David Herbert

Te He indeed ! Its realy nice to see some more photos. Clever way to stop it jumping out of gear, presumably there are detents in the gearbox and some system to stop two gears engaging at the same time as well as the sprung bits that you have just made. Any news of the front axle ? Best wishes to you both, David :thumbsup:

The fixed fire extinguisher bottles were definitely red when new. I have removed them from range tanks with the manufacturer's transfer on top of a thin coat of red and no repainting at all. I have never seen them painted green or even white to match the rest of the interior of the tank. I think that the point was that they are pressurised and to be treated with respect and are not remotely visible from outside the tank. Doesn't it look good with all the detail bits going in but it reprisents an enormous amount of work. Nice job. David

Definately not Cletrak, Clark, Ransomes or Bristol. I have been interested in crawler tractors for many years and have never seen one of these. Are there any hints to the country of origin on it I wonder ? The track pads are very unusual and so is its relatively light build combined with a built-in winch and not-at-all home made transmission. The rubber engine mounts suggest to me that it is later than about 1960. I do hope someone has the answer. David

I think that the two rolls of rubber chevron track next to the M4 HST bits are actually from M48 tanks and their relatives. It is wider than Sherman HVSS / M26 / M46 / M47 and can be spotted because the smooth surface for the road wheels to run on does not cover the full width of the inside face of the shoe as it does on the others. However the wedge bolts are of the earlier pattern with hollowed out sides to the heads so I wonder if these tracks came off some prototype that predated M48 ? It is a shame that the M6 HST is being reduced further but it does show that he is prepared to sell parts from vehicles. The cab on the M6 looks like it is from a County forward control 4x4 conversion of a British Ford agricultural tractor. There can't have been many of those exported to the States but then I didn't think that there were many Champs either and he has a line of them ! The pile of M4 wheels look very tempting to Sherman owners but although the tyre is the same and the wheel looks similar the hub design is quite different with a very different bearing set up inside. They can be converted but it involves some significant engineering. Sprocket rings are the same but not the hubs or any of the transmission. Finally, I also find it very frustrating when dealers, who you would expect to be trying to sell things for the best price that they can get, would rather scrap something than allow someone else to possibly profit from doing vast amounts of work on some machine that was in quite good condition before it had been left to rot. It should be said though that if these people were more rational, said remains would have been cut up long ago and would not be arround now for us to windge about. David

Bob, Sorry to bring the wrong news but the change to white interiors in British AFVs was very temporary and as Chris said was the result of shortages in 1941/2. We reverted to silver/aluminium as soon as possible and certainly by mid 1943 but each factory will have had a different change date and some may never had changed to white at all. I have examined a considerable number of range wrecks and have never seen any sign of white paint on any part of a Centaur or Cromwell. I have seen white in Covenanters and early Valentines and as Paul said Daimler ACs. I also have seen a specification for the prototype Covenanter which specifies white interior but refers to change back to silver when available. To go further off thread American AFVs were always painted white inside from new untill the 1960s (I think) when they changed to a rather nice shade of light green. The wartime white paint when it ages either goes very chalky and rubs off on your fingers or goes yellow causing restorers to try to match it and paint interiors custard colour. Think how yellow the white paint in your house goes after ten years and that does not have to contend with oil and propellant fumes or 60 plus years of weathering. Mind you an old traditional pub interior might be a good comparison. David

Refering to the task of making the eyes on the end of the recoil spring, about 17 years ago a vaguely similar spring in the starter pinion of my IH td18 tractor broke its eye. This spring acts as a shock absorber when the pinion engages and takes the full torque of the starter - there is I think a similar one in an International half track. As the tractor needed to be moved and I had nothing to lose I removed the spring, heated the broken end, rolled a new eye while red hot and then let it cool in air. I was not convinced it would work at all but it did and although I now have a new one in the 'stores' the one I repaired is still on the tractor. I would not do this on anything safety critical but it is worth trying and you need to work quickly so that only the eye gets annealed. Actually most small springs are formed cold ( but very quickly - which makes a difference ) but obviously there are limits. Good luck. David

I am not sure when metric threads became common in Europe. Certainly the major German manufacturers of steam locomotives used whitworth threads into the 1920s - but with metric heads usually of similar size to the heads that we are used to but not the same. Presumably the metric threads that we use (fine, medium and course ) were in use before they were officialy standardised but they were certainly not universal in WW1. In fact pre-metric measurements still pop up in non tech use all over europe. Obviously the Rotherhams of Coventry priming cups is a good clue though ! David

Bob Thanks but it was the tracked gun tractor that I have on my 'lottery' list. David

Further to my comments on Sherman HVSS track and M6 High Speed Tractors it seems that the M6s on rubber chevron track DO indeed use the same track links as HVSS Sherman, M47 etc but with a unique box shaped centre guide similar to the one used by Shermans but rather wider as the M6 has a wider gap between the inner and outer bogie wheels. As these tracks are marginally wider than the original M6 steel chevron tracks a special sprocket hub is required which also carries only two sprocket rings (instead of three of the original design) and is slightly more dished on its outside face than the original. I can find no photos of M6 HSTs on rubber chevron tracks in service so I would guess that they were only fitted for peacetime use in USA and Germany when it became unacceptable to destroy the roads with steel track. Also does anyone know which countries received M8 series High Speed Tractors other than Japan and are there any still in Europe that have not been turned into drilling rigs etc.? David

Like Richard I could not see the red High Speed Tractor behind the Yellow one in Mark's photos in post 19 as an M6. It is in fact one of four prototype T94 Cargo Tractors which were authorised in late 1956, intended as a very heavy artilery tractor, partly replacing the M8A1 or A2 shown in th other photos. Like the M8 it had a Continental flat six air cooled engine as used in the M41, M42, M75, this time a 525hp AOSI 895-3B and an Allison XTG-500-2 transmission but instead of the Walker Buldog running gear of the M8 it used the suspension and tracks from the M47 tank. The track links are interchangeable with those of HVSS Shermans but with a different centre guide. It was built by Allis Chalmers about 1957 and originaly had the single cab that is still on it, then the engine compartment and then a cargo body taking up the rear half of the length of the vehicle rather like the body in the middle of an M8A1. There was a large winch on outrigers in front of the cab, hence the depressed rectangle in the cab front. Overall length was 24' 11", width 10' 10", hight 10' 5". Weight 72000lbs with a 12000lbs load. All this from Fred Crismon's 'US Military Tracked Vehicles' and R.P.Hunnicutt's 'Bradley'. Hate to think what the fuel consumption was when towing ! Please note that the M6 used its own unique design of HVSS and track that was not interchangeable with Sherman or anything else. They fitted a set to a Sherman as an early experiment in improving its suspension but it was not strong enough and could not be fitted with dampers. The M6 track was very unusual as it had a triple sprocket, the centre one driving onto the centre connectors which also carried two guide horns as well. Hope this helps. David

Steve, Thanks for your input. The M40 shown on p18 of W&T15 and captioned as a sherman is the one in Battlesbury Bowl, a natural arena used as a demo stadium by the army. When I went there about six months after the mag was printed and it had recently been cut up and removed. The bovy one sat on top of a hill about 3miles east and was in much the same condition then as now. Alan, Thanks for your photos - they do indeed show no markings ! I am glad the Woolwich one is now indoors, when I saw it last it looked very sorry for itself and had had a hole cut in the side so people could look into the drivers position. David

Thanks very much for looking guys, I suspect that it died and was used to make one out of two. I had already found that not having the army reg nomber or the chassis no. ment that the Champ register could not help but I hoped that it might still be arround. Thanks again David

Hi John, I know that you secretly enjoyed the attention, anyway you healed up so don't complain. Thanks for replying and nice to be in touch again ! David

Thanks Steve, Yes but only the book, not the real photo which presumably is rather better resolution.

Hi Steve, I assume that you are Mr. O..... we havn't spoken for years ! I havn't so much been out in the wilderness but in a different meadow that isn't in cyberspace. Best wishes David

Does anyone know if Austin Champ RRF 887G still exists ? It was my first car, bought for scrap in 1974ish for £60 and driven home illegally, sorted out and used as day to day transport for a couple of years and then sold in reasionable but not restored condition. At that time I lived in Maidenhead, Berks. I have no idea of its serial or army nos. but it was a FFW with a two speed generator. I don't even have a photo of it ! I used to commute weekly from Maidenhead to Sandbach in Cheshire (120m) and back and it never failed me but you could never describe the brakes as good ! It did 16 mpg regardless of road conditions but petrol was 25p/gallon then = 5.4p/lr ! Mind you I was only earning £21 / week after tax. I never found it a roof so it got a bit cold in winter but I was tougher then. I was very fond of it so if anyone knows of it please respond. Thanks, David

Hi Bob, so did I ! Good set of pictures of Warcop, much better than mine, those were the days !

What spolling David

Having been heavily involved with getting Duxford's M40 going when it arrived at Duxford, I have an interest in their use by the British Army. As far as I can tell we had 27 in total, received as mutual aid in 1954 and nombered: 70BA00 to 70BA04 70BA10 70BA11 93BA39 to 93BA58 This is from Geoff Fletcher's excellent article on p56 of Windscreen mag no.116. That article gives the unit that some of them served with but I would like to find where they all served and what became of them all. I have no details of the US nos. or the shop nos. of any of them. Does anyone have photos of them in British service? Does anyone have photos of the M40 that was aquired by the East of England tank museum when it was at Bassingbourne near Cambridge or before it was filled with concrete at Stamford. Why did it go to Bassingbourne - an RAF station ? I know of two destroyed on Salisbury plain - one in battlesbury bowl the other recently recovered by Bovy. Also the wreck that was on Sennybridge and now in a private collection. Does anyone have the nombers of these three or the one in Woolwich or know of any others in the UK ? Lastly does anyone have TM9-747 or Ord9-G232 (or any other relevant publications) to spare? David

I have been involved with WW2 tanks for many years now and in my conversations with Adrian Barrell and Hanno Spoelstra they keep refering to realy good threads on HMVF so I have had to move reluctantly into the 21st century and join the HMVF and MLU. Unfortunatly my computer skills are rubbish so please don't expect anything complicated from me but I know that there are people out there interested in all sorts of obscure stuff and I need to talk to them ! I have owned the remains of a very late Ram tank for longer than I care to admit with the intention of restoring it as a Command/OP version. The project was stalled by my divorce some time ago and then other pressures but I have been collecting parts and information and have been goaded into returning to it by Carl Brown's restoration of a Ram Kangaroo for a customer. This has shown up how much I don't know of the interior of the C/OP so if anyone has detailed information please get in touch. I am particularly looking for the Parts list suppliment for the Ram C/OP. I have also been in love with the M40 155mm GMC since being heavily involved with getting Duxford's one going and am looking for anything relating to its use by the British army. Please see my post in 'Tracked Vehicles'. Best wishes to old friends and new David