13BK76

hope this helps with the aerials, there are 3 in a t shape (the front one is bent back due to trees hitting it and there's no springing in it.) they are to do with the jamming system to counter radio controlled bombs. theres 3 rather large diameter wires and heavy duty connectors ( compared to normal radio cables) that go down to the mount behind the drivers seat that you can see in the pic of the rear interior just to the right of the fire bottles. Dont know when they were fitted but certainly they were in the latter years of service and you can see them on the APV and the CAV. No problems glad i can help, looking forward to seeing the progress.

in the last pic in the front right corner you can see three bolt holes in a line, these are where the hinge for the clear screen were. to the middle on the sides there is a set of bolts in a triangle shape where the bolt that held it flat when closed. Thankfully the army removed the the screens on my piglet as witnessed by the bolts that were already in the holes when i got the vehicle

Its interesting to note how some armoured panels shed the green paint easier than others after nature took its course. Would I be right by saying the large panels on the rear are Macrelon, along with under the doors and just forward of the cab doors and that the other panels (not so weathered and holding the NATO Green) are some other armour?? The side panels on the rear body, the doors,the bulkhead strengthening plates windscreen frame and rear body plates are armour steel. The belly plate, roof section, the bonnet cover under rear arches and rear body floor and the panels on the front wings in front of the doors are Glass fibre taken from the original VPK's. I take it that the armour on mine wasnt primed properly. 1 problem i found when removing the loose paint of the rear passenger side was that at some point it had been "glue bombed" and just painted over its surprising how years old glue will go up in flames!!!!!!!! BTW AA are releasing the Tangi and Snatch models soon so if you cant get your hands on the real deal (on page 124 of David Dunnes book) then you might want to try your hand at the scale kit :cool2: I know, they are also releasing a Piglet but thats a long way down the line perhaps even next year according to the phone call i had with them last week :-( ..as I have your attention Gareth I'll throw you another quick question, does the roof hatch at the rear open forward (looking at the hinges) and does it open in one piece? It folds over to the front in one piece, i'll do you some pics in nxt day or two. cheers bud Nay bother Roy :-D

ok you win lol. I think ur pig is fantastic. i've got the accurate armour saxon part made that im in the process of making a patrol. And the hotspur is sat on the shelf waiting a slot in the plan, you now how it is!

Sorry mate but that aint a piglet in the rear its an APV. the side of mine on day it was delivered from the yard so as u can see it aint been restored. writing in yellow. the line up in the yard where i got mine again you can see they aint restored, writing in red. So you can see it just depended on who was doing the painting, i've heard the colour denoted where in NI the vehicle was based, damned if i can rember which way it worked, dont know if thats true. As to the book i'd love the Tangi pictured on page 124 at the top, i think it'd look good sat next to my piglet.

As Roy has mentioned he has done a pig thought id post a pic of a model i made of my Real Pig. I converted an Accurate Armour kit about 13 or so years ago, its survived 4 house moves with only the loss of a couple of bits eg door handle on passenger door.

here you go if you need specific areas/close ups or higher res let us know

thanks for these photos, they are amazing, I have absolutely nothing of the inside of the Piglet and believe it or not those photos are like gold to me and will go a long way in helping!! no problem as i said any area that u need pics of just ask and i'll get it done for you. When i converted the AA kit of the mk1 pig into a mk2 it was so easy to just go to the end of the garden and measure my mk2, it makes it so much easier dont it Can I take it that Piglet 84KB15, is your vehicle? (after you mentioned its last livery as an MP variant) It is indeed mine, its currently sat as "gate Guard" right out side the front door lol. I've decided I'm going to create my model as this actual vehicle, The RMP look is very impressive and unique to me, however I would rather model the vehicle in its earlier life as a standard Piglet for the purpose of displaying the model when finished that will fit in with my other projects (without the MP markings if this is possible?). I take it she was well used in NI as a standard Patrol vehicle before being handed down to the RMP and getting the Blue light and MP markings?? (any additonal info would be great!) I dont know its previous history in any detail, As i mentioned it is a 24v FFR vehicle and as far as i can tell pretty unique as haven't found any evidence of any other 24v piglet they all seem to be 12v. Most vehicles in NI at the time that my piglet served were pool vehicles handed to who ever needed them but mine served 7 years with 39 infantry HQ and signal sqn. i dont know why they needed a specific vehicle or how it looked or what it was fitted with, when i got it from the yard there was the MP sign over the back door so this is the look i went for, ( also it looks good with my Pig which finished it's life wth 321 EOD so is displayed like that) Would I be correct by saying also that this could be the reason she was retired later than most Piglets because her service may of been extended due to this transfer to the RMP?? Not sure of that. Its possible that due to its former users it was low milage or had an easy life but i dont think thats the answer as the amount of body parts that were swapped points to it having seen action. eg both front wings werent original to the vehicle. The Fire Bottles are quite large and I'm totally retarded in this area of thing but did they in some way extinguish fires externally on the vehcile somehow or am I way off the mark?? The were for internal fires if you look on the second pic of the interior ive marked the pipe/missing pipe runs in red. there were also nozzels above both front seats, either side of the rear door, on the inside of the roof and along the body side at floor level in the rear. Lastly, The wing mirrors, were they issue or added later for practicality? When brought it had the anti shatter type fitted bit they were unasable so for purposes of getting it thro the mot i addapted standard defender mirrors as i had them lying around and i wanted it thro the MOT quick. (3 weeks after been delivered from the yard after been sat for 8,9 years it passed first time) 8 years later i still aint got round to changing them! Sorry for the all the nagging questions but as Clive will tell you I like to be accurate! Not a problem i understand where you are coming from. All the best Gareth

A pic of the screens. One of my Piglet Although i have mesh on the side windows which i have seen on very few pixs, it did have plastic when i got it. I dont like the way it can be hard to see thro the plastic under some conditions one of the inside not the best tho another interior shot dont take it that the fire bottles were always in the rear. As mine is 24v there is no way to mount them between front seats but then not all 12v ones had them mounted in the front either!

Here's my questions: (1) when did this version of the Piglet enter service and when did it finish up? my piglet served from 1984 to 1994 (2) I am assuming these vehciles never carried emergency blue lights, is this correct? Some did depending on the user at the time mine finished its service with the RMP and there was the remains of bodged wiring running to the roof which was marked"beacon" (3) When (roughly what year or era) did the "confidential Telephone" stenciling begin to be put on these vehciles? (I have only seen retired vehciles with signs of this yellow writing) Cant give you excact dates but it is definatly not owners fancy, sorry but it aint, there was the wording on the side of mine when i got it (first owner since service so i know its original) and under the paint was plenty of examples in differnt type faces and red as well as yellow. (4) Photographs I have from the very early 80's show this vehicle looking reletively new and the armoured sections of the vehcile are a different shade of green, was this the case with early vehciles in service? the glass fibre bits came off the VPK vehicles and would have weathered slightly where as the steel armour would have fresh paint (5) was the Piglet originally designed with Macrelon Armour clear vision guards on the roof or was this only on later variants? ..I'm looking for as much information as I can get about the rear roof hatches too. cant help as mine had them removed by the army and i cant stand them (6) Did many piglets carry the TUAAM radio boxes at the front? Never seen them mounted on the wing but mine has it mounted on the roof and again it aint just what i fancy. There were the 6 holes for the plate and the remains of the wiring to the tuaam coming from under the t shaped aerial mount and down into the vehicle where they were taped to the other wires from the t shaped mount. Mine is the only 24V FFR piglet that anyone knows of all the rest as far as i know were built on 12v GS vehicles, (7) what color would be correct for these vehicles, olive green or olive drab?? Nato (8) Did the APV Landrover replace the Piglet in the later 1980's or was this vehicle an additional armoured landy that was added to the invantory? The piglet was phased out when the APV came on stream (better protection and it was a purpose built vehicle rather than a bodge of this and that) If anyone also has any photographs that they could post or send to me via email I'd be very appreciative! Particulary the inside of the vehcile as I have nothing in relation to this. I'll sort something out, if you have any specific area's or close ups let me know i'll see what i can do

often wondered why they bothered repainting the rest of the vehicle in the local camo, is it case of the vehicle would have served with the normal side of BATUS before coming a redtop rather than been a dedicated redtop?

paint stripper is a long winded way of doing it. if you dont want a pristine finish get one of those drill attachments that look like a brillo pad and spend some time removing the lose stuff. Then flatten the ridges with it. I use Marcus glenn's satin finish nato green as it goes on really well and the satin finish lasts a bit longer than the matt finish. he also does handy spray cans for when you need to touch up bits but cant be arsed to clean the brush after.

Passed you going the other way on the M54 looked good. Wish i could have attended as just up the road from me but 12hr night turns at work got in the way.

Knew i reconised the civvy number of your pig, should have checked the pics. Thats my MK2 it parked with in the first pic. Will have a look for the pics of it before it was repainted. It was Mick wasn't it that owned last?

That were the second year so could have been me or my mate. Yes i hadnt learnt from the first year lol. dont suppose you have any pics? In answer to Rolands questions it took hours of pressure washing and theres still some weston park mud under there. It sets like concrete when its dry and takes a lot of wetting to get it to shift. But 10 years ago Pigs werent wanted and there didnt seen to be a following no way i would treat the old girl like that any more. but at the time it was great fun and they're just like a big mechano set anyway

Yep i bent it!! In the mud run at Weston Park the weekend Lady Di died (thats my alibi) I could go up hill no problem even tho there was a drop into the trench But i could not get back out going down hill as the ledge was just wrong for the front of a pig Only way out was a tow. and even that weren't easy. Ilost my temper a bit and took a run up hit mud run at 35mph ish and came to a dead stop on hitting the end. lost part of my rear lower flap and later on bust me gearbox so all in all an expensive weekend. New nose went on dead easy did it on me own. The only thing is while the old ram had the beer keg remover at sometime it also had 3 pieces of angle welded on the rear of the bottom 3 bars, one can be seen in my previous post in the pic of the nose hanging in air, anyone any ideas as i aint noticed this on any other set of bars? Yes Clive i did take some pics but for various reasons they are packed away some where and i cant lay my hands on them at mo.

You could always make friends with a Scamell Explorer owner. When i changed my pigs front end 9 years ago i was lucky enough to have access to a scammell. so a chain from one end off top pipe through the hook and to the other end of top pipe. and a bit of rope from bolt holes for engine covers up to hook and back to ram to stop it tilting back towards the rad. As been said before refitting a reversal just used a jack to tilt one end up to line bolts. Then the next day it was off for sand blasting. the wohle vehicle was done as i it was looking really bad. There was so much paint that the sand blaster's had to go over twice in places as one pass wouldnt shift it all. Counted 30+ layers on scab of paint.

Well that aint true as mine was a used by EOD and its a flying pig so am I glamorising the nature when thats what it did? The proof 3 felix stickers on the nose covered by various colours of paint, 2 on the drivers door, 1 on the passenger door and 1 on the rear. They might have not used the wings but definatly my vehicle was all fitted up for it while it was used by EOD

As asked for If your wondering it's afront end of an APV (Armoured Patrol Vehicle) Land rover of the type that took over from the Piglet and of which as far as i know none exsist anymore. Hence i'm doing a replica. Made a start on some of the panels but the front end is on the landy as it saves storing the bits.

This is my current 3 that are on the road, there is another ser3 109 FFR that is waiting to be restored.

No There's a macrolon hinged screen hanging from the roof behind the two front seats, which is a bloody pain when you want to lock/unlock the rear doors. I've got loads of pics of the "film" pig somewhere but can say with out any doubt it was NOT anything to do with the films made about Bloody Sunday, this film must have been 13 plus years ago because the pic on the train was 12 years ago. We had a squirt saracen on the train as well. Also we found that a pig will go through a wooden floor of a wagon (the pig exhaust was never the same)

The strange camo pig was as far as i know done like this for a film but what that was i dont know. (Any ideas?) The armour from in the rear was removed and some bits and bobs added for pyro's were put inside. The pig nearest the camera in the second pic is the same pig after it was purchased by my mate. And you know when you buy a new toy you always forget something, thankfully it just fitted.

I use Photobucket to host the pics then it gives you a img code under the pics. copy and paste this code to your post and hey presto if your lucky

Thought i'd start the best thread on this part of the site again

Hi Glad your having fun with your pig. When i first got mine it went off roading many times and the only thing that stopped it going was the barricade remover acting like a snow plough :-D Its makes you wonder how capeable the original 1 ton truck was. Stopped doing that with her now but still chipping bits of mud from underneath, didn't seem to ever get clean no matter how long i spent with the steam cleaner.