Great War truck

A bit of snow here. The postman was 45 minutes late so i sent out mrs GWT to clear a path for him: Tim (too)

Just got back from Stoneleigh. None of the expected snow on the way back materialised so i should have stayed longer. Great to see so many HMVF members. I know some faces as well as names but putting them together will still be difficult. Find of the day - none Quote of the day - Catweasle "I thought you would be older". Purchases - not much really. A t shirt with the word "Iinfidel" and a trailer socket. Best part - meeting up with lots of nice people and old friends Tim (too)

Not quite. Here is a bit more from the same scene: "They handed him over to us, but we were so busy, a lot on, we put him in cold storage for a while, didn't we? Nearly a Month before we got round to him. Was it a month? yes, it was a Month, wasnt it? Finally we questioned him and when he recovered we questioned him again. We thought he might be an English spy. But he kept telling us he worked for SS counter intelligence. But we didnt beleive you, didnt we, mmm? No we didn't. If you have any more like him in the SS, I would keep him at home if i were you". Any ideas? Tim (too)

It is a fantastic site. Go on to Google Earth and type in Bicester. You can really explore the place. Quite amazing that it still exists unaltered. I would think that the sale price will put it out of the reach of those that would want to save it, so its future might be a bit bleak. Saying that, they are not allowed to build houses on the site and as a lot of the buildings are listed it might not appeal to the average land developer. If you are interested you can scroll to the South of the airfield and you will find one of the MODS biggest ammunition dumps. lots of train tracks dissapearing under ground. Built (or enlarged) by Italian POWs in WW2. Quite fascinating. Tim (too)

Jack Do you know since you posted that this morning i have had some very strange requests from some very odd people indeed. Tim (too)

Quite amazing. I knew nothing about this accident. Tim (too)

I think that means 2nd World War and beyond. But then again dont trust my mastery of the French language. I think there is a definite hardship in owning armour in France which explains their sale, but nothing about softskins yet. More likely that the French have suddenly realised that people are ready to pay a lot of money for this stuff and want to cash in before everyone changes their mind. Someone also told me that selling/buying this stuff can be used as a tax dodge and money laundering, but cant quite see how that will work. If it is money laundering it might explain why some of the prices have been so inflated. Tim (too)

Ok, here is another one (TV series, not film though). "How dare you come back alive"

You are not allowed to take cash. Money laundering rules. You will need a French bank account. Tim (too)

I had the same problem at Ikea. I quite like the house the way it is so hopefully, i will never have to go back there again. Tim (too)

I have got to say, that is a brilliant piece of work. i did an ESB helmet and mine looks really rough in comparisson. Tim (too)

Another very sad end.

Well Mountbattens is somewhere:

Thank you for your thoughts. What a nice bunch of people we all are. What sparked my thoughts here was i got well and truly flamed when i identified a mystery vehicle and someone else disagreed with me. I have seen similar flaming on other parts of that forum and it never makes happy reading and i have certainly never seen such behaviour on this forum and think that you have identified the reason why. I would say that the majority of us are either vehicle owners, or involved in restoration. Therfore we know what goes in to that and have built a mutual respect for each other as we all primarily have the same silly hobby. We support each other but more than anything we take the mick out of each other (but mostly out of Jack) and can laugh out ourselves. Thanks everyone. I will buy you all a drink in the club house later on - or alternatively, i left 8 cans of lager in the back of Jacks GMC, so do help yourself to one later on. They were in the back under one of the seats - have a good rummage around you are bound to find them. Tim (too)

My last bill, just before Christmas was 70p a Litre. I have changed to gas now. cant think why. Tim (too)

Oh i have seen the GMC quite recently. It lives in a shed just up the road. he has been doing some work on it for a little while now.

Ah yes, that would make more sense. Still, a star with 27 feet is well worth a bid.

Yes, here they are: As you can see we have been left with the one very pitted place, but all the rest is acceptably smooth and the brake shoe very adequately covers it. If we take off any more then the drum will be too thin - and of course the difference in the radii of the shoes and drum will be getting even larger. Even now, there will be a fair bit of differentiation for the Linings to take up so we need to order up thick ones.

Just came across this today: Amongst the many interesting vehciles there are some tractuers de semi-remorques which will no doubt excite Jack. Not much German stuff i see. What exactly is a "Vedette 27 pieds". My French would suggest that was a star with 27 feet? Any thoughts? Catalogue is available from end of feb. i will post some pictures. before you get too excited, remember rubbish exchange rate, 20% buyers premium and you cant pay in cash. Apart from that, happy bidding. Tim (too)

As a cost cutting exercise the toilet cubicles at the war and peace show were reduced in size. Tim (too)

I will look forward to seeing that. Tim (too)

The Brake Drum was badly rusted and had to be skimmed to make it useable again. Rusting very deep in one part and badly pitted there (it had probably been sitting on the ground for 50 years). Father took off as much as he dared, but some of the pitting is still visible - although the surface to come into contact with the Brake Linings is now smooth. The Drum is 12" in diameter - and fully stretched our Colchester Student Lathe with its 6" centre height.

I thought that you might be interested in seeing these photos of the transmission brake coming apart. All the bits totally rusted up and they were very diff to get apart. Usual extreme heat and thumping eventually did it but we found that the Hanger Pins were "mushroomed" at the ends following previous beatings and once we started to get them to move, they seized up again when the "mushroomed" head reached the hole in the casting. We had to cut off the end that we pushed out to get rid of the "mushroomed" bit and then were able to push them back the other way.

Just out of curiosity, who selected the description "The friendly forum". I had not really thought about it before, but occasionally having posted on other forums i am stunned at the amount of flaming, naked agression and abuse that goes on in them. This seems to be (almost) totally absent from this forum, so what makes us all different? I have met several members of this forum and would certainly have enjoyed a pint (if Jack paid) with all of them. On another military forum (the name of which i wont mention) i would think a pub meet would decend into a particularly unpleasant pub brawl with glasses and chairs being hurled across the room. So what is it that makes us different? We all have our particular field of interests, but saying that i would still talk about Landrovers, MTB's, Nimrods or even trucks from WW1 with anybody from this forum and can't imagine that anbody would be inclined to hit me with a brick in return. Are we all particularly broad minded, or is that we dont want to upset someone as that person might be the only person who has a stock of a certain type of vehicle part that we might one day need? Just curious (and if anybody wants to throw a brick at me i will be at Stoneleigh with a red carnation in my buttonhole and a full set of body armour). Tim (too)