Jerryjeeprichard

Hi Richard. 
 

Very lucky to find them. Just in the right place at the right time. 
 

They are steel construction, riveted together. Top and bottom are formed, galvanised finish. 

Ive  added a few close-ups. 

It been a while. Thought I would post an update on the bowser progress. 
 

I’ve had a little luck turning up a few missing bits. Which has allowed me to complete the rear hose assembly.. 

The hose is nicely dated in 44 with the broad arrow. Nice surprise when I unraveled. 

The hose tales and 7/8 BSP nuts I had one original which has given me a patten to manufacture the rest. Little lockdown job. 
 

22 hours ago, Rootes75 said:

Some really nice work here, I cant say I have seen many before on the show circuit.

Kevin

Hi Kevin, 

Many thanks for the comments, not many of these trailers left at all. To my count around 10 that i know of. I have two, debating whether or not to restore both or sell one on and let someone else have the enjoyment. 

Not sure we'll have to much of a show circuit this year, but hopefully next year the world will be in a better place..  

Thought I would post some trailer progress. 

Trailer stripped down to all the component parts, axle, hitch, split the springs. 

Started with sand blasting all the small components, the wheels, axle and chassis, sent to a local blasting company, 

Everything has been blasted, primed, and treated to three coats of top coat. 

Hitch treated to new bushes. 

Axles treated with new oil seals and new wheel bearings. 

Tyres re booted with two new Avon Tourist 600 x 16. 

Thought I would post a few pictures on progress.

Started with some of the smaller components. 

Items stripped, sandblasted, repaired where necessary, 

Primed, assembled and top coated.  

Richard, Wally, 

The information is greatly appreciated, so i think the feeling is although the S.O.U.1 data plate is not original part of the trailer. it really should be re-attached as it forms later part of its military history. 

Is it likely that its rebuild was at Warminster or is this to difficult to prove? 

1 hour ago, wally dugan said:

Just out of interest l ran the key card data base and the reason l raised the question on the 1953 date on the tag is because any of the BROCKHOUSE half ton LT WT TRAILERs by   that  time would have the new style numbers most were in the mixed trailer numbers for half ton two wheel that included  those made by ORME EVANS  and TASKER the series of  83 YK 10 TO 95 YK 99 

Hi Wally

I'm not clear on what these means? 

What is the key card data base? 

Looking at the SOUL data plate i would say this is a later retro fitted item. Maybe not necessarily original to the trailer. 

Regards 

Richard 

Spent most of the day de-greasing, blasting and getting component parts in primer. That busy i forgot to take pictures. 

Help and advise needed please....... 

I had anticipated blasting the data plates. however I thought this may ruin the patina. 

Any one with experience cleaning old brass? (i don't want polished brass). what options do i have? 

Secondly,, anyone have any thoughts on how to repair the data tag? 

Finally, what does the tag SOUL CLASS 2RDY data tag mean? By the state of the holes drilled i assume this wasn't original to the trailer. but why was it added? Any one any ideas? Importantly should I be thinking of adding it back on? 

Good progress today 

Second trailer dragged out, stripped ready for sand blasting. 

Few more updates with progress. 

Previous posts of the filter, The brass cone on the base of the filter i had unsuccessfully mount this with a metal adhesive, of which the results were very poor.    

I wasn't happy with the outcome so changed that methodology to silver solder, so yesterday i spent a few hours finishing all the components I had left to do.  

The silver solder is expensive but i think the result far out ways the cost. 

I have attached pictures below, hopefully the results speak for themselves

There are few images thrown in of the original part I used to take my dimensions from.  i'll let you guess whats what. 

It was a Welsh hill find and became very close to the gas axe an sent on a trip to china. 

Luck really that the owner thought maybe it could be worth something to someone... 

The rest is history.........

Ive seen a few come and go over the last few years. and there are probably still more to find., they are certainly not as common as jeeps. And there are only a small hand full of restored  examples (that I know about).

8 complete trailers to my count. 2 rolling chassis.  

Maybe anyone reading this post has one of these trailers restored or un-restored would like to post a picture then we would have an accurate count... 🙂

I've restored many military vehicles but dont think that i have look forward as much to start restoring these. 11 years its taken to collect all the bits. Finally i can get stuck in. 

More progress today, 

I have been luck enough, to locate a second bowser last year, i purchased, collected and pushed to the back of the shed. 

All but forgotten about, until yesterday evening.  I spent a few hours moving things around to pull to the front in readiness for the stripdown to begin. 

Few more pictures of the pump 

1 hour ago, 64EK26 said:

I'm still looking for these for my MWC....  Nice to see one that has been taken apart, is there any chance you could post a few photos of the internals as I could never work  out (from the sectional view) how it actually works as there appears to be no path between the inlet and outlet.

 

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard, 

I've striped the pump back down for you, Internal view attached, I have coated the internals with silicone grease just to try and preserve what is left of the leather seals. 

After 70 years it still pumps water.... 

Notice the imperfections on the brass casting, i thought this could have been caused by frost damage...... I have the same imperfection on all the pumps. This must have been a production issue that was never rectified during production. 

That issue is the same for both British and Canadian built units....

When I purchased the pumps and finally collected I had a few moments of panic, the size of these is difficult to gauge off a picture. 

I though I had bought the wrong type (being Canadian), 

The panic was over when i offered the pump up to the bowser, all the mounting holes align perfectly. 

Picture below shows the pump against a jeep dynamo /starter motor. this will give you some idea of scale. 

Physically the Canadian and British pumps are the same size, however their are differences,

These being 

End caps that screw onto the ends of the pump are different thread forms. and have additional drain taps, in what would be the bottom end cap. I guess to prevent frost damage. 

Secondly the pin locating the pump handle, Canadian is steel, British is made from brass. 

Just goes to show same thing but made to slightly different standards 

Spent a few days over the weekend getting back to grips with the bowser trailer. 

Started with the water pump. 

Unlike the water filter iv'e been luck enough to pick up an original.

Started by getting the pump stripped down to its component parts, before running it through the cabinet blaster to get back to fresh brass work. followed up with a quick coat of zinc primer. 

Thanks John

The progress has been slow and steady, I figured the best plan would be to try and collect all the bits before I start. 

Obviously getting the tank was a big push in the right direction. So many thanks for that. 

The next focus would be to turn up a pump and filter. Easier said than done. Filters are practicably impossible to find, constructed from brass and copper. chances of these surviving the scrap man very slim....... fortunately Ian (restoring 180 gallon water bowser trailer) was kind enough to let me measure one of his originals. 

So this was my starting point. No luck in picking up an original (10 years in the looking) nothing. so onto making an replica.  

So progress so far.

What I hadn't anticipated on was the amount of spares this bike came with. 

Boxes and Boxes of parts, lots of NOS WD Flying flea parts. 

I contacted the seller and asked before you post the item out did he have any other royal enfield spares he anticipated selling. 

The chap was quick to reply, his late farther had a few old bikes, one being the remains of 1950s flea. Regrettably for me most of the useful parts had been sold over the last few weeks. There was a frame, front shocks still left, and a box of small parts. all associated with the later flea

Nothing really that I needed. 

I explained what I was restoring, and that i needed parts for an earlier bike. 

His last reply detailed that he had an early flea too. It had been his farther's.... years earlier the bike had been restored and it was something that he wanted to revive at some point in time. 

I asked if he could send me some pictures, which he did.... but it was made quite clear that the bike wasn't for sale. 

Much later in the day and the exchange of many emails and phone numbers. We agreed on a price and bike 3 was as good as purchased. 

All I had to go off was a description and three poor quality pictures.

I agreed the best option would be for me to come an collect the bike and if there was any ambiguity in the description i still had the chance to back out. 

There was a period of a few weeks before I could go and collect the bike as some of the bits that had been removed were buried in the garage and would need to found. 

The day of reckoning came and bike 3 was collected. 

Bike 3

After the high of buying bike 2 there was a period of around 4 years still hunting all things flea, 

The complete engine as detailed above eventually came apart. BUT unfortunately the con rod, crank pin/bearings  and piston was beyond any sort of repair. The crank setup was different compared to the crank I had with bike 1, I contacted Hitchcocks (royal enfield spares dealers) who were very helpful but unable to supply all the crank parts as these were off an early engine.   I did manage to pick up a NOS piston and used threaded WD cylinder barrel 😉 

So the hunt for missing parts continued..... Key bits still missing... toolbox... rear carrier.... exhaust...tail light... head light.. 

The rear carrier was the next find, Ebay... I bid and won the auction. 

Second bike was sourced, this was literally a true hedgerow find.

The bike had been recovered from a hedge in remote part of Scotland in the 1970s and stored, from what I can remember on the history of the bike the previous owner had gone to a remote croft to  look/buy a wooden bodied Albion truck. Didn't by the truck but came a way with a few old bikes. The flea being one of them. Planned to do a full  restoration eventual ill health prevented this.

I took ownership as it had most of the parts I need to restore the first bike, critically the folding foot pegs, folding kick start, complete engine, all be it locked up solid. and what i believe to be an early WD tank badge. 

NB ...The Albion truck was eventually recovered by a collector and has been restored and apparently is in a museum in Scotland, maybe there is a reader out there that knows more to this story?

Bike 2

I would like to seek help and advise on the WD Royal Enfield flying flea, Hopefully  turn up a few more spares spares....

My story so far..... First bike was purchased  as a partial restoration,  the previous owner had got so far,  relatively complete frame, tank, wheels, mudguards etc unfortunately things came to a halt as other than the engine casings everything else was missing, incomplete or damaged . I purchased this within my knowledge, hope to that I would turn up an engine. 

Bike 1 

This post has been over ten years in the making!

Feel its only fitting  that I continue where John left off. 

It all started with the purchase of a 10cwt 100 gallon water lightweight trailer chassis over 10 years ago...

These rarely come onto the market and was one of the missing links in my Airborne collection. The trailer had been through numerous collectors hands, and having personally missed purchasing the trailer 12 months prior I wasn't going to let it slip again so I bit the bullet and made the  purchase and took delivery. :-) 

I figured the best course of action would be to only start the restoration once I had 90% of the parts to complete .

The key component would be the water tank itself. The likelihood of finding an original that had been salvaged after the war, spent its life on a farm full of water,  hadn't rotted out or had long since being sold  off for scrap.. my starting point was to contact someone who had a good original example of these trailers, who didn't mind me crawling all over it so I could take measurements create templates so I could  remake a new tank. 

John was that person. My plans we're (at some point in time) to visit with a camera and tape measure. So you can imagine my surprise with a call out of the blue that two had been found in a corner of the field. 

Again another long wait, several years later my day came to go and collect. Finally the restoration was starting to take traction. 

Unfortunately I have had a small mishap with a laptop hard drive, so have limited pictures. 

The water trailer chassis  is the forth from the left.  

Hi Ian, 

In light of the information detailed over the last posts, I thought the attached pictures might be of interest. 
This filter is something I picked for the restoration of my 100 gallon bowser project. 

Help needed please? 

What have I got? 

Wartime wheels I think?. Fitted with 300x19 Dunlop Universal tyres. Both marked up W^D

I was told they had come of a motorbike sidecar. I’m not so sure.

Weird to have a matching set! The studs on the spindles are of a quick release style, my thoughts are maybe “airborne” hand cart?