ArtistsRifles

Looks kind of like a Stolly viewed from the front. But since when was BAE an American contractor?? Last I heard BAE was a British company with holdings in America......

Also yes please Sean - esp. if you have anything common to AEC's ☺

Will do Andy

Keep an eye on the UK market too - there are a few here now and come up for sale reasonably often. Good place to look is here: http://www.russianmilitarytrucks.com/phpBB3/index.php

Will do I know the feeling on blown budgets - and being reminded by SWMBO!!

Life is seldom simple or so the saying goes, UAZ seem to have taken this to heart and almost made it a motto of the company! Started fitting the new doors the other day - the two drivers side doors were shipped more or less complete, only the screws holding the handles on appeared to be missing. So - drivers door first. It was easy enough unbolting the old door and it's top piece . Bolting the new one on single handed less so as the pull handle is missing on the new door, The door release catch sits where it would be on the old doors. So it tends to swing about making it extremely difficult to align the holes in the hinges with the screw plates in the door pillar. Managed to get it on at last then having worked out how the latch part works bolted one of these on in place of the old. First issue came in that the new plates are meant to be held on by countersunk screws not hex head bolts. making it necessary to remove the top bolt for the latch to attempt to close. New doors have the rubber seals on the outer edges and it is a BITCH to get it to close onto the latch plate. And when I did do it the plate pivoted on the bottom bolt so right now the door is held shut be a rope across to the passenger grab handle I need to order some countersunk head bolts - I think M6 threads to hold these latch plates securely. [/url] Next problem came with the door tops. Laid the rubber infills I had made for the old doors in place - and the outer bolt holes for the door tops seem to be some 12mm closer in to the centre bolts holes that the old ones. I had to enlarge the bolt clearance's in the rubber strip inwards to compensate. With the door top bolted on the next issue became all too apparent. The new style door tops do not have the rubber seal strip around the edges the old ones do So it does not seal onto the fabric roof or - worse - the upright of the roof frame between the doors. Fortunately I had ordered a set of 4 replacement rubbers and the little rivets that secure them so I think I will have to modify the new sliding glass door tops to suit having these rubber seals fitted. I have yet to see how an old door top lines up with the bolt holes on a new door bottom - if they do not match as I think they will not then I might have to get replacement door tops for the rear doors too.

Just heard back from the forum member in Oz who has these for sale. He has 4 left it seems - I am interested in one - is any one else still wanting one? If so I can arrange for them to be shipped as one and we can share the shipping costs. Waiting to hear back now what the asking prices is and the cost to ship.

Take a look here and see which one best meets your particular needs: http://www.webhostingbest10.com/free-web-hosting If you have nothing special needed then the top two are very good.

Good news - the old girl is running again!! Stuart popped over today to have a look to see if he could spot what I'd missed and found the lift pump wasn't running one side. A short, sharp application of percussive maintenance and all was well. I'll add more fuel next week - I suspect at 11.7 litres capacity 50 litres won't last very long Might have a crack at getting that air valve off th back and stripped down - then she can be safely driven on the road to a filling station!

Popped up to the AEC today ("popped" being a relative term - its a 90 minute journey each way) and put 50 litres of DERV in the tank. I plan on doing the same next week so as to have 100 litres in the tank. Doesn't help that both the big 20 litre cans have leaking seals now but I took the precaution of laying a ground sheet in the boot floor and standing the cans on a puppy training pad. 10 litre can is fine - and without a funnel it proved awkward pouring the 20's into the filler so I emptied the 10 in first then got as much as I could out of the 20's before pouring the remainder into the 10 and then emptying that in again. Then came the fun of trying to start her and - red face time again - I failed. Only priming lever I could find was the one in the photo below on the front of the Fuel Injector pump. That had 2000 pumps applied in total - and my right hand was cramping up but every time I tried to start she would fire for a few beats then just spin over. Had a word with the AEC guys and got some alternate ideas to try next time.

Others are better qualified right now to answer - but aren't they the same 7" Lucas units fitted to Landrovers, RL's etc??

I went to start replacing the doors today. The two new doors shells are primed and painted on the insides so I thought it would be a fairly simple job to swap them over. Cue demonic laugher!!!! Opted to start with the passenger front door. First thing I note is there is only one bolt in the bottom hinge. OK - that's got to be a broken bolt and once the other three were out and the check strap undone lo and behold it was indeed a broken bolt. Opted to leave that for the time being/ Also the torn metal at the leading edge of where the top hinge bolts thinking that I'd get the doors on first and then sort these issues out when I do the externals. Go to offer up the new door - and half the top hinge is bloody missing!!! After a few moments of turning the air a vivid shade of blue I thought - OK lets drift the pin out and use the old hinge section instead. Got to be common. Hah!! Over an hour later I come to the conclusion than none of the pins are going to come out easily. I am assuming they get knocked out downwards because on the bottom of each pin is a grease nipple. So I wound up out of time and having to put the old door back on again. Decidedly unamused!! Door painted internally and ready to fit. Bottom hinge Top hinge - spot the difference

Thanks guys - I'll be going up on Saturday so will give it a whirl. Diesel is only £1.05 a litre around here so I'll fill the cans before I go. And will repeat the refuelling exercise in a couple of weeks time so as to avoid a repeat performance.

A bit more progress - totally unexpected admittedly - but still progress. Stu Sandford messaged me the other day - seems they had been down working on his vehicles and one of his lads got a bit bored - so they pulled the Militant forwards enough to access the cab and let him loose with a pressure washer. Looks like he's done a good job :) What - possibly - is not so good is that as he waited for the air pressure to build up after coming forwards the engine cut out! Turned out the fuel tank was now empty so once the job was done she had to be pushed back into her bay by hand. Glad it wasn't me having to do it :) So the next job will be taking some jerry cans of diesel down - was planning on that anyway - I think I have a couple of 20 litre and one 10 litre - pouring those in the tank and then bleeding the fuel system. Should be a case of loosening the nut on the front of filter on the passenger side and turning her over (or there was a hand primer on some models down by the fuel pump- odds are mine won't be that easy). If she won't fire after that then its a case of wait for diesel to reach filter, loosening a injector pipe and trying again. Messy but that should get her kicking over. Also thinking now the best thing is going to be to give the cab at least a coat of green paint to cover over for the winter and make a start on the metal work next year. This summer weather can't last too much longer and working with bare metal out in the open during the winter surely cannot be a good idea.

Thanks Richard - much appreciated

Well - things seem to have progressed well. I took the old girl over to Belgium last weekend for a re-enactment event at Fort van Bornem in Belgium. Don;t mind admitting I was cacking it a bit as the last few trips out have not ended so well and I did take the precaution of booking a single trip breakdown/recovery policy for calssic vehicles - just in case. In the event I did not need it. The old girl ran well there and back with no major hitches at all. The only issues that occurred were relatively minor: The drivers side stop/tail light has developed a fault wherein only the side light filament is illuminating, not matter whether the power comes via the light switch or the brake pedal. I think I need to replace the bulb holder If I went at 50 mph or higher (and yes - at one point without realizing I reached the dizzy heights of 46 mph on the Sat Nave) I started loosing coolant via the radiator cap. No idea why its blowing out from the cap instead of going into the expansion bottle but I lost about 1.5 litres of coolant on each leg of the trip. So overall I am very pleased and am now looking forwards to the NEC in October.

Looks like I'm out of luck Richard - no reply to the PM from here and my friend down in Oz is getting no responses either.

Looks like a nice one :-) The wheels - I take it they were not standard UAZ either?? All the ones I've seen have be solid, not perforated. Never had to worry about SVA on mine - it had already been registered prior to the introduction of SVA so it is pretty much factory standard.

New bolts arrived but before fitting the prop shaft I thought I would see how the drum was running as it did not appear to look right. Started the engine, stuck it into 2ED 4th and crawled under - you can see the result in the video link: [video=youtube;OYw5o-k4scY] Seconds after I finished filming there was one louder clonk and the drum stopped rotating. Closer inspection showed the two securing screws laying on the floor - one intact, one sheared off. So I am forced to assume that the output shaft from the transmission got bent when the prop let go at 70 kph on the M20. :( So until I can find out if the output shaft can be replaced or if I need a new transmission the vehicle is immobilised (yes - I know I can put the drive into 4WD and leave it in gear to off-set the no handbrake - but it seems a bit of a dodgy thing to do).. And now the vehicle is immobilised the final packages arrived from Poland today. Only 2 months short of being 2 years from the date of order. So at least I can get on with fitting these now until I find a solution to the being immobilised bit. The delivery: All unpacked Light damage in transit that will need sorting Soviet equivalent of the Butler inspection lamp found in British MV tool kits.

Another day working on the Militant.... Although the work content was not quite what I intended - plan was to use a pressure washer to get rid of all the loose crap, muck and algae. Just got the air pressure up to roll forwards when the farmer banned me from doing it as I'd block the yard. Seems I'll have to find a time no one else will be there to be blocked. Anyways - rather than waste both the day and the 1/4 of a Range Rovers tank of fuel getting there I set to and stripped the drivers door down. That took a lot longer than expected as some screws were VERY reluctant to shift. But in the end the door inner panel was free. Currently the screws and most components are on the drivers seat, the door panel itself was put back on at the end of work with a couple of screws and and the bolts into the lower fixed hinge. That left trying to release the window winder handle. Took 3 people inc. me to find the pin holding it in. Once it was done off came the panel revealing the winder mechanism and the problem appears to be two fold. 1) the crank teeth are just skipping on the winder quadrant so the glass won't move. 2) the carrier was stuck solid -- likely with rust. A liberal dose of WD40 finally freed the window which will now go up and down manually. The window winder is FUBAR though and needs replacing - apparently Morris Minor ones will fit. Bottom 2 securing screws and nuts came out OK but the top two will not budge - think they may need to cut unless I can find a cranked screw driver. Struck me as being an odd choice - countersunk screws rather than bolts. The drivers inner door panel looks like a new one: The bottom of the door frame is seriously rusty though and will need repairing whilst the inside face of the outer panel needs a disc over it and then treatment with rust neutralizer as can be seen here: Next step is to get some replacement regulators to install. I would have carried on and done the passenger door too - but there is a horse box up against that side of the vehicle so to open the door I'd need to roll the vehicle forwards - and there was that ban in place today. Today's red face moment - went to stall the old girl out in 5th as the normal cut-off needs looking at, put her in gear and nothing. Was starting to feel annoyed and upset thinking I had a major problem due to not being able to kill the engine suddenly sprung on me when one of the guys suggested the hi/low might have moved into neutral. Doh!! :red: :red: Completely forgot this one was 6x6!! Turned out it wasn't that but the 6x6/6x4 selecter lever had lifted and was in a neutral position. Pushed back down into 6x4 and all was OK. I can only assume I must have caught it getting out of the cab last time.

Probably a timely reminder to me to get a spare set too

If you have the originals any good Commercial spares place should be able to match the size and profile for you. Failing that - try these guys: http://www.classic-spares.co.uk/fanbelts.asp

Thanks Richard - PM sent

Thanks Richard. I have a Google account (quite useful actually) but still will not open that link. A lot of my former brothers from the Artists headed down under and are serving police officers down there so I am asking them if they can keep their eyes open for me. Would have been nice to let them see the diagram in that article but never mind. The description should be enough

That link just gets a message up saying "No preview available" Richard. Any chance you could copy it to your own account and post it? If so - I have some friends in diverse parts of Australia I can ask to keep an eye open for ones that turn up. I'd like to get hold of one myself - be quite unique here.