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mtskull

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  1. “Hurricane fighter jets”. 😂
  2. I’m currently involved in rebuilding a Defender 90 on to a Maer galvanised chassis and initial impressions are very favourable. I’ll give an update as the job progresses. I haven’t done one before but the people who I am helping have done lots of them and they reckon Maer are the best. This has probably been raised before but, a word of warning: Don’t fit a galvanised chassis if there is any possibility that you might one day wish to export the vehicle to the USA. There are exemptions to their regulations which apply to vehicles over 25 years old but if it is obvious that the chassis has been replaced, they no longer regard it as a 25 year old vehicle. Tales abound of Land Rovers being seized and crushed…
  3. Probably a bit of all three. Let’s not forget though, that it is very easy to blame stale fuel for rough running whilst overlooking the possibility that other things might be the culprit. For example, points can stick and condensers can degrade during periods of inactivity. Right, I’m now going to try to start my motorcycle, which has been standing in an unheated garage for two years with the tank half full of E5. Wish me luck….
  4. Exactly. I don’t know if ethanol is heavier than petrol but water certainly is, whether or not it is combined with ethanol. The previous suggestion about adding food colouring is a good one; a little goes a long way and although it doesn’t affect the process of the ethanol combining with water, it colours water but not petrol, making it very easy to see which is which. To be clear, the problem with ethanol isn’t that it is a bad fuel as such (leaving aside the issues with seals & diaphragms in vehicles that were not designed to use it). The problem arises when it is left open to atmosphere (such as in a partly filled tank) for any length of time. Then it will absorb moisture, with all of the issues that entails. If you have E5 or E10 in your tank and aren’t going to use the vehicle for a while, best to either fill the tank brim full or, even better, drain it and run the carb & fuel lines dry.
  5. The ethanol content of fuel is fully dissolved, so the ethanol won’t be floating at the top. It is more likely that your problem is caused by water contamination, particularly if your vehicle has been standing for a long time. Ethanol is hygroscopic i.e. it absorbs moisture from the atmosphere. Over time, this ethanol/water mix then separates from the fuel and sinks to the bottom of the tank, where it lies harmlessly out of reach of the pick-up pipe until you go for a drive, whereupon it gets shaken up and disperses into droplets which are sucked into your fuel system, hence the rough running. My advice would be to stand the vehicle on a level surface overnight, then drain about half a litre of fuel into a clear container and let it stand for a couple of minutes; if you can see one layer floating on top of another, then the bottom layer is water. The rest of the fuel should now be OK; you might even notice an improvement in running, as the ethanol that has mixed with the water will also have been removed.
  6. I don’t think anybody doubts that in the late 1940’s the USA was in a position to dictate terms to the U.K. government (although that had nothing to do with Lend-Lease and everything to do with the 1946 Anglo-American Loan Agreement). What I would like you to make clear is why you believe that the secret burial of 300-odd tanks would have made any difference?
  7. Whilst I understand how the US government might insist that equipment supplied under lend-lease should be either returned, paid for or destroyed when no longer required, how could this explain the (highly secret) burial of hundreds of Churchill tanks, which were not supplied by the US but were entirely manufactured in the UK? Why go to the trouble of chiselling off all of the data plates just to send them to a scrap yard anyway? Is there any evidence to connect the data plates found in the scrapyard with the allegedly buried tanks?
  8. Here’s a comparison of the vehicle in question with a QL and a Matador. Matador 4x4 tankers evidently do exist (see photo a few posts previously); whether or not they are period correct probably wasn’t much of a consideration to the producers, as evidenced by some of their other choices.
  9. Spotted the Matador bowser and is that a Bedford MW in the foreground? That said, it’s entirely plausible that the Germans would have made use of captured British vehicles; is there any record of them doing so in North Africa? * Edited * Yes there is.
  10. Were the tanks brand new and packed in crates with a load of Jeeps and Spitfires? 😂
  11. Hard to tell from the photo but, to my eye, it doesn’t look anywhere near long enough to be a Bristol RE.
  12. It’s fairly straightforward to work out the location from this old photo and present day Google Maps image, although in opposite orientation. The old greyhound stadium can still be discerned centre right in the modern image with Pounds yard top right.
  13. Excellent! You deserve a slice of good fortune 👍 What next, swap the diff or just transplant the entire axle?
  14. Whilst sympathising with your friend’s dilemma, it shouldn’t need pointing out that 60+ year old tyres are not safe on a motorcycle either.
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