Great War truck

The Heavy Aviation is an interesting although exceptionally ugly machine. One of my favourites in fact. Too much missing on yours but it would make a nice one out of this one: I cant remember where it was now. I will have task Richard Dunn who took these photos.It might be for sale if you are serious with the money? This one was in California but I have no idea where it went: Here is another one in France before restoration (which is well under way). Photos courtesy of AEF. A restored running example just sold in Holland for about £10,000. A bit of a bargain really.

Well Marcel, if you need another project, you are in the right part of the world! Yes, you are right. It is the same Liberty B. I am pleased that it survived. I hope it can be restored.

Well Carey, to get the transmission out of the museum you must have very good negotiation skills. Must be very satisfying that you have the right one. I have never seen a Liberty fire engine. Do you have a photo of it? Your Liberty certainly looks a lot better without that wooden monstrosity on the back. Your scuttle/firewall looks like it has a bit of a slant in it. What is causing that? Are all of the wheels wooden or just the front ones? Most survivors have metal ones so it is nice to see the early wheels. Here are some photos of another French survivor. I believe that it is located at an educational establishment of some sort:

My understanding is that these two Liberty trucks in France were purchased in order to make one good one. The wreck providing the wheels: This one looks to be a Willeme post war rebuild: Not sure if this is the end result or another example: These photos from the AEF forum.

This is the Liberty belonging to Blaster Mike in NZ. They were about to be cut up but Mike saved almost enough parts to complete one of them:

You may have seen Careys recent introduction here: http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?45855-steelman He is another WW1 Liberty B restorer and if my calculations are correct I can think of six under restoration at the moment. Rather than having a number of threads I thought I might bring photos of all of them together here. So far there has been Ian Morgans Liberty and the one restored by Richard Peskett (which might now reside in Bridgnorth?). So as to add to the story this is what Careys Liberty looked like when it came up for sale on E Bay: Hopefully he will be able to add some more photos at some stage. Another one is under restoration is at the Big Red One museum at Cantigny. I think they have a second one to restore when this one is completed. Here is the first: Another example under restoration belongs to Adrian Winget also in Virginia:

Yes, no problems. I know the feeling. Pleased to hear that you dumped the body. I imagine that most of it would have dropped off on the journey back to Virginia anyway. Interestingly, there are six Liberty B trucks under restoration (that I know about). Maybe we should make a thread of it under the pre WW2 trucks thread. Didn't Adrian compile a list of survivors? I think I can add to that a little. No problem with the plans. I will do you a copy. Regards Tim

A trial fitting. The 1” hole will have to be relieved at the face where the bracket goes through it so that the bracket can be pulled in tight – and a slot for a “feather” has to be filed in the top of the hole. And now the other side to do!

To get the 1” hole in the correct position, a bit of steel plate was drilled and bored out to 1” and clamped firmly in its correct position to act as guide. We have no facility to put the 1” hole there in one go and it has to be chain-drilled and then filed out – a miserable job in a restricted position with such a combined thickness of the rail and cross member to deal with!

Not a lot of activity on the Forum, these last few days – Steve has been busy fitting out and completing the final jobs in his “Motor House” and also drawing and scheming out the Thorny Radiator. We want to get that completed as soon as we can. A good friend has very kindly offered to shape and drill the top and bottom brass plates of the core on his CNC Mill and that has been a wonderfully kind offer which will save us a tremendous amount of time – and almost certainly do a far better and more precise job that we can do! Tony decided as a bit of diversion to have a look at and fit the Headlamp brackets – but what should be one of the simplest of jobs, as always, never seems to work out that way! The brackets have a 1” Whit threaded male part to go into a 1” hole in the chassis rail. We did not have any Headlamp brackets originally but very surprisingly and fortuitously found a genuine pair at the Banfield Auction last summer. From our collection of Thorny pictures, we knew exactly where they were fitted and when we got them home from the Sale, we expected to see a 1” diameter hole in the chassis rail in the correct place ready there to take them. They go in just behind the front support of the Radiator Defender – or “Bumper”’. The black and white picture will show you the fitting on an original lorry. Just below that top 1” hole for the bracket is a 1/2” rivet which helps holds the cross member to the chassis rail. The 1” diam shank of the headlamp bracket should go through the rail and through the cross member. But there was no 1” hole in our chassis rail and instead, there was a 1/2” hole which appears to have originally taken another 1/2” rivet – but that rivet and the equivalent one on the other side had already been removed.... We did not take them out and cannot really think why they could have been – unless it had been decided previously by somebody that Headlamp Brackets should be fitted there. So we are now faced with opening up that 1/2” hole to 1” in diameter to take the bracket – but even that is not straight forward. That 1/2” hole has been placed too far back and close to the cross member where it is– so if that hole was just opened up, there would be no room for the 1” Whit Nut to secure the bracket. So all we can do there is to put the 1” hole in its correct position but the 1/2” hole is so far out of position, there is no way that the 1” hole can take that one completely out and part of it will remain and run in to the 1” hole. However, the flange on the bracket will cover that when it is finally fitted.

I think I have one left. I will see if I can find it for Sunday. Tim

Yes that is the same ones. The reason I ask is that we have been approached to do another WW1 movie. We can not spend the time and of course having spoken to several friends who have done film work and hearing how the vehicles have been treated we do not trust leaving our trucks with anyone else. That means that films have to use replicas which vary in appearance from the OK to the awful. Just watched Warhorse again last night and thought that their Dennis looked ok while some of the others were a little mediocre. The AEC looks very nice indeed. I do hope that washes off easily.

What new WW1 movies are being made at the moment? I see CMV shows a photo of the two replica trucks used in Flyboys being painted grey as German vehicles. Is All Quiet on the Western Front up for another remake? Thanks Tim

Seems to be a bit of a bargain. Mind you I have never seen another one come up for sale. British WW1 stuff does seem to command a premium over the American stuff even an incredibly rare Heavy Aviation that is running. I wonder who bought it and what they plan to do with it.

Thanks for posting the pictures of the Heavy Aviation. It looks to be all there apart from the bumper and horrible wooden body.

This is a very exciting and interesting find. Great stuff. Tim

Thanks Howard There has not been much bidding so far and even then only on the small things, Dodge, Jeep Harley. I expect that the real money will turn up on the day.

Howard I have a friend who might be interested in the WW1 Heavy Aviation. It is described as running condition. Could you please have a look under the hood and see if there are any obvious horrors. Thanks Tim

Hang on. So what he is saying that MVT and IMPS members are scammers but those who are not members of these clubs are perfectly honest decent folk. I would be interested in seeing how he could back that broad assumption up.

Hi Rolf. Yes of course. I took those photos and am more than happy for you to use them. Tim

A thing of beauty.

Screw cutting completed – and it fits! Two more jobs to be done on it – the neck has to be silver soldered to the bolting flange and the flange then has to be reduced to 3/16” in thickness.

The Cap was then reversed in the chuck and held by the newly machined “hex”. Final outside diameters were machined and the inside bored out, ready for the final screw cutting.

The Cap on completion of the first machining.

And now moving on to the Cap! Again fortuitously, we had a bar end of 3” bronze in stock and a small length of this was cut off with the Band saw. The first job to do on this was to cut the “hex”. The outside diameter was machined down to just slightly in excess of the finished o/d of the cap. There is no Rotary Table at the Axminster Division so the “hex” was machined using the rotary machine vice on the Mill. Opposite cuts were taken first of all – the machine vice was rotated through 60 degrees to take two more opposite cuts and then finally, it was rotated a further 60 degrees to take the final two opposite cuts. It was essential to measure as the cutting progressed – the drawing specified 2.048” A/F – the bar was measured accurately in diameter at commencement of the cutting and with simple arithmetic, it was easy to work out when to stop cutting each time!