Great War truck

A great picture that. Interesting to see both the late and early pattern radiators. The late one of course is probably a replacement for the early ones which kept cracking. Tim

Great photos. Interesting to see they still have the reactive armour blocks.

Those are great photos. Some chap in the USA was printing photos out from that collection as negatives and selling them as originals for a great profit on E bay. Caught me out on one until i realised. Luckily i only paid a couple of £. One guy paid $60. Easily done. Tim

I have not come across the name Dreadnaught on lamps before. Great name though. I am sure there were many different small companies making lamps and this is one of them. Nice looking lamps though. Tim

Ah yes, the rusty staples. I better get my tetanus jab. The world has changed a great deal. From no military magazines we have come to a plethora very quickly. I did not renew my subscriptions to Vehicules Militaire as it was taking too long to read it. Leaves me just with MMI, CMV and Windscreen, but I do miss W&T though. Just got Pratchetts Snuff out from the library. Very entertaining as you would expect. I have got a book or magazine on the go in every room in the house at the moment.

Just finished reading all the back issues of CMV. Interesting story about some guy who bought himself a GMC and started up some forum. I wonder what ever happened to him? Next to read i have been given the first 30 copies of Windscreen and i also picked up "Fleet without a friend" about the French fleet at Algiers(?). A defining point in British history, but perhaps not our finest hour?

Thanks for posting that. A good reminder of how dangerous the gas can be. Not one for lighing up in doors then. Those clips of film were very interesting Alan. It gets up to a fair old pace. Tim

I had a few days down with the trucks and started to clean up the cam followers: Tony has now completed the Exhaust Valve Cap Retainers and the pictures show the new ones alongside the somewhat corroded ones that were removed from the engine. One of the ones removed is non-standard and presumably was inserted sometime in the past when an original was either lost or damaged beyond repair. This now completes all the Valve Cap Retainers – Inlet and Exhaust - and he will no doubt be pleased to move on to something different!

I am very pleased that this has attracted so much interest. Sadly the GMC is not mine, but it is not far away. The owner will be reading this and will no doubt be pleased with all of your comments and suggestions. Probably wont be so thrilled that i said it will make a possible debut at GDSF next year. We will see.

Here is how I think it should work. We fill up the generator: with dry chopped wood and light it at the bottom After 5 to 8 minutes the gas is tested at the “test pipe” (not found that yet) and if burning evenly goes through the centrifugal cleaner (under the door), through the wet cleaner (front left wing), then the gas cooler (in front of the radiator) , then the dry cleaner (currently on the floor) but which should go here (it will fill up some holes nicely) it then goes through a final cleaner before going straight in to the engine. No need for a carb. The throttle is on the dashboard. Looks straightforward enough. Still a little concerned about the deadly poisonous gas issue, but i am sure these things will just take care of themselves.

Yes, i remember that movie now. Quite entertaining. Doesnt he pick up a US Nurse along the way? The GMC spent its civilian life working in lumber haulage, pulling trees back to a yard for sawing up i understand. It was therefore never really that far from home and a supply of dried wood chunks. Long distance haulage would have been problematic. As trees are quite slow growing perhaps we could put up a sign outside the clubhouse "Pallets wanted" and then store them in the car park? As i mentioned i have got no idea how much it takes, but the cylinder on the back has to be filled up. So that would be two or three pallets perhaps? If we need just the blocks that sit in the middle of the pallets ("tennis ball sized") as per Richards instructions then that would be about 10 pallets worth. Experimentation will be required. We will of course video it for scientific and educational purposes. Tim

That is really helpful Richard and the diagrams generally match up with what i can see. Now, all we need is some replacements for the rotten pipework, a ton of tennis "ball sized" lumps of wood, some matches, a lot of nerve and away we go. No more expensive fuel bills! I am a little concerned however when it says the gasses are very poisnous and that we would be lucky to acheive 30% of power. Anyway, it is worth experimenting with (just perhaps outside and not in the shed). Tim

Thanks guys. That is and will be very helpful. The plan is to leave the GMC much as it is but to return it to Gasogen operation. It would be too much effort to restore it back to wartime spec and not really worth it. Anyway, there are loads of WW2 GMC's in the UK, but not many examples of post war civilian use and no Gasogens that i know about. Nice that its original markings are still visible though. The owner was explaining to me how the Gasogen works (i think he needs about 1/2 ton of wood to fill it up), but there seem to be pipes and tanks all over the place. Didnt really have long enough there to work it all out. Some bits were scattered on the floor which made it a little difficult to follow. Steve would no doubt have it clear in his mind the full operation of the thing. I am a little worried about either gassing myself or blowing myself up, but that is part of the fun of old vehicle ownership. On the plus side, he wont have to worry about the price of petrol anymore. With a bit of luck it might make its debut at GDSF next year (or maybe year after). We will see. Tim

This very interesting GMC recently returned to the UK after nearly 70 years working in a forest. It has the original invasion star visible under the horrible green paint, also what looks to be gas paint on the star. The name "ADA" is visible on each door and markings on the front fender suggest an early Normandy truck. Have a look at the photos and let me know any observations please: It has had a hard life in the forest and the chassis has been strengthened to deal with that. The roof had a machine gun originally but that hole has been plated over. All the original gasogen equipment is there. Does anybody have a manual or good explanation on how it works. I am having a problem with my photo bucket so if some of the photos dont work first time i will reload them. Tim

The engine parts are coming together – the new Valve Springs have now arrived.

You are right. That is what happened. He brought it up to our new "club house" to show it to us and fitted the stay bar to keep the rad in place on the journey. He bought it from a Somerset farmer about 40 to 50 years ago and worked it on his farm until it died. he has become interested in restoring it and has bought various parts for it. From the chassis number i can see it was made in May 43. Amazing to see that these things do turn up still.

Here is something you dont see very often so please excuse the number of photos The owner plans to restore it and it is not for sale.

Just found this on the BBC website. Quite interesting i thought. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20079147

Yes. Fraud. Danger, danger.

Amazing find. I dont read the lingo but presume it is an ex Russian army one.

You crazy Dutch guys!

A great idea. "Pipe line under the Cotswolds" or PLUTC. Poor barman. Imagine pulling a pint with a 20 mile pipe. Anyway, yes you are all right. We cant possibly give up our brewery home, but in the Summer Months a trip out and camp over at the airfield would be ideal. We have our end of season event there next weekend. Hopefully we also have a fly in with an Auster and Piper Cub assuming the weather is agreeable. I will let you know how we get on. Tim

What! You missed the joke about "being on the wrong side of the tracks". You will have to go and read the Dennis thread all over again. Anyway, Steve has been doing a bit on the lorry again and has cleaned up the three drain taps. They were filthy, seized and one was broken Steve cleaned them up with a nylon brush and then straightened the bent handle whilst hot and turned up a new one for the last tap. They are now safely tucked away ready for engine assembly. The piston rings have arrived and look fine. We need these up front in order to make the pistons to fit. We have been having some discussions about how big the gap should be in the ring to allow for differential expansion. Steve worked out that if the ring is 140° hotter than the cylinder wall then the gap should be of the order of 0.021” but his does seem a bit big. Anyway, the discussion is now closed as the gap is written on the packet!. We will make them 0.012”.

As some of you will know, we (the North Oxfordshire & cotswolds MVT) meet every Month in a brewery. We have now been offered another club house which is something quite special: Landing strip Great shed Checking the roof for leaks The place was heading for dereliction but a parachuting club moved in and spent quite a lot of money on updating the premises. Sadly, due to complaints about the noise they had to vacate the premises and it has been sitting empty for nearly 20 years. We went in today to tidy the place up and have a good look around. While some did a spot of cutting back the undergrowth others cleaned the path and the recognition marker. Our electrician checked all the electrics. I was on mop duty starting from the top down. I am sure my shouts of "Oi, i just cleaned that bit" were heard from miles around. Upstairs there is a kitchen, bar (empty), toilets, showers. Downstairs numerous storage rooms. Outside a grass landing strip, pill box and some hangars (which we dont have access to, currently being used for storing farming equipment) It is potentially a fabulous location. Problem is we all ready have a brewery! What do we do?

That was a great read. thanks and well done. Tim