Richard Farrant

4 hours ago, Rootes75 said:

So a question to other MV owners, my Commer has its petrol guage blanked off, not as an afterthought but a factory fitted guage.

Is there a reason for this and do other British vehicles have similar?

A lot of the British military vehicles did not have electrical fuel gauges in WW2 period, there were vehicles with mechanical gauges in the tanks but most were supplied with graduated dipsticks, the Bedfords had a pressed metal one about 2 inches wide and marked off in gallons. I believe in the army it was a chargeable offense to run out of fuel, so no excuse that the gauge must have been wrong!

2 hours ago, callum daf 45 said:

I made sure filter it full . Emptied the seperator filter . Filled with diesel.  Pump the lift pump. Turned it over cracked no1 no3 no6 injector got fuel firing out . 

Hi,

Forgive me for asking, but you say you cracked the injectors pipes open, but did not mention about bleeding the injection pump. This video might give you some tips, first part the guy is changing the fuel hoses due to "diesel bug" but his bleeding procedure may be useful to you.

6 hours ago, the DT guy said:

the rag top is rolls powered richard, air cleaners are mounted differently under the bonnet so a conventional bonnet can be used. the hard cab on the trailer is hercules powered still  

Ah, caught out there as I was going by the original bonnet, thank!

1 hour ago, john1950 said:

Under bonnet air intakes don't help engine performance, when they are running at full torque on hot air. You can hear it come off song as it climes a hill with no blower or turbo to help. Air forced in by the cooling fan does help to keep the pressure up under the bonnet but that is hot, making the problem worse. Domed air filter intakes design's tends to lower the pressure in the filter body as well, as it is trying to get air from a flow going past at 90 degrees. I know its not standard but if you replaced the two intakes with small forward facing short bend intake's with a wire grill across the opening to keep out any debris it will make quite a difference to its performance on grades, helping its breathing, and the man looking after the gear changing. Just my thoughts, Its a long time since I have seen a proper rig like that doing what it was intended for. I am presuming it is a Roller making the noise, they need cool air for best performance. Keep the temperature down on the heads and all of those little grommets will last a lot longer.    

That is an original Hercules engine, it runs superbly given its age.

3 hours ago, 67burwood said:

I had thought valve problem so I’ve done a compression check and there holding 100 psi in all four hence why this has really got me scratching my head, the previous owner who I’ve known for sometime said that it had been running fine before being neglected along with his other 30+ tractors 

Something else to check is wear on the butterfly spindle and where the spindle fits in the carb body. Excess wear here will cause all sorts of running issues. Replacement carbs are available and may be easier than having the body rebushed.

1 hour ago, 67burwood said:

Evening everyone 

I am in need of some mechanical knowledge, it’s not wot6 related or even military!!  But there’s a wealth of knowledge on this forum so here go’s 😬

It’s Ferguson tractor related 

I’ve recently bought a 1952 ted20 that’s sat in a field for about 20 years and I just can’t get it to run right!!
Here’s what I’ve done, cleaned and rebuilt the fuel tap, stripped and clean the carb, new points, condenser, plugs and leads, it fires up but idle is all over the place and it won’t rev, I’ve adjusted the carb to every possible setting and it’s still rough, the only thing I can’t  do is the timing, I’ve located tdc with a screw driver in the hole below the starter and set the dizzy with a test light but it just doesn’t like it, the only thing that helps is retarding the timing while it’s running and it smooths out but it won’t start again as it sounds like it’s trying to hydraulic.......help needed please

In my early working days I worked for a Massey Ferguson dealership and we still had a lot of customers using TE20 tractors. I would say that you should do a compression check, noting the pressures and if you have two low ones on adjacent cylinders you have a blown headgasket. Or you might have some tight valve clearances. If it was running last in TVO mode (TED is a VO engine) then valves did suffer.

1 hour ago, Ron said:

No doubt "Warpaint" sell Service Brown. But it's a standard off the shelve colour BS 499 along with Dark Cammo Brown BS 436.

 

 

1 hour ago, Rootes75 said:

In your experience Richard, where would you source SCC2 Brown?

Hi,

I have had a very good sample of SCC No.2 Brown matched from a part of a vehicle which was inside the hull and covered all its life. This was matched by the paint manufacturer that Warpaint use and it is now on their records as "Farrant Brown". I know a few other forum members have used it as well. I use semi-matt as it is more durable and once cured it dulls down after a short period and much better that matt.

regards, Richard

I am using  Khaki Green No.3 on a restoration from Warpaint.co.uk and it is an absolute match to a sample of 1940 paintwork that was uncovered during dismantling. Excellent paint.

4 hours ago, Morris C8 said:

One more scam on ebay , they cant even put the jeep photo in. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/WW2-Replica-Jeep/393242020107?hash=item5b8f0d090b:g:VO8AAOSwK3tgc3BK

 

 

Take a look at his other vehicles for sale, not one matches the photo, their is a Rolls Royce on there with a photo of a mini-digger.

Looking at the list of Humber contracts, there were batches of 4x4 Utilities that were ordered for non military organisations, Ministry od Aircraft Production and Ministry of Food, also in 1945 there was a contract for 200 of them for the Royal Navy. The JUV regos seem familiar as I seem to think I have seen demobbed military vehicles use on early post war airports for fire and emergency with these numbers.

37 minutes ago, fesm_ndt said:

A guy found me around an hour later then another hour back to Boulia and hospital....

 

 

 

I assumed you were crossing the Nullabore  when this happened............. I remember camping the night in Boulia many years ago. Glad to hear you were not seriously hurt.

Old mechanics saying "99% of fuel problems are electrical" !

21 hours ago, johnwardle said:

It has been illegal to use white on black number plates on vehicles registered after 1973! I have attached the latest number plate information from the DVSA, page 10 has the relevant information.

vehicle-registration-numbers-and-number-plates-inf104.pdf 261.25 kB · 3 downloads

John,

Read that document again, it states  "vehicles manufactured after 1st Jan 1973". I have owned a lorry since 1987 when it was registered by the dealer, it was manufactured in 1943 and stated on the registration document, it has had black plates all that time with no questioning.

7 hours ago, mtskull said:

Just seen this on Facebook Marketplace:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/251245916727960/

Posted here in case it is of interest to members of this forum. I have no connection to the seller.

That lorry was shown as under restoration by two people in Essex in the 1993 IMPS members directory. 

On 7/13/2020 at 5:20 AM, XS650 said:

So they didn't notice 6 TONS of motorcycles until well into their journey and the auctioneer missed 450 Land Rovers, every single one. The vehicles most punters went there to buy.............mmm

Hard to believe

I know this most is an old one, but it has just made me think. I bought a WDB40 from Dawsons in Nottingham in early 70's, they were big buyers of surplus bikes at Ruddington. As this one was without an engine, I had to register it and provide the government Release Note that proves that it was bought from the auction. This guy with the lorry load of bikes, he had a release note for the Bedford, so did he have them for the bikes? If not he or anyone else would struggle to register them.

Crikey that was bad luck, was it the left hand rear tyre that gave out (?), I can see it deflated. Hope you were not injured.

3 hours ago, andym said:

That's my understanding, too.   The RR K60 Workshop Manual lists a whole host of special tools that don't appear in an EMER, either. 

 

On one of my visits to the BAEE defence trade shows at Aldershot (1990's),  RR Specialist Engines had a stand, I picked up a brochure on there service support and overhauling, page shown here with a 432, and a CET steering unit. On the stand was a K60 with a turbocharger.

I have just received this link from the Swedish Tank Museum, about a fascinating armoured car built prewar;

1 hour ago, Rootes75 said:

Well, this morning we tried the Commer and she wouldn't start at all, fired a couple of brief moments but nothing more.

So, back to basics. We reset the timing, she was a fraction out. We re-checked all the HT leads were connected in the dizzy. Then we checked the plugs for a spark, it was there but not very good.

 

Could be rotor arm going to earth, did you try the test of holding the HT lead from coil over the rotor arm to see if there was a spark when you spun the engine over? If you do get a spark jumping to the rotor arm, then it is knackered (a trade term).

TRW took over Lucas Girling, so they are actually in the brake business so would think that should do the job.

49 minutes ago, 07BE16 said:

Thanks to the link to the earlier posts. This seems very similar to another trailer mentioned = 69FG52.

 

This ARN is showing up on the RLC Archive and a data card is available, so that should answer all the questions. Small fee to pay but it is an automatic service and you get the card emailed back to you.

44 minutes ago, welbike said:

Ok, fair enough, there is a difference in workshops and sales locations ofcourse.

Thanks,

Lex

Lex,

Where you see 'ASH' on the right side of the Key Card with disposal date, this would indicate that a vehicle struck off was at Ashchurch Vehicle Storage Depot. Even more confusing was that the were two REME workshops located at places named Ashford, one in Middlesex and the other in Kent.

18 minutes ago, welbike said:

Ok, the frame number is indeed listed as that in the Key Cards, it had C456435 as the C number, and the last users were the 1st Foresters, it was struck off at 26-06-1963

So if it were rebuilt, between 1944 and 1948 it would have had another C number, one that started with 14. so I personally think, the guy who wrote up the info for the Key Cards, noted down some casting number? Spare frames, came without any number.....  Wasn't ASH, Ashchurch? just going from memory here, so could be wrong.

Cheers,

Lex

Lex,

The Key Card No.2 would have had the details of the vehicle at time of change over from Census numbers, ie c1949. So anything that happened after that date would have been recorded in the vehicle's documents, ie all repairs, modifications, inspections and so on. I spent many years working in a REME vehicle workshop and aware of the procedures etc. Regarding this particular bike, the mention of 31BW and ASH indicate what I put in the previous post about Ashford Middlesex.  Ashchurch was a RAOC Vehicle Depot and not a Base Workshop.

Something else worthy of note was that 31 Base Wksp was the only army workshop rebuilding unarmoured vehicles at that time (1957) as all other work was done by contractors for Min of Supply. This indicates they may well have been building up vehicle/motorcycles from old parts and new stores to keep them busy due to the threat of closure, so a new frame and possibly engine is not unknown. I have seen this sort of thing before on other vehicles.

Going by the seller's blurb, It looks like the bike has had a new frame and possibly new crankcases. To explain my thoughts, according to the MoS Rebuild plate that the seller quotes, the 'chassis' number is 31BW/24 and the plate shows it had a Class 1 rebuild in May 1957 and followed by 'ASH'. All this info points to it having be overhauled at 31 Base Workshops REME at Ashford Middlesex. This workshop was under threat of closure shortly after that date, think maybe it closed in 1958. So not a fully genuine unissued bike. But it looks very good and has many details as my own one.

Also note that someone has grafted on a Butler blackout on to the original headlamp rim.