Great War truck

Moving on now to the Pedal Shaft and the Pedal Shaft Brackets – this will be another job very shortly out of the way. The one very poorly Pedal Shaft in our possession was given to us many years ago by Ron T of Runcorn – Ron had recently completed the “J” which is now owned by the Hampshire County Museum Service and the handful of bits and pieces which he had left over after his restoration, he very kindly passed on to us. You will see from the picture that the Shaft needs some significant work on it to bring it back to life where one Pedal had been broken off and was missing altogether. Steve is making up new bits to replace the missing ones which will be welded to the broken stump in due course. We did not have the Brackets to hold the shaft to the chassis and from information previously gleaned from other “Thornys” and from the Parts Book, drawings and patterns were made so that new ones could be cast and machined up.

and "may". 9,500 sailors! Wow a big cruise liner indeed.

Cone on Degsy, get with the program. http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?55542-All-change-at-CMV

In the latest CMV is an add saying coming soon for new Jeep engine blocks. There is an advert for them on their website. Anybody know anything more? http://www.jeepsudest.com/boutique/4-moteur-jeep-mb-gpw-m201/3163-bloc-moteur-l4-134/

I have heard that Ian Cushway is to leave CMV and is moving on to pastures new. The replacement editor will be John Carroll who you will know as the previous editor of Windscreen and is also the editor of Classic Land Rover. I am very excited as I think we would all agree that CMV needed a new direction and John having an excellent background and enthusiasm is just the person to take it forwards. I am looking forwards to renewing my subscription.

It looks like it had a speedo Not a military fitting I would have thought.

I have not seen anything like that before. I cant see how it works. Must be something for one of the machine tools. Have you got a copy of the American car and foundry company history?

24,500 Euros? Ridiculous. Could buy a complete restored truck for that amount.

I think that axle has been on here before. Cant remember what we said it was. Something quite unusual I think.

Described as a "Combination cutter and drill grinder". Steve will be able to explain.

This is the only photo that I have of the FWD workshop body floor. It looks similar but I imagine that the floor would vary from one type workshop to another. Can you see the location for fixing the machine tools? Perhaps we can work out which load it carried. Very lucky in finding a water pump for it. I am looking forwards to seeing this progress. Tim

I heard this too. A friend sent me a photo of it being loaded up in the USA for delivery:

Daimler at the front. Locomobile behind it.

Yes, I think Kissel only made 500 of the FWD trucks. Can you photograph the two lorry data plates from the scuttle/firewall. Thanks Tim

Hi Bob Nice to see that you have got it home. Not sure if I would have parked it on a railway line though! Very interesting to see that it has the American Car and Foundry data plate still on the body. The wood panels on the side are unusual. I assume that they are not covering up holes cut into the metal? As the side of the body folded down to form a working platform could it be for them to rest on something else to make it steady? Good luck with the restoration. Please keep us updated with progress and if there is anything we can do to help please ask.

Ron Harris's. Low estimate of £50 to £60K I think.

I like that. I would be digging ditches all over the place if I had one of those. Probably really annoy my neighbours though.

Hi Stuart So what models have you made of WW1 vehicles? Always interested in what WW1 models people make. Tim

I like the way he says that every item was used on D Day and the Normandy Campaign. I wonder if that includes the LVT's?

70,000 for one Jeep and 60,000 for the other. Interestingly, it does have the words "non verifie" after the hammer price so maybe it is not right.

These were then cut to their final shape from the “blanks”, but with the feet left over length to be finally cut back to their correct length when the Radiator is on as they must be accurately measured from the assembled job. Similarly the two bolting holes to the chassis can only accurately located from the job after the Supports are properly located. The two photographs of our chassis show the original bolting holes in it and will also give some idea where the Supports go.

With all the constituent parts of the Radiator now completed, painted and with Gaskets cut ready for assembly, we await the arrival of the other members of the team to put them together and then finally mount the finished Radiator on to the chassis. In the meantime, there are two other small parts to make and prepare, ready for the fitting of the Bonnet covers and these are the small almost triangular pieces described as “Brackets holding front bonnet rest angles” in the Parts Book. Two photographs of the same parts in the Carlton Colville Thorny are attached. These have been sketched out by Steve for Tony to make. Two “blanks” were obtained from the local sheet metalwork firm and bent to 90 degrees on their big Press.

All Peerless trucks had a name badge on the front cross member much like this: The first Peerless trucks had the US importers name on the plate which can be seen on the Bovington armoured car. These state “Peerless Gaston Williams & Wigmore”. The Bovington Peerless has both versions of the plate. The original under the armour and a replica(?) on the outside. The original is very hard to see though unless you lay on the floor and look up under the armour (which of course I had to do). Peerless initially put a second plate on the rear cross member but they seem to have stopped doing this quite early on. All but one of the chassis I have seen do not have the mounting holes for this plate. As I said earlier, we were very lucky to have a Peerless plate on the next chassis which was in super condition. Shortly before we purchased that chassis Steve found another one at an Autojumble (in Newark). After purchasing it Steve told the seller that it was going to go back on a Peerless lorry, but the seller was unimpressed with this. Maybe he thought he had missed an opportunity to charge more money? Both have made handy wall decorations for the last 20 years. Looking forwards to putting them on sometime soon.

We then heard of another Peerless which had been just found on Salisbury Plain underneath a bungalow which was being demolished. It had been saved by Alan Valance who was looking for a good home for it. It was just a rolling chassis with no drive train at all, but the chassis was in very good condition. The wheels had been sitting in water though and had rotted through at the bottom. We drew upon the kindness of our friends to unload it: The chassis was in great condition although it had been bent during recovery, but we can fix that. We took off everything that we could, sandblasted it and tucked it away for restoration. Didn’t realise that we would take so long before we would start on it. I think that this was chassis number 5. One interesting thing which is only visible on the 3rd photo is that it still had its Peerless name badge on the front. Despite all the chassis that we had bought this is the first one with a name plate which we had found.

Very small world sometimes. Quite incredible.