RMS

As Ron said, Juergen in Germany is a great guy to deal with and has most things, good quality parts too.

For Engine upgrades (well worth doing if you want to ride it on the road!) get in touch with Robin Oakley http://www.rtoengineering.co.uk/ he is a genius with these old bikes.

Tony Leenes can be helpful too http://www.tonyleenes.nl/

The best i can recommend doing to a 741b is to get some more power out the engine (i went to 563cc and larger valves), put a larger gearbox drive sprocket on and fit kevlar clutch plates, makes the bike so much more usable in todays traffic, mine was happy cruising at 60 mph and gear changes were a dream with the kevlar clutch plates.

Best of luck with the bike.

were going for the day, taking the GTB for a last run of the year.

fired it up today and gave it a good test drive :banana:

done a few jobs to it recently like sorting out the steering arms and track rod, made all new battery cables and wired in the original battery isolator, mounted the radiator and sorted out the odd water leak! repaired leaking rear diff gasket and finished the handbrake rods up.

going to finish up all the chassis work then remove the cab for the final repairs and paint.

The Bedford breathed life today for the first time since 1966 (at least!) and moved 20 yards under its own power:-)

Also picked up a lovely scammel trailer for it, happy days.

i've had three sender unit cork floats in the last year that have swollen and started to sink because the coating on them dissolves in modern fuel (repro jeep units). i replace the cork with plastic floats from modern vehicles, just have a rummage around the scrap yard and find a suitable size shape.

thats great news Andy, the Conqueror is sounding sweet.

quite possibly a Auto Union Wanderer W24 from the late 30's as it has a boot lid. restored a hard top one for a customer a couple of years ago.

So the Bedford work has once again commenced!!! just a short 2 year break!

finished all the braking system today, bled the brakes and adjusted the shoes. also have fitted rear half shafts and repaired a puncture (how did that happen!?!?!), also started sorting out the the handbrakes and cables etc.

Next on the agenda is to get the bedford running, we did give it a go a couple of years ago but never got it running properly and then the GTB took over!!!

i will get some pics next week.

BEDFORD owners - any chance of a picture of the steering drag link and pitman arm? i have a feeling that something is bent as the drag link seems to be at a very sharp angle and fouls the shock absorber on full lock.

Cheers

Published by Cortney publications, in 1987. I found a copy on amazon last week think they wanted £82 for it!

I will try and scan the copy I have been lent.

Just been lent an excellent little book by Maurice H Sanders, "muck shifting for King George" A truly brilliant account of the construction work that went on during WW2 and the equipment used also the testing a and development of construction equipment particularly the trailbreaker centaur and crusader chassis, and some great praise for Scammel's and Diamond T trucks :-). Some great pictures of equipment. Some great pictures of equipment . only takes a couple of hours to read but very interesting.

just bought some today from SE Tyres http://www.setyres.co.uk/ proper 10.50 x 16 tubes.

some great pictures there of a great weekend, massive thanks to all that made it happen and a big thanks to the outriders for doing such an excellent job of keeping the convoy together and moving, well done:tup:: (we wont mention trying to send a few of us to Honiton!:cool2:). also well done on the weather, never before have i experienced all four seasons in one weekend!!!!!!

The Mrs was gutted that she decided to head home this morning thus missing out on the sunny afternoon on the beach! who would believe the weather could turn out so nice, Mini Ring love the chance to strip to his pants and get in the sea!!!

Trip home was lovely in the baking sun without a traffic jam in sight! truck performed faultlessly on the return journey, very happy.

Once again Thanks for a great weekend.

it was all too much for some on the way home :-)

Packed and ready to roll, heading west in the morning. Looking forward to a great weekend -

what a fantastic trip, hats of to you, well done.

Hi Guys,

Iam one one of the guys who walked away from this ..just.Myself and my co driver jp were in convoy with my mate james who has a dodge command car.We had just returned from a weeks road trip which started in calais and took us across the battlefield sites of north east france,belgium ending up in arnhem.We were just on our way back from harwich,when, bang that was it.

JP, has some fairly choice cuts and bruises and was airlifted to Romford hospital.He's ok and recovering at home.I broke my arm,messed up my right knee,suspected rib fractures and cuts and bruises.Turning into a rather deep shade of purple!

All in all a lucky one, my poor jeep though.

On a legal note,if there are any witnesses and any photos of the crash scene could you let me know.

Cheers and thanks for your good wishes. Ricardo

Hi Richard

glad to hear you are on the mend, that was a fair old trip you undertook fair play to you all. i spoke to James a few times to help keep the dodge going! shame about the jeep, but as tony said a jeep can be replaced. get well soon.

Barry

just got a set of leather straps for my GTB off of Fleebay, i think it is Jaap Reitveld selling them, i paid $60 for a full set.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130669624066?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_500wt_1201

they may have some more as they get listed quite regularly

Screws available from Fastenal -http://www.fastenal.com/web/products/detail.ex?sku=27745

or dare is say it! (going to hide under my bed now) M8 is very close!!!!!! :shocked: an m8 Tap will adjust 5/16 UNC quite easily then your choice of screws is endless!

getting the box out is easy enough - drain oil, remove props, remove top of box, transfer case levers (removing the pin can be tricky if its seized, it will probably not come all the way out as it hit the body) remove clutch rod/cable, speedo cable etc.

next and most importantly remove the clutch thrust bearing return spring from inside the bell housing, through the inspection panel. this will allow the clutch fork and bearing to slide off the shaft when you pull the box out. getting the fork back in is a pain, particularly if you have sausage fingers like me!

then support the weight under the bell housing with a bottle jack, remove the gearbox cross member (you can leave it on but i find it easier to remove it). i then use an engine hoist to take the weight of the box while i remove the four bolts holding it to the bell housing. slide gearbox back and lower on hoist, a second pair of hands come in handy for this part to steady the box, you may need to lower the engine a bit to get enough room for the box to go back enough.

hope that helps:-)

that oil in your gearbox looks a bit milky?

fair play to you, treating a stolly like that takes a brave man:-D:-D

my premium (with footman james) also shot up this year by about £150! but then so did my car insurance by about the same amount, both companies told me that the premiums have increased due to so many of these no win no fee claims for whiplash etc

think i will shop around for my mv insurance next year.

possibly a porous carburettor float? we had a similar problem with Paulob's Stolly, that was using an obscene amount of fuel (even more than normal!) and running badly as you can imagine. we found that one side of the float was full of petrol!! swapped it for a goodun and bingo, runs sweet.

fairly certain it has been shipped already.

Yet another great year at the winter rally, very very cold, some snow and lots of ice! 195 vehicles turned up this year and nearly 500 people.

We took the GTB over, driving from Le Havre to Houffalize. Saturdays drive out was the coldest, -16 DegC !!!!! lots of people with starting problems, many battery were coming out of the hotel rooms in the morning! we stopped at the Museum of December 44 in la Glieze and then onto Spa for lunch, followed by the drive back to the hotel and a few beers to warm up in the evening!

Sundays drive was more offroad than saturdays, mostly in luxembourg (fuel was nearly 30 pence a litre cheaper!!) we followed a lovely corbett truck around for a while then a line of about 30 jeeps! great fun.

roll on next year.

Few more pics here http://www.bmvt.eu/le-winter-rally-du-bmvt-houffalize-3-5-février-2012

well the GTB made it to the Winter Rally and back:D a total journey of 792 miles.

we had a few problems on the way that were put down to the NOS distributor that i fitted the week before! so the original one went back in and problem solved. We also had a fuel problem on the saturday whilst on the drive out that turned out to be a small piece of gasket paper jammed in the main jet! a quick strip down in the snow and all was well.

The truck behaved very well, and averaged about a 11MPG, cruised at 40-45 mph, we had seven people on board plus all the luggage and a mountain of beer! so she was well loaded up. some of the hills in the Ardennes were a long and slow affair, but we got there in the end.

Saturday saw the lowest temperatures of -16 DegC!!!!! thankfully it didn't seem to bother the GTB, unlike it occupants! To top off a great weekend the GTB won "Best in Show" :D:D:D:beer:

I think i can consider this restoration finished, on to the next one!!!:nut:

The canvas is as good as useless for the passenger! its certainly not a place i want to sit for too long. Thankfully the drivers seat is well protected as its virtually just off centre of the truck.

They were originally supplied with canvas doors that would save the passenger but i have had them made yet, plus i wouldn't fancy driving on the road with doors on, visibility is somewhat limited as it is.

maybe a candidate for a caption competition!

Thanks, the canvas turned out great.

had to change the water pump today as when i got the workshop this morning it had decided to leak over the weekend! thankfully i had a new one on the shelf. just doing the final prep work to ready it for the Winter rally later this week.