Great War truck

I had never heard of this, but it looks like good fun: TV Guide reviewer Cleveland Amory said of the show in 1968 that despite it being ludicrously one-sideded, a second-hand idea, and third degree violence, that it was a first rate show.[2] I couldnt agree more. Rat Patrol is another one which i never saw first time around: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfuauA_s_f8&feature=related Lots of interesting vehicles (badly disgusied as German). Fun to see the 50 cal gunner nearly fall off the back of the Jeep. Harmless entertainment and even better than "Strictly come X Factor get me out of here". Tim

Not proved wrong Alan. I just happen to have found the one photo which is different from the norm. All the other ones i have seen have the Y spoked wheels as opposed to the round spoked wheels. It does seem that they swap them around a lot just to keep us on our toes. No one has really written a history of these things. I think that is for us to do together through HMVF. Tim

I had a great time. I met loads of friends. Took the micky out of Jack. I bought a hotdog and a bottle of water. I came with money, but couldnt find anything that i wanted to buy. There was just nothing there that i wanted. Strange. Tim

I think this is the same sort of Napier as Mark has. It does also have the hooks on the front of the dumb irons which suggests to me that it is an ASC wagon. As you say it does have the less common round spoked wheels which did feature on some of the military lorrys. I cant make out the hub on Marks one to make a comparisson though. Any chance of another photos Mark?

i want to set it up in my garden. what an amazing find.

Yes, thats a real set back. What options do you have? Make a new one i suppose?

Good to meet up with you last night Rob. Sorry i didnt have more time to chat. What an exciting project it is. Good luck. Tim

I have seen that last one before. I bet Bob will know where it was taken. Bob?

Can you post some photos of it?

Wonderful piece of work. Looking forwards to seeing this in the flesh. Strangely enough, there are the remains of one up for sale on E bay at the moment. Fancy doing a second one. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290661149708?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 I use the word "remains" in the broadest possible sense. Tim

A fantastic story. Well done to him.

The pump itself is interesting in that the body is an aluminium die-casting. When was that process introduced? A gentle brushing with a nylon brush in the pistol drill soon cleaned it up and showed that it had been cross-threaded at some stage. A trip to the local second hand tool shop elicited a 5/8" BSP die nut and this was carefully run over it to clean it up using the lathe to keep it all square. Steve made up a replacement for a missing oil filling plug Then, all that remained was to reassemble it. Another part ready to go back on. We do have one puzzle though. Part of the oil delivery pipe remained and this will have to be replaced. The end of the pipe is bell-mouthed but how do you generate that shape? We can only think of hammering a drift up the end but it does seem a bit brutal. Is there a special tool for the task?

Steve has been cleaning up the engine oil pump which has proven not to be too bad. After sixty years or so, it was completely seized of course but a gentle approach using heat and an impact screwdriver proved successful with no damage. The early pumps on these engines were mounted directly on the end of the camshaft above the oil level which meant that they had to be primed as the first job every day. This was quite a chore and much damage was caused by drivers racing cold engines to try to get the pump to pick up. Towards the end of the war, this version was introduced where the same pump was mounted below the oil level powered by a vertical shaft driven by skew gears on the end of the camshaft. Although a little rusty and seized, they soon cleaned up with a wire brush and live to fight another day.

Thats funny. Have you got a set of drawings like that for the Thornycroft?

The cleaning continues!

This is something I have been giving a lot of thought to and really now believe that there is little place in a WW1 film for genuine WW1 vehicles. The film industry is just too brutal with originals. Just another prop for mistreatment or blowing up. Saying that, in recent films there have been some interesting appearances. In War Horse was Peter Jacksons original Dennis chassis with replica body. Not moving it looked quite good. There was also a guest appearance from an original Vauxhall D type staff car and another vehicle which was i beleive his militarised Stewart. There was also a fleet of generic German trucks probably built on light truck chassis. Seen from a distance they looked ok and in all honesty not many people watching the film would know or even care. It is pleasing that they made a point of using the Dennis as opposed to one of the generics, as even filmed up close it didn’t look out of the way. Peter Jackson has also done a pair of replica Thornycrofts and one of them might have appeared in the film, I couldn’t be sure if it was it or not. But much like the Dennis it makes a good film prop. In the film beneath Hill 60 there was what appeared to be a genuine Republic and that looked very good indeed. But as before, there are not many people who would know or even care if it was right or wrong. So, in response to your question. Replica’s but good ones is what would be best. Whether we get that or not we will see, but I doubt it very much. On the War Horse thread no one commented about my observation of the Dennis at the end of the film, so i would suggest that no one here noticed it. So if it had been an appalling replica would anybody have noticed that? Just goes to show that it is probably a waste of the Directors time and effort looking for good replicas or originals as the viewers are only interested in the story.

Here are the four Exhaust Valve Covers - before and after wire brushing. They are all looking a bit moth-eaten and one in particular may be beyond recovery! We shall see

Just got back from the cinema. Not bad at all. Preferred the stage play, but the film was done quite well. With all the members who have seen it i am suprised no one has commented on a Dennis which appears at the auction at the end.

Ask for photos of them.

That's that one sorted! New shaft and top screwed and silver soldered to the original nut. It will not come apart! After completeing his chores, Steve spent the afternoon cleaning up the valve-cap plugs we removed at Christmas. They were pretty grotty with the remains of the spark plugs still in situe. Two of then succumbed to heat and a stillson wrench but the other two had to be bored out in the lathe. All was successful and he finished off with a skim across the spark plug washer surface and the top clamping face. They are now ready to be ground back into their seats when the engine is reassembled.

Do you still have your AEC Mr B?

The wonders of photoshop.

Tony tried to fill up the Series 3 land Rover last year, the fuel tank being under the seat. The guy in the petrol station seeing what he was doing panicked, shut of the fuel and ran outside to see what he was up to. Tim

Not too sure about their film prop. From a distance and if you ignore the wheels it probably does not look too bad as a film prop. I am pretty certain that they wont be able to obtain a real one. Even if they did i dont think that real WW1 trucks are suited to appearing films. He has got a little carried away with his description though. I am sure it will make a re-enactor very happy. GS wagons look nice though. With the wonderfully mild afternoon, today, for January and with a couple of hours to spare, Tony decided to take advantage of that weather to get the sump out in the open to clean it! Usual procedures of paraffin and brushes, and the rotary plastic and wire brushes to get the hard scale off it. The light went too quickly and it must now wait for another day to be finished. If we are keen enough, some Scotchbrite will finish the job beautifully! We have been "discussing" Engine Oil Level Gauges and Dip Sticks recently on this Thornycroft link and also on the Dennis one. Some of our trucks have Try-cocks and others slightly more sophisticated gauges for monitoring the engine oil level. We thought that neither of those solutions for checking the oil level was entirely safe - especially after the passage of time when damage or wear occurs and that a Dip-stick would be a far better idea. Well we find today that Thornycroft took a "belt and braces" approach to this, of not only fitting a Gauge - described in a previous note above - but now we find with cleaning the sump, that there is provision there as well for a Try-cock. The remains of a broken Try-cock are still fitted to our original Thornycroft half-engine. The Oil Drain plug screw is situated right at the bottom of the sump and is fitted with a long internal prong - presumably to leave a passage way clear through any sediment - or even for poking a hole through the sediment again if it should settle and block the hole whilst the sump is being drained. There is a lot of wastage on this prong where it joins the screw which is quite surprising since it should have spent all of its time immersed in oil - unless of course, the engine was really neglected and the bottom part of the sump had a quantity of water in it with the oil floating on top of it..............

This seems tailored to people in our hobby. Has anybody else received a message like this one: Hello My name is Valery, I am 45 years old, I live in Russia. I found your e-mail address on the Internet, and decided to write you this letter. I served in the Army in 1984 in Afghanistan and lost in the war right. Now I am disabled 3 groups. At that time our country was still the Soviet Union and I served in the Soviet army. Over the years our country was at war in Afghanistan, killing many Moss peers and druzey.God war I remember as a nightmare. From early childhood I was interested in military equipment and collected information about the armed forces of other countries, as well as marine and air fleets. I am interested in military educational institutions and associations of war veterans. I want to ask you to send me information about the armed forces of their country, magazines, catalogs, brochures and photographs. It would be nice to get a souvenir gift from your souvenirs with symbols of your military, patches, and icons depicting your country's flag, t-shirt size L. I think that a third world war will never happen, and our mothers will not lament their sons. I hope that my small request remains unanswered. My postal address is: The country: RUSSIA City:Balashov postal address: F.Engelsa 26 – 1 postal code:412316 Valera Ivanov