binnawan

hello Danny,

I decided to start searching after receiving your email, first hit was your question here. Small world.

Baz VK6MU

Gents, Sad news. Following a heart attack at the weekend, Jack has passed away. A great guy and club member who will be sadly missed by all who knew him. Baz F.

Just came across this thread, very nice. My first car ever was an identical Humber staff car, bought at a scrap yard in Borden in 1957. It cost five pounds, start her up and drive away, no problems. I was in the REME at Borden, 17 years old, no licence, no insurance, no registration, Oh the good old days! We actually bought 2 for five pounds each. My mate rolled his on a trip to Scotland (that's how good they were) and I gave him mine when I was posted to Singapore. BTW there were about 15 Austin sevens lined up, five pounds each, drive away. Baz

Degsy

26-11-2011, 01:36

Very interesting regarding the cranes, I hadn't heard anything about them before. A friend now in his late seventies and still restoring vehicles to keep busy was stationed there when the army pulled out in the fifties, hundreds of jeeps and GMC's were pushed off a pier and dumped into deep water as they were not required to be brought back to the UK and would have affected the local economy if suddenly dumped on to the market. The tears still come to his eyes when he tells the story as it wasn't something he just heard about, he actually had to do it.

Not very likely!

The Army pulled out in 1972/3 ish. By that time jeeps and GMC's had long gone.

All remaining equipment, including barracks and buildings, was sold off to Singapore Govt for peppercorns per time.

I remeber a huge car park filled with school buses (RAF) handed over for nothing, 1972.

I saw myself landing barges overloaded with military toolboxes being dumped in the sea off Singapore. This would have been around 1957.

Baz

Also watched Ghurkas at Sungei Patani smashing up heaps of new No 19 wireless sets and burying them. 1957.

Although there's a little bit of tidying up yet to do, I think we can just about say that we have finished the rust removal process.

 

Yesterday we cut out and replaced a section of the rear upper body section -

 

 

 

 

and also removed the rusted out RH rear sheet metal between wheel arch and stowage bin -

 

 

....replacing it with shiny new stuff -

 

 

We've got a little more to do in this area, more sheetmetal is being shaped to cover the outer skin of the body and the lip into the wheel arch, but that'll be welded in next Wednesday.

 

We were also able to finish off the LH sill, which is now fully welded and ground to the point where we can add a little bit of smoothing body filler and "job's done".

 

 

Once all that is finished we'll be able to lift the body shell off the chassis and finish all those hard to get at welds.

 

There are still any number of small tears, bumps and gouges in the metal which will require work or as a last resort some body filler, but most of what now remains to be done on the body is cosmetic, though time consuming.

 

The light at the end of the tunnel is glowing a little brighter !

Careful jack, it may be an express train!

I found an RA badge in the bowels of a Champ, a live 303 round, and tucked right away inside the switch panel a note which was dated 1956 and said" Boo, you nosey bugger!"

Baz