Rob.Brindley

Some more progress this week on both our Bedford MW and our BSA M20. First up, the MW: This weekend, all of the woodwork for the cab was completed! Our friend Mark has worked tirelessly over the last few weeks replicating all of the parts and getting a perfect fit. The bulkhead will be sent away for blasting shortly and then we can start on the metal repairs. Once the metalwork is complete, we'll refit the woodwork to it. The M20: Whilst Mark has been busy working on the cab, Dad and I have spent the time tidying up our BSA M20 ready for this years show season. Last week, we'd just got the base coat of green on which meant that, this week, it was time for stencils. On Friday evening / Saturday morning, I spent some time at work drawing up the artwork in Illustrator and then used our vinyl cutter with masking vinyl to produce the stencils: With the stencils produced, it was over the dad's house to start applying them. Relatively quickly, we had the census numbers applied: And after a few more hours work:

Thanks for the info @64EK26 & @fv1609, it's very much appreciated. It's been very interesting seeing bits and pieces of information slowly come together for our truck. I wonder what will be discovered next?

I've hear one or two stories about military driving tests... One of the lads I used to work with said his HGV test was basically a lap of the parade ground! Our ERM is 43 YR 07 - Unfortunately we know none of our vehicles military history. I'm hoping that we'll take to a show one day and somebody will recognise it and come up with a photo or story of a relative who used to drive it but that's a very long shot... I've yet to drive an MW, but I'm looking forward to having a go in ours when it's ready towards the end of the year.

So we've taken a short break from the MW project to work on our BSA M20. The M20 was complete and running but was looking very tired after years of neglect. The bike has been stripped, thoroughly cleaned and is now slowly going back together with a few new parts following a repaint. Masking and priming in progress: And now going back together.

Time for a big update! Mark arrived at 5.30 on Saturday morning to continue making the final few pieces required for the cab structure. As I've been away gigging with the bands for the last couple of weekends, it was really interesting to watch Mark working on some of the more complicated pieces. The main supports that run under the floor boards on each side are tapered, curved and don't really have a straight edge to work. After 3 weeks of hard graft, the woodwork for the cab is nearly complete. I think you'll agree from the photos that he's done a fantastic job and it's beginning to look the part. All of the time and effort is in the planning, measuring and detail work but with that now behind us, we should start seeing what looks like major progress in fairly short order. With the final few pieces made, we managed to lay out all of the pieces on our temporary work and everything fits a treat! The separate pieces need to be glued and screwed together and there's a joint on each side support that needs to be done to link it to the rear crossmember, but it's really exciting to see all the individual parts together for the first time. A huge thanks to Mark for all the time and effort he's put into this for us - He's done an outstanding job! On Friday, we received a phone call from John Keeling letting us know that our newly restored Radiator was complete and ready for collection. We'd taken 3 radiators that John had in storage down to P.K Radiators (Longton) with goal of having one done for our truck and the others cleaned out / repaired to have on the shelf as spares (There are 5 MWs in our local club so having access to spares is a great benefit to all of us). Unfortunately, we soon found out that all 3 radiators were severely blocked on would require a re-core. It was also found that the steel inlets / outlets were badly corroded / rotten. Of the 6 total inlets/outlets, only 2 could be saved - Just enough for one serviceable radiator. We're very grateful to John for allowing us to make one good radiator from the 3 he had to get us on the road and to Pete for carry out the work. The radiator looks superb and we're looking forward to getting it fitted!

Look forward to following along - Congrats!

So, another week has passed and we've made some more progress on our MW restoration. I've also put about 30 miles on the Jeep this week - All seems to be ok. I'm looking forward to show season (And some warmer weather)! Update from dad on our Facebook page:

Whilst we've unfortunately had to make the decision not to take the MW to Holland in September, that doesn't mean progress isn't still being made! On Friday, Mark Elden came over to measure up the woodwork required on the cab. Whilst we repaired the bed ourselves, there is some more complicated joinery required on the cab and we welcome the input of somebody with a little more experience than ourselves. Whilst the original door frame looked ok on first inspection, when we removed the door skins, we found it to be full of wood worm. Hopefully, we'll make a start on new door frames this weekend with Mark's help. With the door skins removed, we're planning to CNC cut new skins (With Gaz's help). We've also made a start removing all of the ancillaries from the bulkhead and started to clean up the metalwork. It's going to be a lot of work, but we're looking forward to getting it complete over the next few months! For the first time in (we think) 40 years, the passenger side screen was opened after lots of gentle persuasion and lubricant. With the truck now not going to Holland, we also made a start on our BSA M20. The plan is to have it ready for Foxfield Railway - War Wheels in May and it will definitely be in Arnhem in September! With the weather being nice today, it was also time to bring the Jeep out of winter storage and go for a run.

So, it's been a couple of weeks of slow progress, but that doesn't mean nothing has happened... With the bed returned to John's farm, there was a few bare metal pieces that we wanted to prime before they started to corrode. These were removed last week, primed and left to dry. The order for our canvas has gone in to Frank Brown, the deposit paid and we're looking forward to receiving it in the not too distant future. We had to take some measurements for Frank and this was again completed last week. Unfortunately, we've had to make the decision that our MW will not be going to Holland as planned in September. One of our daily runabouts has let us down which means that funds allocated to the MW restoration have no got to go towards replacing it. Whilst it is a setback, we should still be able to have the MW completed in time for next show season. This week, we removed the brakes from the chassis and have sent them to Monty's War Restore for overhaul. With that job done, we set about completing an inventory of the engine parts we have here and have boxed them up ready to send them over to John / Chris who are working on the engine for us. Next week, we start making some progress on the cab!

Today was a very important day as the next phase of our restoration can really begin! On Friday, after work, Dad went over to the farm to start preparing the cab to be lifted down from on top of the shipping container it has lived on for the last 10 years or so. By the time I arrived, the cab was safely on the ground and cleaned. I'd spent a hours this week building a pallet at work to transport the cab safely to Dad's house. We transferred the cab to the new pallet and went to collect one of John's recovery trucks ready for the move. First thing this morning we arrived at John's farm and loaded the cab. The cab is surprisingly light and can easily be lifted by 2 people, but we used the Forklift to load it before securing with several ratchet straps. With the cab loaded it was off to sunny Werrington to deliver the cab and load the bed for it's return trip to the farm. With the cab taking up much less space, we should be able to work on our BSA M20 project in tandem with the chassis! The bed was loaded using the winch and we returned to John's farm by mid afternoon. The bed is currently in one of the barns, only a few feet from where the cab had been stored. A huge thank you must go out to John and Motor Clinic for all the help and assistance transporting the bed / cab to and from home. On to the next phase...

Firstly, sorry we missed last weeks update. I wasn't feeling too well so I kept away from Dad. However, that doesn't mean nothing was done! Dad had a busy weekend mounting the rear rub blocks and cleaning up / priming & painting the cab canvas framework. I've been away gigging Friday / Saturday this week, but Dad got the final few bits of metalwork for the bed done. It doesn't look like a huge amount of progress, but it's a few small, time consuming, jobs crossed off the list. Today, we test fit the tilt frame on the bed and then took a trip up to the farm to speak to John about returning the bed and getting the cab up to Dad's garage. All being well, this should be completed by the end of next weekend!

You can buy inline load resistors (usually quite cheap (£6 ish)) that will solve that problem for you. Just fit them inline in the indicator circuit and the vehicle will see resistance that it's supposed to.

If you're in the UK, I can supply at £110.00 + vat inc postage. Don't want to brake forum rules and I'm certainly not looking to advertise our business but I know we fit supply these regularly so I can vouch for their quality. Rob

Not looking for business but I work in the automotive trade. This is what we supply for 24v vehicles towing 12v trailers: 160502 Trailer Connecting Unit (hc-cargo.co.uk)

Working on a school night? Yep... After work, I headed over to Dad's to give him a hand painting the tilt frame. There's a still a few small MWR specific parts to be added (Curved brackets used to store the aerials, aerial mounts and gun clips) but these will be added at a later date. Right now, it's useable so we can turn our attention to other things. The next major job is the brakes... Before we can return the bed to the farm (To make space in the garage for the cab), we need to get the brake lines made and fitted. Once the brakes lines are in, the bed and tilt frame will be fitted and we can start the next major piece. There'll be another more in-depth update this weekend.