sirhc

Tim,

I can't see why it won't work, let us know how you get on.. and the part number of the LR master cylinder!

Chris

Ok, that makes sense.. The front track guards are sheet metal backing with rubber flaps. Sounds like one is pushed into the track. I do a good line in laser cut replacements!

Tim,

Make sure you soak the new seals in brake oil before attempting to stretch them over the piston. Don't ask how I know this!!

Chris

Hi Andy,

Welcome to the club! Is it a damper link arm rubbing on the track?

Chris

Bruce,

Starting with a petrol hull there is a lot of work to get it to the correct configuration for the diesel. How are you going to cut the holes in the hull and modify all the bulkheads?

Chris

Could have been converted in 96. I'll have to see what my Merlin reports say about the conversion. People have converted Sabres back to Scorpions, easy enough to do but remember the front side/indicators are different and you would need to remove some bins etc.

Bruce,

The line for 1979 would not be when it was converted to a Sabre, that would have been around 1995. You are missing the later history which would have been in the Merlin database and not on a record card.

Chris

Hello, just one question. What's the red stuff between the planks?

 

Guy

Guy, when we made ours we painted all the edges of the wood with red oxide primer before bolting it together. Looks like this is the same.

Chris

I hope that some photos of it in somewhere sandy will show up sooner or later. I am getting close to having all the bits, I still need some turret side bins and all the brackets etc for all 3 of the turret bins.. if anyone can help!

Chris

Heres a few more, not scans but just used the camera on my iphone.

Thanks Simon, the iphone works just fine!

Chris

Hi Simon,

Excellent photo - many thanks! Every photo or snippet of information makes the vehicle even more interesting.

Chris

Hi Barry,

Interesting photo, thanks for posting. Do you know if the gearbox they used is the petrol one? The input module on the TN15D is geared differently to allow for the slower revving Cummins engine.

Chris

Nice work Chris looking forward to hearing it running..

 

Anorak question no 21 in a series of 250....is that a diesel pulley on the alternator? Bit hard to tell from the pics..

 

Cheers

Tim

Hi Tim,

no its a petrol one on the alternator, fingers crossed I can line the belt up, if not I'll need to swap it!

Chris

According to the Withams website the DAF is 145hp and this is 195, but I think it's similar. There are lots of special bits though, like the sump designed to fit between the torsion bars and the flywheel.

The British fleet were converted to diesel around 2000. The engine is a genuine CVRT Diesel engine, it came out of a Sultan. Everything I'm fitting is correct for the British army diesel conversion.

Stormers were built with a Perkins diesel, and Shielder has a Cummins, but all the original CVRTs (Scorpion, Spartan etc) were powered by the Jaguar J60 petrol engine. There were some diesels built for export like the Scorpion 90.

Chris

Todays update...

First jobs were to fit the alternator, oil cooler and engine mounts. You can see how different the engine mounts are from a petrol one. The oil cooler is the gearbox end of a petrol one, with different caps and extended connectors. The bulkhead is split so this can stay in when you need to replace the engine or gearbox.

Next I fitted all the pipe work for the oil cooler. You can see the 3 new master cylinders in this photo. I had rebuild kits for the old ones, but it was quicker to fit a new set. These are worth replacing or re-sealing whenever restoring a CVRT... I didn't do the ones in my Sabre and ended up replacing one at a show, in the rain, so I could drive the 30 miles home!

The engine then went in temporarily. It needs aligning correctly, at the moment there is one shim on each corner. It will probably need to come out and go back in a few more times before it's ready to be bolted down.

Finally before calling it a day I tackled the wiring. I didn't have a diagram to hand and there are old a few wires I wasn't sure where to plug in, so it's looking pretty good.

Next time I get back to working on it I will tackle the rest of the wiring, hopefully shim up the engine and then I am not too far away from seeing what kind of noise it makes when I start it up!

Well I am nearly at the end of the days off I took to get a good start on this project. The gearbox is now in and torqued up. It needs to be levelled up with the hull and then shimmed to get the pulley parallel to the fan bulkhead, which is all done. Connecting the drive shafts proved a bit tricky as they wouldn't go in, but I figured out how to give them a wiggle and they slid in nicely. All the steering pipes have been made (they were missing) and all but 1 fitted. No pictures of this, but it's not that exciting!

Today I spent some time sorting out the Cummins 6BTA which I'm going to fit. It's been drained and fitted with new filters, and given a good clean.

This is the hours run meter on the engine... 184 hours! I think this is about as close to a new one as it's possible to get! It should run nicely.

In case you are wondering, it is possible to fit a 6BTA into a Land Rover 110..... they go in the back quite nicely!

I've got the engine mounts all cleaned up so tomorrow it's going in the hull, along with the alternator, oil cooler and oil pipes. The engine may have to come out and go back a few times as it needs shimming to align it with the gearbox. That should be fun!

Chris

Looking forward to my Sabre being tax exempt next year, in a couple of years time hopefully the Fox and Scimitar (1975) will be too!

Final job for today was to fit a better set of sprockets and some track.

I've got a few days off next week when I hope to get some plumbing done, get the engine in and hopefully assemble the completely stripped turret ring... maybe even get that bolted in too!

Not a lot happened for a while, but today was a good day and I did a bit more.

The handbrake was assembled and the brake calipers fitted.

I also took the TN15D gearbox up to the farm and put it in the hull. This had been thoroughly cleaned and drained of oil first. There is no access panel to drain it once in the vehicle!

No matter what I do I can't seem to keep the water out, and to top it off my wet vacuum cleaner died today!

I decided to fit the final drives first, these were fitted by putting a bar through the middle and having a person lift each end while the 3rd person put the bolts in. It worked out ok, but was heavy work!

With the final drives on, we lifted the hull onto some wooden blocks and fitted the wheels. It had been sitting on 4 wheels, which caused it to keep sinking into the ground!

I finally got round to starting the project in about November time. First job was to give the hull a good clean out. It came up quite nice after some degreaser and a steam clean.

Time for some updates.

I was lucky enough to win a number of lots in the tender sales last year which enabled me to start ticking off bits on my wanted list fairly quickly. Thanks to Andy for the use of his van, it has had most of the parts I've bought for the Scimitar in it so far!

Withams got the whole fleet, there are loads of them in the yard.. I wonder how many have been sold on?