Richard Farrant

Tony, I cannot find the details of how it is worked out now, but have seen it somewhere in the past. There was a predetermined formula for shipping, and the weight appearing to be much higher than you would expect, is due to the volume. To put it another way, going from memory, this is how I remember it, a given volume has a standard weight to it, so if your packing crate or vehicle is x amount of volume, then that is how the shipping weight is arrived at, this is why it very often appears to be higher than actual. This way the shippers only need volume to arrive at a ballpark weight.

On an O type Bedford the bumper is not stand alone, it is fitted to the front edge of the wings. The horizontal flutes in what can be seen of the grille, look to be more Beddy than Austin, by the depth of them. As for the wheels, and six stud hubs, I think that I might have found a possibilty. General Motors imported some Opel Blitz lorries to the UK prior to the war and looking at a pic of one, the wheel and front hub look similar, so most likely answer is hubs and wheels or complete axles were swapped. As for weight of the "armoured" body, it does not look very thick and most probably steel sheet that was found locally. An OL Bedford was rated at a 5 ton payload and makers advertised that they would cope with a 50% overload, so do not think there was any need to beef up the axles on the one pictured.

Hi Fred, Yes I do grab some sleep when I can :-D. Retriever has more or less said what I would have, from experience when I remove the cap, I pull it just to one side and peer down the filler and the toggle on the end of the chain should just touch the coolant, no problems then. I have always had a thermostat in for the last 22 years without a problem. While the rad is out, give it a good flush out as well.

Hello again Fred ! I am not sure what you have at present, but the filler neck and cap is secured to the front cowling by three screws, there is a rubber hose between the bottom of the neck and the top of the rad, it is not straight hose, but a convoluted type to allow movement betweeen cab and rad. If you want the complete neck and cab, the only way would be to find someone who is breaking one. Firstly, try John Morter to see what he has.

Times were hard in those days, a case of make do and mend. New tyres could only be bought if you had a permit to operate, so my guess is they have changed hubs or complete axle over from a scrapped lorry, in order to get a set of good tyres. The wheels do not look like Austin or Bedford, but could well be Ford as has already been said.

Take a look at this, taken in Russia apparantly.

Nick, The bumper is definitely Bedford, as is the grille from what can be seen. I think it does have twin wheels on the rear, the tyres are quite narrow and you can see the dish of the outer rear wheel.

Hello John, I think the general difference between being in private ownership and in service, is that you have to repair it and pay for it, if it breaks, so will treat the vehicle with a little bit more respect and care. :-)

Chris, The New Major of the 1950's with petrol engine had bore size of 95mm and the vapourising oil engine ( E1ADKN ) was a bore size of 100 mm. The top of a piston is always slightly smaller than bore size, so I think the 3 7/8" would indicate this to be a VO engine piston, and the part number shows this. Richard ( spent my early days working on tractors, never forget some things :-))

After you have been driving on a metalled road, just jack up one wheel and watch it kick as the weight comes off it. That is "wind up". I used to do a lot of hub repairs to in-service Ferrets ( and Saracens, Stalwarts, Fox, etc) and there is no doubt they did suffer. There was a very regular check on Ferret planet carriers as they had a tendency to loosen off ( due to wind up without a shadow of a doubt) and could end up with the six bolts and six dowels shearing, allowing the wheel bearing to come loose. Checks for slackness had to be done by REME every 500 miles, it was that serious a problem. No theory, wind-up is fact. And as for hitting the wheels on the dirt or gravel roadside occasionally, that would only relieve wind-up between nearside front and rear, unless you could get all four wheels of the hard stuff.

More likely home defence in Britain, a local business donated an old Bedford lorry to the Home Guard and covered in bits of steel plate.

From memory when I used to test and calibrate the winches, it has a cut out of 3.5 tonnes on a straight line pull, but is designed for a maximum of 12 tonnes using 4:1 layout.

I reckon those pistons are from a Fordson Major tractor with petrol / kerosene engine, from the numbers you listed.

I was incorrect on the id of the crest, it is actually for the Royal Aircraft Establishment.

There were a few RAF Explorers transfered to the Army and given BT numbers. I remember at least one coming through Workshops, I seem to think the cab interior could have been painted Eau-de-nil colour as often seen in RAF vehicle cabs.

I would say that the "big square thing", is actually a counterweight to allow for the length of the barrel. Without this it would make elevating difficult due to the weight on the gears. Look at a 25 pdr and you will see one just forward of the breach. This would indicate that the barrel length is original.

I think these crests are of the Cranfield College of Aeronautics. The vehicle shown looks to be based on the Bedford VAS with the 214 engine. The body front is very similar to the coaches used by the Army in the 1970's, but features of the body, and the colour show that it may have been first used to transport prisoners.

Hi Gary, Good photos, bottom right one, of a Foden 10 tonner is nice, you do not see many in service shots of them. Looking forward to seeing more, thanks.

Jim, If you read the relevant EMER, you will find there is a special spanner to remove the nut. From memory, and I have one somewhere, it is thin and cranked to get under the diaphragm.

Never stopped to eat, although a thunderstorm did halt proceedings for a while.

Hi David, Good to see you on here, mate. regards, Richard

Good one, thanks. I don't know what sort of construction project they were on, but would think progress was nearly nil in those conditions. Looks more like porridge

It looks a bit like those tanks that were modified to snuff out burning oil wells :undecided:

Jeff also had a Ferret at one time, as well.

Matt, I would not take too much attention to that book. If you check EMER's you will see that all Ferrets could have a 6A or 6A/L. If my old memory is working, the L stood for long liners as opposed to short liners in the 6A.