robin craig

Steve, The power wagon, called Christine, belongs to the EME school and is a work in progress, the box bed is somewhat loose and it has very little interior. The members of the EME Historic Vehicle Club do work on that vehicle and others as time allows. R

Dear Cosrec, This truck design is as your correctly identified a Steyr. They were licence built in Canada a good number of years ago at the then UTDC factory in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Once the contract was completed the line was torn apart and that ended production. It was a stipulation they they be built here as part of the contract. The mid mounted winch does indeed pay out forward or to the rear for just about every recovery situation. The stinger i'm afraid I do not know any makers names on. They will be around for a good number of years to come. Robin

Ian, delightfully frank post, exactly what this forum is all about, please consider yourself the resident RB44 expert! Its good to hear from someone who actually operates one and has been "living the dream" rather than hearsay. Please post pics of your machine and your travels R

Here is the cross decking on the mainland before I trucked them back to the island where I work on two of our work trailers behind my company truck. We used the tractor with pallet forks to do the motive power bit and pull them off the highway trailer onto ours, then the boxes came off with the forks. The last picture shows one of the two waiting for the cable ferry to the island. R

I have finally had some time to go through my camera and now am posting some pictures of how the vehicles came back from the USA. This is the moment they entered Canada at the Sarnia boder crossing and the first time I saw them in theflesh although not up close as they went for Xray inspection.

This was our shop a few weeks ago, the blessed troublesome CVR(W) Fox was getting closed up after fiddling. The Supacat was in for a steering alignment and a new ball joint after having a sudden stop against a tree at the hands of some plonker who was a guest. The Ferret was in for tidying and first parade work prior to going to a show. R

I managed to snap a pic of the cover aide memoire used by the Canadian Forces as it thought it might be of use to some people. Sorry its on its side. R

Here is an M38A1 Cdn and a Dodge Power wagon called Christine. The Dodge belongs to the EME school at Borden but the other is an Ontario Regiment Museum piece. R

These vehicles belong to the Ontario Regiment Museum but are not controlled by the Canadian Forces as happens to some of the other vehicles in the Regimental collection. The first is their Sherman named Bart, a frequent exhibit at many shows. The next is a Sheridan and a Chaffee side by side with an Abbot in the background. The next two are M113s actually of US military service origins and not CF ones although they are painted up in a CF type way. R

This is my mate Brad's 1969 Cadillac Gage V100 Commando as used in Vietnam and is the Air Force version and mounts a number of 30 and 50 cal machine guns around the opening at the centre of the vehicle. 5 speed manual gearbox with optional 4wd powered by a 361 Chrysler petrol engine. Very roomy inside and a delight to drive. R

The above wrecker is an HLVW (heavy logistics vehicle wheeled) which is the current standard wrecker in the Forces but is supplemented in Afghanistan by some bigger more protected vehciles of other makes. It has a knuckle boom Pitman crane with a max load of 3500kg at its max reach shown. Some of these have been extended in the chassis as the steering is light when lifting the LAV 3 on the stinger. This example comes from the EME school at Borden just north of Toronto ad the guys who brought it are volunteers for the duty. These will be in service for many yeas to come yet. R

Sorry about so few pictures, I had camera issues.

Looking for a competant freight forwarder to ship some kit. Anyone? R

Interesting to read your progress. What voltage will you finish the carrier in? A friend of mine has his done in 12volt and i had him fit an electronic ignition which totally changed the way it runs. They are avaialble off the shelf here. I can go bug him for info if required. R

In the current climate of terrorism and the like I am so glad that the US military is keeping such a diligent control of such lethal items as these trailers, god forbid that they should fall into the wrong hands and becoming a danger to the public. Just boggles my tiny mind as to what they will put and end user certificate on next. Makes me glad I am into British kit. R

All jokes aside, Recymech thank you for posting such a wonderful one of oddity. R

Those are not normal skis and poles they are lane markers as the plow has a demining effect also, marks the way to the apres ski!:kiss: R

Was the rear bin perforated to act as a gravity based gritter? :nut: R

The wedge socket as you call it is for me a great device. I have made a number of custom / bespoke winch mounts for people and always favoured these as the termination over a swaged end or one with cable saddles. The advantage as I saw it for the applications was that in the middle of nowhere with limited hand tools a cable that had become damaged could be reworked to remove that section and still be functionable even though it was a tad shorter. The people I was building mounts for were the type to be off road for a number of days away from workshop facilities. Over here Crosby made them. R

I believe the "safety cage" to which you refer is actually refered to somewhere as a Faraday cage. Cant remember where i read that but its not unusual for me to forget things. R

I would say that two people can pull the rear armour off and have the fan assy out and back in during a 3 hour period, maybe not the first time but one sure gets a heck of a lot quicker the more times you do it, really one night after work should sort it. Why mess around with a dying set of batteries? R

I think there might be Sumb thing worth saving. . . R

I believe that the nut behind the bolt is different. R

Having had our fan assembly in and out a whack of times because of *@$ issues its really quite simple just abit tedious when you are doing it for the umpteenth time! We use an engine crane with a double legged chain with hooks on the end, the clip onto a couple of pieces of angle iron with small blocks of steel stock so that they hold the outer edges of the fan volutes. Once we put a tiny bit of tension on that assembly we undo the required fasteners. I find the stays that connect to the engine block are the most awkward. For assembly we made up an alingment tool. I have been meaning to post pictures of all our gizmos, one day! R

Slightly off topic but here I go anyway. . . Once on a building site in sleepy Peacehaven in Sussex around 1983 or so a JCB backed over a pile of gravel that had recently been dumped on site by an ARC lorry. The driver noticed something disc like in the gravel and did not like the looks of it and dialed the nines pretty fast. C/S 404 and 403 were tasked to secure the site and duly did so and reported that "bomb disposal" was required asap. Who ever had the tasking arrived in a flurry of blues and twos a while later and rendered the object safe and removed it to a nearby beach and made a nice bang with it. It still had active material even after all those years. If i recall correctly it was some kind of land mine. The thoughts then turned as to how it had arrived there, the realisation was that it had been vacuum dredged from the sea bottom by the ARCO SEVERN or one of it's sister ships, unloaded and passed through the entire washing plant on the Newhaven North Quay and dumped into a stockpile. It was then handled again by a loader and dumped into the box of the lorry, transported over the A259 and dumped on site. Thankfully its trigger mechanism was fouled and failed to set off the charge. Everyone sighed a sigh of relief as to how lucky they had been. Thought you might like the anecdote. R