Great War truck

Last year they took the Liberty and the Saurer to Ypres for the commemorations

The Liberty of Ian Morgan has come on some way now. Using many original photos of the wooden body being made we think that Ian and Ari have made a very accurate copy of the original

Hi Gary I know the owner died a few weeks ago. I will try and find out its new destination.

Dad cut the first of 12, 1/2" x18 UNS threads for the new larger nuts.. Went well

These are the new odd-ball nuts that I have made - 5/16" x 20 to hold the bronze fittings for the Cam Followers and tappets to the Crank Case - with just one screwed on to demonstrate.

These are the old nuts that were holding the cylinders to the Crank Case. Steve was hoping that they would be good enough to use again but I think that some of them are too far gone.

Have cleaned up or renewed the twenty 5/16" studs on top of the Crank Case so that they are now ready for the new nuts. Then start on the twelve 1/2" nuts which will hold the cylinders to the Crank Case.

Some more updates of things that have been going on. dad has been cleaning clutch parts

Not us. Steve and dad dint go and all I found was a nice pair of Dietz sidelamps. Didnt really need them but they were so cheap I had to buy them and when I showed Morgie he bough thtem off me for his FWD. I have not seen a photo of a British FWD with Dietz's before but they are single prong which is perfect for the FWD. I didnt see many lamps at all this year. There was a pair of Miller head lamps but they were ridiculously expensive. They have been for sale every year for about the last ten years. Maybe someone one day will buy them?

Just a short report to let you know what we have been up to during the summer months and the "Peerless" progress situation at the present. It was our hope that the Peerless chassis would be up on axle stands by this time, in our Lorry Shed but it is true that the more "toys" that you have and the more that you take on very much delays progress on new projects. And again, you may recall that we are somewhat limited by lack of space and it was our hope that by this time, one of the lorries in the Lorry Shed would have found "new lodgings" to free up some space for us to really get going on the Peerless Well things are starting to move at last. A good friend in Bedfordshire has very kindly offered to find a home for the Thorny for the time being - not only does this solve the accommodation problem for us, it means that it will then be much nearer to both Steve and Tim and this will give them the opportunity of using it more often. So we hope that the Thorny will be moving out next month. The Peerless chassis frame that we intend to use is stored in the Lorry Shed at the present, trapped in behind the FWD - which will have to be moved to get that frame out. Steve was fortuitously in Axminster yesterday and we started to plan the shuffle around to get everything ready for the move.. The FWD will have to come out - we are not ready to move the Peerless frame just yet, but as the FWD had not been started for over three years, we decided to move it out and to make sure that it still runs! Amazingly, it started on the second pull of the starting handle. We gave it a bit of a wash whilst it was out and then put it back for the time being. Other initial work has been going on, the 1/2" x 18 UNS nuts and the 5/16" x 20 UNS nuts replacements have been made - both mentioned in previous notes. Cleaning of other fittings has been started and we are making good progress with those tasks.

dad cleaned up the governor today. We wonder what sort of thread we will find on the bolts?

Yes, it has to be. Cant think of any other reason. Thanks Tim

that's interesting. The letter C has been turned 90 degrees for the second plate for the Crossley. Thanks More to think about here.

That is useful Guy. If we were to put an A on the Peerless for Alexandria what should the Arabic letter A look like. I thought it should look a little like the letter on the first plate (to the right of 140, but I cant a comparison to the Arabic letter. Any thoughts?

Looking at the number plates of the world website I have just worked out that on the WW1 trucks that C is for Cairo and A is for Alexandria. Obvious now I think about it. Here is a photo from the GWF forum which shows a motorcycle in Cairo in 1915.

A new "spindle" has been made up out of an off cut of EN8. The half-slot will not be put in it for the pinch-bolt until we can do a trial assembly - to ensure that we get that in the right place.

One of the two spindles is corroded and worn and part of the flange is broken off. Furthermore, the slot for the pinch bolt is very much over size and looks as if it has been attacked with a file at some time - it needs to be replaced

The strip down of the last parts of the engine is still to be completed and this awaits the arrival of the other members of the team in Axminster to do it. In the mean time, we have been having a go at some of the other parts. The Pedal Shaft was taken out earlier and this has been stripped down and sand blasted. This consists of two brackets to hold it which are bolted to the chassis. The brackets and the shaft are hollow and a steel "spindle" runs inside the bracket and the adjacent part of the spindle so that the shaft can turn on the spindle when the pedals are activated - a running fit, The "spindle" at the bracket end is locked in the bracket with a pinch bolt - 1/2" diameter with again a 18 t.p.i.thread on the end.

This is an interesting thread and I am disappointed that I didnt find this earlier. We were planning on restoring our second Peerless as one in the Middle East either Mesopotamia or Palestine. I found a couple of pictures of licence plates that we decided must be in Egypt and were attempting to replicate them. These are a bit different from what has been listed here previously, but a similar one has been definitely identified as 1915. Any thoughts or observations please?

Dad dug out of the garage the oil pump which we tucked away some years ago. It is a bit battered but is great to have the original. I dont hold out much hope of finding another one.

It was a good time to get the throttle pedal sandblasted as well.

Another chain that we have was so encrusted with guck that we dont think that the molasses would have had any effect upon it so this one was sandblasted. It needs to come apart now as a lot of the links are stuck.

They are also expanding the site to include a WW2 French village. I have copied Martins words from the Facebook page: The construction of our post D-Day battle damaged French village is well under way with the buildings now having emerged from the ground, consisting of a number of badly damaged cottages, a garage/petrol station and a NAAFI attached to the remains of a building. Across the village green is a period café bar which will be serving beers and wines etc. throughout the show. At the top of the village green is the music stage to be constructed shortly to resemble an open sided farm building flanked by rubble and period vehicles. The roadways of the village have been excavated and are awaiting the infilling of appropriate surfacing materials. There is still a fair amount of building to complete including rendering of the buildings, roofing of the bar and rubble infilling using our 500 tons of brick rubble currently stored on site. To the south of the village is the main military vehicle park and camp. All around the village area will be parked both military, civilian and French resistance vehicles of the era, which will depict a fascinating recreation of a French village of 75 years ago during WW2 after being liberated by the Allies.

It was originally the intention to demolish the WW1 trench system for 2019, but as it has proven to be incredibly popular it has been given a stay of execution and in fact expanded tp include an underground tunnel system. I do not think anywhere else in the world will you find a more extensive and accurate recreation of a WW1 trench system. Here are a few photos taken a some weeks ago of the preparation. I understand that they hope to have three MKIV Tank replicas together this year With Daemon II coming over from Europe.

Some of you may have seen that the Imperial War Museum have remastered their WW1 driver training film "The awkward soldier". It is actually very watchable and entertaining. Here is the link to the them. The third part is especially interesting as it shows a Peerless engine being stripped down at about 12 minutes in. Well worth watching https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060022731 This is part one of three. Parts two and three have clickable links further down.