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goanna

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Posts posted by goanna

    Bedford MW's in service gallery

    in British Vehicles

    Posted · Edited by goanna

    Anyone read the January issue of CMV? It features an article on the Bedford MW. I´d like to know if it is worth buying this back issue. Just asking because some of the articles are 2 pages of well known info plus three pics.

     

    Thanks,

    Hanno

     

    Hanno

     

    I often peruse the magazine stand at the newsagents here . CMV is around $14 here ..thats around three times the price of it in the UK in terms of buying power. I rarely buy it as the articles on WW2 B range vehicles are generally very poorly written or researched. In some cases, we know a lot more than the authors do. The Morris PU article in one of the early numbers is a case in point and was full of errors and the author even claimed that they are 'common' with many of them around. With around 30-40 survivors known out of approx. 12,000 built .. now how did he work that one out !

     

    The other problem is photos with incorrect captions , vehicles with the wrong ID ... you'd think they would know whats what. I normally stand at the newsagents and read it , then put it back !

     

    Mike in Australia

    Scrap yards

    in MV Chatter

    Posted

    Interesting topic . I was around in the 70's as a MV enthusiast and nearly all of the larger yards I knew then are long gone . Many of them ended up as sold for scrap , in some cases the family involved ( owners ) just couldnt be bothered and they called in the crushers. Each is a different case and you cannot generalize. In some cases the land was worth more than the vehicles, and as towns grew and expanded , the yard owners sold out because the offer from land developers was just too tempting. And many of the owners were getting on in years , without a family member willing to keep the yard going - the scrap dealers were called in.

     

    I know of one yard which held , among its treasures , a Morris 2 pounder portee , a Marmon Herrington gun tractor and a WOT6 Fordson ..all were scrapped because the eldery alcoholic owner was senile and unapproachable ...he would be likely to curse you or pull out a gun .

     

    Mike

    Morris CS8

    in Blogs of MV restorations

    Posted · Edited by goanna

    jules

     

    Normally , the numbers stamped into the rear near side spring mount are broken down into three :they are usually stamped as 3 seperate

     

    1.sanction number ..this is sort of a MCC internal method of tracking batches .

     

    2.CS8 self explains itself

     

    3. the last number is the actual chassis number , beginning with 1 .. around 1935 ..up to around 21, 000 in 1941 .

     

    Your number doesn't make sense , the last digits eg, 15163 mean it is the 15163th vehicle to be built .

     

    Sanction number 1802 is for : CS8/mk3 .. this taken from the 1940 MCC repair aids for service vehicles .

     

    Your 058 ..is actually a badly stamped CS8 .

     

    So you actually have: sanction 1802 model CS8 chassis number 15163

     

    Got it ?

     

    BTW I've a few chassis numbers listed here: http://www.geocities.com/vk3cz/CS8numbers.html

     

    Mike

    What have you been flying in?

    in Aviation

    Posted

    A ex WW2 US army air corps Fairchild spotter / recon aircraft . Single radial motor , high wing configuration . It had local history: used in SWPA in WW2 and then civil registered post WW2 .

     

    I saw P51 with civil reg. VH IVI at a airshow in 1970.. sadly it crashed a short time later . At the same show they had a civilian owned ANSON flying ..it had been re-engined and modernised with a metal main wing spa. They organised a pylon race around the field and the poor ANSON was miles behind the other modern types .. it was on a regular freight run to the Bass Strait Islands ...Brain and Brown the Company .

    Morris C8 chat

    in British Vehicles

    Posted

    Mike, it would be nice to see a photo of that CS8 in the Museum, if it is original ?

     

    Cheers

     

    Jules

     

    I hope to visit the museum one day and take many pics, and draw many drawings and measure everything on it .Its a late production CS8 with full cab and doors etc... these would be rare in the UK I would imagine ? It is over 200 miles Nth ...up on the Murray River border with NSW . We have had hot days for a while ... many over 100F .

    Mike

    Morris C8 chat

    in British Vehicles

    Posted

    It seems to have a large following in Oz, I dont know if a large number were transported there.

     

    hi Rick

     

    Well thats probably a understandable mis-read of the situation here . As far as I know I'm the only person in the whole country into military MCC's ... in a serious way . I know of a chap in Wagga with a very rough incomplete CS8 ..he intends to restore it , but he hasn't done anything with it . A guy in Brisbane has a CS8 ..in a million bits without a motor .

     

    In 32 years of MV collecting ..I've only ever seen one MCC military vehicle at a rally here , back in 1985, a club member brought along his amazing SHED FIND CS8...to a airshow , it was later sold to a museum here and still sits there to this day . Its complete and unrestored as is ... this car is an exception as they are normally found as wrecks beyond help .

     

    I'm on my own, as far as research, collecting bits and so on goes. The more 'exotic' makes such as MCC dont attract much attention here in the MV scene ...

    Mike

    POMMIE vehicles down under

    in British Vehicles

    Posted · Edited by goanna

    I have heard that the Ford WOT2 vehicles in Australia were destined for Singapore from England, but were diverted to Oz after the Japanese attack. Anybody any proof of this story?

     

    Well yes ,

     

    I've done a little research and the diverted vehicles are normally refered to as ' refugee ' cargo. Some of the Dutch NEI vehicles were diverted also eg the little Dutch Marmon Herrington tanks .

     

    This topic surrounds a whole story on its own covering US Dutch and British vehicles . It's complicated and not easy to fathom. Some vehicles did arrive direct from the UK .. the AWM records show for example that Matilda tanks were shipped directly to Australia . I've got a feeling that some soft skins were shipped directly also . Towards the wars end .. there was a big build up of equipment ..getting ready for the invasion of Japan ...and I think that some vehicles arrived then.

     

    Most of the CS8's here are late production with the later cab and full windscreen , 1941 production maybe ? ... just before the Japsanese war . My thoughts are these maybe are cargo diverted from Malaya ... Some of them have Z numbers on the bonnets

     

    this site has much info..but takes hours to find relevant info

     

    http://www.awm.gov.au/diaries/ww2/

    POMMIE vehicles down under

    in British Vehicles

    Posted

    Just a brief rundown of the types I've seen down here over 32 years ...

     

    The tillies

     

    Standard : the most numerous variant with about 70-80 being sold to civilians around 1946 .. these were apparently late WW2 imports that were never issued to the army here .. disposed off very quickly. At least one ( in restored cond.) has been repatriated back to the UK

     

    The other tillie variants are very rare . A Melbourne company had a fleet of Morris' , but only two or three have ever turned up .. beyond help . One is under restoration in West. Aust. I've heard of only one Austin ... a wreck beyond help. Never seen or heard of a Hillman .

     

    8 cwts : 3 - 4 Morris Commerical PU's . Only one is relatively complete .. never seen or heard of a Humber or other makes .

     

    15 cwts: Not common today , but probably 400-500 arrived here . MW - CS8 and WOT2's . The Bedford seems to be less common than the other two makes . A few restored WOT's around ..but nil Morris or Bedford .

     

    3 tonners . a mixture of Ql's, Fordson and the odd Crossley etc. I know of 2 restored Ql's . Again, not common .

     

    A batch of MCC C8 2 pounder portees .. these were the unmodified ones ..not converted to tractors ... 5-6 have been found .

     

    Its the land of CMP's here.. ubiquitous things that seem to multiply .

    Mike

    GUY 'quad' in the outback

    in British Vehicles

    Posted

    I've seen two others here . The restored one in the link was a one owner .. spent its life on a remote property and was looked after ... not abused . They usually had the body chop treatment and a crane fitted . Being cable brakes and very underpowered .. The good thing was the winch = they would have ended up in the timber industry or as a yard crane . They were only ever used in training roles here, I think the army considered them to be obsolete .

    Mike

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