Great War truck

Oh, I just remembered. I would put money on it being an Opel.

AMK is Artillerie Munitions Kolonne AMKK is Artillerie Munitions Kraftwagen Kolonne perhaps?

I hope we can help, but what sort of FWD are you making? British, American or Russian? What period? What type of body? The variations are enormous.

I think you will find that they are exactly the same. Just the springs are different. There was a LWB Peerless chassis, but that might have been a pre war build, or possibly a Slough built one.

The left hand wheel was fitted in the same way although there was a lot of messing with bearings to get a proper fit without the wheel fouling the hub or oil seal. Success was achieved in the end and the chassis lowered to the ground. The hubcaps were then fitted and all is well. The opportunity was taken to fit the track rod and set it to length before tightening the pinch bolt. That has now been removed again for finish painting ready for the final installation. There are two brass covers to be fitted over the top of the king pins but, unfortunately, we have only one original. Steve has spent today trying to spin up another but without success. He will be on here shortly, looking for some advice. In the mean time, he has fitted some engine parts which Father has painted recently. The valve cap locking bars and the fan mount and drive pulley.

Steve has had the good fortune to be in Devon this weekend and we decided that this would be the ideal opportunity to fit the front wheels. They started off by fitting the new ball joints. They were simply knocked into their holes, done up tight and split pinned. All very satisfactory. In the mean time, Father fitted the tyre size plates, which had fortunately survived. Then it was a case of fitting the wheel bearings and trying to set them up with suitable end-float. They went through the stores to see what we had by way of thrust washers and the thickest two were selected. These went on first followed by the new bearing and the outer washer. The outer washer had to be bored out to fit over the new main bearing and skimmed to thickness. Then, after lubricating the components with steam oil, the wheel was simply lifted on and the locking collar fitted and pinned. The resulting installation was absolutely solid! Steve skimmed another 0.015” from the washer and success! I would mention here that ‘simply lifting the wheel on’ is easier said than done...

It states in Barts Army vehicle Directory as wb 12'7", 23'0" X 7' 10" X 10'6" I hope that helps, but I think it probably wont be much of a help.

Certainly is. Nicely colourised photo. The headlamp has been reversed to prevent damage to the glass. Probably resulting in him driving off the road in the dark.

The levers and the remains of the tube which were still brazed together were sand blasted, just to clean them up and to make them nicer to handle. They were then placed in the Milling Machine and the remains of the tube were bored out. We now have the two levers, original parts – although quite wasted but are deemed strong enough to be used again.

At this stage, we found that the two arms were attached to the tube by brazing and that there was no mechanical fit.

With the centre section of the tube and bar removed, we simply applied some heat to the small ends with the levers and twisted them off the remains of the steel bar which were still held in the chassis.

One of the minor jobs that we have picked up from time to time, in between the more immediately important and major jobs was the recovery of the two “Brake Levers on the Compensating Sleeve”. The Hand Brake linkage was still in place on the chassis under the Shepherds Hut but was extremely rusty and mainly beyond recovery. We were optimistic that the Brake Levers were good enough to be used again if they could be recovered. The compensating shaft consists of a length of 1 1/4” diameter steel tube through which is inserted a length of 1” diameter steel bar which runs across the chassis – the 1” bar is held in a casting at each end and the tube must turn on the bar when the brakes are applied or released. The tube and its inner shaft were both bent and rusty and there was no way of getting the inner shaft out of the tube – so it had to be cut.

Where and what is the chassis number? I see a data plate on the scuttle. What does that say. The shape of the scuttle is very similar to those used by the American Field Service as opposed to the Medical Corps of the US Army. If you have not already done so do a Google search under American Field Service ambulance and compare the images. Super find though. Good luck.

You don't hang around do you?

What a load of horse manure. Hopefully no legitimate buyer would fall for that (or I would like to think so). Yeovilton is a secret place? Has a very nice museum open to the public. Surely he could drive the Jeep across the road into the museum car park for photographs. Ask him why he cant do that?

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The original bushes have a number of holes to trap and transfer the grease. Although their position is not critical, the holes could more easily be located with the use of a dividing head. Steve is very fortunate to possess such an item and soon set them up and drilled them through. That’s another job ticked off!

We are still pressing on with the front end as we really want to get the wheels on. As Steve has bored out the wheels, we need new bearings to suit. These are plain bronze bushes so Father started off by cutting two lumps from a £195- piece of bronze. He then put them up in the Colchester to bore them through including a chamfer to clear the radius on the stub axle. As the Myford has a better chuck, he mounted them with the jaws inside and a plug in the end supported by a centre before turning the outside. A quick check in the wheels, just to make sure and the two were passed to Steve to add the grease hole.

That is very funny.

That's great. You could never use it though? Steve Rivers has one down at Cold Ash which I have admired in the past.

I certainly agree with that sentiment. If I was sitting up in bed with my laptop to read a magazine I might as well sit up in bed with laptop to do some work. The new editor said that he was going to make the magazine just WW2 with a bit of post-war (although saying that he has published an article on Model T's this last Month). As he has not printed the two articles which I sent him I have taken my keyboard elsewhere and have just had a 6 page article published in Vintage Spirit - this time on the WW1 Fiat 15TER truck.