Grasshopper

We then decided to remove the rear springs from the newly-clean bogie. There was no way the U bolt nuts were going to undo without excessive effort, so Mike used an angle grinder to cut through the U bolts. They did go with a bang until I suggested jacking up the central pivot beam to release the spring tension. The springs were an interesting shape after many years abuse, and have now been despatched to Paddington springs (of Wembly) to be overhauled or whatever-they-do to springs to get them back to there original shape. They will also be manufacturing new U bolts.

Mike made a fleeting visit to "us left behind doing-the-hard-work" the other weekend. :whistle: As quickly as he had appeared, he disappeared in a puff of smoke...... (well, steam...) Once the smoke had cleared, Mike was gone and all that was left was a less-grimy Ward LaFrance rear bogey. The steam cleaning genie had worked marvels. (Come on....it must be panto season by now)

Wahey! :-D Got the last few wires hooked up at the weekend. Put the power on and Hey Presto, the lights all work! Well....I only had one spare side light bulb and one stop/tail bulb, so I had to go around all the positions with them to test everything. The only mistake we found was the tail lights and convoy light had been reversed, so this was quickly rectified. We suspected we had done them the wrong way around anyway. The fuel pump and horn also work. We cannot really test anything else until the engine is fitted, which will have to wait until Mikes WLF is re-assembled. There are only two wires left, and I suspect that one is the internal lights and the other is part of the smoke discharger circuit. They are both currently evading my best efforts to find their respective other ends other ends. I plan to tidy all the wiring once everything has been tested with the engine installed, as it is all currently connected via terminal blocks. Once tested, everything will be soldered.

I think our friendly landlord George may have got some new bolts for both the WLF's (rear bogie mountings) when he went shopping for supplies this week. He was looking at Mikes cut-off bolts and he asked how many were required. I said 16. Will let you know when I see him on Sunday.

Chatting to him on the Bethune run, i think he wants to concentrate on WW2 kit now.

I have had experiance of removing a final drive (we were changing its oil seal) and can recommend that when re-fitting, locate all 12 bolts before tightening them. We found it took a few goes to get the 12th in, as the weight of the final drive causes it to not sit square in its hole.

I was born into a mad family (old busses) and grew up on rally sites and steam railways. Worked on old busses for a living so these things are normal to me. It's everyone else thats strange. I also prefer to do my friday nights drinking in a field rather than an overpriced bar in town.

A former Scorpion crew memer told me that when they were expending blank rounds at the end of an excercise, they would put ration tins of rice pudding, baked beans or other messy food-stuffs in the 76mm barrell first. They would then proceed to shoot at each others vehicles and would go back to base covered in food stuff.

My dad was a driver too (BR). Had similar school holiday experiances. You can't gety away with these sort of things now though.

Mike and I will probably turn up in one of the smaller vehicles in our motley fleet. The heavies will probably still be in bits.

How are you planning to drive both vehicles.....:whistle:

Train driver. Always wanted to be one when i was little, only to discover (age 8) that i couldn't be one (colour blind).

I have used Wayne Meadows before, and he's reliable. Turned up exactly on time when i took a CVRT to the Isle of Wight and was just parking up at the ferry port as I was rolling off the boat on the return trip.

Not such a bad job once you get into it. Just something you keep putting off until you really have to. I am no huge fan of electrical work, but will do it if A. if really have to B.if no one will do it for me.

I remember reading in the Firepower museum that it was converted for jungle use, and could be towed by a jeep(?) or similar vehicle. I think the barrell was shortened too for more close range work. I think it may have been done for the Korean war, but I stand to be corrected.

Began connecting the dashboard to the vehicle at the weekend. Rather a confusing job, as although I had already traced the dash wires and the hull wires (and written everything down), we wanted to double check everything. The difficulty came when I tried to cross refer everything to the wiring book! Had to trawl through pages and pages of diagrammes to locate certain wires. Fortunately we found no mistakes in my previous work and have only a few wires left to locate and connect. Once connected up, I plan to test as many circuits as possile, then begin tidying, re-routing and soldering the connections. Looks a complete mess in the picture!

Mike, myself and the WLF will be attending.

I love it whan a plan comes together. Unfortunately it usually means me "liberating" items from work. :whistle:

Badly bled steering can certainly be a problem if you are short (like me) and you have the seat in a forward position. The tiller comes back and hits the seat and you don't turn. I plan to use the pressure bleed Mike made at some point.

You know I hate to see you struggle with such simple ideas Mike. You always look for the complicated answer, when the simple answer right in front of your (big) nose. :pfrt:

Did some more on the beasty yesterday. Had a good clean out in the front with a vacuum cleaner, only for the mud to be replaced by leaves as it is parked beneath a tree. Had a tidy up in the back and decided to fit the rear bins, as they take up less space fitted than they do being stored in the back. Also fitted the rear door vision block and temporarily fitted the commanders set. This requires a new gasket as it is also the fuel tank inspection cover. I traced a few more wires too, only 4 left unidentified, although I am sure of the functions of 3 of them. I had a go at bleeding the steering and brakes as well, but this is a tad difficult by ones self, so i rigged an oil can onto a piece of tube and pumped oil through the system backwards. This seemed to remove quite a lot of air with minimum fuss. They are still not quite right yet, and will require fuurther attention when I have help. Anyone with CVRTs will appreciate that they can either be very easy or very difficult to get the air out of. Land Rover 101 brakes can be tricky too.

What seems like a relatively easy job of fitting the control box actually took most of the day. if you are exchanging the unit on a running vehicle, it only takes about 15 minutes. Fitting bits like this on a project vehicle involves checking all the components, and a lot of cleaning up of plugs and contacts. You also have to spend time routing and re-routing the cabling so it does not chaff on anything. This project has a definite goal- it needs to be done and sold to help pay for my wedding!

Ii used to kip under my 101 on hot days at a show. Trouble was people would assume I had a problem with the vehicle and disturb me.

Took advantage of the good weather today and installed the master control box, batteries and associated wiring. We now (in theory at least) have volts. This should make the dash installation easier as we can test things as they are connected. The master control box is a unit which was previousley fitted to our other Spartan, but it had a nasty habit of zapping lightning out of the front of it. We had a spare, so swapped it. I discovered the cause of this was the starter lead terminal connection was loose, and all the insulation was missing. Once the cover was off the box, I discovered that the adjacent positive terminal was also loose. I fitted a new terminal so hopefully this will cure it. Going to spend tomorrow tracing the last 6 wires which disappear into the rear interior, and take my vacuum cleaner to "freshen up" the driving and engine compartment of all the dried mud which accumulates in the driving compartment of an MV (even one that doesn't work!!).

When I worked on old busses, we used AG90 in the phosphor bronze diffs. Its also a funky purple colour. I also used AG 140 in my Matador axles.