Great War truck

Did your bottle jack work in a horizontal position like that?

From the latest HCVS magazine: The special class for next year's Brighton run will mark the commemoration of World War 1. This basically will include vehicles from the WW1 era and those derived from the Subsidy designs up to 1920, and WW1 military vehicles in particular will be warmly welcomed. Well, we better get that in the calendar then.

This engine has just been retrieved (but not by us). There are no markings as to who made it. With the wealth of knowledge on here would anybody like to have a go at identifying it? Thanks

We were at last able to collect the piston castings back from our friend Andy W who has now bored them for the Gudgeon Pins. We also wanted him to shorten the old Gudgeon Pins by 3/16” to fit the now smaller pistons to suit the reduced bore of the engine as they will be used again. The Gudgeon pins are extremely hard and again, Andy was tooled up to deal with them where it would have been difficult in our Home Workshop. Andy has made a nice job of it and he has left the pins to a wringing fit in the castings. The castings will now be fitted to a truly running mandrel on the lathe to be reduced to their final outside diameter and have grooves cut for the rings as shown in an original piston in the final picture in this sequence

Where on earth did you find those? There were replicas at W&P for about £5 to £10 each. You have just found a gold mine - assuming you can find lots of willing customers?

I am sorry that there have been no new posts for a Month now. Things will start again very soon. Tim

Sorry. Holidays, work, planning a new shed and other distractions have slowed us down. Normal services will be resumed as soon as possible and it is about to get very exciting.

Last stop after the pub lunch and before going home was Bradwell Grove: Another transport command base

In the church at Down Ampney was a memorial to the DC3 crew who flew from there: A bit of a squeeze to get everyone on the road: Then back to the airfield where my youngest daughter had a run in the BRDM. She loved it, so thanks Ian: We had a barbecue followed by a prize giving and raffle in the control tower. Standing room only: On Sunday we drove out to Faringdon Folly where Bill explained the military history of the place and I played with my zoom lens Brize Norton in the distance:

At Fairford we stopped off at the edge of the runway. We weren't there very long before the MOD Police arrived to see what was going on. After they had checked us out they gave us a cheery wave and went on. Pub lunch at the spotted cow. A great car park! Then on to Down Ampney airfield where we had permission to on to the base. Large chunks of the runway had been lifted, but there was still a great deal to see. We then placed a wreath at the memorial: This was just inside the original entrance. All the buildings here are long gone:

As some of you will know we (the North Oxon and Cotswolds MVT) have our annual camping barbecue weekend at Swinbrook. This year we moved a few miles up the road to Windrush. We had a cracking weekend and thought you might like to see some photos of the event: Lined up outside Southrop airfield: Marshalling 34 of vehicles down the Cotswold lanes is hard enough let alone at harvest time when there are lots of tractors on the road: Super Tilly Reg's Jeep in its new colour scheme

Good stuff. What does your 1916 driving licence look like please?

It has been mentioned here before. It was made for a TV production I think where only the front would be visible so they were not bothered about getting the length correct. I guess that it would not fall under the description of a replica as such but a film prop.

I have not heard or seen anything about it on the French forums. I expect a lot of French trucks will surface next year for the centenary and I hope this one is amongst them. They do just keep on turning up in France.

Impressive pictures. Good job the MVPA convention was not in Liverpool this year.

Oh yes. Oregon of course, not Ohio. It looked ok in photographs, but I have never seen it in the flesh. Anyway, it is good that it has been saved and if there are things that need to be corrected later on they have a good starting point. But I would agree that it is best to do it once and get it spot on first time around. That is probably not too bad a price for the tires. When we were looking for tyres for our Dennis it was about £1,500 each for them. That equates to £9,000 or about $13,000. A ton of money. We settled on Polyurethane ones made by a Co that did forklift truck tires. I think we paid about £100 each for them. When we road tested the truck from London to Brighton (60 miles) we were concerned that they might disintegrate or drop off as they got hot but we had no problems at all. They are a bit shiny but otherwise seem to have the same properties as the rubber ones. The Liberty electric lights I know nothing about and wouldn’t recognise one if I saw it. I find it strange that they replaced them with those minuscule ones (by Dietz?). It does not look like they would provide much in the way of illumination. Helpful that you have your own stock of lumber (even if it is still growing). We had trouble sourcing the planks wide enough for the body sides. Now if anybody else is reading this and not fallen asleep yet this will finish them off. The plans show that for the body sides there are two planks of wood on each side each with a width of 25” and 3/16th. We went to great effort to find four bits of lumber that wide and in the end resorted to joining four lots of two planks together and using a sander to them making them look like one. The end result was like this, apparently showing two planks on each side as per the plans instead of the four we actually used: However, looking at all the photos I have now of the B type body (on Liberty’s and FWD’s) they must have had this problem previously as all had three narrower planks rather than the two wide ones. You will have to use the drawings as a starting point and compare them to photos to see if the drawings were modified in anyway as production started. Anyway, I will send you an e-mail in a moment. Tim

Wasn't that the one which was at Dieppe museum before that closed?

Scrapped it! You had me going there for a moment. I can think of one person who would quite like that. Those wheels look very nice. Where did you get your tyres made? Dread to think how much all six cost. Nice touch to use Cantigny white oak. The drawings say that “The sides, head and tail board and floor to of best quality yellow pine, poplar, cottonwood or gum. The side stakes, bolsters, sills, top bows and ridge pole may be made of best quality white oak, ash, rock elm or hickory”. The drawings for the B Type body were published in the Automobile in 1917. We became friendly with Gordon Clare who with Hayes Outapalik bought the old Furrer collection which included 2 FWD’s and I think 8 Liberty B’s and Gordon sent us a copy of these drawings. The drawings do have measurements but are a little basic so my Brother Steve sketched out the bits that were not clear or visible like the stake pockets. Overall he did quite a few drawings. We later provided these drawings to Steve McGeorge who used them on the Liberty he was restoring for the NG (was it in Ohio?). I am going to do a copy of the set to send to New Zealand. Happy to do you a set as well if you like. It makes perfect sense to save what you can from the other chassis. You never know what you might need. The Solar or CM Hall searchlight is as you say very rare. I managed to get one in the USA off a militaria dealer but paid a lot for it. A friend bought one on E bay for £300 a few years ago which was more than what we paid but it was in great condition. Have you got the gas generator for it? I have only ever seen one of these come up for sale and that was another £300 as well. All the best Tim

Great shed and nice collection. Is this the lot that featured in W&T about 25 years ago?

That is great news. I have not been up to the museum for some years, but always rated it as one of the best military museums I had been to. I had no idea that you had so many Liberty B's. Where did they all come from? Is the one that you are restoring the one which came with a Pierce Arrow radiator? What do you plan to do with the others? Restore one of each type? How many engines, gearboxes do you have? Sorry, lots of questions, but very excited to see progress on this one. If you need help with the body plans let me know as I have a set. All the best Tim

I would say yes! (But you will still have to pay like everyone else).

That's true. Has the black deployment bag now taken the place of the duffle bag? it doesn't quite feel the same.

We have been running this event for about six years and it has always been a great success and good fun. The format is that of a private event (no public). You can camp if you want to, there are two road runs (Saturday and Sunday) around local military heritage sites which are not usually open to the public which are led by the historian Bill King. Barbecue Saturday night and people drift off on Sunday. The Champ camp usually join us in large numbers. This year the MVT Area membership voted to move the starting location from Swinbrook to the WW2 airfield at Windrush (about 5 miles away on the road from Burford leading to Gloucester. This was done for a variety of reasons but it was also considered that a WW2 airfield is perhaps more relevant to our hobby. Not everybody agreed with this move and the Champ Camp wished to stay at Swinbrook. As a result there will be camping at two locations. The majority of the NOC MVT will be staying at the Windrush airfield. Some local MVT members, the majority of the Champ Camp and some previous attendees will be returning to Swinbrook. Others not in these categories may be going to either site, the choice is theirs. John Coghlan will be arranging the Swinbrook site, the NOC MVT committee the Windrush site. The Windrush site does give us access to the control tower which has flushing toilets and running hot water. The Swinbrook site has access to the cricket club toilets and shower. There is a road run leaving from Windrush airfield on the Saturday morning at 10:30 AM and which it is expected will return by 16:15. The route has been planned by Bill King who has organised so many interesting trips before giving us access to unique military sites across the Cotswolds. People camping at Swinbrook may wish to join this road run. They are welcome to do so, but must be at Windrush by 10:30 or risk being left behind. For those who are not familiar with Windrush the entrance will be marked by red signs “SLOW. AGRICULTURAL VEHICLES TURNING”. On the Saturday road run there will be a pub stop for lunch. If you wish to have a meal at this country pub you must advise me of your names well in advance. Failure to do so may result in you not being served, or facing a long wait. On Saturday night there will be two barbecues (of course). The Champ Camp will be arranging a barbecue in the field at Swinbrook. You will need to bring your own food. Colin will be doing a barbecue at Windrush starting at 17:30 for 18:30. This will be fully catered for and burgers, sausages in a bun etc will be available for a modest sum. I need to know numbers for the Windrush barbecue as soon as possible please. Again, failure to notify may result in disappointment on the day. On Sunday there will be a second road run leaving from Windrush at 10:30 AM and finishing at a local WW2 historic site. Again, anybody is welcome to join us. Toilets and washing facilities will be available at the cricket club in Swinbrook or the control tower at Windrush. Portable toilets are not being provided this year. A calendar girls photo shoot will be taking place at Windrush on the Saturday. The girls are looking for a size 12 WAAF uniform and a man with a large tool to feature in the photos. So if you a particularly large spanner please bring it along. Please let me know if you are interested in attending. Tim