taper, and I then have to make the "arms" which will be welded to the bottom of the "U's" to extend to fixing bolts on the chassis.

We had a go at the Headlamp Brackets yesterday. The first thing was to turn up to "blanks" for the part of the Headlamp Bracket. These were reduced to 1/2" diam at the end to take the fixing in the Headlamp and also a taper running into it. These were then to be bent over a former - but had to be red hot to bend easily, The former was (foolishly) made out of wood with a plate screwed to it to secure the end of the tube as it was being bent around. The wooden former was shaped to equal the inside of the "U". The steel blank had to be red hot to bend - but it became far more aggresive in burning the wooden former than we anticipated and consequently burnt itself deeply into the former - resulting in a tighter final radius than was required. The steel was very easy to bend around the former when it was red hot - but unfortunately, the radius of the bottom curve ended up tighter than we required and what was anticipated, just because the steel burnt itself tighter into the wood than we wanted, so that we ended up with a lamp bracket that is just too small! A steel former must be made up to correct this - the bracket can be made red hot again and beaten around the correct shape former.

I can't beleive that they would sell the whole lot off. if they sold just a couple of choice exhibits i am sure that would fund them for a year or so. On the plus side if they do sell everything off at least we will get to see some of it driving around rather than crammed into a dark shed.

The grommets were next. The plug was cut from a piece of ash and wrapped with foil this time and the same process was followed. This time the resulting blanks were shaped using the belt sander set at an angle to get the taper. The whole lot were then assembled into the tube using Araldite before being sanded to shape using a Dremel with sanding drum and finishing off by hand. A few holes were filled with Isopon and the whole lot was given two coats of paint. Another part ready to fit!

Dennis vehicles of this period guide the HT leads within a moulded cardboard tube mounted on top of the blocks and we are very fortunate that the one for our engine has survived. As you can see, it has suffered some damage in that one of the grommets was loose and two more were missing as was the reinforcing ring from the magneto end. Steve spent some time puzzling over how to repair it and eventually decided that replacement parts could be made by laminating thin card and then sanding it to shape. He started off by turning up a plug the diameter of the magneto end and then wrapped it with greaseproof paper to prevent the card from sticking. He then cut strips of card from a cereal packet, across the grain so that they wouldn't kink, and wrapped them around the plug in layers using a houshold adhesive to stick them together. The resulting assembly was then left with a rubber band around for 24 hours to harden off. A few minutes with some glasspaper and this was the result which was quite pleasing

I have seen some like that which sit in the spare wheel of a VW camper van.