Gordon_M

That's lovely, a real clean and fit job. Did I see a full set of internal expanding brakes in those rear hubs too? There must be all sorts of odds and ends like that axle, dotted about the world, belonging to people who know how rare they are and determined to prevent them for being torched for no reason, so everyone happy at this sort of result I'm sure.

I've looked at this a few times, and the survival rate for WW2 US vehicles seems to be 2 to 5% if produced in quantity, but strangely some of the low-quantity oddball stuff produced in small quantities seems to have a proportionally higher survival rate... 3 of 36 T-36 Snow tractors 30+ of 291 M7 / T-26E4 Snow tractors 3 of 25 VC 6 Dodge Carryalls I can only think of a couple of vehicle types ( apart from prototypes and the like ) which have only single survivors; Rick Jones VK62B RAF crewbus, and our very own Ashby families WK60 breakdown, both three ton Dodges.

... T-36 Iron Fireman Snow Tractors. Not a bad survival rate as they only made 36 of them. http://www.gwim2.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/t36.htm Gordon

Hmmm, sorry about that, though I'll admit most of my stuff has come this way across the pond. Might be worth staying in touch with Kingstown in case they have a client that needs to ship a container out and it has space in it, Apart from that I wouldn't recommend anyone else as my other shipping experiences have been - less than ideal

1. I'd add my vote to the "don't bother with 'no gas' " folk. In general it seems to be better to go for one size larger machine, maybe a 150, and go for gas only. 2. Figure out a gas supply. Co2 should be fine for mild steel, although Argon / Co2 mix is better it will have to be by subscription bottle which will rack up the pennies. If you can find subscription free go for that. 3. MIG welding forum, as above, and if you buy anything up to about a 150 Machine Mart stocks all the consumables - tips, wire, shrouds, swan necks, etc - not huge cash either. 4. Forget second hand, give him a new one. Welding machines have hard lives, generally, and you take pot luck on E-Bay - may look fine and be crap or vice versa. 5. Auto-darkening welding helmet for his birthday? 6. I've had a couple of SIP Migmate welders. The current one gave sterling service over about fifteen vehicle rebuilds but was looking really tired and wasn't working well at all. A read of the MIG welding forum and a trip to Machine Mart later it still looks like a pile of pooh but is welding like a new machine. Basically I replaced the entire feed system, including a new steel spring liner for the hose, plus wire, for about £45.

Ouch, sort of mixed news then ? :cool2: I was looking forward to about twenty pages of threads where you saved up, bought a gear-cutting company, a CAD machine, and various other trinkets then just made the thing - alas it will now be clean up and fit - doubtless it is as good inside as the outside looks. Ah well, sometimes Santa comes through, and I'll join in the thanks to the NZ contingent. Gordon

.... that's one of the long wheelbase prototypes, 121 or 123" if I remember correctly. By the time you chop enough length out of that to get down to the 98" production unit ( half ton was 116" remember ) you have nowhere else to put the spare. Gordon

No problem, Whatever Kingstown quote feel free to try to get something cheaper, but the one time I used someone else ( no names ) to ship trailers to Canada they arrived in bits ... Bottom line costs would be around £1 per loaded mile for the pickup, and $1 per loaded mile for the delivery, plus container percentage, dockside taxes, etc. Be aware there may be additional taxes payable before it can be delivered, not too much, but your receiver and you should have some agreement about squaring up for those. Kingstown will give you numbers, but have to hand the length, width, height and weight of the item before you call, plus the pickup postcode and delivery zip code, and do make sure you send a good Bill of Sale with it, copies up front to Kingstown and your receiving party.

It's a trailer for a demountable Coventry Climax / Godiva type fire pump. Certainly WW2 vintage.

Basically it should be an evolutionary thing. As I understand it, the first engines were single cylinder, then twin cylinder, and it was some time before the casting technology got to the point where they could make a single casting with four cylinders in it with a water jacket round each. Making a big engine before that was just a case of bolting as many two-cylinder blocks together as you needed, on a single crankcase. Anyone know to the contrary?

Kingstown Shipping in Hull, ask for Steve, Alan, or Mark, tell them Gordon sent you :blush: They will organise local pickup here, consolidated container shipping, and local delivery in the US. As cheap as anyone else I've used and much more efficient as shipping this sort of stuff is their core business. ( No commercial connection, but the more people I refer the more biscuits I get when I visit ) Gordon

I'll just throw in here the reference to the usual method of desert camo painting that I've heard referred to time and again, basically paint it any colour you want, and throw buckets of sand at the wet paint. I've heard that this was quite common in WW2, where sometimes the paint provided contrasted with the local desert colour. Normally glass was painted over too, with just wiper sweeps left clear. No sure how well it would work in the south of England though. Gordon

First time I've seen Rolling Wheel Transporters for a while. They seem to get a lot of use in deserts and the Arctic / Antarctic, but didn't really appear much apart from that.

Same as we do with floats on racing carbs to get them to resist supercharging pressure increases. Drill a small hole, inject builders foam, leave to set, varnish, re-fit.

I'm sure that would repair with minimal effort. Clean up with Brasso, or HP sauce if Brasso stocks are low. Dye penetrant test to find the hole(s) Drill out hole to let the oil drain. Warm and dry. Silver solder. Back in. Of all the jobs you have tackled on that I'm sure a float will be no big deal. Talking about leaks - any decision as to whether or not to recast radiator top and bottom tanks yet?

Looks like very aggressively used wire rope damage to me. Used hard enough it will spread mild steel just like that. I know that is the correct shade of green, looks odd to me as I never really look at anything that was made prior to olive drab becoming the norm. Keep it up

... and there is a T214 WC53 Dodge Carryall behind the red and black one

I check and participate daily, no problems. Gordon

Getting longer and more complex by the day, too. Everyone seems to have taken the point that if a BRAKED trailer becomes detached, then the breakaway cable needs to apply the trailer brakes and then shear. Breakaway cable should not be attached to the tow ball or whatever, but this is acceptable if there is nowhere else to attach it. Secondary couplings ( drag chains to the likes of us ... ) are compulsory on UNBRAKED trailers, and as far as I know nothing to stop them being fitted to BRAKED trailers in addition to a breakaway cable setup, but not instead of it. Laden weights or maximum gross weights or whatever come into it too. You can tow a trailer empty or part loaded that would be too heavy for your vehicle to tow legally when fully loaded, but if it looks like it is near the limit you'll get pulled, especially if the towing vehicle looks fully loaded too. My daily driver can tow 1500Kg legally, I tow an Ifor Williams that weighs 500Kg and is rated at 2000Kg, but I have to make sure I never put more than a ton on it to keep under the 1500Kg. Prosecution decisions would depend on the actual weights of both bits. So, jeep trailer, towed with hitch and drag chains, loaded, but not exceeding 750Kg, should be fine. Ben Hur towed empty would have to be near the 750Kg limit for an unbraked trailer. Can't think of any way to tow a Ben Hur legally with a full one ton load in it unless you butcher the hitch and fit an overrun brake plus breakaway. There are all sorts of new regs that apply to post-1990 trailers, such as having a VIN cut or stamped into them, hydraulically damped couplers, etc, don't even want to go there. Any lights not working or mismatched tyres and the officer would go straight to DC ( Dangerous Condition ) which is the standard backup plan in case your trailer does happen to be almost legal. If you have a large old MV trailer that is being towed by a vehicle that was originally designed to tow it, and it is all in sparkling condition, much less likely to get pulled. For example a Signal Corps Chev radio truck towing a fully-equipped ( and hence well over 750 KG ) Ben Hur generator trailer in good order with all the original lights would give you a decent chance in court, despite being over the 750Kg limit for unbraked. Don't get me started on the hoops you have to jump trough to get a trailer with electric brakes to comply - can be done, but not easy.

They are really amazing on snow, almost unstoppable. If they have a fault at all it is that the pontoon and track system really doesn't like dry, hard going, like a tarmac road. On the white stuff, though ...

Tucker Sno-Cat, series 443, possibly 443A, from about 1962. Earlier would have different grille, later would have fibreglass pontoons Chrysler Industrial six, four speed manual transmission, permanent four track drive through a special Tucker transfer case, drive shafts and axles are contemporary Dodge truck with the ends altered to take the pontoons. Wagon steer using two steering platforms and a single Vickers hydraulic cylinder midships. Lot's of aluminium in the construction. Got a 1953 443 in the garage, great fun, that's a photo of it as my avatar above left. Gordon

Small drip of cold water, but better to mention it now than later. It is my understanding ( that's a getout clause in case I'm wrong ) that electric brakes have compliance issues here in the UK. I looked at the subject for my Nolan trailer, but then that is a full trailer rather than semi. I think the semitrailer issue would be that you can adjust / apply the brakes from the drivers seat, where the good old UK government seems to want full automatic brakes. I know you can apply air brakes like that, they just don't seem to like electric ones working that way. Eventually I'm going to get round this by putting the modern electric brake controller unit actually in the trailer ( and thus not accessible from the drivers seat ) I'll also fit the standard US Army electric trailer brake controller to the dash / column of the tow vehicle, but it will not be wired to work. I thought I'd mention that now, before you hook up everything, but of course it's down to you. Probably worth a compliance check before you absolutely finalise the trailer brakes though. Gordon

Just picked up this at a local meeting here in Scotland; It's is too large to be a toolkit item on smaller vehicles, and judging from the patent date I may be looking at one war earlier than I'm used to. Anyone know anything about it or the company?

Core plugs. If you have the engine accessible at any time, get new core plugs in. Unfortunately there is one core plug on the back of the block hidden by the bellhousing. If you see coolant leaking down under the clutch area you have to take the whole !@£$%^& truck to pieces to replace the core plug. Replacement of core plug - about sixty seconds. Stripping down and building back up - about a week. That's a nice example, you'll just have to figure out what to do with the screen, but get new core plugs and carry them with you, even if you don't fit them right away. Been there, done that, twice.

The only thing that could possibly make that tractor look better would be to go to symettrical headlight grilles with a piggyback blackout headlight, that would just finish it off.