N.O.S.

Hi Rolf, you can show us plenty more of that beastie! Care to reveal the source of tyres?

Just resurrecting an old thread, given the recent pictures and info on the AEC Regal buses: Here's a pic of an AEC bus on the 388th BG base. The lady on the right is Anna Nagle, who ran the Red Cross effort for the 388th at Knettishall. The photo is posted with permission from http://portraitsofwar.wordpress.com - which contains some amazing colour images of WW2 and a big collection of WW1 American Dough Boy portraits. Well worth a visit or three!

It might be a fuel tank for a Lister stationary engine. There was a level indicator comprising a chain and weight attached to a float inside running around a pulley at the top of the tank. But then again it might not be!

So you haven't told her yet, R3..........:sweat:

Boring enough to have summed it up pretty well! Must be an age thing :laugh:

Some 8 or so years back I experienced the Wolzstyn Experience! http://www.thewolsztynexperience.org/footplating.php A friend and I were the only two that week - so just one locomotive in steam. You stay in the old crew dormitory at the roundhouse at Wolzstyn depot - it was due to close but a couple of English guys negotiated an arrangement with the Polish Railways whereby they would find enough people to pay for the priveledge of driving / firing steam locomotives to keep the depot viable. It is a very steep learning curve. No English spoken but when the crew pull out of the station on the first morning - then immediately step back and wave you into the positions, it starts! One drives one way while the other fires, return journey you swap over. In my youth I used to fire on a preservation line in the early pre LRO days, but this is something else - no 25mph limit here, the line will cope with 60mph and the schedule demands it! Once you've overshot the first couple of platforms at the many stations en route and the irate Polish commuters shake their fists at you as they make their way along the track back to the platform, you soon get the measure of it. It can't last forever - if you've half a mind to do it - do it soon!

I'm ashamed to admit I could not tell you much about the Raclawicka panorama. But having just fired a 2-6-2 some 30 miles into Wroclaw, viewing it made a fascinating way to fill the time before driving back! My favourite paintings have no military connection. If I had to choose one it would be one of the many evocative oil/acrylic paintings of USAAF bombers, or an acrylic MV painting by Pavel Holy (mentioned on HMVF before).

Huge? That ain't HUGE - this is HUGE! Panorama Raclawicka in Wroclaw, Poland - 15ft high and considerably longer! From wiki: The project was conceived as a patriotic manifestation commemorating the 100th anniversary of the victorious Battle of Racławice, a famous episode of the Kościuszko Insurrection, a heroic but ultimately failed attempt to defend Polish independence. The battle was fought on 4 April 1794 between the insurrectionist force of regulars and peasant volunteers (bearing homemade scythes) under Kościuszko (1746–1817) himself and the Russian army commanded by GeneralAlexander Tormasov. For the nation which had lost its independence, the memory of this glorious victory was particularly important. Try this for an idea of the scale: And try this for an appreciation of the detail:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuETxEvzoVM You really have to see it to appreciate it though.

Now you know very well that the UNLADEN clause only applies to vehicles over 3.5t :n00b:

Don't worry - additional security has been laid on for the duration of this thread.

Great link to the preserved 10T10s, Welbourn! I thought they'd all gone. Your RAF Ramsbury attachment in first post doesn't open up?

SOLEX W-O M32 PBIC seems to be the right one for MB/GPW engines. If it has SOLEX and a model number on the casting it will be a French original. If no name or number it will be the Indian copy which has been readily available for some time. I think I found another number on the web for Jeep carbs, but I took all the paperwork over to a friend who is having a go at it. Might be the diaphragm in the accelerator 'pump' - looks like flow is going back into bowl instead of into air flow when pump lever is moved. Got a rebuild kit yesterday so although diaphragm looks ok will see what happens with a new one. Apparently the ethanol is having devastating effects on some of these units.

USE UNLADEN is related specifically to the way the vehicle is taxed and tested. You can use a pre 1960 vehicle untested so long as it is used unladen when taxed Historic. If you want to carry a load you'll need to get it tested (and have an appropriate driving licence too). You can tow a trailer (again unladen) under the same exemption but a load comprised of your own possessions is a load and therefore not unladen. Driving a pre 1960 vehicle above the usual weight restriction is a benefit allowed by virtue of the historic vehicle legislation. Once you know what constitutes a LOAD you'll know exactly what UNLADEN means :cool2:

Anyone had problems with a flat spot and discovered the cause? The French Indian Solex carb has an annoying flat spot on acceleration, but we cannot trace the source of the problem. Does anyone have a good schematic of the carb circuits they could share? All I can find out there is a poor exploded view.

Small wonder that first recovered MV went over the edge - wouldn't like to drive that round bends with such a short wheelbase.:D:D:blush: [ATTACH=CONFIG]81929[/ATTACH]

And if you had £145 quid to blow on a Jeep back then, you'd be considered wealthy..........:cool2:

Flying home (note reversed N!).

The high price would be explained by (I believe) the shortage of new trucks - even if you had the money you couldn't get hold of one.

That's interesting, thanks Richard. Looks like the average price per vehicle was £108 which given a relatively small percentage of high priced oil engined vehicles (shortage of oil engines at the time) suggests around £100 each. My dad was paying £150 around 1947 for a virtually unused GMC 6x6 (albeit with frosted block - very easily repaired) from a second-in-line dealer, so that dealer could have made probably a 30 - 50% markup which sounds about right.

I would think it would be of great interest if you started a new thread with the story behind this sale (when was it?) and including just a few samples of the information contained - maybe scans of a few pages? I don't even know when and for how long the Ruddington sales ran - my dad went to a few hence the odd catalogues, though I can't remember where I stored them safely now! I'm still trying to find out more about the disposals in Europe to the various countries also via Marshall Plan etc.

Well said Wally. The only way you can interpret condition from just prices is by comparing against the highest and lowest sale prices fetched I guess. 40,000 vehicles? Wow - that must have taken a few auctioneers to get through!! Tony who might just have a few Ruddington catalogues himself......:blush:

Sure, Robin - but I would have thought much of the detailed info would only be of interest 'at the time'. Just the detailed info from these tender sales could turn into a huge database, the vast bulk of which would only be of interest to a few people. Imagine if this site contained all the auction results from the Ruddington Sales :wow:. Posts 2 and 3 above demonstrate how effective the forum can be at putting folk in touch with each other for specific information - presumably they will have exchanged the required information. It has to be assumed that anyone with specific current interests in this gear and what it sells for would be following the sales and results posted on the seller's website in real time. If what you mean is just a general overview then agreed, and I guess this would be of greater interest to more folk. For example it would be of passing interest to know the average price that AEC Matadors were selling for in 1968, or Saladins in 2004, or Bedford TM 6x6 in 2013, but surely of no interest what a specific lot number went for (unless you happened to own it!). I'm pretty sure that someone on here would have the odd Ruddington catalogue with prices scribbled alongside, so that sort of information might still be available on request thanks to the Forum?

Another jerry can problem is that of using the WATER variety for diesel as they are enamelled on the inside. We used some for refuelling tractors in the field. After they had been knocked about a bit (thrown on top of tipper loads and then tipped out in the field for the tractor driver to dig out of the heap) we found that small flakes of enamel would break off and float around in the tractor diesel tanks - and regularly get sucked onto the outlet pipe and the tractor would stop through fuel starvation. On strip down the filter was found to be clean, the tank appeared to be clean (when drained the flakes would settle quite unseen on the bottom), and when the tractor was started it ran just fine. So the fitter would disappear and a little while later an enamel flake would block the suction pipe again and he would have to return. This went on for days until a tank was finally removed and a hole cut to inspect - at which point the pesky little enamel flakes revealed themselves. :banghead:

Have you got anything on the drive end to act as a flywheel? Someone told me the aero engine wouldn't run smoothly without a prop on as the prop acted like a flywheel - but your engine sounds really sweet. p.s. sounds like a good trade!!:-D