ArtistsRifles

I found the link on the RLC Archives page that lets a contract number be searched - this is the result: Contract was placed 5th April 1963 so for me this one looks like a non starter due to licensing restrictions. Interesting to see the purchase price though - £6,350.00 per vehicle for 100 vehicles

Thanks Chris - will give him a ring.

Thanks again David Had a browse through the AEC Societys web site - unfortunately there is nothing there to help ID this one. Chap on FB came back with the following: Chassis no's 1425 to 1468 were built between 7/9/64 and 7/11/64 So for 3 months production was 43 units - that equates to roughly 21 units per month Between Chassis no's 1120 and 1145 is 305 - divide that by 21 = 15 months (rounded up).therefore if 1435 left the factory on 7/9.64 6hrn 1120 left 15 months earlier in May or June of 1963 assuming production ran on a continuous basis. Or - put another way - SH*T its too young!! :(

Thanks David. Looks like this might be a later one then. It has the box on the mudguard and one of the guys on the AEC Society group on Facebook said his 1964 one was chassis number 1425. Makes this one 305 units earlier. No idea what AEC's annual output was but surely it was more than 76 a year??

Yes - I remember seeing this one. I used to work at Fords R&D centre at Dunton and used to drive home past this - there was the Militant, some Hagglund Bv206's - and something else as I recall. All painted yellow?? The Militant had a Hiab on the back which made me think it was a post-1960 build. I seem to recall the Dunton security guards saying what you did about the council and that as a result they all went to the scrapper......

What year Chris? - has to be pre 1 Jan 1960 for my licence.

As I have just had to sell my beloved OT-90 due to household bills and lack of work I am looking for a new project. Right now I am considering this: Seller thinks it dates from 1958 or 1959 - given the chassis number of 0860/1120 can any of the Militant experts on the forum confirm this? For some reason the Mil Reg is unreadable on the photo of the plate. According to the seller she starts, runs and stops OK - both brake wise and engine. What is needed, they say, is TLC of the exterior and cab to get back into presentable condition. Also - it will need bows and canvas. How hard is it to source these nowadays?? I'm ringing the seller tomorrow with a list of questions. Asking price is £3000 and the quote to bring it back to Essex from Hereford is £675 Does the asking price seem fair?

I think all the responses have been fair no matter which side of the argument the poster is situated. Laboisselle makes very valid points from his side of the discussion, so do others coming from the other direction. The real issue is the legislation has become far too complex - so much so I am not even sure those who formulated it really understand it beyond the "look - we've tackled gun crime" posturing. And now the EU is trying to make things worse still - replacing the 28 page UK deactivation standards that are proven fit for use with 10 pages of ill thought out garbage. Who knows where it will end??

As most know - I am not a great fan of the DoT agencies - particularly what used to be VOSA! However - credit where it is due. I had mega problems registering my UAZ 469. It was already registered here in the UK but the previous owner had lost the V5. And the chassis plate. I had photos of the vehicle wearing its original registration but as DVLA pointed out - a grenn UAZ is a green UAZ - it could have been any vehicle. The first people I dealt with I have to admit did live up to the DVLA's reputation for lack of helpfulness - but I think that was because they had no idea what they were dealing with. Once the matter got passed to their division that deals with classic registrations the situation improved vastly. The lady I started dealing with understood the problems I had and "talked" me through what had to be done paperwork wise. It took me getting on for 8 months in total due to time lags between answering e-mails (their end) and the time it took paperwork to be sent via snail mail and returned. I had the small problem of no chassis number - the firm UAZ painted the number onto the chassis, they did not stamp it - and I cleaned the chassis rail back to bare metal looking for a stamped number - oops!! So I had time delays in explaining this (actually the hardest part of the process), getting a new unique chassis number issued, stamped onto the chassis and then certified by an approved location (MoT Test Centre) As Brooky says - get a letter from a club stating they have inspected the vehicle and it is what you say it is (hint - don't mention a % of parts age wise - I sent in a letter saying it was at least 60% tax exempt era parts - and they wrote back saying if they proceeded with that I'd have to pay tax, get a letter without the parts mentioned!) and it does have the chassis number as on the vehicle. As regards the club being on the approval list - ask about the two you mention. For my UAZ there was nothing dealing with Soviet vehicles on the list - MVT and IMPS passed due to lack of knowledge. However there was a club dedicated to Soviet era vehicles, the USSR - Unloved Soviet Socialist Register. I asked if they would accept a letter from them even though not in the list they had sent me and DVLA said yes. As long as it was on headed club paper. It might pay you to contact them via e-mail first explaining your situation. If you are lucky the query will get passed direct to the team that deals with this and all will go well.

We had the 3-way tippers as my first Unit was an Engineer support unit - the cab gauges on all of them varied in how they read. So much so the works ticket folders for each vehicle were annotated with "gauge reads high", "gauge reads low" as applicable. The standing joke there was you could tell a knocker driver from an RL one - as soon as he got out of the cab he looked down for the tank fuel gauge.

And a deac KVPT is virtually impossible to get hold of in the UK - I've been trying for years. Which is why I have a dummy barrel in the cradle and it is covered by a canvas mantlet cover when not physically on a show ground. If you want to rob a bank with a KPVT you are gonna need a big crew - 4 mean to carry the 6' 6" long KVPT itself. 4 more men to carry the two big high amperage batteries needed to fire it. 2 men to carry the belt and box for the ammo and 1 man to carry the firing solenoid

Oddly - I was never issued a crap hat in the RCT - first time I saw one was when I transferred to the Artists Rifles.... It was never worn though. In the field it was invariably a case of being bare headed or wearing steel helmet (VERY rare) or the cap comforter. I found it useful to wear when driving - but that's about all.

Thats an amazing job already - I am very impressed!! The light lenses - I seem to recall having seen those on evilbay too - together with a B vehicle instrument panel. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NOS-MILITARY-INSTRUMENT-PANEL-AUSTIN-CHAMP-HUMBER-FV1600-FERRET-LEYLAND-Martians-/251864285825?hash=item3aa4480281:g:BLUAAOSwNSxU9aCo Not cheap though - £599 :shocked: One thing I do remember from way back then - the fuel gauge in the cab was notoriously inaccurate on the Militant. The one on the tank itself was the only accurate reading. Do you plan to rectify this as part of the rebuild???

Just a thought - does the Ferrret have a canvas mantlet cover that goes over the barrel of the 30 cal? If so - get one if you don't already have it and leave that on when not actually on a showground and you should be OK as the"weapon" is not on public display and cannot therefore be used to threaten anyone.

VCR act is a bit of a nightmare to wade through - and the new EU proposals make it much, much worse. However - as I understand it and apply it - you need to be able to show that you have a valid reason for doing what you want to to and are over the age of 18. In my eyes owning a restored turreted Ferret is, by itself the answer to the "need" part of the act. You could join the MVT or IMPS if you wish - certainly either one would be good for aid in case of legal troubles. Again - as I understand it - just fitting a lump of pipe in lieu of a deac main gun is not a problem - it is not a gun, can never be a gun and, apart from whacking some one over the head, cannot harm anyone. My OT-90 has a dummy gun barrel in lieu of the KVPT that should be fitted. and no one has ever questioned it - at shows or on film sets. I am a member of the MVT and IMPS too. But have never had any reason to ask for aid from them and have never been asked for proof of membership. From experience police generally accept that if you have an MV or wander about in uniform at weekends then you have a valid reason for having something that looks like a weapon. There are people here better qualified than I to give a definitive answer - but this is how I do it

That is a mind-set I confess I will never,ever, understand. Invariably someone wanting to buy to restore will pay either the same or, more likely, more than the scrap value so by refusing to sell to a restorer the owner is cutting off their nose to spite their face. Hardly good business sense. You see it all too often in the classic car scene too - vehicles left to rot for years, the owners saying I'll do it one day - then it goes for scrap despite multiple offers to buy it to save it.

Thanks for the clarification :-) That makes a lot more sense viewed this way. A pity it did not set that out on the web page - either directly or via a "see here" link to another page. Would still love to have seen there inspectors trying to work out first how to get into, then how to connect it up to, a Stolly's electrical system :wow:

Going to ask a dumb question here perhaps - but is the vehicle design positive earth instead of negative?? Up till the 1960's it was fairly common manufacturing practice

So - what happens when you roll up to the border in a WW2 or post war military vehicle, get given the device and then you ask "how do I connect it?? If it's powered by the cig lighter/aux power socket - no MV in history has one of those. Some have the red/black banana plug sockets but still totally incompatible. WW2 vehicles are 6v so even if you can find a way of connecting it - it still won't work for obvious reasons. Is it just me - or is this, like the proposed EU gun controls - another form of ill thought out legislation pushed through by overpaid idiots unfit for their tasks??

If the painted number is not there - and the data plate is missing - trying to register it is an absolute nightmare!! I wound up being issued a chassis number from DVLA that bore no resemblance to how a real one would look and having to stamp that into the chassis where the original number would have been painted. Took about 8 months of continual letter writing and form filling to get my 469 registered.

Be fair to the old buses - you only needed 1st gear if the back was carrying a full of or 3 or 4 tons. Empty we used to pull away in second so the elbow was only vulnerable going 3 to 4. And if you adopted the RL shift with your hand in front of the knob pushing back into 4th rather than pulling like in a Landie you were usually OK :-)

Of course - thank you for the time. Might be useful info for the orginal poster too. Its always good to get first hand info rather than interpreted from manuals as sometime the translations leave a lot to be desired. We have learnt a lot over the years at shows from talking to people who used to be the Warpac equivalent of REME and worked on servicing the BMP class. Not met anyone till you who was actually a crew member.

I did say I was open to correction :-) Thanks for the information Modello. A couple of questions if you don't mind - the manuals for the BMP-1 hull all refer to the forward most firing positions (with the "D" shaped hull ports) as being for the PKM and to the right of the turret floor as viewed from the rear of the vehicle is stowage for a sustained fire tripod for a PKM. Is this actually correct (the manuals are Soviet) - did things change for the BMP-2?? Same manuals show the RPG stowed in brackets along the central spine above the batteries and main fuel tank - is this correct? According to the same manuals the complement of a BMP-1 was 8 men plus 3 crew. I know the troop complement on the BMP-2 was reduced to make room for the larger turret. I thought the -2 still had a crew of 3 making a total of 9 including the 6 in the back - or do you discount the driver??

Artistic license is always useful!! :-) :-) One other thing I forgot - if the subjects are de-bussing from within a BMP - they won't be wearing back packs. Standard Soviet field kit was the "Y" yoke with a rolled up plash-platka at the junction of the "Y". Alternatively in the mid Eighties something like a 6b3, 6b4 or 6b5 body armour would be worn, instead of the "Y" yoke. See http://survincity.com/2013/08/the-russian-army-body-armor/

From my experience with the UAZ allow 2 weeks between letters. And that was with a very helpful lady. As it was explained to me you write to DVLA, it goes to their central mail office and then has to be sorted out in to the mail bound for the relevant area. When it gets there it has to be further sorted into the individual case officers. For e-mail allow 3 to 5 days between responses. I found it best to e-mail first - that gets you assigned to a case officer and a reference number. You then write to DVLA including the case reference as part of the address.