trustmeimamechanic

Time to forgive and forget perhaps , if a certain D Bader and A Galland could become friends ....... :-)

Why would anyone have an issue with Tankfest ? :confused: , tanks being driven ...not static ... whats not to like ?

Back in the late 80's we were competeing in the Breckland Stages , an event that was using tracks in and around Thetford forest but also included some laps of Snetterton on the tarmac , seem to remember a couple of very standard looking Army 90's taking part as well as a very non standard LR 110 in Paris Dakar trim , some massive chevy midmounted V8 and a six inch roof chop among the mods - round the forest it was awsome - on the tarmac :nut: ! ... if you've never seen a 110 outdrag a rally prepared mk2 escort then you've never lived , even better the 110 was driving down the grass alongside the track :cool2: , at times he was looming very large in the rear view mirror of my Manta 400 . Bowler Wildcat still on the shopping list

Just to add to the general chat..... some modern oils also contain addatives that will attack older type oilseals and also bronze bushes and bearing surfaces , both in your engine or if using modern EP type gear oils in your gearbox and diff. I just paid for some Morris oil for my Jeep gearbox even though I have gallons of free EP90 in my shed :-D

Have walked the dogs... gone for a drive in the jeep while the F1 was on ... find it dull and uninteresting , now the old late 80's - 90's Touring cars ... proper racing .... had a BBQ ... now here while wife watches world cup ... hope the Dutch win cause I like the cloggies ... never ever watched a whole game of football in my life. Like above post ... Kiera Kightley

Adrian Scott's M5A1 Half Track- Driver - Graham "gearchange" Cole Top Cover / Outrider Lookout - Ian Riley In charge of waving - Julie Riley Looking sweet and sleeping while on the run - Ruby Riley aged 2 :kiss: Thanks again Jack - Crack open that bottle :-)

That looks like a new building ..... post war it seems old railway carriage's were commonly used for housing for bombed out family's. Little remains now but I grew up on a farm next to whats now the Bluebell railway station at Horsted Keynes , along side a wood was a row of 8 ? old carriages that were lived in during and just after the war , as kids we were probably largely responsable for the decline of them , many a raft and camp was made from timber "salvaged " from them ... if time hasn't played tricks on my memory ( it was 35 ish years ago ) some still had curtains at the windows and even odd personal items from the residents were still around , some holes in field on the farm were also used to get rid of rubble from blitzed houses , certainly if you dug around there was loads of bricks in places .

Thanks for replys

Hi , Welcome .... going to be in the Beemster area next weekend , any of you Dutch guys know of any WW2 site's worth visiting in and around Beemster or Purmerend ? I have an M38A1 Neekaf so any good places for parts in the area ? Best Graham

few years ago returning in a RIB from some dives of one of the Carribean Islands it was raining so hard it hurt and was a very un-carribean temp , one of the local guys turned to me with a smile and said " no worrys man... its just liquid sunshine " . That thought still often makes me smile as in my day job I find myself laying in 6 inches of water/mud trying to fix some random large machine.

, My wife just read this .. she was married to a Dutchman .. both my step daughters are by default half dutch . Many things are lekker in our house , my wife still counts in Dutch , and her ex is a very nice guy ...ski's without poles ..like he's skateing , and comes up with many a dutch/englishism :-D

Sister ship to Bulwark then ?

What type of ship is she ? Came back from Dunkirk a few years ago on HMS Bulwark , we were picked up by landing craft and then taken straight inside Bulwark , she was then trimmed level again , the stern ramp raised and we just walked off the front of the landing craft up the "beach" onto the main deck , given Tea and a wad and allowed to wander over most of the ship , repeat performance when we got to Dover . Not sure what a lot of the cross channel ferry passengers thought when they saw 300 odd lycra clad cyclists sunbathing on the heli deck of one of Her Maj's ships :-) Had a good demo of Goalkeeper , and a good look at the imageing systems and radar in the control room too.

By 2015-2018 we won't have enough aircraft too fill one of them , even if we put all the cabs from the RAF and the navy on them :cry: , not to mention new destroyers that won't be armed for several years .....

Nooooh , it would be nice but at best it will be a big RC model :-(

Seem to have spent half my summers either on, in , or under the fleet ... after falling off the boat / raft :-) - beach combing on the chesil - now there are a few storys to be told !!! oh the things we found ... big confession to make one day ... sorry to the coast guard , Portland naval station the list go's on... it was a very big bang :-X .. think its mostly a nature reserve now. remember sitting on the chesil while the helicopters fired at the targets out to sea , many a Wasp flypast (now that ages me )

As a young lad we used to stay with friends who had a farm on the fleet near the moonfleet hotel , on the edge of the fleet were the remains of 2 bouncing bombs :cool2: , we played on and around them for years , also found the rudder of a Lanc riddled with flack damage over on the chesil , one of my regrets is dad never let us take it home , for years I had the trim tab from it ( sent too the IWM to be id'd ) but even that got lost when we moved . Years later went back but the rudder was gone from where we hid it .... so if you found a Lanc rudder hidden by the outfall of the Moonfleet hotel sewage pipe ..... its mine and I want it back

No ! , and her brothers married too ! so you'll just have to keep looking . Ref Ashley's post - seems all records of individual vehicles service were destroyed by the Dutch when the vehicles were disposed of . My step daughters are half Dutch but thats no help either :-D , am in contact with some Dutch Neekaf owners , have seen some nice pics of Canadian M38a1's in a nice two colour cammo so maybe thats a good option , only thing I know for sure about it is that in service it had a gun mount in the back as when I went to fit one every hole i needed to drill was in perfect line with a hole that had been welded up , Dutch guys tell me that they stopped using .50s on mounts because they caused stress cracks in the tub and chassis , hence welding up the holes. Maybee !

Thanks for all the replys , I'm sure my M38a1 will be just fine , it just seems that despite being much cheaper than any other Jeep they don't seem to be anything like as popular as the MB's and Hotchkiss Jeeps ,its not like they are hard to find , agree they don't have the classic Jeep look and getting good repro parts is harder but you can get two for the price of one !!! . Going to annoy loads of the purist's because even though it was a Dutch Neekaf its going to be getting the American treatment due mainly to the fact everyone else I know has American vehicles , and finding any meaningful history of its Dutch service is nearly impossible so any unit markings would only be a guess. Mind you hrs of trawling the tinternet have not exactly produced tens of pics of M38a1's in any Mil service.

Good evening Adrian , :-D , Yes can't wait till its warmer , seats are back in , number plates attached , gun mount bolted in , just the wheels to paint and the MOT to sort , then the assault can commence .... speak soon Graham

Hello , To introduce myself ... as the user name says ... I'm a mechanic and work on Ag machinery with a lap-top mostly ! none of this " hit it wiv a big ammer " nowadays :-D ... live on the east-west sussex border and on the Greenwich meridian (give or take a few yards) . Have just the one Mil vehicle .. an M38a1 .. its all I can afford that says Jeep and fits in a garage .. but looking forwards to having some fun this summer if the thing proves to be reliable ( which may go some way to answering the question as to why M38a1's don't seem to be very popular ) if it breaks down a lot. At least the paint will look nice as its just been repainted . Have just the one wife, and two beautiful step daughters ( 1 now married ) and no the other ones not up for offer :laugh: , two dogs , 1 cat , hundreds if not thousands of fish in the ponds in the garden. Well thats my intro done as requested by the mods .

You may know if this is true or not but.... I've been told there are a couple of "brand new" Toyota celicas sitting in a show room somewhere in the green zone , delivery mileage only .