utt61

Fascinating film, a really good find. Thanks for posting! Nice to see the ubiquitous Trewhella Monkey Winch in use too. I bet a modern truck couldn't be started after being submerged in sea water to that level as easily.

Anyone know what it went for?

Very interesting to see that my post/question about the R&R cranes has come back to life! The cranes were without doubt primarily intended to service the 15" guns, and I do in fact have somewhere a photo of one of them adjacent to a 15" battery. The problem was, as usual with naval ordnance in land mountings, the enormous weight of the barrels and breeches when tube changes were needed. There are, alas, very few photos of the Singapore cranes especially actually in Singapore. A similar problem handling tubes was found with the Kent coastal artillery, where once again steam breakdown cranes requisitioned from the railways were used. To perform a tube change on the 14" guns "Winnie" or "Pooh", or the 15" guns "Clem" and "Jane", no fewer than three steam cranes were needed, two at the breech end and one at the muzzle end. The cranes used were the largest (and most modern) railway cranes in the Britain at the time, with a 50-ton capacity. Winnie and Pooh were BL 14"/45 Mk VII guns weighing approx 80 tons, whilst Clem and Jane, and the Singapore guns were BL 15"/43 Mk I guns weighing approx 100 tons (these weights are of course the barrel and breech alone and do not include the mounts). The problem of handling guns this heavy on shore at that time is easy to underestimate, especially nowadays when cranes of 1000-ton, 1200-ton capacity are widely available. In GB in 1939 the largest cranes capable of moving round the country were the railway breakdown cranes, and the largest of those were only of 50-ton nominal capacity. It really was a huge problem, hence the reason for the construction of the two enormous cranes for Singapore.

I always knew these as "dynamo rings" and have always regarded them as being of very limited use for precisely that reason. OK for a direct lift axial with the thread, but nothing else. It has always scared me the number of 4x4 owners you see now who have bought their cheapo electric winch and think that using it with a dynamo ring as a strong point is good practice. Accidents waiting to happen. I suppose to an extent it is evolution in action! Interesting in the clip (post #629)how slow the operator's reactions seem to be - by the time he has reacted it is all over! Another salutory lesson for those who think they'll have time to get out of the way.

Is the "Donaldson reactor" still used on recovery vehicles to overcome this problem? That third photo is great - two of my most favourite MVs in the same photo! Intersting that the Unipower has an STGO plate on it as well. I am sure you're right that photo 3 and the last photo are the same place and time. Think I'd better go and lie down for a bit!

What was it that made it beyond repair? If it was the core, you do know that new replacements are available for these? At least I am sure that I have seen them advertised.

I'm glad you did - I was shunting with that very Hudswell only this week, a fine locomotive! The burble of the eight-cylinder Gardner is one of the world's finest sounds. The Sentinel is a nic loco to operate, but the Hudswell is more fun.

But remember that Whit/BS are 55 degree and Unified are 60 degree thread forms. Never mix male/female thread forms on anything safety critical. Coachbolts on bodywork is fine, as long as you can sleep at night afterwards!

I run both my Defender (TDCi/Puma engine) and Discovery (TD5 engine) on 2-stroke mix; both are quiter, smoother, and more economical since I started the treatment.

I have resorted to using a very large H K Porter hydraulic nut splitter with an Enerpac 10,000 psi pump before now.

Very true! At anything even approaching that speed it becomes rather too terrifying anyway. A twelve-ton vehicle with an exceptionally short wheelbase and rear-wheel steering with absolutely no 'feel' is not built for speed - even keeping it something resembling a straight line is difficult. Sean N, thanks for the link to PN75; very interesting reading and helps a lot!

And you may have problems if the vehicle is road registered and taxed and running off-road on red, unless it is also one of the (very few) vehicles which can legally run on red on the road. It is, I understand, now an offence to use red at any time in a vehicle which is fully road legal but requires taxed fuel on the road. FWIW I had the same experience with DVLA with my Iron Fairy mobile crane; when I bought it it was taxed as "Special Vehicle" at £165 pa, but I was advised to tax it as "Historic Vehicle". It is not capable of carrying a load on the road, and therefore even in commercial use it would still be eligible. It is, incidentally, "Engineering Plant" not a "Mobile Crane" under C&U. Since it is road registered and taxed (and MOT exempt) I have been advised that I cannot run on red at all, even though it hardly ever ventures out on the public highway (a top speed in the region of 12mph is something of a deterrent). I do, however, need to travel about 800 yards on the road between two areas of the site where I keep it. If however I were to SORN it, then I could run on red off-road, but obviously cannot then take it on the highway. All very confusing!

Many years ago, when I was a student, I was driving a borrowed (yes, with the owner's consent!) Subaru of some type when the earth strap to the engine broke, leaving the core of the throttle cable as the only earth connection. At the time, of course, I didn't realise anything had happened, but after a brief stop, althought I was able to start the engine, the accelerator pedal was stuck solid (the plastic outer cable sheath had melted and glued itself to the wire inner). Being a long way from home, this was a bit of a problem. In the end, I took a couple of bootlaces, tied them together, attached one end to the quadrant on the carburettor and then ran them in thought the passenger side window, creating a rudimentary hand throttle. I then drove the car a hundred or so miles back to the owner. The only problem really was changing gear, since I had to get the passenger to operate the gear lever as I had both hands full. Fortunately the passenger caught on pretty quickly, even to the extent that we were double-declutching the downchanges by the time we completed the journey.

I have never had any problems taxing my Series 1 Landrover (Historic Vehicle with MOT) or my Iron Fairy mobile crane (Historic Vehicle, MOT-exempt) on line. As stated earlier in the thread, you have to tick the box that asks if you have a valid MOT Certificate even if the vehicle is MOT-exempt, then it should work fine. Obviously the MID must know about the vehicle and will be used to validate the insurance during the tax application. You can used the "askMID" website to check the insurance status if unsure.

Oxford Blue was the dark blue used on the original Fordson Major tractor (the E27N). A very pleasing colour, but with no MV application at all that I know of. An example:- http://www.tractordata.co.uk/fordson_to_1950/pages/fordson_major_3/index.htm

There was, I am sure, an in-depth article about this in either "After the Battle" or "Wheels and Tracks" a good few years ago, which I remember reading myself. Is there anyone here who perghaps has a complete run of these magazines and could see if they can find out which issue of which mag it was, since I would like to read it again?

Probably not much help, but you could try contacting your nearest heritage railway (provided that it has workshop facilities and carries out loco overhauls). Axlebox bearings on heritage locos and rolling stock are almost exclusively white-metalled and many railways now routinely remetal them. Your bearings will be unusually small to them though!

Mike, thanks for that, very informative.

The complex relationship women have with their sunglasses (for example, why they wear them when it isn't sunny or it is night-time, and why they wear them on top of their heads).

It was quite spectacular drivving home yesterday (from Blandford to Poole) - Broadstone was thick with smoke. We get heath fires here every year on most of the remaining heathland areas but for some reason they nearly always occur when the kids are not at school, very rare during term time. Go figure! This time over 1000 acres has burned, the fire was stopped as it was lapping at garden fences and quite a number of homes were evacuated as a precaution. Not good at all. Also, Dorset's few remaining heathland areas are vital last habitats for sand lizards, Dartford warblers, and several other severely endangered species, as well as a multitude of less endangered ones such as adders. It really isn't doing anyone an favours when Johnny Moron decides it would be fun to burn it down. Reports on local news media say that the fire was deliberately started. Anyone like to predict when punishment the culprits will receive if caught an convicted? Not enough, I'll wager.

Wow, this sounds almost exactly what a lot of Americans were predicting would happen with the "millennium bug"! What a let-down that turned out to be.

Looking at the hydraulic diagrams, it would be easy to fit one with the option for crab steering, it would just need two extra valves. I think I want one of these, they look fun and useful!

I do get mad when I hear anyone speak about "saving the planet"! The planet is quite safe, and will be long after the human race has annihilated itself. People who speak of saving the planet actually mean saving the human race, and we humans have amply demonstrated that we are too nihilistic to save ourselves - sooner or later we will die out as a race, it is inevitable and entirely natural; a mass extinction. The planet will however still be going strong. Nothing we can do will destroy the planet. Probably nothing we can do will save the human race because we are too self-centred etc to do so. If we were serious about saving the human race, we would already have global population controls for starters. Ultimately the planet will be burned up by the sun, and no amount of windfarms and biofuels will stop it happening. The Eurocrats will probably introduce legislation making it illegal for the sun to burn us up, but it will still happen. Have a nice day!

Stunning! Well done!

I back up my photos to at least three external devices regularly, and keep them in different geographic locations. If you go down this route, do not use three identical devices bought at the same time, since these will most likely all fail at the same time.