eddy8men

take the drum off and clean the shoes and drum then get someone to slowly depress the brake pedal but be careful not to pop the cylinders "off" and check the brake action, if it's been stood it might just need a bit of working in and out to free it up. if you do find a sticking piston in the slave cylinder take it out and clean it up and refit but if it's swollen then replace it, you don't have to buy a new cylinder you can change the seals instead and don't forget to clamp the brake hose with a set of molegrips to stop the fluid leaking out. hope that helps rick

a man can never have too much red wine, too many tanks or too much ammunition

damn ! that's some rapid restoration going on, i like your style. you any good with churchill's rick

i touched breifly on the chain gun while doing an upgrader course at bordon, the gun working parts were operated by a motorbike chain so it didn't rely on the blowback from the round, however if a round did not fire for whatever reason it would not stop the gun it would be pushed up the ejection tube with the other spent cases to be pushed out of the turret, the trouble was a couple of live rounds in the ejection tube would sometimes fire creating a bit of a mess. that was the jist of it but as i said i never got to grips with the gun, more of an introduction should the need arise to repair one one day. rick

as far as i know the wrecks are still on biville beach you can see pics of them on google earth, just go to that part of france type in biville, zoom in a bit and you'll see the wrecks with the picture boxes, then when you've found them mark them for future reference/recovery:cool2: i have a lot of waypoints on my google earth. rick

welcome to the forum i like your attitude, sorry but i can't help with the albion although i'm sure someone on here can. good luck rick

as far as i know the valentines aren't classed as war graves and the navy blew them up recently so they will be classed as free from explosives so the red tape should be minimal, having said that i'm only summizing that it's do-able but there's only one way to find out. have a bash at it. rick

been chatting to some churchill guys on another forum and they said they had only ever seen white interiors on mk4's. the best interior scheme i ever saw was the duke of boots saxons in bosnia, every inch of space was plastered with porn so it was mostly pink with the odd blonde or brunette patch :cool2: thinking of doing the same with the churchill.

cheers dave i was also thinking of the centaurs as i could do with a 95mm cs gun for the cromwell or even the churchill, i think we need to have a chat. rick

said valentines

not buried or abandoned just sunk, 7 valentine dd tanks in 15m of water off the coast 3.5 miles from swanage. i've emailed the nautical archaeology society asking for permission to remove the 6 pdr's to help with the churchill and centaur restorations when they get back to me i'll let you know what they say. rick

i'm planning on being there with the carrier

thanks adrian, it's funny but these things are never as easy as i think they're going to be. messing around with old tanks is a pretty harsh learning curve and not for the feint hearted that's for sure

the first pic is the centaur which is an early version of the cromwell, i'll explain why i put it in later. the third pic shows the rear and the has writing on it, the mk 6 denotes the type of tank, the mk6 has the 95mm close support gun and the type f denotes the type of hull, the early hulls had the drivers hatch opening on top but it was found that the hatch could not be opened when the turret was traversed at an angle as you can see in the pic of the centaur, this was not ideal when the driver needed to bail out which is why they changed the hatch to side opening, there are various other changes to stowage aswell but the basic construction is the same as the earlier marks. T120582 is the army reg number and when i get round to searching the archives at bovvy will supply me with the tanks history. Ps 251-32 is the finnish army reg number from it's time as a charioteer, it served in the finnish army from the mid fifties until around 1980 when it was put into storage and was eventually auctioned off in 2006.

the top armour above the drivers seat was removed to allow easy access into the front of the hull which considering my waistline is a good idea. in the first pic you can see the armour top plate sitting at an angle on the hull resting on the side if you follow the hull side toward the back you'll see 4 large bolt holes on top on the outside of the hull. these are the turret ring retaining bolt holes, this is how they managed to get a 20 pdr to fit, by simply welding a plate onto the side with 3 strengthening gussets underneath which extended the hull enough to fit the 66" ring needed to take the 20 pdr. such a simple modification it makes you wonder why they didn't do it from the start and fit it with a 17 pdr.

saxon limo, i like it but don't forget to supply the occupants with headsets so they can talk to each other or did you manage to quiet down the noise from the transfer box.

the t16 that was outside went to george sanders of urmston who restored it with his brother from a shell to running condition. i also went to grange cavern as a kid but my memory is sh1te but i do remember an antar outside. i heard off someone that the sexton didn't meet the reserve of £1200 at the auction, i'd happily give them that for it now rick

don't give the tiger too much credit, it's armour was no thicker than a mk4 churchill and a 6 pdr sabot round would penetrate it at any point on the hull but what it does have is a good armour and gun combination i was going to say mobility aswell but it doesn't look like it would perform well when compared to a cromwell or churchill and the logistics of moving it around the theatre of operations can't have been easy, having said that it was and still is a very impressive machine and certainly earned the wary respect of the men that fought against it, shame we never put a 17 pdr in the churchill as that would have made for parity on the battlefield. rick

boo hoo lol :-D just reread my post and it sounds like a bit of a whinge, sorry iain must have had a low testerone level this morning. keep the pics coming

thanks iain it's always nice to get a little bit of encouragement from a fellow enthusiast as it can sometimes seem like an almost impossible task, not only do i have to restore the vehicles but i'm still building the workshop to put them in, aswell as developing some land to store the long term projects on, the trouble is the local council collared me and i'm still waiting for their planning decision, in the meantime my bank tried to bankrupt me which left me a little bit short of readies. now that's sorted and i can pay for the churchill to be craned in to my workshop, however the crane guy said his 80 ton crane wouldn't be safe to do the lift so now i'm fabricating a temporary sled from carrier wheels and track to roll the churchill down the embankment to the workshop :nut: i swear this hobby will kill me, i should have took up golf. apart from that it's all going well :-D all the best rick

the picture of a loyd on the front cover no doubt drew you to it i also have the book and it makes for an interesting read it certainly dispells the myth of wittman single handedly taking on the whole british army and winning, i never knew before i read the book that wittman was knocked out along with 4 or 5 other tigers in the village and had to escape on foot, so it was not quite the walk in the park that we are all led to believe but having said that no one could deny it was a german victory and that the cromwell did not stand up well to tigers. not enough armour, not enough gun. rick

thanks adrian i was hoping you would give me a bit of guidance, bob said he had spoken with you about the air arc gouging and that was the way to go but i was trying to save a bit of money and have a go at it myself with the gas axe and it would be a pretty useful skill to acquire considering the amount of wrecked armour i've got. bob also mentioned the bow mg mount and that you might be able to sort me out with one. could you pm me your phone number and we'll get together and do a swap, i'll swap my cash for your mount:D. look forward to meeting you one day soon hopefully rick

andy if you want a ride in it all you have to do is fill the tank with fuel (bring a cheque book) the bow machine gun was cut off when it was converted from a cromwell to charioteer, infact they simply gas axed the bolts from inside and left the threaded portion still in the holes. a plate was then welded over the hole. i'm glad you asked that question as i'd like some advice as to how to go about removing the stainless weld as it can't be cut using oxy. i had planned to gas axe out the plate from the inside and hack at the remaining weld with an angle grinder using cutting and grinding discs but i remember adrian barrell posting on a thread that it was possible to do it using gas(as long as you had the right wrist action):-D does anyone have any experience of this ? cheers rick

looks like the black hole of calcutta inside that hull , when it's cleaned out and painted white it'll be like a different tank and a little nicer to work on. you're doing a great job , i hope it all goes well rick

a few internal fittings from the turret basket including the turret hydraulic traversing mechanism and a pic of the hull looking towards the back. the blue rag is covering the hole where the starter motor should be, it connects to the engine through a bevel box which also drives the generator on the left and the hydraulic pump on the right, you can see the reservoir pipe above it. next to the pipe you will see a speedo this is apparently a throw back from the days in the desert when the commander needed to navigate using bearing and distance calculations. not many landmarks in the desert to go by (unfortunately camels don't count as landmarks).