corporalholmes

Well I just sent green machine surplus an email to see if they have any manuals or information for the gearboxes, might give some guys I work with a challenge as I think their brains are turning to mush from just doing services

I was meaning the petrol gearboxes, I wonder how hard it would be to chase up the parts you need to rebuild one, seeing as I work with a bunch of fitters, I could try and chase up a service manual for one and with a bit of beer get one rebuilt for a fraction of the cost

Very true, very true, is there anyway of strengthening the gearboxes in them at all, and how hard is it to chase up one of those?

I have been chatting with Terry about buying his Spartan, it's ex Belgian and he wants about 15k for it, I'm in two minds as I'm in Australia the exchange rate works out that I'll need to add about 1/3 the price, so I was thinking whether another option would be to buy an engine and a refurb Spartan and tick along with it myself,as I work with a bunch of heavy vehicle fitters, but getting parts in Oz would be hard. Apparently Withams does have a Spartan in the current tender but it will need to be refurbed, they don't have a reserve but are expecting it to fetch more than the scrap price (which is supposed to be 3k), they do have 6-7 Spartans in the next tender that will also require refurb. I had thought about buying the J60 that had been refurbed to A1 but I wouldn't know where to store it until the export paperwork gets sorted, even worse for a Spartan as Withams charges £28 a day storage fees. I do plan on driving it whilst I have it much like a collector drives a muscle car on Sundays, so I'm not looking for pristine condition, but I would at least like to not blow up the engine or gearbox because it can't handle the ambient temperature, as the only time it rains here is when there is a cyclone and the rain comes in sideways

On the upgrade front, I notice that some CVRT's had headlights that hung down and others that sit upright, when did that change happen, and were there any other subtle changes

I wasn't exactly thinking of getting repaircraft to do the conversion, I had never heard of a S2000 conversion before as opposed to a Cummins though, and from what that little ad read it that particular engine work be a better fit as they mentioned that it was smaller than the J60, so no bulkhead conversion and use the same gearbox as the J60. The only reason I was considering a diesel conversion was because all the forums I have read have mentioned that the J60's seem to have a cooling system weak point and as I live in an area where it can get up to 50 degrees I don't know how it would handle it, the fuel consumption side of things is less of an issue I was just curious. My apologies if it sounds like i'm asking really basic questions but I'm only learning about these and if you don't ask you don't learn, and everyone here knows alot and has had alot of experience with cvrt's and I'm just trying to find out what people had tried and basically before I lay my cash down and ship one over I just want to make sure that I'm paying a reasonable price and that considering that I live on the other side of the world chasing up spares won't be as easy as it may be for you guys.

I typed 'cvrt' into the search and read through 20 pages of info for anything that would pertain to a Spartan, and i have a few questions, what would be a good price to pay for a Spartan at the moment, knowing that I will be driving it so it doesn't quite need to be in show condition, there is no way I'm paying the £25,000 that Jacksons wants In regards to upgrades, as we have already discussed I should look for Messies or atleast buy some and fit them to the Spartan that I do buy if they aren't already fitted, I've read alot that the J60's have a very bad habit of having cooling problems, as I live in an arid environment what are my options for making sure it doesn't die prematurely. has anyone heard anything about this, http://www.scorpiontank.co.uk/PDFs/Upgrade%20Menu/S%202000%20(Militarised)%20High%20Speed%20Diesel%20Engine%20(8%20November%202011).pdf and whether anyone has actually done it and had any success. In regards to searching the forums I'm double checking that all the info is still current and that it hasn't changed at all

Howdy Chris, I think I spoke to the person with the diesel Spartan and they were wanting a tiny bit more than I could afford, I have noticed that the price for a Spartan is quite varied, if the MoD has taken the stance of cutting up all the surplus cvrts does that mean that majority of the ones in private hands are/were Belgian?, and would the practice of scrapping the cvrts change any time soon?

Thank you fro your reply Timbo, So basically I'll need to look for a Spartan fitted with Messies rather than Armstrongs, is there anything else I should be mindful of when purchasing one, as basically as I'm looking to export it to Oz I'd like to acquire one that would have a few improvements that they bought in, rather than retro fit them

Howdy again, Just out of curiosity does anyone know where I could find out more about the CVRT upgrade program, as in what exactly upgraded, for instance I was under the impression that messier dampers were the torsion bars that the cvrt's were upgraded to, but now i'm hearing about armstrong ones, where do they fit in in regards to the program, did the Belgians also upgrade their cvrt's before offloading them to the private market. And has anyone changed the original head on the j60 to the straight port head?, how does the transmission handle it and has anyone notice much of a power and fuel economy increase? Are the diesel Spartans still as rare as hens teeth

Pm sent, I've never shipped anything in my life so this is all new to me, but it's good to find out this sort of stuff in the early stages

That's an option too, maybe I could sell the container to Fremantle to one of the shipping companies, how much do containers cost in the UK?

Good to know about the wilthams thing as I might need to get spares from them, in regards to the container I think I might have to go the RoRo option due to the fact that I'll need to get it off the boat the get it to the engineers to go over it before I take it to get registered and don't really know what to do with the container in the meantime and considering I like 1600kms from wher the engineer is I think I may have trouble getting the container unloaded at my joint as I live rather remote, I have a friend that might be able to throw it on a trailer and drive to to my joint as is

I'm starting to like Jackson's less and less, is it common knowledge that you can get an extra high 20' container, or are Jackson's just rip off merchants, can anyone recommend a service manual for a spartan, I've seen this (http://www.ekmpowershop5.com/ekmps/shops/greenmachines/cvrtall-variantsuser-handbook2nd-editioncvrt-164-p.asp) and am wondering if it will have normal service manual stuff ie, sequence of pulling stuff apart and putting it together again, bolt torque settings, what oils and greases to use etc. Also a manual for the electrics, with wiring diagrams etc

Will a Spartan fit inside a 20' container, as Jacksons said that I would need to use a 40' high cube as the Spartan was too high for a 20' and it was only the 40' that came in the extra high version