goanna

The CS8 engine block showing  the broken water jacket bolts. Four of the bolts (M6) came out without snapping.  The M6 tapped holes are 46 mm centre to centre (x) and 82mm (y). Using the right angle triangle formula I confirmed my measurements are correct. This repair attempt could end in tears but the block is worth saving. The 1937 to 39 Morris 'big six' sedan and some of the  CV trucks had the same 82mm bore engine but there are variations in the cyl. head, pistons, water pump , manifolds , carburetor and the water jacket casting . 

This is one method that has been effective in repairing broken water jacket bolts.. In this case a Hudson car. The engine block was mounted on a drill press. The Hudson owner has suggested: a mag drill would be another method. 

. https://metalworkforums.com/f316/t205712-drill-guide-plates-drilling-sheared-bolts?highlight=Hudson

Just about every CS8 I have seen here has suffered with bent or twisted front end chassis rails, must have been a weakness there in the design or people have tried to pull or tow something heavy from the front end "It's a old army truck, it is indestructible" 

I checked the other engine and the crank bearings are in good shape, this is relief.  . I can make a good engine out of the two - hopefully. 

Another problem is; the little 6mm water jacket cover bolts have broken off, I soaked them for a long time, they are made from plasticine , not steel,   the heads snapped off with only a small  turn of the spanner.  Might have to drill and tap the next size up . 

Not much progress. I had a engine block bored but to my dismay, I discovered it has a crack along the edge on top next to a water outlet. Back to square one, I have stripped down another block . 

A big hold-up is: the babbit alloy big end bearings will need to be redone. I have decided to tackle this myself, the pouring has been done successfully by a few restorers .  A learning curve but we all need to learn new skills. Most of the old engine  machine shops here have closed down, it is very hard to find somebody with some know how about vintage car engines. 

The chassis is a little bent here and there, some repairs needed. The CS8 chassis is not highly rigid, it only has two rivetted crossmembers , I would think that when travelling over rough terrain, the chassis will 'walk'a bit - maybe this was a design feature. 

Hi Rupert. The ex-West. Aust. Humber is in Melbourne undergoing a long term restoration. I believe a UK immigrant imported the Humber,  late 1950s. There are more than one in N.Z. A N.Z. govt. Department imported a few in the 1950s.. think it was from Hong Kong. Matthew Lombard has the remains of one. 

A few examples have survived down under. 

During the later years of the war, there was a plea or demand coming from farmers and primary producers for light utility vehicles for farm use. The Federal govt. approached the UK  with a order/request to supply these vehicles. Newspaper reports indicate that, initially  1200 tillies were to be shipped to Australia but it appears the actual number that arrived was far less. In mid 1945, adverts appeared in newspapers across the land announcing the arrival of the tillies, ranging from Tasmania across to Perth West. Aust. A permit was required in order to purchase one of these vehicles. 

The few tillies that did arrive, ( maybe 200-300 ) were sold to civilian farmers through Standard, Morris and other official dealerships.. These were brand new vehicles, not used. Some of these dealers would have received as few as two or three tillies to sell, one dealer advert has just  one Standard available. The most numerous survivors are Standards, with only a very few of the other types still in one piece. I know of only one Morris tilly restored to running condition, a mammoth effort that required parts from two or three wrecks and much fabrication of new panels involving many hours of labour.

Brisbane scenes with K2/Y and a Ford GTB bomb loading truck.  

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C189286

Pics of Defence Dept. vehicles assembled in Melbourne, Australia. The date and location needs to be confirmed but these pics are filed with many other Victorian Railways workshops , Newport, Melbourne pics. Likely the chassis were imported and the bodywork was made in the Newport railways workshops, Melbourne. 

The pics can be downloaded in high resolution: lower LH corners of the pics. 

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4D71D701-F7DD-11E9-AE98-738A6CBC43E1?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4D705060-F7DD-11E9-AE98-BD1E9134E3B8?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4AF6287B-F7DD-11E9-AE98-9FF18BF347A3?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4B051CA6-F7DD-11E9-AE98-471A15430933?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4D750B53-F7DD-11E9-AE98-1F8ACE6741E7?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4D6E548F-F7DD-11E9-AE98-E30B53BD03EE?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4B03E425-F7DD-11E9-AE98-8FC4BAB44529?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4D6C0A9E-F7DD-11E9-AE98-9185A431FD70?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/4AF7880C-F7DD-11E9-AE98-61EA83F30863?image=1

https://prov.vic.gov.au/archive/CA62EAAE-F821-11E9-AE98-BD1CD57F7960?image=1

Looking through the Australian Army vehicle registration ledgers I have found: vehicles listed as refugee cargo.

Morris C8 2 pounder Portees ( approx. 30) 

Thornycroft Searchlight trucks X 6  reg. 50213 - 50218 

Albion House type workshop and Breakdown trucks   50201 - 50209 

Bedford OY ( approx. 10 ) 

Albion recovery truck 6wh. 50264

Leyland 6wh Recovery and B/down trucks 

Bedford MWC Water tank trucks 50277 - 50291

Canadian Ford FGT gun tractors 50293 - 50302

Dodge 3 ton GS 

Dyson  Sound ? Locator 

The Aust. made GM-H Chevrolet cabs are unique , they are fitted with quarter vent door windows and the kick out rectangular vent panels each side of the cowl.. 

Japanese POWs with a Nissan or Toyota truck.

Few more pics of MCP vehicles and other stuff. The Aust. army had a policy of only taking Ford and Chevrolet vehicles overseas, this was in order to reduce the maintenance and spare parts problem.  A number of the Aust. army's vehicles were lost in the Greece debacle and more were lost in Malaya.  

On 8/21/2023 at 8:13 AM, Chris Suslowicz said:

The oblong frames behind the set are probably intended for the previous set, a W.S.No.11 and would have held a pair of 250V primary battery boxes for the receiver. (Roughly the same as the W.S.18 Static Battery Box.) See Ron Pier's restoration for the WS11 version. (Also, the WS11 didn't have a carrier, I think, so the individual cases would have been bolted to the table.)

Chris. 

Hi Chris

Not sure if you refer to the main carrier for the 11 set . The W.S 11 manual does have a carrier No. 1 listed. ZA9297. I do have one, it's a multi-part carrier that screws together. You can adjust the length of the carrier to accommodate the location of the Power Supply L.P No. 1  to either on top of or beside the set. 

Hi 

The Australian Guy Quads .  I found these newspaper snippets and adverts . I am not sure about how these arrived in Aust. , not directly from Europe, but more likely they were issued to Australian units in the Middle East and then shipped to Aust. with the returning Aust. units. I have not found any Guy Quads listed in the Aust. army registration books , the AWM 126 vehicle ledgers are available online. https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1424610

By 1944, the army here had standardized on CMP and US type vehicles . The British W.D. type vehicles that were held in vehicle parks were deemed to be Non-Standard and some of these were released for sale to essential users as early as Nov. 1944 . The essential users were: primarily farmers and bush fire brigades. The bush fire brigades were allocated some of the 15 cwt Ford WOT2 and Morris CS8 and Bedford MW vehicles.

I found a newspaper pic. dated Feb. 1945 , a Guy Quad being used on a farm near Temora NSW. The West.Aust newspaper article is misleading as I've never heard of any of the Guy Quads being found over there, all of the survivors have been found in NSW or Victoria.

 A number of these arrived in Australia as 'refugee cargo' . Refugee cargo was equipment destined for the Dutch East Indies or British controlled ports such as Singapore , the Japanese had overrun these places, the ships at sea were diverted to Australia . Some of the Austins were issued to Aust. Army Ambulance Company units that were based in Melbourne ,Victoria  and other locations i.e. N.S.W.

The pic is of a K2/Y that was used around Melbourne by the 3rd Aust. Ambulance Car Company, it appears to have retained it's British number.

I found a list of reg. numbers of vehicles issued to the 2nd Aust. Amb. Transport Company (based in NSW) in 1942.   

Interesting, the Austins are referred to as 'Indian type' this was the official Australian army nomenclature for this type vehicle. The Aust. army had many MCP type Ambulances, mostly Ford and Chevrolet and some Dodge and International   'Indian Pattern' .

The red annotations refer to the disposals purchaser . 'Larke Hoskins' would have been a Austin car dealership in NSW.  One K2/Y was sold to the Sydney Metropolitan Sewerage Drainage Board . The Disposals Commission had a policy of offering the surplus trucks to the various Government Departments, then next in line were the original manufacturer or their agents in Australia, then last in line , the public. Some disposals 'open' auctions were held in remote locations but the buyers had to transport the vehicles a long distance. 

Newspaper advert from a Melbourne soft drink business 1948. Travelling draper business for sale.

Post-war scene in South Aust. possibly the Woomera rocket range.

A surviving wreck that was found in NSW. 

3 hours ago, fv1609 said:

Goanna thanks for posting those links to the Humbers/Commers at first I was confused by this "Humber trucks in Armoured Personnel Carrier role" then it was explained by the next photo "Humber 1 ton trucks were a short term replacement for ageing White Scout Cars"

So I wonder what replaced the Humbers/Commers for the APC role?

Hi Clive

Not sure. Just a guess. Maybe that particular unit were issued with Saracens after the regular full time army changed over to M113s in 1964. 

The part time CMF tended to be issued with older equipment like the WW2 era US6 Studebakers which were still in service in the 1960s . 

In Australia with the Citizens Military Force (CMF) part time army .  Wireless set is a W.S. 62 mk2 made by PYE Victoria in 1955/56 a obsolete WW2 set put into production again.

More pics

https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/5b7221f421ea670f609a25d4

https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/5e5483c921ea671378c52351

https://victoriancollections.net.au/items/5e5481bd21ea671378bf1c30

Pic 1 is a Malaya scene.

Grant tanks in Western Australia

Pic 1 is a 1940 Chev 15 cwt GS Van . 

Pic 1 1940 Chevy staff car. 

Pic 4 Japanese staff car 

Pic 6 is a CMP 8 cwt 

Pic 1 is a 1940 Chev 12 cwt GS Van, based on the sedan chassis. Body is by GM-H

Pic 2 is three 1941 GMC MCP trucks 

Pic 3 is a 1940 Chevy staff car and a haul of mushrooms

Pic 4 and 5 is a scene in Malaya. 

These are 1941 12 cwt Ford GS Vans or 'utes'