Grasshopper

Had a productive session this afternoon. Mike stripped, cleaned and fitted the fuel pump and associated pipework, secured the electric control box, battery cables and hydraulic resevoirs and also had a jolly good clen up in the front, including cleaning out all the blind holed where the hydraulic cylinders sit. He got to enjoy the nice weather outside. :-)

I on the other hand, spent most of the afternoon in the darkish workshop stripping and re-building the steering and brake hydraulic cylinders.

Anyone who has purchased vehicles, especially armour from Withams will know that due to being stored outside with hatches open, vehicles are generally full of water. This causes the hydraulic cylinders which sit under the floor in a CVRT to go rusty and sieze up. I had previously spent an afternoon stripping and cleaning the steering cylinders, which required honing out to smooth the bores. Fortunately they were good enough to re-use.

The 3 hydraulic cylinders used in a CVRT are identical (brakes + 2x steering), and the seals are the same as used in a Land Rover series 3 master cylinder. Unfortunately, the Land Rover items (at only 30p....) cannot be used as the material specification is different, as the CVRT application uses mineral oil and not brake fluid. I could not find any seal kits a while ago, so I had some made at a specialist seal manufacturers. I fitted new seals in all 3 cylinders.

The steering cylinder assembly can be tricky to set up as only one stick can be pulled at a time, unlike a 432. There is a detent between the steering cranks which prevents one from moving when the other is pulled, and the length of the master cylinder rod is critical as you need to have a minimal ammount of play in the cylinder. The difficulty is, there are back stops which are fitted to the vehicle floor, and I had to set up the whole assembly in a vice, while allowing for the backstops which are in the hull. If you get too much play in the steering cylinder, then when someone short (like me) drives with the seat in the forward position, the steering lever hits the seat when pulled and the vehicle does not steer! Fortunately I have set up several steering assemblies so am pretty good at it now, and it did not take too long.

After fitting the steering and brake assemblies, Mike and I had a quick go at bleeding the brakes, but could not get a firm pedal. This is probably due to air being trapped in one of the brake flexi pipes. Anyone who has experiance of CVRTs (or Land Rover 101s) will know that they can be a right (insert expletive here!) to bleed. Being as it was getting near tea time, we did the sencible thing and decided to call it a day.

I volunteer Mikes services to swap your wheels around at Redhill. He needs to kept constantly occupied. I will happily supervise. :beer:

Sell GMC and re-lay driveway?

Will go through our motley collection of manuals and pm you.

Not yet, but may check it out while its still on the trailer. Do you have any CVRT wiring diagrams?

Also note the silly hat, which is not nearly as cool as MY new hat.

Maybe, but it could have happened while driving back from the low loader. The damper was encased in thick dry mud, we had to dig it out, so I suspect it wouldn't have moved much. I have a couple of spares, but it looks like I may need some more...!

 

The mud on ours is set like concrete, so you are probably right. Going to set to it with a hammer and pry bar, as while our Spartan is still on its trailer, its at a nice height to work on. Don't want to risk any damage, plus i need to retention the new tracks which will require finding the tensioners under all the mud.

I cleaned mine off, found this... it should be straight!

 

 

 

Too much "air time"?

Today we finished fitting out the gearbox compartment.

The fan and drive belts are now in, all the control rods are fitted, and we repaired the gearbox filter sensor. We replaced one of the steering pipe bulkhead unions (Mikes long arms have their uses) and fitted the water drain assembly. Lastly we installed the radiator and pipework, and this gave a good sense of satisfaction as the compartment now looked complete.

Next job will be to install the engine (one we prepared earlier...) when the mighty Ward LaFrance returns to the yard. We rembered to clean and inspect the engine mounting holes in the hull, as they are helicoiled and can be easily damaged. Its no fun discovering this when you have fitted the engine and the one you can't see turns out to be damged :argh:. Yes, we have learned (and forgotten) this the hard way.

Once the engine is installed, we plan to tackle the wiring- specifically the lack of a dashboard, which at some point was just cut out. The picture shows where the dashboard should be (and the shiny new batteries). I already started tracing the wiring last winter, now where did I leave the piece of paper I wrote everything down on??????

When your knees require protecting from hordes of admirers, :whistle: theres no better to protect them than encase them in armour...... I should have glued his boots to the deck to save the world from the hideous site!!!!

Had a half hearted attempt at cleaning off the Beltring mud on our CVRT yeaterday. Quickly got bored of that so think we will wait until the guy with the Green Goddess turns up........ :goodidea:

It did look like a signal box on wheels though. Now thats character.

old.....

slow......

heavy.....

I miss my Matadors.

Apparantly the WLF was steaming along at a good pace. Good to see it still working at what is was intended for!

 

That be the mighty power of the Cummins C series diesel. Same speed as the petrol, much more drivable. Less tiring to drive for poor, old (your'e 30th is before mine...), uncle Mike.

We saw one in the process of being converted while cruising upstream on the Thames last year.

It was a CMP Ford owned by Beltrings very own chief arena marshall Andy Mitchell. We towed it in to the show as he had a complete lack of sparks on the way to the show. Being chief Marshall he had no time to fix it at the show, so required a tow home as well. I

Did you ever find out why it had the Artists Rifles badge on the side????

 

No. We have not really done any research apart from posting on this marvelous forum. I will look up the military reg if i remember.

We had a Sultan which is now owned by David Carr. I believe he is now a member of this marvelous forum and has nearlly all the kit for it. Saw it at Kemble and it looked fab.

Any directions to this one Mike, might try to make this one as I am not working that weekend.

 

 

This should help you out.

http://www.redhillsteamfair.co.uk/gettinghere.htm

Even though we leave the day after the show, after our display has gone down we park our vehicle as close together as we can, and sheet over everything we can. Has worked so far in that we haven't lost anything yet.

A few years ago we had a large, genuine 1991 Kuwait flag nicked from atop our flagpole one night. Now we even take our repro flag down at night.

It's a shame we have to take precautions when at a show with supposedly like-minded peoples.

A secure compound is a very good idea.

On the sunday when Chris and I got down there I noticed that one of the little hub caps on the L/H drive sprocket on my Striker was lose. I assumed that it had come lose with driving. After putting up tent and sorting our camp out I found a screwdriver and went to tighten up the 4 screws that hold it on. All 4 screws were too long to hold the cap on and had gained plain sections on them that were longer than the thickness of the cap. At least they did'nt steel the cap and just swoped the screws. I can only assume that another CVR(T) owner had a dust cap that didn't fit :dunno:

Not a safety issue, just anouying.

 

Andy, I have found that the screws on our hubcaps come loose quite regularly. It is an easy thing to miss until you see the tell-tale oil stain. The screws will wear in the way you describe if driven with the hubcap loose.

Vince

You will be more than welcome at Redhill Mark, even if it is only for a day. Mike is the Military marshall, so come over an say hi to him or myself and we will funish you with tea/beer. Ou encampment will be easy enough to spot as the (mighty)Ward laFrance will be nearby. Its the one with the huge gazebo with the sofa, fire, coffee table and rug under it.There may not be as much vehicle movement as we would normally allow due to the ground being waterlogged at the moment, but this all depends on the weather during the next couple of weeks. Mike was at the site yesterday and reported that it seemed to e draining nicely after only one dry day.

Ok so we didn't even start it before Beltring '07, apart from fitting the gearbox, only to "borrow" it to get our other Spartan going for Beltring, but now the dust has settled, the plan is to crack on with the restoration.

Mike and I got busy last night and refitted the gearbox (again). We are getting very good at this(!) and it only took aout 20 minutes to get the box in and all fitted up. We did start with the advantage of the vehicle being a bare hull and not having all the decks fitted, but thats still good going. We also bolted in the bulkhead and started making a list of all the bits we need from our stores, which (unfortunately) are at another site.

The next job will be to fit the engine, then get on with the rather daunting dask of splicing in a dashoard. A few of the CVRTs that were releeased from Withams had the dashboards cut out as this is quicker than removing the individual plugs. We have in our possession a dash which has been similarly cut out of a vehicle, so its simply a matter of figuring out which white wire goes to which white wire......and all the writing on the yellow id tags on the wires have worn off. :schocked:

The vehicle will be for sale when it is up and running, so all of you guys that are hankering after a piece of (junior) armour, start saving your pennies now :-D

First picture is of the gearbox "borrowing" procedure.

Second picture is of the gearbox and bulkhead once installed. All the loose bits on top of the box are to remind us to fit them during the next session.

Not forgetting requiring "assistance" from Mikes truck for the photoshoot...

I will be steering away from muddy puddles in future - I blame Vince when he took it for a spin. :whistle:

Your absence has been noted Grasshopper. :-D

Markheliops

I see you have what we lovingly refer to at work as a "teletubby suit". What an attractive garment. You end up as wet on the inside (stinky man sweat) as you do on the outside! We use them when we jet wash the underside of a 4 coach train. Now THAT takes some doing. 4 coaches underneath then 8 sides....

By the way i accept no responsibilty for any mud on your vehicle. I blame my missus for any mud on your seats though (i was wearing my best new carpet slippers :whistle:).