Sean N

What John said. The only time I've been cold is towing one with no engine in snow.

It may not be necessary to join a club; the insurance may be asking either because there's a space on the form or sometimes because they offer extra discount for club members. Having said that, joining the right club can be a great help. As for the RL, they're great fun vehicles. Don't feel intimidated, fibreglass the door bottoms if you need to, and just go out and enjoy it!

The French News Online article Bruce refers to is here: http://www.french-news-online.com/wordpress/?p=26765#axzz3K9mjHnST and Bruce's Flickr stream is here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/39398090@N08/

Answered in your other thread.

The Matador was at Pattemore's as I said; it was behind a Mk V cab AEC the same colours. Shame about the Martians, they were both in really good condition. I was going to buy both of them, drove down there with batteries, fuel and cash but the guy that owned them at the time turned up an hour late and then demanded a £1500 non returnable deposit before he'd even let me start them, so needless to say I gave him a piece of my mind and walked away. Would have had a lot more than scrap money for them as well - his loss.

Perhaps he was a bit naïve, but the Telegraph article doesn't say how he bought the watch - in particular if it was an auction listing and he got 'lucky', it may well have gone for less than the true value. The thrust of the article is more to do with eBay's handling of the complaint than the watch itself though, and I have to say it seems to me typical of eBay's very limited resolution procedure, poor customer service and laissez faire attitude.

What body is on this truck? Do you have a photo of it? Is the chassis number from the chassis itself or the Ministry of Supply chassis plate? If so, is there a Vauxhall Motors chassis plate on the outside of the passenger seat base and what it the chassis number given as on that?

Ah. so there's independent confirmation, that's interesting to know. I guessed they must be new or nearly new and of course the post-war situation justified demand, but even so that amount of money seemed disproportionately high. It is an astronomical price - what, 2 to 4 or 8 times modern equivalent? Some people obviously had very deep pockets!

Possibly, but since it's going to be very difficult to determine or measure exposure for the average user and it's banned anyway it's probably academic. John, was that an outcome of the blasting?!! :shocked:

Dave, if you put a painted sample up against the panel they scanned from is the match close or not? The trouble is there are so many opportunities to get a paint mix wrong, let alone any variations or fading in the original colours. I've seen plenty of mixes in the past where the supplier's sworn blind they were mixed to the recipe, but later turned out they'd forgotten one pigment or put double the amount of another in.

What Chris said. http://www.hse.gov.uk/press%5C2008/coinw01708.htm, http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/cn7.pdf

Charlie, it'd be worth trying soda. My experience of it (contrary to Paul's!) is that it lifts paint well; it's non-damaging to the metal surface; it's non-damaging to components; it's non-toxic and easy to dispose of; and it leaves a residue which prevents flash rusting for a week or two. Disdvantages are that it won't lift rust and you have to rinse off before painting. All of this does depend somewhat on what blasting equipment and compressor / airflow you have.

Selling in guineas, I notice, and a Foden 10 ton 6x4 making an extraordinary 2600 Gns (£2730). That's nearly £100,000 based on RPI or £242,000 based on relative earnings! Must be an error noting it down, surely? Would a TSM Coach be a Tilling Stevens?

To be honest I'd have to have another look, Clive. Give me a day or two. I've seen them painted in blue, DBG and black in the past though. I think a few of these may be part painted where they've been re-used and the old VRN has been painted out.

I'm not sure that's the case, depending on your definition of large - we've seen several RLs, for instance, go for around that figure recently. Out of interest, how does a ZIL 131 compare with a Ural 4320?

No documents if that's what you mean. They've still got the bit of silver board in.

The Military and Landrover colour is BS381C colour chart, colour 224, Deep Bronze Green. I'm not definitively sure about the Home Office colour specification, but it's not far away if it is different and DBG will do the job.

If you're thinking lads & dads or learning to drive / first vehicle for your son, you should probably think carefully about suitability. Owning an old vehicle or old MV is, frankly, a great laugh, they always attract interest and comments, and I always enjoy driving mine. However, even the easier ones to drive are by no means comparable to modern vehicles. You have to contend with crash gearboxes, heavy brakes and steering, noise, too much heat in summer and too much cold in winter, and so on. Some people will jump in one and love it, some will jump in one and it'll put them off for life. Which is your son? That might affect whether you buy a vehicle like a series Landrover or something like an RL. Don't let a fascination with huge vehicles steer you into buying a white elephant (and I speak as an owner of RLs and K9s, among other vehicles). Do you want to work on it with your son? If so, consider smaller, easier to work on vehicles, or for the larger vehicles, something that is relatively easy to access and get parts for. As Arcot says, Series prices may be on the up but that means buying something that will probably appreciate if you don't kill it, and they are fun, easy to work on and drive. I'd try for something unusual in a series 2 though. There are other vehicles around or between Landy and RL size; Munga, Haflinger, Unimog 400 series, Austin K9 etc. etc. There's some great WW2 stuff but it's starting to fetch serious money now. Bear in mind a heavy camper body will significantly affect the off-road ability if that's what you want to do with it. Red Diesel is only legal in certain exempted vehicles. One of these is vehicles used on private land, but there is no 'six mile rule', and you'd certainly be in problems if caught going into a show running red diesel - and I have seen HMRC checking the tanks of every diesel vehicle going into certain shows. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/excise-notice-75-fuel-for-road-vehicles/excise-notice-75-fuel-for-road-vehicles. It can only be classed as agricultural - or whatever - if the body type (and often, use) is appropriate. Tax free before 1 January 1974 but this is a 40 year rolling exemption, so from 1 April 2015 it'll become 1 January 1975. Your 1986 licence should be good up to 7.5 Tonnes GROSS weight for a goods vehicle; so an RL isn't exempt because it weighs 4 tonnes, as its gross weight is 8.8 tonnes. There are exemptions for certain types of vehicles and for goods vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1960 used unladen and not drawing a laden trailer. Fuel consumption depends on vehicle. There are plenty of diesels which only do single figures mpg; there are plenty of petrol vehicles which do well into double figures. Consumption depends on use; off-roading will really kill it. My experience is 12 - 14 mpg for an RL, 15 - 18 mpg for a K9, 5-6 mpg for either off road. MoT depends on vehicle & other considerations. VERY roughly speaking, if it's not a goods vehicle it has to have a Class 4 MoT, if it's a goods vehicle it has to have a Class 7 MoT or goods vehicle test; unless it's exempt for some reason. Exemptions are complex and there are a lot of them so best to discuss the detail elsewhere, but the one you'll come across most commonly is the exemption for pre-1960 vehicles. Note exemptions don't remove your obligation to have the vehicle roadworthy, so all you save is the hassle and cost of taking it for test, and arguably it puts more onus on you to do the checks. Insurance is VERY cheap but variable depending on vehicle. In my experience £200 is more than enough. Your mileage may vary. Recovery for large vehicles can be a pain. Fortunately some people are stepping into the breach. Often you can get recovery with insurance, or there are operators such as Autohome who will do it separately. Keep on top of the maintenance and you're unlikely to need it.

Anyone see this the other night on BBC 4? Quite interesting, though more social than technical documentary. Featured a clip of the Home Guard towing a heavily smoking tram down the road behind what I think is an A11 / Matilda 1 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b017zqw8/timeshift-series-11-8-the-golden-age-of-trams-a-streetcar-named-desire Home guard clip is at 44:00

Same barrel and carriage as in the Mail article, I believe.

That's only one of the 18" barrels, L1; according to the other article, Boche-Buster itself - the rail carriage, mount etc. - was cut up in the 1960s.

This is really interesting. I had no idea this existed. http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/features/index6.shtml

I haven't had to use Autohome for a truck breakdown, but had cars covered with them for many years and used the cover several times, and they were always very good.

I think I saw a reference somewhere - a photo caption, perhaps - to them being used in Macedonia.

As I say, I've got a load of the things here, acquired years ago often as part of job lots. Having had H&S responsibilities and asbestos awareness training, I personally don't see what I can do with them other than bin them. I understand it's illegal to supply or fit them in any way, even free, let alone sell them. I feel it's a shame not to be able to use perfectly serviceable linings, some of which may be difficult or impossible to source in a non-asbestos material, but they don't owe me a lot of money, what money they did owe was spent 15+ years ago, and given the moral, legal and safety issues I don't see that I can pass them on anyway. Mike, yes, the council here have the same provision. In fact, they're starting to charge for disposal soon, which is what's brought it to mind. They can have the shoes complete though - there's no way I'm messing about stripping asbestos linings from shoes, the professionals can do that. However, the fact is that very few preserved MVs or classic vehicles will do enough miles ever to get through a decent set of brake or clutch linings, and I'd guess that most of the MVs out there in private hands - possibly apart from recent restorations, post 2004 - are running around with asbestos linings in. Same will apply to older vehicles in general use - horseboxes, for example. I don't get involved with a big enough variety of vehicles these days to know whether there are any issues with non-asbestos replacement, such as availability or behaviour. I see asbestos linings on eBay regularly - I suspect that the sellers either don't know or don't care that it's illegal, and it's probably too difficult for eBay to police; they'd have to check every listing to see whether they're asbestos or not. Similarly many autojumblers seem to quite happily sell NOS linings that are highly likely to have asbestos in, and many classic vehicle owners happily buy them, so people are still using them while presumably aware of the dangers. So, I wasn't really asking anything specific, just was interested in people's thoughts and attitudes because it's in my mind at the moment.