Ashcollection

I have both a Diamond T wrecker and a series 5 Ward La France i think they are both ex Swiss, the Diamond T has larger cable reels on the twin boom and different lighting

ARRRR I hope the camper conversion suggestion was a joke! too many interesting vehicles get lost to that! Great Vehicle love to see it restored.

I've been after a Mk7 for ages, I've worked in the industry but haven't found one at a reasonable price yet, most have been overhauled and upgraded and shipped overseas, the Mk8's are still in service, and restricted.

arr the General public! god love'm haha

like I said Balls of steel! haha

Nick must have iron balls to drive at speed through crowded streets, pedestrians are "predictable" in their actions! and I don't care how well maintained the vehicle is, things can break, just the thought would scare the crap out of me, quite happy to rip round a field in anything on wheels or tracks but in a crowded area where 95% of the people don't even know what it is, or about safety. Each to their own but not for me.

The East of England tank museum one no longer exists and I guess the German range ones where all cleared recently.

Hi Richard, yes that sounds the same, on mine the driver is seated on the left, fuel and oil tanks on the right hand side, same as your friends?

very nice love those old Volvos. Here's a picture of the crane, bit off thread now but what the hell this is the type of crane the chap Dave Gudmundsen from Dingwall in Scotland said he had, the old boy has defiantly passed away, had that confirmed now. He only had a picture of the crane from a book on his forum page,not a picture of his actual crane, so i can't confirm if it exists or did he ever even have it. he was into Unimogs and Supacats mainly i believe.

There might be a third, on the American site Steel Soldiers i found a chap in Scotland who said he had bought one, unfortunately i couldn't get in touch with him, and when i asked people on the forum who had been in contact with him i found out he had passed away. link below to the forum post. http://www.steelsoldiers.com/showthread.php?16195-Another-kroctec-Ride he was a Unimog and supacat man from Dingwall Scotland, his posts where in 2007 so it might still exist. so far I haven't been able to track it down though.

Yes and he's probably the last man to actually use it.

Cheers that would be good, any information is handy. We are trying to get to the bottom of the production numbers for the Smith, everyone thinks it was 50, an old gentleman who worked for Smith says only 3, and another very knowledgeable gentleman has told me that 50 where ordered and only 12 actually produced. Any thoughts?

Yes worse than I was expecting, the wear on the end of the shaft and the broken off part looks like it had been broken for a long time, there were also pick up marks on the shaft and inside one of the pinions. There was a small rust patch in the outer sleeve, the rust could have caused the initial sticking of the piston then loaded the shaft up a lot more. the burring on the corners of the slot in the piston could have been caused by us recently when we jacked up the front and started working the steering from side to side to find the fault.

We have success! I've had the A team here this weekend, and now we have steering. The piston was seized due to being burred up because the mushroom head for want of a better description on the top of the pinion shaft that pushes the valve left and right had sheared off, the shortened rod had then ridden out of its slot in the piston and damaged the edge, thus jamming it in the outer sleeve. Once we had that all fixed and working lovely, just for comedy value the old girl decided to blow the hydraulic hose to the ram! luckily we had the bits to make a new one. NOTE to self-next job replace the other hoses.

Its Home, any info on in service use would be gratefully received

Hi yes, first place we started, we worked our way up to the steering valve attached above the steering box, stripped and cleaned everything we could and fitted pressure gauges between fittings. we have found the problem, its the shuttle valve in the steering control, its seized in center position, I think I've now found the information to strip it down without damaging the mechanical link between the valve and the column, i will update on here when we have had a look. thanks for the help everyone and fingers crossed!

And to the second question, yes he did, He passed away recently, I bought the T from his wife, she had some good stories, he sounded like a good old school heavy haulage man, shame I never had the chance to meet him.

Thank you John, I think I've tracked down some information, I will update our progress on here.

Hi Yes, we have a Crusader 5th wheel for it, and yes again we need the dimensions to make a sub frame to bolt between it and the chassis, your help would be appreciated.

My comment regarding keeping my new Diamond T in its civvy paint is because we own Peter Court's Constructor, we removed all jib and spade so we can convert back to a 5th wheel tractor. so gutted I did that!

Now the proud owner of the Blue and Red one, she's not so shiny now thoughwe are going to keep her in the current livery, I'm not going down the route of re-militarizing this time.

Basic answer: ( not relating to you picture) -you can never have too many, or in reality as many as you can get away with before your wife finds out!

We have a problem with the steering on our MK3 Antar, i.e we can't steer it, on jacks we can just manage it! We have been investigating and found that the shuttle valve in the hydraulic steering control is seized, we have take the two side covers off and can gently tap it back and forth, but its still too tight to work. how do we get it apart to fix it? I don't want to dive in without any information, has anybody got any service/ repair information on the steering column or an exploded drawing of it and the valve?

Yes cheers, found that link, the following ones are to a copy of the Clark catalog (page 7 ,top right) and the Air dispatch association, other than that, that's all I've found. http://service.clarkmhc.com/Spec_Sheets/Feature_Brochures/Clark%20Full%20Line%20Brochure%201962.pdf http://www.air-despatch.co.uk/index.htm

That sounds like the next size up, but its really hard to find any information, I've found a 1962 clark catalog, and the one that looks like it is a CR60 6000lb lift with a taller mast, this one is rated at 3200lb, special build to be air portable? the only evidence I've seen is of these in use in the far and middle east, maybe the 67 bought in 1963 mostly never came back? someone has trawled old Ruddington catalogs and only found the 6000lb rated trucks. The chap i bought it from said he bought it in the early 1980's and there where 6 or 7 of them in immaculate condition. I shall keep digging.