N.O.S.

I had a sweep up around my Autocar today. I only mention that because as a result I now have a large quantity of cardboard off-cuts from Roy's first missing parts pattern-making exercise, which would make great souvenirs of this restoration. Will sell individually or as a job lot. :n00b:

8144T - well done Les, most unusual. Where is it taken I wonder - do these guys look a bit Persian/Iranian maybe? Difficult to make out style of caps.

If that is true (and I strongly advise you check it out), and values of Dingos with paperwork in both countries are similar, then it ought to be worth collected from France what it would be worth over here less the transport to UK and transport back again!!.

I was recently told that you bring a vehicle with no paperwork into the UK, you can obtain the necessary paperwork and register it, and apparently you are then able to take it back to said country of origin as the paperwork will be complete. Sacred blue......

:confused: You mean to say you don't recognise an Autocar gas tank when you see one? :-D

I'm not that skilled or crazy! My Autocar was on the road when I acquired it last year, and will be back on the road once I get time to finish the rewiring.... Yes Lee, it is the same one, but the Mayhem photo obviously shows the better side :cool2: Thinking about it, I don't think there is a better side :-D

Well here it is again, having recently been awakened from a deep slumber in France, putting up a determined - but ultimately futile - fight before heading to England for restoration. Someone had robbed the windsreen and tank brackets off it very recently (so presumably there is another one somewhere out there being restored....), but even this was not enough to put off the new owner. And having seen what he has achieved with similar wrecks, no doubt it won't be long before it is looking a bit healthier!

Remember this one?

Crickey Paul, that can't be David Tuthill surely?

Strange how soldering the trailer cable wires into the trailer plug pin terminals seems to cure all manner of wierd problems

OK, found address and phone number. Will pm you now.

Mon dieu - So why did you let me scramble over all that stuff looking for them (again)? I knew we should have left you supporting those gearbox crates :sweat:

The big question is - WHY DOES CW NEED EXTRA POWER? I think I have the answer.....:whistle:

If you were to swap your 7.50x20s for 11x22.5s, R3, you could get almost 60 out of the poor old girl!!

Thanks. I hadn't realised the event was labelled 'Home Guard'. Best photo I've seen of the viaduct! Site visit definitely required.

How could I have forgotten the Matadors? :embarrassed: :thanx: (and the Diamond T!!)

Absolutely! The case can also make a good extra fuseboard. I've stripped out a perfectly good control box from the Autocar (which had been bypassed long before I got it) - the internals I can sell on for someone to repair an original, and the case will soon house a wiring junction box and flasher unit Can anyone tell us more about these 80amp units mentioned by goanna? I can't seem to find them on Gritineye's link :confused:

Isn't that one stunning model! When I last looked it cost about the same as your trailer is worth :shocked: Are you looking for a buyer?

Disconnected! Simplest way for wiring is to use an alternator with built-in regulator.

:sweat:I've only picked up bits and pieces from relatives/friends in the oil industry, Jack - my knowlege is very limited! :sweat: I guess that petrol refining capacity was much greater worldwide, as diesels were still making inroads into the marketplace and so most transport was still petrol engined. Also petrol engines must have been much cheaper to mass produce for the war effort. So given that refineries were orientated towards producing petrol, the diesel fraction would have simply been retained in the heavy oil grades instead of being refined out as a seperate product. Also, not all crude is suitable for diesel refining. WW2 diesels - I can only think of the Gardner 6LW in the Scammell Pioneer and the GM diesels in one Sherman variant - pretty much everything else was petrol wasn't it? The Germans were experimenting with diesel aircraft engines I believe. I was led to believe that British policy post WW2 was to standardise on just one grade of fuel (petrol) primarily to make battlefield supply logistics much simpler.

Which might explain why there is a shortage of diesel? Each source of crude is different, and to get more of one fraction from one source means you would end up overproducing the other grades (like 28 sec kerosene or 3500 sec heavy). It must be a nightmare meeting demand for each grade!!

The two difficulties I've encountered have been 1) Alternators are generally larger diameter for similar output (often fouling water pipes/coolers and other ancillaries) - this is more of a problem when replacing civilian type dynamos as military ones tend to be 'big' to say the least! 2) Alternators ideally should run a bit faster than dynamos, so they tend not to charge so well at very low speeds unless you alter pulleys.

There is supposed to have been a shortage of "quality diesel making" crude oil this last year or so, hence price went from lower than petrol to higher than. But who knows really.....

A caption to one of the Wynns-cabbed DT photos in Bob Tuck's book "Moving Mountains" states - 'With rust and old age striking hard on the cabs of Wynn's Diamond Ts, the fleet took on a new look as they were replaced with a bigger unit...." Photo dated 1959.

So was I, until - An ex REME soldier and I had just unloaded my Scammell at W&P in 2004/5. We stood in the evening rain in total disbelief as a couple of GMCs pulled up outside some tents next door, and a load of thin guys with shaved heads and faded stripey blue pyjamas piled into the trucks which then roared off. We didn't speak for a few minutes after that. Normally I'd have gone "Nice couple of jimmys there!" but this was perhaps the first time I'd witnessed a piece of re-enactment or Living History, in which the correct vehicles played a vital role but yet they were almost invisible to me. Now I've thought long and hard about that incident ever since. I still can't quite get my head around it and find it distasteful - but I must admit it got me thinking seriously for the first time about the holocaust and I won't forget it, so you could say the incident served a very useful purpose.