Grasshopper

Myself and a former collegue were scrapping a vintage bus, and we were fully PPE'd up while breaking and clearing all the windows. My collegue removed his gloves to light a cigarette, and then preceded to smash a window out (with a hammer) without replacing his gloves. His hand was covered in tiny shards of safety glass and quickly turned red. And thy say smoking is bad for your health...

They really are simple to erect. Just tie the top to the vehicle, fit the three vertical poles, and guy out the corners. Easy.

We could fit some boards around our new trailer, and you could have a 20x8 ft swimming pool. There. Problem solved. The truck crane could double as a diving board.

When we go to shows now, we seem to require at least three vehicles. One to carry all the camping gear (Ford F350), one to impressively display (Ward La France) and one to run around in (MUTT). I don't think we could (or would) downsize our camping setup, but the pickup truck is full up, so i think that is now the limiting factor for what we can carry.

I would have to leap to Mikes defence- he's MUCH taller that me!!!

I sympathise. Having worked on busses for ten years, i got sick of tyres. The ammount of wheels and tyres to be changed or removed for other reasons was ridiculous, not to mention checking all the wheelnuts on every vehicle with a torquewrench every friday evening. After that, track bashing a CVRT was a piece of cake. Changing all your tubes is a good move. With that many tyres, the last thing you want is a flat! The piece of mind you get from knowing that everything has been checked is priceless. One of the Matadors i used to own required new tyres all round, and when we split the wheel rims, the rust build up inside the rims was unelievable. The flaps were worn through in many places and the tubes showed signs o wear. The rust could have caused punctures at any time. A few hours with a needle gun and a coat of red primer had them nearlly good as new, ready for the new flaps, tubes and tyres.

I could be very cruel here, but as newly (self) appointed camp welfare officer, I must say unfortunately not. :police: I seem to have more ladies smiling at me when i drive his vehicles though, much to his annoyance. I think that already having a lady makes one a magnet for all the others. :angel: Whilst driving through Kensington and Chelsea in his Ford F350 pickup the other day, it turned more heads than the Aston Martin and other high powered sports cars in the vicinity. Had the owner been there, it may have been a different matter... :sleep:

My (delightful) girlfriend :hug: was talking to some of friends about Glastonbury festival the other night, and had addmitted that she had not, and would not go as she couldn't bare to "slum it". When they pointed out that she occasionally attends shows with me, and sleeps in a tent, she informed them that our camp has 9x9 tents, inflatable beds with duvets (or i take the double futon if its a long show), carpeted tent floors, sofas, a coffee table and rug, gazebo, barbeque, brazier and at Beltring a fully equipped 12x36 kitchen tent complete with chef (and fully stocked cocktail bar). They said "thats not camping". I think that if you have the space to transport and put up this stuff, then why not. Its not camping, but sleeping in a tent through beer neccessity. :beer:

Heres the poser at Overlord this weekend. :-D Also in shot is his newly restored MUTT at its first show. It is now fairly muddy. :whistle:

looks like a (wait for it...) tyreing job!!! :rofl: Sorry. Couldn't help it.

REME museum display had an interesting collection of former Queen carriers (parade inspection :police: Land Rovery type things and big, black cars) along with some prototype air portable vehicles. They were also very hospitable and offered Mike and I a couple of beers while we chatted (thank you Roger). Apart from our tents feeling like they were trying to blow away last night, we had a jolly fun time, :beer: and nobody got ill from my cooking. Also found this strange looking fellow lurking in the beer tent last night. I think his camel had broken down....

Anything that needs recovering! :-D The only problem with putting those twin wheels on the front (apart from increasing the steering input required by a factor of 10 :shocking:, and decreasing the turning circle), is getting them back onto there respective mountings afterwards. Thankfully a nice Militant owner assisted with his crane. And then Mike discovers that he has bolted the tool locker in the wrong place so the tyre doesn't go back on its mounting again..... :whistle: This truck is put to good use regularly servicing our CVRT's, recovering Autocars and WLF's, and now hauls our (very) recently acquired 10 ton trailer. Just got back from Overlord a couple of hours ago where we used the truck crane to support our shelter (uses for a Ward LAFrance numer 232). Mike also likes to use it for posing, showing off and looking cool. 8-) (

I believe Preston Isaac aslo found the original drivers helmet for his Centurion AVRE at the trade stalls at W&P. It has MR WHIPPY written on it, which was the drivers nickname. This is more remarkable considering the vehicle was recovered from the Gulf sea bed! I think one of the lifting eyes gave way when the AVRE was being craned ashore during the first Gulf war, and it sank, to be recovered later.

Whilst browsing the trade stalls at War and Peace last year, we found a CES water container for inside the back door of our Sultan. It had a registration number painted on it, and when we checked the vehicle reg, it turned out to be the same!

I remember going past that yard as a kid on the way to bus rallies. There used to e a couple of submarines there too.

Nowt wrong with busses. Busses lead to trucks. Trucks lead to tanks. Only three degrees of seperation to the dark side... I was in WHS one day with my (still rather new at the time) other half, thumbing through MMI magazine, when i found a picture of our Sultan in the arena at war and peace with me driving (i knew that as i am short and if i am driving a cvrt you can't see my head) with the lovely lady as hatch ornament. Of course the first thing she said was "thats a terrible picture of me!". One potential buyer did later ask if the vehicle came with the pretty girl.... Note to all forum memers- Tootallmike gets very annoyed when reminded that his truck has appeared in many magazines and he's not driving it in most of them... :evil: :evil: :evil:

Thanks for sharing that Richard. We have alo experianced CVRT engine troubles which have entailed changing just about every component on the engine, and also gravity feeding fuel. The first problem was that our Spartan would just die when hot. It aways ran ok when we took the engine covers off to investigate the fault, and after many unit changes, it turned out to be the distributor. The next problem we had was an engine that would only run on full choke. We changed the carb at least twice, including one from another engine that was a known runner, and still had the same problem. After much head scratching, a fourth carb seemed to cure it. To this day we still don't know why a known good carb would not run with that engine. :dunno: Looking forward to your show. :-) (I think we met you at Firepower? We were sitting on chairs in front of the Ward LaFrance).

Mrs Grasshopper says: :yay: About time uncle mike! Although I requested a nice shade of pink, it still looks good. Can't wait to take it for a spin....and the look on your face when I steal it from you forever! Nice work.

Thanks Chris. I guessed nearlly right when i set them at 14 thou.

We have RSN12Y plugs fitted to our engine, but the gaps are all different.

Anybody know what the plug gaps should be on a CVRT J60 engine? :?

I believe they stored the winching skid plates under there. Solid tow bars also fit nicely.

Just a quick note on Matadors- Having owned two wrecker re-bodied Matadors, one thing to look out for is the water jacket plates on the fuel pump side of the engine. Although they may look fine from the outside, they can be paper thin and anybody restoring one for the first time should remove and inspect these plates. I found this out the hard way on my first outing to a show with my second truck when the engine seized up. :oops: I had bought the engine as a take out (runner), and the plate behind the fuel pump had a bit of body filler in it which fell out along with all the water. I had not seen this repair, and the vehicle had held its water absolutely fine on previous test drives. Fortunately the engine freed off when cool, and after repairing the plate ran well until sold on. They don't make em like that any more....

Not buying a CVRT Samson when it was offered at a VERY cheap price. :-( I think Militant Grahams friend has it now. I will always blame the poor advice i got from Mike for that one.