Pete Ashby

Nice work Alistair :thumbsup: interesting thread very much enjoying reading about the progress so keep posting the pictures. As an aside, which firm is making your brake cables up ? Pete

Mk 1 Canadian Universal Carrier Headlight body, bezel and light unit retainer ring all in first class condition, clean and in zinc undercoat £140.00 plus postage at cost to anywhere in the world. This item has now been sold on another forum thanks Pete

I thought you Bedford chaps would like those, there are some very nice early carrier pictures and an excellent set covering the Cruiser Mk IV or Mk IVA ?? as well as some very atmospheric period assembly line shots. Pete

101 interesting early war factory photos here taken at Luton Bedfordshire ? and at Nuffields Birmingham ? worth a look Pete

Just love the look of these pre/early war trucks :thumbsup: looking good Pete

Very nice work Guy keep the photos coming I'm very much enjoying following this thread :thumbsup: Pete

You don't say what the temperature gauge reading was Tim. If it was reading 212F when your rad cap blew then it could be the result of one or a combination of the following: Failing/stuck thermostat Blown head gasket Blocked radiator Slipping fan belt Failed water pump If the reading was below 212F: Blown head gasket A compression and leak down test coupled with a vacuum gauge on the inlet manifold will confirm this. Failed or missing rad cap gasket Blocked or restricted overflow pipe Pete

I would be a little bit suss that the lower flange bolt was loose/missing as well. As you've said Chris the rear support bracket needs to be in place with both front flange bolts and the three fixings points drawn up equally spanner tight. Pete

I would try asking the question here http://ww2talk.com/forums/forum/115-remeraoc/. The unit war diary is the definitive source these are held at the National Archives Kew, the official web site is not the best for finding this sort of thing so if you want to pursue this let me know and I'll give you the name and link of a researcher who has found and copied a number of obscure war diaries for me at very reasonable cost. I have no connection with him other than a satisfied customer. Pete

Nice photos chaps thanks for sharing. It's good to see after all the uncertainty that has surrounded W&P that the show still managed to field some rare and interesting vehicles, this was always the strong point of the show in that it attracted rare and little seen examples. Pete

Nice photos :thumbsup: Pete

Thank you Bob and Peter for the positive comments, they are very much appreciated. When I've completed the top section and locking assembly I'll post another update. Currently I'm converting my old slurry pit into a large workshop so it may be a couple of months before I return to this thread. regards Pete

Ian much appreciated :thanx:. it's very much a labour of love to do this commercially for a customer would not be viable. But I'm doing this for myself and have a family connection with the type so it's always a pleasure to work on. As you can can see I take one bit at a time and treat it as a project in it's own right, I find that way it focuses both effort and funds and prevents getting overwhelmed by the amount of work still to do. Each separate project completed is a step nearer to the finished whole............. pleased your enjoying the thread. Pete

Useful bit of kit can be used for all sorts of things, I missed one in a closing down sale a few years ago, sadly went well beyond price I could justify :-( had a full set of different sized rollers to match. Pete

how are you going to put the cross pressings into the seat pans ? Pete

Next job was to fabricate the frame work that the carrier pivots in and attaches the whole assembly to the truck this is an angle iron and steel plate construction. First thing to do was to bend up the two side arms the angle is 50mm x 50mm x 5mm thick this was very close to the Imperial original size Next the hinge locking plate was bent up and drilled and filed out to take the bow pivot pins (that’s the bar in the lower front of the photo that joins the two angle irons) The side irons were mounted on the truck and the flat bar cross braces cut, drilled and added….. it was beginning to look a bit more like it, all be it still very wobbly. The wobbly problem is cured by the addition of the steel plate cheek pieces these bolt onto the fuel tank support angle irons and are cut from 5mm plate. They are a distinctive shape so a cardboard template was made up and adjusted until it fitted properly. The rails were then taken off and drilled to take the rivets that hold the cheek pieces on. Once the cheek pieces were cut out the edges were draw filed flat and square (no plasma cutter here just sweat, 1mm slitting disks in the angle grinder and a jig saw for the curvy bits ) The cheek pieces were then hot riveted onto the rails, the originals have a distinctive head shape on the outside and appeared to be machine closed on the inside face (no snap used apparently) after searching various catalogues the nearest to the shape and size I could find was on a long shank black iron coach bolt. So out with my machinists digest to work out the correct rivet length required cut the threaded portion off along with some of the unwanted shank then repeat 30 times. The cheek pieces were then hot riveted on using the anvil to hold the head, the Oxy torch with fine nozzle to heat only the rivet shank to just short of melting then thickening up the shank and dressing down with a medium weight ball pane hammer. The whole assembly ends up looking like this when fitted back on the truck Pete

A significant piece of kit that was missing from the truck was the spare wheel carrier so it was now time to turn my attention to this. Studying in service and factory photos showed that two types of carrier were fitted to the Retriever. From the start of production to mid1940 a bow type structure was used to support the wheel then from mid1940 to the end of production in November 1941 a simple angle iron ladder and rack was fitted. My truck should have the bow carrier fortunately the truck that was in the defunct Beverly RCT museum and Monty’s caravan at IWM Duxford both had the early bow system so these were used to produce drawings and scaled photos. The problem of bending some fairly heavy gauge pipe was solved when a post war carrier turned up it may possibly have come from an AEC Militant but I’m not sure. The problem was it was too tall had extra inertia brake fittings, the tubes were joined with a solid web and the hub was a four arm carrier as opposed to the original two arm……apart from that it was perfect….. hmm that’s a good buy then :???. The result was several days with my petrol cutter and an angle grinder. That did the trick, I did ponder changing the hub to a two arm configuration but decided I’d live with it the way it was. After cleaning and de-rusting it ended up like this Pete

It must be time for another update on progress. Work on and around the cab area is nearly complete with the instrument housing is repaired and waiting for a top coat. It’s taken some time but I managed to track down a full set of suitable instruments (trial fitted for the photo) the ignition / light switch is a NoS unit, it’s post war but I’ve fitted an early brass turn key, I still have to fit a brass bezel for the warning light fortunately I have a couple that can be cleaned up the only difference then will be the number of rivets in the face and possibly the part number but I can live with that. Before: After: Pete

Hmm, no I don't think so, the party didn't leave Rushmore until three days after the failed raid. I rather have the feeling that they went to do a job of work or perhaps attend a relevant course but why only 20 odd men out of 230 in the unit? The men who went were all MT fitters and what ever they were doing warranted the CO driving there and back to Rushmore on the first day to oversee something???? I rather hoped that there would be a RAOC field Depot on the redundant airfield but so far I haven't found any reference to anything of that nature there. Pete

Fair point David, however at that stage of the war I'm not sure we had too many PoW's, in fact they had rather more of ours than we had of theirs I fear :undecided:. The only thing of note at the time was that the abortive Dieppe raid had taken place three days before, but I can't see how there could be any connection with three sections (about 20 men and two junior officers ) of RAOC, having said that there must have been some driving force to initiate travelling over 100 miles east when there must have been other units closer. Small personal mystery for which there never be an answer I fear. Pete

Indeed, that was the conclusion I came to, as there appeared to be much more covered accommodation than would be required for the Lysander squadron that was based there in the summer of 1940. The RAF ceased operations from the field soon after the withdrawal from France so it must have been used for something else. My interest was raised by an entry for 22 of August 1942 in the war diary for my Fathers unit 10th Army Workshop RAOC currently in the process of forming up at Rushmore Arena prior to taking part in the Torch operations. Three sections (one of which included my Father) and an 'F' lorry (this is a house type electrical or instrument repair workshop) were sent on detachment to Bekesbourne Canterbury; some time before the 1st of September however the detachment had returned to Rushmore. Nothing particularly remarkable about any of this except it struck me as interesting that a detachment should be sent all the way from Aldershot to Canterbury to carry out less than 8 days work, it begs the question why couldn't a closer unit carry out the work and what were they doing at an an abandoned grass airfield. What ever it was it obviously did not make an impression on my Father as he never mentioned it at any time in any of his recollections. Pete

This is a bit of a left field question but perhaps some one can help. I'm interested to know if any army units (Canadian or British) were stationed on or around the air field around the time or immediately post the date of the Dieppe raid 19 August 1942. I know the RAF were not using the airfield by this stage of the war but the infra structure such as it was was still in place thanks Pete

Hello Ian, David did mention he'd met you there, yes the Chev is rather early and rather rare regards Pete

Look forward to following this one Pete

Interesting.... so a universal fitment on most common usage Canadian trailers Pete