tailgunner

like it like it...........any idea of its date of manufacture , it looks like a WW2 pattern rather than a post war model .Any idea of what colour you are going to paint it?

I was informed that all RAF vehicles during WW2 were painted green wether that also covers bomb trolleys I`ve no idea?

Hi Julian

I remember them well , I did get one of you and your mates many years ago ,I just wished I had kept it as it was in a blemish free condition , not one crack in any of the Perspex panels.

Little did I know that I would end up restoring an Lancaster upper turret as well , never mind I might have another one coming .

Thanks very much for the replys , i might just have an upper turret cupola on its way which will get the Lancaster upper turret well on its way to looking some thing like,

For that model of turret i am looking for the hrydraulic and oxygen slip ring which is mounted on the underside of the turret floor section.

As you can see its a sperry made upper turret of a B17F that came of an aircraft that had been cut up at USAAF base Burtonwood , i have tried various museums ,collectors and forumns to try and find the missing parts but with no luck todate!

Do you know of any bits that might help to complete this turret?

Hi Paul

I have just sent a reply to your pm , i will going over to east kirkby soon as i need to measure there FN50 upper turret as thats another turret i am in the process of restoring plus a couple more..................i think ive got a turret fetish i must start taking pills for it!:nut:

thorpe camp had also passed my mind i will give them a try as well............TA!

Hi Danny

Thanks very much for your reply , FN stands for Frazer Nash a british company that used to make turrets for the Airministry during WW2.

This model of turret was also used on the wellington and Stirling bombers.

Hi , i`m in the process of trying to restore a Lancaster bomber FN5 front gun turret ,can any body help with parts .

I am in need of a turret ring , gunsight mount brackets and arms and lastly the perspex cupola.

Always intrested in dug up parts or even parts that have come out of the sea!

whats the future of this chassis , has it been saved? If not can it be saved............

Hi eddy

heres some pictures of your carrier for the rest of the crowd to look at , as you can see, you now have some of the replacement parts in situ but i still need the location dimensions of the drivers viewing slot , may be some one out there can help?

Your new lower back panel has also been marotten sections of the floor.

When you pop over to bobs can you bring with you the two hinges for the front triangular top armour section TA!

apparantly some time after the war, quite a number of the captured german aircraft were damaged in a storm?

a mate of mine who had no intrest in aviation at the time (he certainly does now)used to be a JCB driver , he remembers he had to bury a lot of the wreckage some where away from the airfield.

Can he remember where.........NO!

He has wracked his brain but to this day he cant remember, other than engines ,props , wheels ,fuselage sections ,you name it , it went in the hole:???............dam and blast!

i wonder if hypnosis would work?

Now you have got me going.....

Lancaster

Lancaster

Lancaster

Lancaster ......why not i like lancasters...

B17

B17

B17 what the hell

B17

Typhoon , typhoon ,typhoon i think i`m running out of space

Auster AOP5 ,oxford some thing different ,mustang , hurricane ,fw190 i reckon i could possibily just squeeze in there a MB5 .....

Can i have another hanger?

The only thing i have are one wheel assembly and one new track pad if thats of any help?

Hi tim

When i purchased the rear body , the chap gave me a full sized outline of his doors and frames plus some dimensions so hopefully they should come out ok? fingers crossed what i am looking for are the dimensions of the chassis top cross members.

These are the ones with lower cut out and which the ammo body bolts to , you can clearly see them on that lovely olive drab painted Quad.

I hope to have the canvas dyed green within the next month and sown up by my far hands , thats if i can control my sowing machine............

The end result will be have the hoop sticks painted , canvas on and fitted to the seat .Talk about doing things back to front , the engine is`nt even fitted yet but i am a great believer in doing some thing rather than nothing and every thing has to be done at some point?.......colin

what a lovely job , can`t wait until mine is looking that good.

i think this years job is to make a new set of rear doors for the ammo body and fabricate the upper chassis cross members that hold the body to the chassis.

Until then heres the latest bits for the truck , new valve covers just need two more to make a full set.the very rusty thing in the right hand side of these covers is one of the original ones.

Another piece of the jigsaw.................

Tim

I can quite honestly say that my engine was in far worse state than your friends , it was just red rusty all over.

it looked like it had been outside for sixty years and it was`nt as oily inside so with this in mind , i reckon he should be able to remove the pistons like i did.

Before i even attempted it, i made sure the cylinder bores were as clean as i could get them just by rubbing the rust off with emery paper.

the pistons that were at the top (TDC) were actually the easiest ones to get out?

Does any one know what this target is.............

Its looks to well made just to be a hard target , is it a concept tank that was cancelled?

Any ideas , these photos were taken back in the 90`s on the kikubright ranges.

the old rusty engine that i brought back is the one that you can see on the floor next to the aircraft gun turret in the first lot of pictures i sent in.

It actually came apart quite easily except for extracting the pistons out of the bores but i remeber seeing an episode of salvage squad were they had used very hot engine oil poured down the bores to release the pistons?

this was some thing that i had never tried before so i thought i might as well give it a go because iether way they have to come out and before every body jumps on their keyboards , there is no cylinder head that you can take off.

The whole upper part of the engine is in one piece so no!.....you can not push out the pistons.......unfortunately.

Any how ......hot boiling oil they got!

I left them for about ten minutes , bolted the big end cap back onto the con rod supported iether side with two small blocks of to keep it vertical and belted it as hard as i could upwards........clonk!

I tried again and it went clink!...........oh! sugar ,that did`nt sound good.

It had iether moved or it was broken any way it was to late so i hit it again and again and sure enough it had moved, it was on its way out.

Each cylinder took me about half an hour each but the hot oil worked.

It needs now , eight new valves and springs , exhaust manifold , top water jacket (these two items i can see me casting from new) water pump and complete fan assembly which includes bracket , pulley and fan.

I found the correct brass carburettor and magnetos on e-bay and that also includes the radiator , its just amazing what you can find with a little help.

i must say the Manchester branch were brilliant , they were slick and well versed with process of registering a vehicle for the first time absolutely no problem with them, except for taking the vehicle to their inspector.

unlike the Preston branch ............,calling on them for the second time armed with all my up to date papers including my letter of verification .

which they would not accept unless i had another letter from the MVT stating that all the replacement parts that had been used in the restoration were original or had been made to the original manufactures specification.......

It was at that point i thought *"^%"£ i`m of to manchester who were just marvelous.

I wish my DVLA office was a bit more helpfull as yours were but unfortunately the Manchester and the Preston branch have stopped their inspectors coming to your premises.

As you can imagine that alone was the biggest pain in the neck , never mind i have learn`t a lot from that little exercise and will be better prepared for the next time , may be?

i obtained the body from a guy that i met at Beltring , i put up a sign on my stall saying that i wanted parts for a Nash Quad.

seeing as its the worlds largest MV rally i thought why not give it a go and blow me this chap turns , i think his name was roger?

He had come all the way from rance with a friend of his and noticed the wanted sign.

My French is rubbish and he did`nt speak a lot of English but between us all including friends from both sides , he mentioned that he had a rear body .........Yehhhhhhhh!

After he left my mate said he mentioned that also had a engine........Noooooo , i reckon my mate heard wrong.

after some time he sent a letter saying was i still intrested and when are you coming and by the way i have found two front oil lamps for you........well that did it, i had to go.

we took my mates toyota pick up and trailer after staying over on the Somme , my mate said well where does this guy live.i never to much notice other than he said he was`nt far from Calais.

After looking at the map i nearly fell over backwards , he was half way down France and near to the Swiss border, oh! god!

I was for turning around but we all agreed that were going to go , which we did.

what a place.............it was full of all sorts tucked away up a hill side , every barn was full of kit...Sherman tank ,DUKW , jimmys , dodges a scammel a quite complete un restored 1ww German truck bits of Nash quad here and there plus a fully restored quad in the garage.

Around the back there was at least seven quad rear bodys but all without rear doors and frames , they had survived by being laid on their sides and used in a paint factory as shelving , amazing.........

we not only came back with a body but also with a very rusty engine , two oil lamps ,a jeep chassis and jeep wheels , if we had been pulled in by the police i reckon we would of been locked up as i am sure we were well over weight.

the toyota was sold two weeks later poor thing.............

Abn deuce your dead right its a B17F flying fortress sperry upper turret that from an aircraft that was broken up at my local airbase which was RAF Burtonwood which sadly is no longer.

thank for all the kind remarks about the Nash but be warned i can not restore the truck at the speed tonys doing the Dennis , as it takes 2 1/2 hours to get to my friends where it is kept so its going to be a slow process.

Heres a couple of pictures of the rear body which was found in France...colin

Like every body says ,the vehicle on the back is a Quad or Nash Quad , i could do with those rear top chassis cross members and the search light!

My little journey started by taking my vehicle ( a willys jeep) to the MOT station , were it was tested ,chassis number ,engine number , number of seats and lastly the mileage was inspected , that cost me £45.

The next was a letter of verification which i could of done my self and which is what i will do next time , a chap came out who was a very knowledgeble in jeeps gave it good look over to make sure it was what i said it was and basically took all the same details as the MOT guy had done , that cost me £40.

I then had to go to Manchester with all the relevent paper work plus a cheque for£55 made payable to the DVLA.

I then was told i had to take the vehicle to the VOSA testing station in Oldham to be inspected by their inspector (WHY?) which is a good three quarters of a hour away.

I then took a day of work , hired a trailer which cost £35 plus another £20 in fuel in the rain for the guy to look at (who could`nt tell the difference between a genuine WW2 jeep and a CJ2) only take the same details as the MOT guy............what hell is going on?

To recap that little exercise has now cost me £315 which includes the loss of a days wage , i thought we were in the age of computers ,ie every body can talk to each other and the relevent information exchanged?

Why the VOSA guy could`nt come out is beyond me........

If a vehicle is already on the road (road registered) then by all means drive it to a VOSA station but when a vehicle has to be trailered there ,the inspector should be allowed to pay you a visit.

What would of happened if i did not have a tow bar fitted to my car?..........what next a recovery vehicle!.......so this is a warning to all of you out there who are currently restoring a vehicle that needs registering.

Oh! by the way do you think the DVLA would reimburse me for the excess cost?............i do`nt think so

Hi tim

its me again , i was going to explain what each pictures was although they are self explanitary (i think thats how you spell it?)

The first picture is as how i found it , the next as it is now , the seat after it had been constructed and covered and the last is the engine after it had been sand blasted and the crank reground.

just trying to get the canvas dyed after which i will machine stitch together to make the hood so hopefully the seat ,hoop sticks and hood will be finished.

another piece of the jig saw arrived the other day from a good friend (this guy builds Aircraft merlin engines for a hobby) he remade all eight valve covers for the engine , what a guy!...........colin

Hi tim

i suppose i could.......

just got to sus out how to send a picture.......here goes.