timbo

Mark As Chris says the turreted variants do tend to sell quickly so good luck with finding one but that can only be a good thing if you need to sell it in future right..?! The variants (non-turreted) also seem to be quite popular these days esp the Spartan as you can get more of your mates in it. Chris has more experience of these things than I do, but based on my more limited knowledge of owning, maintaining and driving here goes... Engines - take-outs are readily available very cheaply but can be of variable quality (see Chris' Youtube clip for how to test one before fitting). I bought 6 by mistake from Withams and a box full of carbs so chances are someone will have what you need. Recons are available for just under a grand. Gearboxes - very difficult and expensive if something does go wrong but provided all the gears are there when you test it and you change the oil and filters from time to time they seem to be pretty reliable in private hands. Final drives - have heard of one of these failing but doesnt seem to be a major problem - maybe I've just been lucky. Spare final drives are reasonably available if you do need one. Tracks, roadwheels, sprockets all seem to be reasonably available at the moment at not bad prices but availability of this type of item does tend to ebb and flow. For the average private owner you would be hard pushed to wear out tracks and roadwheels for quite a long time. Helped fix a failed Scorpion at W&P last week - would not engage forward or reverse - turned out the selector rod had failed - a good quality bodge was applied in 20 mins and was up and running again. I also had mine stick in various gears - turned out the rocker pedal spindle had not seen any grease for a very long time - quick clean up and grease and it was good as gold. So two gearbox problems both solved in 20 mins or so. Overall you will find it a very much easier vehicle to work on and keep going than your Fox I suspect. The AFV Society doesn't get many postings these days but has a wealth of technical knowledge. Good luck and please post your progress if you get one. Cheers Timbo

I know of another vehicle (quite different to this one!) being restored for the King of Jordan at the moment. He is obviously a bit of an armour fan !!

Very nice indeed mate...esp the Saladin - can you post some more pics of it..?

Robin Can certainly agree on your second point - drives me nuts when people use their mirrors instead of watching guide, and I have seen some very experienced people doing this - folding in of mirrors seems to be the only surefire way of stopping this.. As for me - well I have had my mirrors folded in on more than one occasion..!

Is this still on ? Who is going ? Berna, Toolman ? Would be up for a convoy from Hudds if you fancy it - if I take a CVRT though it will need to be a slow one - on the uphills anyway !

Radio control helicopter (hard to control but good fun) Woodland camo smock Too many burgers But best of all....CVRT track clamp - been after my own for ages and finally got one. No A frame though more's the pity!

Dave once again helped one of our group out with a lift on his drops following the failure of a gear selector rod... Thanks Dave !

It used to be the best thing on telly, but it is now so contrived and cliched I don't generally bother these days... It was interesting all the same though not sure I would agree CET's are that rare...Withams claim to have 50 for sale at the moment!

Erm...sorry Alien old chap do you mean the factory or the series ?!

Hello mate Sorry I missed you this weekend. I seemed to spend most of my time walking and still not seeing everything I wanted to. Dont know about RB44 but Stal108 has a foden drops - in fact at one point he was bragging about having 2 - based on his accent he is very definitely from Birmingham.!

You given up on a real one then mate...? Will certainly be a lot easier to move around...! As Andy says AA make very good products indeed.

Received report tonight that Sabre has arrived on site and it was VERY muddy... Hoping to head down Wednesday night work permitting. Starting to get very excited now - just hope it dries out..! See you all Thurs..

Did anybody see this on Quest last night or am I the only saddo out there...? It was actually quite good though - trainload of abrams arrive for refurbishment, no faffing about with driving them just throw em around like toys using massive cranes. Track removal for me involves hours of sweating, cursing, grubbing around in the dirt and skinned knuckles.. Not for these boys - gas axe 'em apart then another massive overhead crane just rolls the rapidly diminishing hull forwards, bout 10 mins all in I'd say. Need some spare parts ? No problem - just send a robot truck off into a warehouse with racking 9 (yes 9) stories high and Bob Grundy's yer uncle... Best of all though was blasting the bare hulls clean - another huge crane whips the thing upright and pops it into a massive vertical blast cabinet for 90 minutes from where it emerges looking like new.. All very impressive but just not as much fun as grubbing around in the mud for months to recut one thread !

Berna My mother still lives in Coventry and remembers vividly the blitz of Nov 1940 as well as other less well known raids. Whilst it was a relatively transitory distress compared to what Mikes father and your doctor suffered, there is no doubt it has left a deep impression on her. In particular no matter how much time has gone by or what has gone since, she still has a deep mistrust of all things german - I will never forget the argument she had with my Dad in the '70's when he bought a Volkswagen Variant estate car..! Funnily enough he was in bomb disposal and must have seen and experienced a lot of bad things but he didn't feel the same as she does at all. Just goes to show these things are often very individual. I also have a vague recollection that the chap next door had been in the merchant navy on arctic convoys during the war. Looking back to the 70's there must have been a WW2 hero in every other house but you just dont appreciate it at the time.. Cheers Timbo

Well done mate.. Passed mine last month - what a buzz...! Cost is £62 if you use your own vehicle and teach yourself, or about £5-600 if you go to one of the training centres. Pays yer money and takes yer choice really. I did it the former way but I'd been driving round fields etc for a fair bit (not that much though). I also asked lots of people for advise and made sure my vehicle was in good nick. CVRT is generally regarded as bit trickier than 432 due to the gears, so I figure if I passed in my Sabre I cant be too bad..! I hope to be demonstrating my (lack of!) skill at Beltring next week... Cheers Matt (Toolman) more than happy to give you a spin in the Sabre at Saddleworth if circumstances permit.

Well you learn something new every day..! Used to live in foleshill (pronounced fo'sall) where those pics were taken and had no idea of that bit of history..

Good pic Matt..! Being from Coventry originally this is quite interesting to me. I know a bit of the city's industrial past, especially its links with the cycle, motorcycle and car industries, but naval guns is a new one to me. I'm presuming this pic was taken at the firms Glasgow factory since you wouldnt want to be building a gun like this so far away from the shipyards... My upbringing in Coventry accounts for my current obsession with CVRT's - I used to go to school just round the corner from Holyhead Road where they were built....meant nothing to me at the time. Cheers Timbo

If memory serves their F14's are abit like HMS Victory ie almost every component now changed for locally produced. I also seem to remember they reverse engineered the AIM 54 Phoenix missiles that the Tomcats were originally equipped with...

Good luck with that - you just need to watch out with the sammy as some of the plumbing is a slightly different configuration to the other variants. To get the winch working you need to make sure you swap the flange over from the back of the engine - this drives the pto and is different to the normal J60.. Not tested mine yet but yes was going to do something similar at a show ie set up a recovery job. Considering the relatively small number made there seem to be quite a few in private hands, maybe the small size of the vehicle meant they were sold off earlier.. Mine has a lovely new recon engine in it but untested as yet, hope to get her running properly before summer's over. So much to do so little time...

Speed limit for tracked vehicles with resilient pads/ roadwheels is 20mph, or 5mph for those without (ie dozers), but since there does not appear to be a minimum speed limit on motorways this cannot be the reason they are prohibited from using motorways. I too had heard that tracked vehicles were banned from Mways but aside from the earlier comments re the two Scorpions and the T55 clip on you tube, I know of at least one other individual who has undertaken quite lengthy journeys on the mway (in a CVRT natch...). I cant actually find a piece of legislation that bans tracked vehicles from the mway, although there are a lot of anecdotal comments to that effect, most seem to be based on the supposed 30mph minimum.

My mate who sometimes helps me in the shed is an Ex REME chally man. He often chuckles when he sees the care and attention we put into our various vehicles....

Guys With respect I think we are getting off the original point of the thread a little, which was are 432's road legal or not ? Clearly if the person in charge of the vehicle is not driving responsibly, with a well maintained vehicle and a good sense of what can go wrong then that will be a potential problem, but surely that applies to ALL privately owned ex military vehicles, not just 432's, and dare I say it not just tracked vehicles..... I dont know anybody who owns and drives a tracked vehicle on the road who does not take it seriously, maybe I'm just not in with the right (wrong!) crowd... Cheers

Hi Mike Yep it is true that the better option would be not to drive unmodded on the road thus eliminating the risk, but the point is people have been doing it for years - is it really practical to assume that everyone out there who owns a 432 is suddenly going to stop driving on the road, and/ or modify their vehicles? I know you wouldnt do it (drive unmodded that is), and having read this thread I would certainly think very carefully about it. The army obviously decided to eliminate the risk completely but they have limitless resources relative to your average private owners. Also once you come up with a mod that seems to work how do you know it will not have unintended consequences which will only show up with a very extensive testing regime of the type a private owner simply couldnt undertake. And finally even if there were a proven mod how do you know that it hs been done properly by a private owner. A well maintained standard vehicle may actually be safer than a poorly modified one. As has been pointed out earlier there will be many classic vehicles on the road today, some of which may have perceived inherent design faults (Fox or Mutt anyone..?). Are we simply going to modify all of them...? Not saying modification is a bad idea, just that there are other ways to improve safety....

Agree completely - width is a bit of a red herring albeit yes there does need to be a mark in the sand. Surely the redesign of the braking in the latest version shows that mod themselves have recognised this as the major issue. Even then with the number of miles covered by private owners being quite low in most cases, and the cost of mods likely to be high, maybe the best solution is for us to spread lots of knowledge about how best to maintain these vehicles braking systems to minimise risk of failure. Then at least the risk will be reduced to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP for all you safety buffs out there...!!!) I think the fact that abbotts and 432's have been on the road for years ignores the fact that there is now a glut of 432's on the market driving down prices and bringing lots of new people in. Ultimately that has to mean there is a greater risk of a bad accident, not because these people are irresponsible but just because there will be more chance of it happening..! Dont forget though that as often happens in a couple of years some of these owners will lose interest or their circumstances will change and some of these vehicle will get scrapped, parked and left or whatever.

Jack - I'm in two minds and whilst Im tempted to agree with you, the reality is that the current sales of 432's are bringing new people into the hobby which will be both bad and good..! I also think that once you get past some of the inevitable mud slinging this thread has raised some valid and interesting points - not all of which have been picked up in the numerous previous threads... So I say provided it is polite and the advice is sensible live and let live. After all you dont have to read the thread if you dont wan to..! Of course the real answer is dead easy - buy a CVRT you know it makes sense..!