ferret1958uk

Doesn't anyone on here know that the knack to get these beds together is to wipe the covers over with a damp cloth?

It may sound stupid that you take a damp cloth to the bed you want to sleep on, but it does allow the fibres in the material to stretch. To prove a point at Beltring this year I got my friends 14 year old son to try to put one up. He gave up so I handed it to my 5 year old son, but this time dampened it down. My son put it together, and with the warm sun on it, it was taught as a drum again in minutes.

Try it and any of you that save your arms, fingers and other bits of your anatomy by following this advice can feel free to buy me a drink!

Welcome.

I also have 2a's. I have a 1964 SWB FFR, 1968 LWB GS and 1968 LWB FFR. Always lived in Sussex, but have sisters in Romford and Dagenham (who I rarely see for obvious reasons) and I have worked in Grays, Bas Vegas, Brentford, Southminster and Thorpe Le Soken.

Ideally I would like to get a pair of Larkspur antennas to refit to the rear tub but I don't know what hope I have a reasonable money?

 

Cheers,

Paul

You could pick up the complete side mounts for under £20 at W&P. I got two side stalks for £10 and C&S Tat have one example of the early style stalk for £10. All you would then need is the correct aerial base for the radio system you wanted to recreate having. The aerials can be bought for between £3 and £5 a section.

If you are after the wing boxes for the front wings then you will have to search harder. People like me have them all stashed away for a rainy day. Most of mine are complete and operational with the tuning unit as well! They are not cheap...

The military ID plate gives WV4628. This contract was placed in 1966/7 for 750 LWB GS Land Rovers, yet this one appears to be FFR - don't worry, as this may be an error in the work of John Maestrangelo's lists that I am using as a resource? The original Army number would have been 45ER31.

The ends of the bulkhead tend to get painted less often than other parts. Is there sign of a small black sticker on the passenger side quoting BS standards for seatbelts? If so then my guess is that the vehicles is as per the military data plate.

The chassis numbers are also different as you stated between the military data plate and the civilian chassis plate. Check the front drivers-side dumb iron for the chassis number. The good news is that the chassis number on the military plate suggests a 1964 109 LWB so I guess they noted the chassis number wrong! The chassis number on the chassis plate however is for a 1966 Land Rover 109 and this matches the dates for the Military number plate.

If I had to date this vehicle I would have to place bets on it being 1966. Early to mid '66 at that! The original factory finish would almost certainly have been Deep Bronze Green. This does not mean it was a darker green though, actually more golden-yellow in bright light. Paddocks may be close after all?

Be aware that if the Landy is post 1965 it will need seatbelts.

EMLRA history searches use the Merlin System to get data I think? Depending on when the Merlin System was introduced, the service history for a 1964 Land Rover may be missing. Clive, do you happen to know when the old card system was replaced?

Your vehicle (94EL31) is from the same batch of 1401 vehicles as mine. The contract is WV2985 and covered ERM's 83EL25 to 97EL25. As I do not know the first two digits of my ERM I know it is one of 14 vehicles! I have spoken to Deepcut about this and they have confirmed that they do have a complete run of cards for this contract.

If anyone remembers these in service or has any photos of them I'd love to hear/see them,I have searched the web but there is little info around on the early FFR Landy's.

If you are still after info, then I can help. The ERM for my 1964 Rover 8 FFR is ??EL37. I have parts manuals, User Handbooks, photos, period radio manuals for fitting the equipment etc.

Bringing the following Land Rovers to the bottom of the Americas field;

1968 S2a 109 FFR,

1968 S2a 109 GS,

1964 S2a 109 Ambulance,

1978 S3 lightwieght

1976 101 GS

Plus any other wrecks I can be bothered to dig out, but not the 1964 S2a 88 FFR

The way that Rex usualy works on W&P for individual vehicle events is that if you want an event you have to be stupid enough to arrange it.

Dale Johnson stepped in in 2002 for the Champ Camp where he wanted to get a large gathering of Austin Champs for the 50th anniversary. He took a long time planning that, created magnetic badges to go on the bridge plate with the champ camp entry number and also paid to get commemorative patches made. I stepped in and tried to do an event for the Ferrets which we named Ferrets @ 50. This was a bit harder to arrange as I only had the Ferret Heaven Yahoo group to use to contact owners and get the word out. There were a lot of Ferrets at the show, but most wanted to remain with friends on the site. The event did happen though, and I enjoyed it. I made a few friends and aquaintances that year, so organising a similar event is very worthwhile.

My advise at this late stage is to get an idea of what you want ie. a date and time for the arena, and speak to every landrover owner you can find. The ferrets did a few convoys around the show site in the evenings which all owners were made aware off. The convoy would grow as we drove around the site. I think our record was 15 with a Fox in one convoy. The line up in the Arena is still the best achieved ever as far as I am aware.

He said 'the girls were fun' meaning more than one. My guess is he pulled the rough looking one. Were the others better looking?

A big thank you for that! I have traced most of my family records already but they will be a nice addition.

Is he carrying marker flags for wounded, or communications equipment such as lamps, or flags to convey info across a field for the RAMC?

Don't tell me that was in the manual that was for sale at W&P for £8? Early RAMC pocket book. I had a damn good read of that when it was raining, but it had gone when I came back to finish it! It was with a husbandry book from the 10's or 20's.

I think you are bluffing us all and the 'haze' around his boots is there to discuise the rockets on his boots that shows he is a rapid response paramedic.

I will be really dissapointed if he is just providing rations/ red cross boxes to the injured troops.

Restore it? Looks perfectly ok to me.

I want a running Merlin. My two Mosquito Merlins will never run again despite a rebuild at Reccardo Engineering for one of them

She is having contractions 4-5 minutes apart at the moment, so baby is coming out soon.

We do have other transport.

I had a 1973 L/wt FFR that was released in 1989. It had been winterised for use in Norway, but had NEVER been fitted with Clansman. It still had a complete, but damaged, larkspur wing box when it was sold off. Just because Clansman was coming into service around 1974 does not mean that all vehicles were fitted with it straight away. Chances are that many of them stayed with Larkspur for several years.

I suppose I ought to join the Sussex convoy then. 1x Landy atleast.

As my Landy is out of action, and we sold the Ferret I do not have a vehicle to go with. Who said they needed a driver in the Brighton area?

I was hping to go as my neighbour is going (with a tractor?), but as my wife is currently in labour I will have to wait and see how things go.

This was the first Beltring that I came away with money from. Nothing really took my fancy.

RAC messed up big time on the way home though. They took my back wheel off to sort a problem with an adjuster and binding brakes, and they forgot to torque the wheel nuts up. Drove off and 1/4 mile later I got vibration so I pulled over straight away to find 2 studs holding my back wheel on my 109 Landy Told them I needed recovery and described the problem to the stupid woman on hte end of he phone. She sent a van out to me with spare wheel nuts for a Defender!

I would say you got done, purely because the front tyre is bald. It will clean up very well with an anglegrinder on the roll cage.

My name is really Merlin. Named after the Rolls Royce aero engine according to my dad, and the bird of prey by my mum. Absolutely not named after the caravan manufacturer, or the software company. Would be cool if I was named after the Merlin system that the MoD use for vehicle records though.

I prefer the glasses with the little flecks of oil on them anyway. I am sure the dishwasher will clean itself over the next year or so, so no harm done eh?

The Royal Aircraft Establishment Crest is on the original bronze green paint. It has been oversprayed by one layer of slightly lighter bronze green and the day-glo text is on this layer of green. The vehicle has atleast 4 other layers of paint after this with various signs on the front and rear of the vehicle. They are proving very hard to clean down, so a few hours with very fine wet and dry may be in order. Apart from the civvi blue top coat it all seems to be bronze green.

As far as I can tell the text reads:

S/67

FOO 48667 (RAE crest here) -S

ANTWERP.

I have attached another picture that seems to show the RAE crest a bit better. The crown above the crest is still faint though. You should also note that FOO could be FDO.

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r105/ferret1958uk/DeesRover05Aug07004.jpg[/img]

My wife started stripping paint off the door to her Landy 2a FFR today and she found some nice day-glo orange text. Part of the text is missing on the middle line, but as a bonus you can just make out the RAE crest in the underlying paint.

Question is this: What does it all mean?

http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r105/ferret1958uk/DeesRover05Aug07001.jpg[/img]