Grasshopper

I think its a Kubbelwagen.

Not really my problem as its my Dads.....3 months on biodiesel and its still ok....his supplier is altering the fuel viscosity for the coming winter. It's already had 3 front diffs in the 140,000 miles its done in its 5 years from new. Legendary Land Rover un-reliabilty lives on even in the newer products. Has also needed 2 sets of new injectors (before running on biofuel) when it refuses to start, usually after having just been driven. I did read an interesting article on the development of the Land Rover TD5 engine, and they designed the injectors to run on the worst fuels available. The US Rangers run their Hi-cap TD5 based vehicles on aviation fuel, and have reported no problems.

Pics as promised. I have measured the droop of all the suspension arms, and the second one hangs at 25 inches, when it should be 27 inches from the sponson to the hub centre. If it were broken, it should hang lower. All the others sit an inch or so too high. With all wheels lifted, none of them wobble excessively to indicate a broken torsion bar. I am hoping that it has just been fitted incorrectly.

I blame the constant interuptions of other forum members! They were most welcome, and it meant lots of tea/beer breaks. We did however forget to have lunch. Wondered why I was getting so p***** off with the thing. Vince becomes disinterested when hungry. Beer made me forget I was hungry..... I have now removed most of the wheels on the suspect side of the CVRT (which is at a convenient height due to living on our trailer) and none of the torsion bars seem to be broken. Having measured the droop of the arms and compared them to the figures in the EMER, they all sit too high up. I suspect that they have all been installed incorrectly, but I need to remove the paint from the outer flanges to check the markings. This vehicle had been stripped for spares at Batus, so they may have all been removed then re-fitted just to move it back to the UK. Pictures to follow.

The last engine in our Spartan (4th I think...) went bang while I was driving quite gently on the road. Impressive noise and lots of smoke. Thats why the owner bought 7 spare engines (NOT due to my driving I might add). I t's difficult to tell when the engine is making a clattering noise over the noise of the tracks, especially while wearing a clansman headset. It was "the usual" CVRT rod through the side faliure.

A friend of mine who worked at a vets told me of a dog that had come in having drunk anti-freeze. The vet immediately gave it vodka. Anyone want to be around an Alsation with a hangover?

My Dad has been running his fleet of old busses on SVO with no problems, and his 2002 Range Rover is also running nicely on it. Being a commercial operator, he gets his biodiesel from a registered outlet (which is coveniantly at the bottom of his road) so the duty is paid at the pump. The fuel has already had a couple of additives mixed in before being dispenced.

Glad to see it wasn't just me being thick. Will try again.

Given that the hydraulic pump on the trailer gave up before we set off for France, when we loaded at the Souchez show site it all went exactly to plan. Just what we needed with a large audience.....some may say we even looked like we knew what we were doing...... :whistle:. Didn't need to winch the half track on though as the owner had enlarged the slot in the floor to alloow the low range lever to work properly, so we drove on.

Keep persevering Chris, they come out eventually. The ones i did took ages to get all the pistons out, and i only bent one con rod doing it...... that block was scrap anyway. The second one was a re-usable. Only four more to go.

I must say that I have still not fully recovered from Bethune yet- could be something to do with the Mrs getting up at silly o'clock each morning for work. I drove 2 of the longest convoy legs in the half track- its one of the most hideous, tiring, hot and noisy things I've ever driven, but great fun.

1x medium for me please.

Surely towing a gun AND limber can't be legal? Two trailers....?

I was named named Grasshopper (anyone seen the film Karate kid....) by a friend who led me down the"dark path" of tracked armour. There I was, happily playing with land Rover 101s and Matadors, and he saw fit to take me under his wing and "educate me" in the way of CVRTs. I now know more than I never wanted to about tanks, and have been well and truely bitten by the armour bug. To think, my involvement in tracked armour can be traced back to fitting a helicoil in the hull for an engine mounting about 4 years ago, then it was "could you just help fit this engine/gearbox.......). Vince.

You should be able to drive it on a car licence, as it is a historic vehicle. There are specialist insurers for MV's such as Roadsure or Adrian Flux, who can be found through magazines such as Classic Military Vehicles or websites such as Milweb or even this very fine forum. Accumulators usually require charging with an innert gas such as nitrogen, so a bottle and some guages will be required (Iam not an expert on Saracens, but used to work on Routemaster busses which had a similar system). You would need to obtain copies of EMERs to get the srvice schedules for this type of vehicle, I am sure some of the guys here could help you out..... A big problem with owning an MV is storage. Undercover is always preferable, and access to workshop/heavy lifting facilities is a bonus. If you have no previous mechanical experiance, don't worry as you learn fast in this hobby........

I would recommend taking the head off and cleaning out the worst of the rust by with a rotary wire brush first (if possible). Coke seemed to loosen up the worst of it, but after a couple of days I filled the bores with diesel and that seemed to do the job. I managed to turn the crank just a fraction, then the after a couple of days i got some more crank movement. I then flipped the block on its side, removed the big end caps and tapped the pistons in an out in out small ammounts, until they came through the top of the block. It helped that when each piston had moved down slightly, I used a glaze buster and hone tool to clean the bore to ease the upward journey of the piston. I took a bout 3 weeks of a little movment at a time to remove all 6 pistons. I am guessing that your engine is large and American?

Careful......I'll bite your knee caps.........!

At the Isle of Wight rally I went too a couple of years ago, the showers cost £1 a time or you could buy 6 tickets for £5. That allowed them to have a full time attendant and they were cleaned after each person used them. They were lovely, clean and HOT. I did not mind paying for that.

Women?

How dare you insult me sir. :pfrt: I am not nearlly as ugly as Mark...... :angel:

How did you manage to take that photo when you had both hands all over that poor girl? Do you have a third hand........ to go with your third leg? :whistle:

When in France, we hang our kettle on the back of the Mighty Ward LaFrance. At least that's usefull.

Is this a new caption competiton? "Mark was definitely in for a grilling when he got home".

Not as good as the "art film" version of on the busses that was filmed at my old work. Went into the tea room to find one of the "actressess" getting changed. :-D Anyway, with the current state of your suspension, you couldn't have "taken her for a ride"..... :whistle:

For the armchair off road enthusiast.