Richard Farrant

It seems unclear whether it is TUM or TUH painted on the drawbar. If it is TUM, that denotes Pinzgauer and TUH is RB44, I think it is the latter, which would be the smallest vehicle that would tow it although they were mostly used behind 4 tonners.

So lets get this straight, there is a hooper like structure under the floor of the clay lined shed. Access to hopper is from a lower level than the shed, there are air ducts to this, so assume it could be a fire under the floor, to create heat, which rises into the shed, to dry out what is in / on the railway truck, going by the previous mystery objects, I would say it is for drying a wagon load of human sh1t..............then once dry, is used as fuel (ie under the floor) to be used to dry subsequent wagon loads.

Fred, If you need a new switchboard, give me a shout, I think that I still have a new one, at a third of the price quoted above.............and I am not far away :tup:

Obviously not an execution wagon then :evil: Looks like a narrow guage railway, with siding into a building, under which is 2 pits for bottom dump wagons or end dump, possibly for coal, the building would be on a high elevation ofr access to the material dumped in to the pit. Doors on building to prevent persons falling down pit.........a bit of early H&S.

So true............ The P51 Mustang, "Big Beautiful Doll", lives a couple of miles away and when we hear it coming, all work stops to watch, especially when practising a display routine.

Neil, Think I saw a film clip of that, they were both landing together, one behind the other, and the following one clipped the tail of the other pulled up then went in, assume because the prop was damaged. This plane was a replica if I remember correctly.

I once worked on one of those, it was on exercise and suffered damage underneath and came in for repairs. The driver would not leave it, we had a good look at the four wheel drive whilst on the lift, but for some reason he would not lift the bonnet :dunno: This was at a time when 4wd cars were unusual. One turned up at Beltring either last year or year before, really looked as though it was straight out of service.

It was the layer upon layer of DBG that has made it possible for some of the old vehicles to survive. Had they used IRR, the survival rate would have been a lot less. Fro instance, Bedford TM trucks were painted from new in IRR and when I last worked on them, at least 11 years ago, whilst they were in service, the rust has coming though on the cab, due to no body in the paint, it was just like two coats of primer, so there is something to say about gloss DBG. Also they looked smart then, even the armour and plant.

Tony, To answer your question, yes, there are silentbloc type mounts on the transfer box. There was an earlier type of elbow and tubes but were superceded to these current type which are relatively thin tube with swaged ends. In service there was no problem, if there was a lot of play in the tubes, either tubes and or elbows were renewed. Any slight blow was disregarded by the Examiners as it was not a great issue. The tube tends to suffer more as being thin steel, it scales and flakes. I did once build a set up with braze around the swaging, knowing that this would be more reliable, and filing it until it was a nice sliding fit with no lateral movement. If really bad, the elbows can be worn inside where the tube has been rattling.

According to those in the know, Down Under, there could be a catch. It seems the most likely recipients would be RSL clubs (Returned Servicemans League - like our RBL), many of these clubs over there have armour, artillery or aircraft outside. Also the engines would be removed and gun cut...so not quite what it would seem from the ABC News article.

Sorry Tony, have to disagree on this, regarding your comment on bulbs drawing more current if there is a bad earth or resistance in circuit, then blowing. A bad earth / resistance is akin to a dimmer switch in a light circuit....it reduces the current flowing through, the bulb will not try to glow brighter, it cannot. So bulbs do not blow due to resistance, it is normally rough treatment, ie vibration, badly mounted lights or poor quality bulbs that are the cause. This assuming the voltage has not risen, but this is a very rare fault and not a common cause of bulbs blowing on vehicles. I have to agree with Clive on his reply and suspect he is, at this moment, penning a new article for Windscreen, on fault finding in vehicle lighting systems. ;-)

Now thats got your attention, have a look at this link, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/14/2032842.htm

WD vehicles of that period did bear civilian registation plates, using letters allocated to Middlesex County Council. But, they also bore Census Numbers on the sides of the vehicles, in the case of tanks, it would have been T****.

Just to explain the Key Card No.2, 1st column; Post War WD number 2nd column; headed engine no. "AFY" chassis "B" vehicle - this is the Chassis No. 3rd column; Tech. type or mark - an example - "Lorry 3 ton 4x4 Cargo" 4th column; Converted To / from - This is the Wartime Census No., prefix letter would be Z up to 1 ton, then L for Lorries of 1 ton upwards, etc. 5th column; Location Unit from - This is the Contract No. Also penciled in will be disposal details, ie date, where disposed and sometimes last known unit as in the last vehicle I traced. I believe that the Tank Museum may have Contract cards for "B" vehicles, having seen a few examples, these show delivery dates of vehicles for a specified contract, cost price and minor details. Other than that there is not much else, unless you can find a photo of your actual vehicle in service!

Chris, That is similar to what I was describing, except that system we used was called Metalock..much the same principle.

Tony, That company is probably like the one I mentioned, Barramor (?), they specialised in cracked castings, blocks, etc for years, repairing by welding, but in these modern times, things are thrown away rather than repair, so guess some of these old specialists are fast dissapearing.

Ha ha...thought you might have slipped up :-D

Tim, Many years ago, there was two types of antifreeze, one being cheaper and not lasting much more than a winter. It was alcohol based from memory and boiled away, where as glychol based anti freeze is much more reliable. I was not aware the alcohol type was still around......that is assuming this is what your pink stuff is. Best check what type it is before buying, ie read the small print!

Tony, There is a much better way of cold repairing cracks now, providing they are accessible. A jig is used to drill a row of holes across the crack at 90 degrees. The holes drilled have spaces between, which are then cut through and a metal lock strip is hammered in to the holes and peened over. The crack between these locks is also peened over. A chemical solution can be made up and left in the water jacket for a short time, to seal the crack. When we had the engine rebuild line going, at Workshops, there were occasions when the metal lock system was used. If a cyl block was very badly cracked, like several large AEC diesels that I overhauled when conrods went through the side, taking part of the actual cylinder with them, there was a specialist firm in London, called Barrimor (spelling may not be correct) and when the blocks were returned, you would have a job to see where it was repaired.

Rick and Clive, I think you will find that MTRS is something to do with the Ministry of Supply and their contract overhaul scheme for vehicles and components. The number B380 is reminiscent of the numbers used to identify AAW, Army Auxillary Workshops. These were often civilian garages, such as B269, Henlys at Weston-Super-Mare. AAW was in use during war period and after, I think MTRS came along in the Fifties and at a wild guess would think it could stand for "Motor Transport Repair Shop".

Looking at its size and the diameter of the hole, it looks like it might be something to do with a gun, what about the 120mm Battalion Anti-Tank gun?

In the latest copy of the MVT magazine, Windscreen, there is an article by Geoff Fletcher on researching history of British vehicles, a photo of a Key Card for a group of Jeeps in the YJ grouping is shown, I have seen these cards for other vehicles, so there is a good chance they may still exist.

Before the drive shaft between engine and clutch was modified, the CVR(T) suffered crankshaft breakages. The original shaft had two Hardy Spicer u/j's and the modification was to change to a shaft with Layrub couplings, along with engine mounting changes as well. With these later shafts, it is imperitive that the gearbox is aligned correctly with the engine, else the Layrub coupling will overheat and disintergrate, have seen signs of it too.

Yes Clive, we were talking about this at the steam fair, I was pretty sure you were aware, although I did rumble it on one of your early mystery questions, but purposely did not dive in straight away and you did not realise. :evil:

The Jaguar J60 was not much better, I would like a fiver for every one with a rod through the side, which I have changed. Remember fitting a recon J60 in a Fox once, did the normal inspection test of about 25 miles or so, unit came to collect it, about 4 miles up the road, the engine gave way. I pulled it down for a technical investigation and found one camshaft broken in 4 places!