RattlesnakeBob

crikey as Tony said , the old girl did have the Chieftain moving backwards though ! I am amazed ..i really wouldn;t have thought a traction engine could overcome the grip a tank would have ..maybe the tank would have won once the driver had 'the clutch up and the gas down' but ...I'm mighty impressed and the 'model' is truly awesome ... a real feat of engineering, my hat is well and truly off Sir !

I applaud you for the patience you are obviously demonstrating with them ....like yourself, it completely beats me how some folk think they can determine/ dictate what you can or can't do with your home .... I would understand if you started up a scrapyard or abattoir on the patio but......... ... seriously though.......I did live in a house once on an estate that the deeds forbid anyone parking a caravan on their front gardens and ..get this .....also forbid a rotary clothes line being in the front garden too ....... but if there are no such restrictions on your deeds or in any bylaws relating to your plot ?....I'd be telling them where to get off Good idea though on a shared workshop . I'd think quite a few would be interested in such a scheme , best of luck with it all ...Jim Clark on here may be able to point you in the right direction on such a building in that area ?

excellent info thanks folks I was just thinking about having a go at the rather leaky canvas on my LR...having had a look at the website for these products ..and wondering if you folk have used it before ?...can you maybe maybe tell me how much I would need to do a SWB Landrover canvas ?...would their 1 litre tin be enough ? thanks Bob

It is absolutely appalling to hear of this theft and reading through all the suggestions for additional security?.. I can't but help think that the Jeep and anything else that is stolen in this country these days would be more secure if the Police and the Courts came down on theft in some sort of order instead of pussy footing about with people. The other thing about this theft that really infuriates me is this ..... A few of you have suggested the Jeep will probably get broken and sold as spares.....?... ...I've ridden motorcycles for many years and the theft of them is as you all probably know 'endemic'.. and many of them get broken up too....and the thing is this .....the only person that would buy stolen motorcycle parts is another motorcyclist. If this wartime jeep is broken up and sold then it will be other military vehicle enthusiasts that will buy the parts and that really grates on me...........If anyone whatsoever is offered any parts for a jeep in the coming months, the least they can do is question very closely whoever is selling the components and if there is even the slightest whiff of something maybe not quite right ? then they must not only immediately back away from the purchase.... but to also call the police..... no matter how cheap or how much of a bargain the bits are and no matter how stretched your budget is. I'm sure that if one of us had jeep parts or parts for a motorbike or whatever it may be...I know I wouldn't object to the Police coming to see me and having a poke about my workshop if someones suspicions had for some reasons been triggered ... .......only by being super vigilant are we ever going to stop these kind of people making money off our possessions ............ ......and not that I am thinking any of us would be involved in such behaviour but ?.. (leastways I sincerely hope not ).... ....never forget that if you have ever been tempted by something that seems cheaper than you know it should be then you are almost certainly buying and therefore contributing to the next theft that comes long .....and one day it may well be your jeep or landrover that has disappeared . Having said all of that I do sincerely hope they find the b******* that did this and I hope someone takes a lump hammer to their hands into the bargain.

That Stug looks a lot more of a proper serious effort than the Tiger I have to admit

just wondered if any of you had seen this

Regards greasing leaf springs ?.......some of you are saying 'don't grease' ? .... ......Many years ago in amongst the colossal number of tools in my old Dads workshop was a special tool to go on his air operated grease gun to enable you to squirt grease in between the leaves of a spring ? It screwed on in place of either of the 2 'normal' fittings ( the typical 'nipple' type and also the 'hex' type) and it looked like a very wide flat screwdriver blade....with a split across the end of it .....as I recall it was made of very hard steel and you could ram it in between the leaves to squirt the grease in I'm pretty sure it wasn't something he'd made either........... so what I'm saying is somebody , somewhere ....obviously thought it a good idea to grease them ?

slight thread departure..please forgive Googling 'Otterburn ranges images' quite a lot of pictures of wrecked and some not so wrecked Churchill tanks comes up ...... are they still lying about up there or have those Churchills now been saved / removed ? Thanks

She looks fabulous !

what a cracking job and on an unusual piece of kit too ! wonderful work ! .....bit of a thread deviation but........ Reading the post I wondered if any of you guys on here served a bit of time at Army Apprentices Barracks at Beachley near Chepstow ? The reason I ask is that the barracks used to have a fairly big earthmoving 'practice' site just down the road from me at Allaston Grove just outside of Lydney ....... The road to the ground they used was very narrow and approached up a very steep hill out of the town of Lydney...back in the 1970s it could be pretty hair raising to meet 3 or 4 huge army artic low loaders , loaded up with big dozers and other plant or even more daunting was meeting a convoy of massive motor scrapers which they never bothered putting on low loaders...they simply drove them there from Beachley under their own power along the road and up the hill from the town ... There would be machinery there for weeks on end with the soldiers learning how to handle the kit ....bulldozing dirt up and down and back and forth and there were also a few rudimentary nissen style corrugated steel workshops there and a cookhouse / accommodation block too as I recall ?........ I'd guess the Army stopped using it by about the mid 1980's and the whole site then lay disused and derelict 'til a couple of years ago when a gang of hippy types took advantage of the cloudy 'ownership' of it all and moved in to set up a 'free farm'. I think at the time it was the Royal Engineers at Beachley but I may be wrong ..........Did any of you spend some time there maybe ?

hahah I like that you should add that you will also meet at least 40 people who will tell you of how many Shermans / M10s / Churchills etc etc ( slot in whatever name of tank you end up owning )....they could have bought for only £50 each but didn't for X number of reasons .......... oh yeah .........and there will almost certainly be at least another dozen or so that will tell you they could have got you a brand new engine / gearbox/ turret etc for it for only £100 but they didn't know you wanted one cynical ? who me ?

very very nice mate the term 'lightweight' always makes me smile though....seeing as they were heavier in 'standard trim' than a civvy Landrover version anyways.......and once they were piled high with all the kit like yours?......definitely not a 'lightweight'

Please don't post any more pictures as I have dropped into a pit of despair at not only the thought of those Churchills being lamped but also Conquerors!!! ..... and not just one of them either actually Richard has probably sadly hit the nail right on the head with the 'future contracts' idea

the ones I seemed to nearly always have to deal with definitely would mate

That's awful news but sadly not that surprising .... I spent many years in the secondhand game dealing in re-usable machinery and it always used to really p$%* me off when a scrap dealer had an idea of what something was worth in his head and refused to be budged from it ....I've had countless scrappys tell me "there's 10 ton in that mate...that's worth £120 a ton to me so if you want it?....I'll have 2 grand off you... ( and this bit always made me cringe ) ....to make it 'worth the bother' of selling it to you ! " I'd patiently point out that it wasn't going to clear £120 a tonne for him as he was going to have to lamp it up into OA to get that.... and cutting whatever 'it' happened to be ... was going to take 'X' amount of gas and oxy and the guy on the lamp would also need a day or so's wages so...... it would be significantly less than £120 a tonne by the time he weighed it in...so ..how about taking my offer of a maybe a £1000 in your hand now and save yourself the hassle ? No matter how politely you argued?..... usually the answer would always be the same and I'd walk away empty handed.....Sometimes I did up my offers considerably to force a deal but a lot of the time it wasn't sensible business to do so not unless I knew I had a definite sale for it...if it was going to maybe sit in my yard for year or two before I found a buyer?... then it had to be bought at the right price or leave it there and walk away ..... it really really jarred me off though to have to pay what was way over the fair rate for something ......especially when you knew damn well his alternative was to eventually weigh it in for a helluva lot less .....

I had a bid in the online auction for the Series One Landrover ....I've not heard I was successful so guess I wasn't ! Any ideas of what she went for ?...roughly ?

Fair play to him...I'd have ended up using the Hiab to lift it round I reckons

An incredible project and absolute hats off to you for taking her on...I love the Matador and have a soft spot for them in part due to my Dad driving them in Korea ( many moons ago I posted up a lot of pictures of him and 'his' truck back in those days .....I wish you all the success possible with your project and very much look forward to seeing her come back together

It's a grand show for sure and one of my favourites.. ..I'm hoping to bring along my Hudson Commodore..I know she's not military but she is a 1946 car so?... and the same model was used as a staff car so?..anyways ! ...hoping she'll be considered 'close enough'

Looks awesome

looks great ! just the kind of item I could imagine that fella Drew the salvage hunter chap off the TV paying well for... I could imagine they'd make grand fancy 'studio' stools in his parlance I reckon

Should you find yourself ever struggling with this issue of alcohol disposal?...I'm also able to assist of course maybe I should also admit when many years ago I was in the AWDC..... my gang of mates had some very 'unofficial' T shirts made up with the AWDC logo 'altered' somewhat to show a 4 wheel drive beer mug overflowing with foamy ale above our legend of 'All Wheel Drinking Club' Unfortunatley....... ..... the 'official ' AWDC didn't agrree with our mirth and orderd us to cease our T Shirt making activities forwith Anyways !...it's a big welcome from me too !

maybe a daft question but .....I take it you've given her a blow over paint wise ? or is it really such gorgeous weather in Nevada all year round that she's stayed in such good condition ? anyways... I think you're exceptionally lucky to have found her in such a 'complete' state... .......over this side of the water we're more accustomed to the average 'range wreck' looking like a right knackered bag of scrap ........and missing just about anything that can be either blown off by explosives damage or taken by engineers from musuems seeking bits to complete their exhibits with .........and if they don't have a go at anything sitting on a range???.... then there's always the usual opportunistic 'scrap man' who is seldom worried about what damage he may be doing to an historic vehicle

Lovely !!! when you primed us up with that introduction and said she was the worst of the choice on the range???... I was getting ready to see a veritable swiss cheese carcass of a Sherman !.then I scrolled down and !!!!!!!!... she's gorgeous mate !!! Very envious over here mate ....

I agree...such places now are nothing but a distant memory ...They weren't confined only to the cities either....We had 2 in our area...... Jacky Roberts 'dump' housed in a disused colliery baths where you could buy anything from an ex army sledge hammer to a complete socket set to a wardrobe or a table or a pair of boots or an entire uniform from any of the 3 services ....Up in our local 'big city' of Gloucester was Woods Army and Navy stores a veritable emporium of uniforms from the First World War to the present day ...cotton khaki army trouser were the staggering amount of .50p a pair ! mind you ....that was in 1978 now all long gone