Zero-Five-Two

Pick axe came from ebay a while back, the crowbar was in with all the bits and pieces that were in the Tanker when I got it

Not much progress this weekend, another cold, wet one. How come it's half decent during the week when you have to be at work, but as soon as Saturday arrives it goes to rats? Still it's the time of year I suppose. Anyway got the straps made for holding various bits of kit in the cab, and managed to get them fitted in between the rain today. Old straps were well past it. But the buckles cleaned up well, and a pair of 37 pattern webbing shoulder straps provided replacement webbing. Seen here measuring one of the new straps. Crowbar goes behind the drivers seat And Pick Axe behind the passengers.

Quiet please, Teacher in class 👨‍🎓 Sit up at the back there, and I'll try to explain. This is one of the harder welds to do successfully. Might look simple, just fill the corner, but even experienced professional welders have to give it some thought to get a good finish. It's all to do with the magnetic field created by the welding arc. This is what draws the filler material (MIG wire or stick) into the joint as you weld. If you are doing a straight butt weld the magnetic effect is equal on both sides of the joint, and you can get a straight weld with nice coins that not only looks good but has even penetration, creating a good solid weld. When welding inside a 90 degree corner the two sides tend to act like a pair of magnets. If you remember from your school science lessons, like poles on magnets repel. Hold the like poles of two magnets together and they will push each other apart. Same goes for the weld pool. Each side of the weld will try and push the arc to the other side. It feels like you are not in control of the welding. Try as you might, but the weld pool just wont go where you want it. Chances are, as well, you'll be holding the torch in an awkward position to be able to see what you are doing, and this doesn't help, either. So, what can you do about it? Couple of solutions which go some way to removing the problem. First off the earth connection. Get it as close to the joint as possible. Get yourself a second earth lead (same size as the first one) so you can earth both sides of the joint, this lessens the magnetic effect. Alternatively, and this works better when welding thinner metal. Before bringing the two sides together, run a small bead of weld just shy of the inside edge of each piece. This way once in position the two beads will lesson the 90 degree effect making it more like 45 degrees, and you weld the gap between the two. Either or both of these tricks should get you a fairly straight, weld with decent penetration just where you want it. If it still looks crap when you've finished you can always tidy it up with the grinder and a smear of filler! 😁

Read about this in various truck magazines that I get I hope they find somewhere, they have a very interesting collection of stuff that doesn't need to be sold off or destroyed

Try clamping a set of Mole grips or a G clamp on each end of the angle irons, it'll help stop them splaying outwards as you bend the sheet

Slowly, slowly catchee monkey as they say, measure twice and cut once and all the other useful sayings people come out with. Best of luck with it. Shout up if you need a hand even if we can only provide verbal encouragement just now

As I understand it the same rule applies to historic tankers too. Fortunately, my Son Stuart has a contact at a local tanker company and they can do a flush out and provide the necessary certification. Plan is, as soon as we are ready and lockdown permits, we will take a run down there and get done. If necessary our Stu can drive, he had to get ADR trained for his job as a Scania technician, having been pulled over at the Dartford tunnel one day

That is going to tax the little grey cells! It's all about to get very interesting, I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle it. Do you have a plan on where to start?

I can't shed any more light on your question, I'm not that up on Scottish Regimental history, but they do have some very interesting unit titles. The movement order we found, just shows the destination to be Edinburgh, no specific unit is mentioned. The B Vehicle record card shows 102 Regiment RA (V). Wikipedia shows this as 102 (Ulster and Scottish) Light Air Defence Regiment, formed in 1967 and equipped with Javelin surface to air missiles. As for which higher authority they reported to, Brigade, Division etc, I've no idea, but somebody on here will know.

Yes, it was in a bit of a state and he was asking £3500 for it! Initially I was hoping it would donate decent tyres to my other Militant, then I would sell on the rest. But there wasn't much original Militant left on it at all. Even the HIAB wasn't original, Atlas cranes were fitted to Militants As for the other stuff, I was back up there snooping around just before christmas and it looked just the same as the day we collected the Tanker, 4 years ago. Nothing seems to have moved at all. I am told the old guy who owns it (Brian Hawkins) is 93 years old and still works everyday. Started the business in 1954. He likes to give the impression he is a bit of a doddery old git, but don't be fooled, as soon as you start talking money, he is as sharp as a fresh stanley blade. Apparently his son, who controls the main business of crane hire, doesn't share the same ideas as his father, and as soon as Brian finally chucks in the towel he will phone the local scrap man and just clear the lot. This will be a shame as there is a lot of highly collectable items in there, even if they only fit for spares.

Chance of getting down the pub for a few beers would be a novelty these days

Hmmm! Retirement project, then. Would have to start with a tipper to go with the excavator

That is an absolutely outrageous monster of a piece of kit. You've just got to love it, but I'll bet it is hard work to operate with any degree of success too. Definitely one for the fantasy barn that is. Anyway, one at a time please, got to finish the Tanker first 😁 Pump is back together, turns quite nicely now too. Back on fixing up the chain cover, now I've restocked the welding gas New corners on the top half And start cleaning the bottom half Which revealed a few holes around the bottom drive sprocket area. Incidently this is where the drive chain links were most seized too, and was at the time of removal from the truck, full of wet muck, so not that surprising there was problems here. One of those rust holes possibly started life as a drain point which got blocked and it all went from there. Nothing that can't be sorted with a bit of tin bashing and half an hours welding. Needs a skim of filler and finish cleaning the old paint off and it'll live again. Drive chain is all freed off now, prolonged soaking in WD40, and plenty of time sat there working each link back and forth. It's sat in a tray of engine oil now to help keep it supple until fitting time.

I believe there is at least one, owned by a forum member who goes by the name Ashcollection. But I don't know what stare it is in or if he still has it. As a former plant man with an obsession for Militants Iwould love to have it Can you post the picture in the Militant Gallery, would love to see it.

I think you are absolutely right, and much as I like the idea of doing the water thing with it, it's not really a good idea. I might get one afternoons fun out of it, and after that it's ruined. All that restoration work and years of history out the window. Bit like Indiana Jones, brilliant archaeologist, maybe, but every time he finds a priceless artefact, he goes on to wreck it!! Think of the last crusade, the old Knight had kept that temple tidy for all those years, Jones turns up and ten minutes later the place is in ruins!! Buy a fire engine? Nah, don't think so 😁

I've been giving this a good deal of thought actually. I like the idea mentioned earlier by The DT Guy of carting water round steam rallies, would make a great show piece, being seen to be working. BUT, as we all know water isn't known for it's lubricating properties, more so for corroding ferrous metals. While most of the pumps components are aluminium, brass or gunmetal, but the actual gears and roller bearings are steel and wont appreciate a regular coating of water. Tanker was built to carry and pump various fuels so first thoughts are pump needs the lubrication of passing diesel etc. It could have also carried petrol and that's not much good for lubrication. The drive shafts within the pump are sealed with spring loaded rubber seals, but the rest like the bearing and spring carriers are just a very close metal to metal fit and there is bound to be some seepage, within the casing, of the pumped fluid especially as it is under pressure. Eventually this will wash out all the grease I've put in and we'll be back to where we started with a seized pump.

Fished the pump drive chain out of the WD40 bowl on Sunday and spent several hours working each link in turn to get them to free up. All bar a block of 3 have freed up nicely, but I suppose you have to have a couple of difficult ones to make it interesting. The 3 in question do move but only under protest, so it's back in the soak for a few more days. Pump case and end plates got a coat of paint Early finish from work today, so I thought I would start putting the pump back together. First off, lay out all the clean bits in the right order. Looks a lot more like the tech book diagram now. Plan A was fit all the internals, and make sure it all turns like it should. Then clean up the end plate studs and make new gaskets, finally bolt it altogether. Didn't quite work like that, but in a good way. Shafts in first followed by wear plates, then spring carriers all with a liberal coating of high pressure pump grease. Problem was the first end slides in easy, but then as you push the other end in, the first end slides back out. Whole lot slides each way with ease. So plan B, slide the back end components in, new gasket, and plate on, torqued up all done Looks good, and yes, it all turns sweetly. Tomorrow, once the painted nuts on this end have dried, turn over and slide in the other end.

So would I!! Hopefully we will get some shows to go to this year, and the whole plan is to have it working in some way

Yes it is, been using it for years. Can brush it, or thin it with about 25% standard thinners and spray on. Touch dry in about half an hour. Sticks to anything Red colour does tend to bleed through green top coat, so I usually do a grey primer over it first to seal it Certainly seems to keep the tin worm at bay

Got the rest of the pump room in red oxide today Not exactly the nicest place to have been working, bit cramped and awkward to reach some bits. But you have to make the best of things. Comfy chair and heater, who could ask for more? On a serious note, heater worked rather well when it came to the painting. After de-rusting, bung the heater in with the doors shut while you go to lunch, warmed the whole thing up beautifully. Obviously heater out while spraying, but as soon as the vapour cleared heater back in to help with the drying. Job done.

Christmas socialising is off this year, so might as well do some more Tanker tinkering. Bright and early start on Monday morning. Well I was, weather was grey, damp, cold and generally unpleasant, so didn't stay long. Just enough to remove the Pump and drive chain, clean the floor up and give it a coat of Bonda Primer. Then rush back home before I froze to death. At least this gives me somewhere clean and dry to sit while I de-rust the ceiling when the temperature improves. Back in the home workshop, first job, fire up the new heater and warm the place up. Does a fine job, but I'm not sure yet, if I should be scared of the next electricity bill. Went for the drive chain cover first, it needs a couple of repairs, but then I found out I'm out of welding gas and can't get any more until I go back to work next week, so that's in the pending tray for now. Right, then deep breath and go for the big boy. One Varley double helical SH75 fluid pump. I know this 'cos it says so on the label. Weighing in at more than I want to lift by myself, and capable of delivering 100 gallon per minute. Or at least it used to before it seized solid. Does turn about a quarter of an inch each way with a big pair of stillsons on the drive sprocket, but can't get it to do any more. The following sequence of photos are the results of about three days solid work, but I'm pleased to say that despite extensive and gratuitous use of a big copper hammer and other tools of violence I didn't damage anything, and the whole thing looks like it will live again. Drive sprocket and shaft cover removed Front cover plate removed Back cover off, don't see too much grease in those bearings Back end cleaned off so we can see what we are doing. Thought, at first, the bolt holes were for jacking bolts. 3/8" BSW. Spent an age sorting through every box and tray in the place trying to find some, but to no avail, so ended up re-cutting some M10 down to fit. Anyway, they aren't for jacking, you bolt a puller onto them. But you have to make the puller first. As you can see by the long crack bar, they weren't that keen on coming out. Gets there in the end, popped out at the last bit, hence dropping the crack bar to save dropping the bearing Can see why it was a fight to get out, now, bit rusty inside Once out separating the bearing wasn't too bad, just had to crack off the dried grease Mark 2 puller was better, cleaned up the sharp edges, and got a better length of bolt in the centre. Top bearing wasn't as tight as the bottom one, but it also had the benefit of an overnight soaking in penetrating fluid, so perhaps that helped. Top shaft seal is free, but the bottom one is stuck in Repeat the process for the front drive shaft end. Both shaft seals came out easily, but like the rear end the aluminium spring carriers and the springs were all well stuck. Got the springs out with a pair of long nose mole grips, by twisting them to wind each spring upwards. There's not much to get hold of on the carrier to pull them out with out causing damage, but I found a half inch socket extension that fitted nicely into a spring hole and after as good while wobbling and wiggling while running penetrating fluid round the edge each one freed up enough to slide out. Behind these is a phosphor bronze wear plate with nothing to pull on. Tech manual suggests they just slide out. Ha Ha!! yeah course they do! Beating one end of the drive shaft with a copper lump hammer eventually knocks the other end out along with the shafts and the pump gears. Beating and eventually are merely figures of speech here, I was really giving it some at first to get them to move at all, and was partly convinced I was just knocking the shafts out of the middle. I even got the vernier gauge out at one point to prove to myself that they were moving Casing is still heavy even when empty, now awaiting it's turn in the grand clean up And numerous fragments as they say. Internal bits laid out in some sort of order as they were removed. It all actually looks a bit like the exploded diagram in the tech manual too! I've spent today cleaning this lot and bagging it all up, so more pictures tomorrow once it's all done and I can do a proper layout. All the time this has been going on the drive chain has been soaking in this bowl of WD40. Hopefully it will help free it up a bit

ZERO!!!!!!!!!! ......... the down side of working on your driveway , bad weather and short winter evenings coupled together with work being busy, lockdowns, COVID and isolation... the project has currently stalled for the moment......... Sounds like making excuses to me, lack of moral fibre an' all that 😁!! On a serious note, did it get damaged when the tent blew away? Buying a new tent is easy, a bent cab top or something could be a disaster.

Chain oiler looks a lot different now it's cleaned Didn't even realise the centre was glass, but at least I managed not to break it. Not sure I want to paint it back into silver

Part 2. Hasn't all been home workshop, I have managed a couple of visits to the Tanker in between breaks in the rain. First off, attack the pump room light. It didn't go well. Lamp body has a long shaft the goes through the roof with 2 retaining nuts on either side. The lamp body is alluminium, the retaining nuts are brass and pump room roof is steel. Three different types of corrosion combined to ensure the light shaft sheered off rather than undo. Not a major crisis, and reasonably easy to fix. Stripping it down to clean and repair was the next hurdle. It is in two halves which unscrew to allow access to the bulb holder etc. Two days soaking in penetrating fluid didn't help and any ideas of separating it carefully achieved nothing. Worse case scenario the glass lens gets broken. Well, I tried every trick in the book and got nowhere. After a good few hours of frustration, I finally got the two halves to separate, mainly by clamping one half in the vice and using a big set of steilsons on the other half. Yes, I got a result, but as you might have guessed, I did break the glass in the process. Bloody disaster!!! where on earth do I get a new one of those? Not only that, the ceramic bulb holder is also in bits, but I didn't do that, it's been knackered for a long time by the look of it. Having got it apart and cleaned up, and repaired the damage caused by the steilson jaws I can see that there is a locking ring on the front that holds the glass in. Another couple of hours was spent fighting to get that to undo, and the level of violence used would've definitely broken the glass if I hadn't broken it earlier. Still it's all clean now, and as for a light lens, try this. The side light unit from an early mini looks like it will slot straight in complete with bulb holder and rubber surround. So one on order for after Christmas and we'll see how it looks. Today might have been dry round here, but the north wind made sure it felt like winter had truly arrived. Plan of attack was the pump room floor on the off side and also to remove the last bits of pipework. Both involved working climbing into the thing, so effectively I was indoors and out of the wind. You just have to dress appropriately Now ready for Covid tier 5 regulations Floor is just a mess of wet rust cornflakes so first job scoop it all out and dry up as much water as possible. Then out with the electric wire brush and start scrubbing. This bit is still solid, but I think it will benefit from a skim of filler to fill the deeper potholes This bit will want a bit more effort, and I can see a new bit of plate going in here. Last lump of pipework and the filter were removed along with the pump chain drive cover and chain oiler. Back home with these for cleaning and repaint. Now I can get a good look at the pump itself And the good news is it doesn't appear to be seized. A spanner on the end of the shaft can achieve a little movement, but only as far as the drive chain will let it. Looks like the chain oiler has been neglecting it's duties for some time, and the chain is locked up solid. Light reading over Christmas is going to be the tech manual to see how it comes off. I think the same chain set up works the winch on the timber tractor, and I do have a new spare chain for that if this one is completely shot. As for the pump, even if it is free to turn I think it would be a good idea to have it apart to check seals and bearings etc before putting any power through it. For now the floor has received a good coating of rust converter and then red oxide to help keep the enemy at bay Back home again, and investigate the filter housing Nice gauze filter and an awful lot of stuff that shouldn't be there. And the chain oiler Looks like it would be at home on one of the Gosling lads first world war trucks. Nice little thing, solid brass, just hasn't seen any oil since way back then. Came apart nicely, just needs cleaning and filling with fresh oil Hope everybody has a reasonable Christmas day, and look on the bright side, with no visiting allowed that annoying relative isn't going to turn up and spoil your party.

As my Christmas hols started a bit early, I've done quite a bit of Tanker work this week, despite the naff weather. The new shed heater has been great, makes a heck of a difference to the work area, which is more than I can say about some of the results. There have been a couple of issues, starting with painting the repaired outlet valve red. This is Hammerite red, but it looks far too pink for my liking, no where near dark enough. So I bought a can of Halfords car paint, in a darker red, to spray over the top, but it reacted rather badly with the Hammerite and the whole lot will come off and start again. The blue and green wheel valves came out quite well, though. Blue wheel is Hammerite blue and the green wheel is a made up shade of blue and yellow Hammerite. The two main valve blocks have been cleaned off and sprayed in silver Paint finish came out quite well, but a couple of the valve retaining nuts were jammed on their studs. My attempts at separating them were only 50% successful. One nut came off and cleaned up OK, and one nut just chewed the stud up. So new stud required there. The rest of the nuts, bolts and washers have been cleaned, oiled and the threads chased through all ready for refitting. Also stripped cleaned and painted a couple more pipes, the engine speed control, and the cover plate that allows access through the pump room floor to the fuel tank sender unit. Need to make a lot of new gaskets now