martinsaunders06

Hopefully these pics are ok 🤞

Hi John , here’s a few pics of the the Scammell with ARV stuck and bogged down at the big steam rally at South Cerney army camp when you got stuck in a soft gravel patch entering the military section . Think from memory you said (tho you may correct me ) the your train weight was something like 104 tons . We pulled it out using 2x heavy military straight bars with my Leyland Drops along with my 1984 John Deere 4650 tractor . Drops with comms repair box weighed in a tad over 18 tons and 350 hp , had all diff and cross locks engaged and the John Deere weighed just over 9 tons , 4x4 with powershift and diff lock on and another 200 hp . Other than the tyres digging to grip on both it was a effortless extraction and reckon the Drops might well of done it on her own (Think I have a short video tho not great quality ?. ) Not long after this at another rally I put the Drops on the tractor pulling sledge and it dragged the sledge with weight box fully up , ground spikes fully extended and brakes locked on the whole 100 metres and when asking I was told it pulling a dead weight of approx 75 ton .

Sorted - bit of searching and there is a tiny screw under tachometer interface top cover that trims or adjusts rev counter needle . Martin

The last couple of years the Alternator on the drops has been a pain , no matter how tight the v-belt was etc it intermittently put the charge light on and belt squealed . At Xmas I fitted a complete new boxed Drops army modification kit from Daf bought from withams , in the kit it says it's a replacement for the obsolete original alternators , its a lot chunkier needing new brackets and also has new waterpump and alternator pulleys which take it from single to a double drive v-belt which is much better idea , extra wiring harness etc . Everything works ok tho up until now I'd only driven it in the yard . Driving up the road the Engine Rev counter now reads really high to the actual engine speed -2000 rpm is showing like 2900rpm ?. ? Has anyone any experience of fitting this modification in service and come across this with the Rev counter , is there a solution that is extra to the modification kit like a different tacho interface relay or rev counter ? . . Any help is appreciated thanks . Martin

Sounds like lots of over technical suggestions , regardless of the weight you ain't picking it up off the ground , any decent farm manitou or Jcb would no problem take the weight off the rear end and drag it out backwards at a angle and same for reasonable sized 4wd tractor if done slowly , sensibly and steady . This sort of thing around the farm is a run of the mill thing done many times with in a year with large heavy heavy bits of kit esp during silage /maize .

Some more pics

Yep Tony that's the one . Martin

Ferret is now back on its plinth and has been cosmetically restored , this was the end of January with our local paper reporting it had stood there since 1989 after being presented to the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Squadron of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry . The work cost almost £4000 and was carried out by Track and Wheel in Buckingham and paid for by the RGH benevolent fund . The Ferret is named Gallipoli in memory of the men of the RGH who fought and died there in WW1, it also carries the markings of 22nd Armoured division of the RGH which fought in the dessert campaign in WW2 .

Is this for the Drops ?- think if u search daf in military vehicle parts on eBay there is a new one there Martin

As of today Thursday 12th Nov the ferret is gone from its stand in TA yard . Hopefully for restoration and not disposal . martin

Yep,no other words than terrible , Good show but in a awful part of the country to get too especially if you ain't in a modern car !. We left at 3.30 after 3days around Folkestone area and took 4 1/2 hours to get home 176miles . All was going well looking at operation stack on other side until we reached M25 and then from junction 7 all the way up to Junction 12 at the M3 was stop start stationary and the m25 on up past junction 12 was still solid when we got off . The whole m25 anti-clockwise down from junc12 down to operation stack was a bumper to bumper car park. Saw one guy with a GMC 6x6 in it and he must of been thinking why am I doing this !. . .it was- Accidents, operation stack and simply too many vehicles on the road

Hi, blast mines 90KH13 unfortunately but that's a magic item and interesting to reunite with a vehicle/owner , brilliant of you to try to do it . Would be a bit of luck if the trucks still going and is out there somewhere .

Hi, I had a Cummins 14litre NHC 250 non turbo in a M816 U.S wrecker weighing 16 plus tons which even though they had got rid of the under powered multi fuel motors it still had the earlier engined gearbox and the ratios weren't good for the lower revving cummins , If you started off in low range and drove right through to high it was fine but it was an effort really and a proper drivers truck to drive getting everything right every time , I fitted from a ERF 325 cummins tractor unit the turbo /manifold /oil supply etc to the 250 which then performed great with I guess only another 25/30 hp increase, Admittedly the 250 didn't have piston oil coolers like the 325 which may of been a prob if worked hard over a period of time but for my use it transformed the truck .. martin