paulbrook

Modern fuel goes bad after about 30 days. It goes very bad after 90, having lost the "lighter" elements. This could well account for poor fuel air mixing and incomplete combustion. Incomplete combustion results in soot.

Just out of interest was it OK before it was laid up? Also is it fresh petrol or the stuff that as been in the tank all the time?

It's just a thought - but if it was running fine after 5 miles there can't be a lot wrong with it. If there is a very strong smell of fuel its much more likely to be a fuel pipe or connection or a weep around the fuel pump diaphram. In any event running a bit rich is far better than running a bit lean (ask any exhaust valve). Has anyone ever used a Gunson Colourtune on a jeep engine?

And Withams.................

I would guess that Wally is spot on but more generally (in the 70s ANYWAY) these were known as tac (short for tactical) numbers; every formation had one but I cannot remember if there was any grouping or unit specific third digit. My first squadron was 6 Arty Support Sqn and we started with 190 (Corps Troops) then changed to 156 when the Arty Bde was formed but cannot for the life of me remember if all the rest of the bde started with the 15. Sometimes large sub units had a / and a fourth number to distinguish them from other parts of the same regiment or whatever. In other cases each sub unit had different numbers - thus 3 Tk Ttr Sqn had 210, 16 Tk Tptr Sqn had 211 and 617 Tk Tptr Sqn had 213. You would also find the same number on the back of the truck, and they were often on the white diffs so you could quickly establish if you were following the right convoy in the middle of the night.....

Tom it's the diameter of the landrover clutch you want surely as that's what will be mating up to the flywheel of the oil boiler? Then as you say the splines in the centre need to fit the gearbox input shaft for your existing gearbox. Or do I need to read back some??

Fair comment I did say that I had even done it like that; the inference being that it was done in extremis. I am not sure that consitutes advice. If however you are minded to emulate it then you may wish to consider wearing decent gloves. By far the best approach though is the one I described, that is to slacken but not completely remove the pipe. As long as there is decent flow out then things are looking good.

Anti freeze is as you say a red herring in the gasket issue, although it was definitely worth checking. My dad used to say that as long as there was some anti freeze in the mix the coolant would never go solid. I now know that to be wrong (but then it was minus 18..) Second is oil pressure - two observations if I may. The first is that unlike modern vehicles with modern gauges the pressure may well take more than a few seconds to register on the clock, so unless you have run it for more than that I would not worry too much at this stage. The second is that water plus oil in an emulsion may be causing the pump to cavitate or any one of half a dozen reasons why the dial sits on its stop. Plus of course the dial may be bust or some other issue. To eliminate the oil pressure concern from our enquiries my approach would be to drain the coolant off and get fresh oil in. Remove or at least slacken off the oil pressure guage pipe from the block and start her up. An engine like this will be quite happy running for a minute or two without any coolant as long as it isnt thrashed. I would be looking for a good flow of oil out of that pipe and clamping it back up should result in a reading. I have even done it with my finger over the hole which gives a good idea of pressure (my finger is able to hold back about 20psi...after that things can get a bit messy but in this case thats a very good sign) . Hope that helps...keep us posted!

It may not even be the right head gasket... Dan and I once put a head gasket out of what was supposed to be the correct gasket set into a CJ3 jeep. All looked perfect and on went the head. In went the coolant. Rather a lot of it as it happens and the "gallon" comment struck me as familiar. Water trickling out of the tailpipe is a dead giveaway that things are not well so off came the head again. Much head (sorry) scratching ensued until the gasket was tried on the underside of the head. It was at this point we realised that the head gasket was actually for a go devil not a hurricane engine, the blocks of which are virtually identical. The heads though are completely different and the flathead gasket covered outlets it shouldn't and left uncovered other holes it should have covered. With the proper gasket in everything was hunky dory. The brand new flathead gasket hangs in the workshop as a reminder that everything is not always as it seems. Sad to say though that it is difficult to see a way forward at this point that does not involve removing the head.

I fear that you will now get everything from the simple and optimistic to the doom laden.....My experience is that internet diagnosis is fraught and flawed so the first comment is dont panic Mr Mannering. I have said before that I could write a book about head gaskets but my starting point is that on an engine like this gaskets dont fail, other things cause them to fail. A new head gasket always rings alarm bells for me, and my reaction is always to ask why it failed in the first place and what was done to rectify it. So first have a conversation with your vendor. Expect trouble if the answers to the above questions are don't know and nothing. Next leave the truck standing for a day or so then crack the drain plug off and carefully unscrew it with a container underneath - if there is lots of water in the oil that will come out first - dont take the plug right out at this point the water will weep past the last couple of threads. Feel free to enjoy the feeling of cold gunge running up your sleeve as you hold the plug in just the right place to ensure flow but not deluge. If its more than half a jamjar full you have more than condensation to worry about; the next step will be to get the head off etc etc etc. If its only a tiny amount of water it could still be a big problem but get some fresh oil in there and give the thing a decent amount of time to run. Get some Kseal in the coolant as well - you may get lucky if there is a small defect and it may sort you out. Check the head torque too. If after this you still have grey gunge then its toolbox time. The list of possible worst case issues is rather lengthy I fear, but short of a major catastropy can all be cured.

Could I ask for a bit of help please? I am making up a batch of MW bonnets and have used an excellent example as the basis for the new ones. But.... There seems to be a bit of a discrepancy over the forward "slope" of the bonnet - I have looked at a few and they vary (presumably depending on how the cabs and radiators are mounted. If you have an MW could you measure the difference in height between the top centre of the rad surround (where the bonnet would be if the rad filler were not there) and the corresponding point on the scuttle??. Many thanks in advance...

Yep I do this all the time - sometimes I use a giant bottle, other times a half sized on. They are pretty good at keeping up and other that an admin charge you pay for what you have. By the way I get my oxygen and acetylene from Energas, but my Argosheild from BOC - it is well worth shopping around!

I have not checked myself but I seem to recall Frost Restoration have a set of colours for things such as this. Worth a look for sure

By heck this is a remarkably interesting thread and a welcome change from debates over thread forms and the correct proofing fluid for canvas! Nice one folks....

I want one..................

Nope I dont think that the 1980s decade is wrong - I left in 1985 and there was only 1 troop of Commanders in the regiment - the rest were Antars.

The Silver Antar is now part of the RLC Silver Collection and appears every so often at Corps Dinners

Errrrr Restore vehicles.......... But before that I spent a long time as a soldier

Ooooh no.... It had been decided that to commemorate the immense service that the regiment had given to life the universe and everything that a piece of table silverware would be commissioned - in the shape of a silver antar and trailer. A voluntary monthly contribution was levied amongst everyone, and I recall it was not an insubstantial sum, and the repayment period was - er - lengthy. The end result, whilst nice, was, shall we say, modest in size, and the Silver Antar issue became one of regimental lets not go there rather that a magnificent triumph.... So Silver Antar references were legion, and what better way to make a point than to paint the real thing? Miles cheaper and much better! I think I am still paying for the sterling silver blighter........................

God preserve us - the Silver Antar!

ooo not half - especially some of the faces (at least two worked with me quite recently). Hopefully the upcoming book will do the "Mojo" (MSO) story justice. On that clip was an ex Polish cavalry Colonel and a man who as a youth fought in the Warsaw uprising, fighting the Germans with a makeshift armoured car... Oh and for the record everyone who was anyone sported those moustaches! It was quite an eye opener at first discovering the spoken language on drag tended to be polish. On being greeted by Mojos, Brit crews would shout back "gin dobbery ratchet panhandle screwdriver............" then collapse in gales of laughter. In fact I seem to remember we laughed all the time.................

The only other observation i would make (and please please please dont shoot me down - it was prompted by the picture and is just offered in the spirit of helpfulness) is that humans and other soft objects should be at least 10-20 m or more from the sides of the trailer so if the load does go over the side and rolls it's only the paintwork and pride that gets damaged. Oh and a commander sticking out of the turret is a bad idea too. If we had to load and carry armour with a tank crew on board (rare) they had to load and travel battened down.

Oh........... My............ Word.................! That brought a few memories flooding back!

When I was tank transporting in BAOR in the 80s it was unforgivable to manouevre the tank on the trailer: the tank (mostly Chieftain but some Cents - ARVs and other nations) had to be lined up prefectly before loading and any crew who couldnt crack it were seen as unprofessional. On the 50 ton trailers there was no room for error as the edges of the tracks were on the edge of the trailer. Of all the incidents of "one off the side" as it was called that I witnessed (not my squadron as it happens) all were due to trying to steer either on the way up or on the trailer. In fact in the squadron I was in it was an offence full stop - if the tank didnt land square it had to be unloaded and reloaded, and God help any No1 who thought otherwise. In order to ensure that the tankie driver didnt have his own ideas he would be invited to put his hands out of the hatch where the No1 could see them. Often track tensions were such that the tank didn't drive straight - in this case the No1 would simply aim off, and they were damm good at it, the aiming off was allowed for by making the tank driver ease up to the trailer with his hands out of the hatch - the No1 would watch the offset over half a tank length of forward travel then get the tankie to steer a bit in the last few feet before the bottom of the ramps. After that it was hands off all the way to the tank stops. A similar approach was taken to winching. Get it on square first time was the only way. Winch jobs or not the aim of the game was to arrive, load lash and leave in 20 minutes and that could be anything up to 20 tanks at a time. Happy days...Got some super 8 cine footage somewhere...

Why have I got it into my head that the Rush Green one is in fact the one I did for Leconfield? I could be wrong though...