Maurice

what about welding up the tow hook from the limber with the 25Pr on it , this makes it a 4 wheeled trailer with brakes.

Hmm , I would love to own one of these , it is a WW2 water trailer , it is in the same class as the trailer 10CWt light trailer , I got the manuals for it , I can make a scan tonight if that is of anny help.

Adrian , the Manual says SAE 50 , but this is actually the old fashioned oil , that is wy the engines didn`t last that long .

Best option is if the engine internals are clean to use modern Radial Aircraft oil , this is a much more advanced oil compared to the SAE 50 , People at Duxford could tell you what the Comercial name in the UK is for this oil .

Jack ,

If you look at the Ciney callender in 2011 the next Bourse militaria is on may 1st . That is also what I heard when I was over there.

Another thing about Firefy`s is that they only used M4 Hulls wich didn`t have the dynamo on the floor behind the gear box . This is because otherwise they could not modify it to accomodate the big ammo bin behind the drivers seat. For this installiation they only had to chop the Battery box away till the relays and junction blocks , the battery`s went up above the tracks

M4A4`s have the dynamo on the rear of the fighting compartment , so no problem .

For the IC it therefore should have an engine mounted dynamo , or in the cast bracket at the rear of the gear box . This is one of the reasons they didn`t use M4A1`s 75 , because they almost all had floor mounted dynamo`s

There are little giva aways on the Sherman`s . Like the Baldwin ones had the arial dome were the co driver sits made out of rolled plate , were the Pullman build ones had a cast piece like the M4A4`s have.

Further a lot of the pressed styeel ones have a riveted floor .

With the cast ones the Lima built Shermans had 2 eyes very close together at the level of the Homelite fuel tank cap to keep the tow cable on the hull . they also had the lima logo with the serial number stamped above the right fender . Pacific Car versions had the serial number stamped on the right hand side above the first suspension unit.

even the date is sometimes possible to determine by looking at several features , for example on the M4A4 Shermans there are lifting eyes with rectangular plates under them , that was done till the end of January 1943, later ones have just the eye. protective edge for the bolts on the final drive housing starts at the begining of 1943. early M4A4 have the rear plate made out of 2 pieces end of 1942 changed to one piece.

And then the direct vision slots etc. there even exist Shermans wich have the blanked off Pepperpot exhaust , but no direct vision slots , these must have been early hulls a la M3 still being at the plant were they assembled them .

thanks Michel , never checked that one out . The VC firefly were I am working on gave me also some clues on how things should be fitted.

The VC from the Kapellen depot has again differences in layout than the one here.

Major part missing now for both Firefly`s is the gun ellevation mechanism.

The Pictures from the IC in the snake park in South africa must be from the same batch(Pullman ?) as mine . I got some pictures send to me from a collector who lives not too far away from it . it is in great shape inside.

The other IC hull in Holland is empty , it was once coverted to dozer by the Army.

It is not a tank yet , first have to get paperwork done before the 17pr gun can be imported, but there are pictures on this forum from the tank , taken about a year ago . Almost all electrics are done , I am just trying to figure out how the British emergency stop buttun was connected , and how the electrics are routed on the floor to the right hand side radio junction box (this is different then the VC firefly) but I can`t compare with any other IC over here . there are some in South Africa , but they are a bit out of the way for me.

Anybody got a Firefly manual by the way?

I hope to get my IC ready in about 1 1/2 year , still a lot of small interior bits wich have to be finished , but I am getting there

Hi , first of all you have no brake pedal in your Sherman , right one is accell.pedal , left is clutch , your 2 sticks are the brakes .

Master switch box as you explained is only for that , the button is a fuse .

Gear lever , if you can move it sideways , that is neutral , push buttun on top in , and then to the left forward is 1st, to the left back is reverse .

because of engine transplant it looks to me that there must be a switch on the dash board to start it . what dash is in ?

otherwise send some pictures , then we can see what is moddified.

this is the first one , the missing one," Bulldog" is now at Duxford

the letters on the left are white , so the shield has no white in it , must be Red /blue . So not secound army sign .

what use would the truck have been Office? then maybe HQ

If you are looking for pictures of your carriers I can help you , I saw them just before they went.

Another thing about these 85hp engines in the Canadian carrier , they are not the same as the British 21Stud 85BHP engine .

The canadian blocks have 24 stud engines like in T16 , and the CMP range vehicles (95 BHP), but the internals are smaller , and so it is a 85 BHP engine with the exterior look of a 95BHP engine.

But orriginally it was not designed for vehicle recovery , its use was too load bombs or heavy parts into the GMC body

You should not set ignition as is writen in the manual , it is only ok for a start up indication , the best way is to leave the floor pannel out , and keep advancing the ignition little by little when driving it , if in the end you accellerate and it picks up straight away , then you are about right , if it starts pinging retard it a little .it is advanced too much then .

Modern Petrol ignites totally different then the petrol develloped in the 40ies , the engine will also nut run so smooth as they used to do . The french army even made for the last rebuilds different camshafts to overcome this problem.

to ad more confusion , late war vehicles even had all black cab covers , Fordson and Bedford had dem for sure , because I had them in my hands .Emile Becker from Luxemburg had an ex fire brigade Fordson WOT 2 , and with it was a full black canvas with the observation ring cut out . A wreck of a MW at a scrap yard in Molesworth also had a black canvasin the tool box.

On my MW in the picture is an orriginal radiator blind in Brown , 2 of these I found in the north of Italy.

if you swap the sump , and inlet manifolds , and water pumps from the orriginal block you are there , just one fan belt has to be deleted if you leave the french distributor on , but if you put an adaptor plate in between the wartime distributor and the wartime gear cover you can delete the french distributor (cam shaft is slightly longer) This is possible with the 21 stud engine , and 24 stud engine (heads on french 24 stud engine have radiator hose connection in different place, so 24 stud WW2 head can be swapped as well) . clutch matches straight on to gear box .

I can tell you for sure that the hull were this turret came of is now in Belgium (M4A3 HVSS )

Adrian you are right , that turret is taken of the range , the Sherman itself has now been donated to the Belgian army .

These lights are for early CMP trucks, convoy lights or side lights , tail lights are the same with a red lens , yes early canadian Carriers had them as well

I got a main shaft for you , I can bring it to Beltring.

seals are available new over here .

Hi , Yours is painted in the Dutch NATO paint . I cleaned 2 Humbers , and their first coat was Matt Brown , but they were both from 43, a lot of bits were gloss black as well , like mudguard brackets etc. This is also Shown in the Wheels and Track magazine factory pictures. Both of them were also silver inside.

You don`t need special high temp paint , normal modern paint can hold easyly temperatures up too 100 degrees C, an engine usually runs at 80 , and if boiling about a 100 , so just use ordinairy paint

hi , if you need bits I know of an other one in a Scrapyard.