Cold_War_Collection

Well, Into her final assembly bay now, turret and front drivers hatch now on, engine should be here in a few days as well! Cheers Nick CWC Canada

Final Hull Paint before assy. really makes the siliver stand out! Cheers Nick CWC Canada

nice "save"! I'm sure you will do it justice with the resto / refresh. We use the electronic Ign. on our 2/3, and all the wires are hidden, so no one can tell its there, but it gives us a good spot on and hot spark, which we find has improved run-ability, so if you are considering the mod, we have found it worthwhile. Cheers Nick CWC Canada

Hull masked and ready for paint !! this is such a great day :-) its been a long winter to get to this point

Good Morning ! We are trying to contact Bob Grundy, if anyone can pass this along? Many Thanks Nick CWC Canada

Well, not having a military vehicle for some time now has been ok, as I work on a fleet of them as my day job, but sometimes, you get lured back into ownership! Unlike the big projects, such as our Saracen and Stolly, I have always sought out lighter and smaller, particularly the two-wheeled variety... so, here she is, new to me Canadian MT-500!, serial # 053 of 85. I have included a shot of a TRW that I restored back in the mid 90's, now sold, she is in Toronto, Ont.

I see then that you are not from Canada :-)...being an ex-Helo driver here, I thankfully spent my time on Chinook's and Twin Huey's... Our sea kings....well....lets just say that the UK version is an entirely different bird (one that has had actual refits!). Case in point, I was stationed at St Hubert (South of Montreal) in the early-90's, and we had two land that were heading to the west cost. One had a hot start, and so they both stayed for a while, and I had a chance to check out the bird (I was Tac Hel) they were naval...so had to see how the other half lived. Two things struck me; 1) upon landing, I was the officer in charge of the flight line that day, so, once they powered down, I went out to sort them for billets etc. The Flight Engineer had a stack of empty plastic butter containers, that he was busy placing on the decking....this was to catch all the "regular" hyd. oil leaks.....fun ! (he had a dozen of them...) 2) while getting a tour of the SK, i went forward past the Nav / ASW station, noting that the panel had RCN stamped on it....The Royal Canadain Navy was unified with the rest of the CF, almost 30 years before....this was the state of the art Nav panel..... oh, and we are still flying them, with no replacement in sight, the crews deserve a medal for just turning rotors I think ah..the old days :-) Cheers Nick (10 TAG, ret.) CWC Canada

Vac lines, The accumulator, (two barbs and a check valve) and note the two steel green (and dirty) lines on the engine, these feed back to the Carb intake horn cheers Nick

Drivers station and batt tray. and I'll see if i can get a picture of the vac tank barb close up cheers Nick

Hi Matt, We have a nice complete Mk 2/3 here , so if you need any pictures taken of details that escape you, please let us know, and I will post them up for you. THE ONLY saving grace for us is that we photograph everything in strip downs, and keep "field notes" and drawings, we'd never get it back if we didn't, thats certain! Cheers Nick CWC Canada

New front wings added! nice to work with new steel. Drilled lots of holes, thankfully in the right spots :-)

many thanks everyone for the great feedback! Nick

Hi All, I'm looking into drilling some holes to replace broken studs on the hull of our Saracen. Does anyone know what the Rc of the steel is? and what drill type would be suffcient to use. We have a dozen or so holes to drill. I could use a .300 Win Mag...but I do need to have the holes spot on :-) Many thanks Nick CWC Canada

I think I get those neat surguical slippers :-)

Driver seat base, controls and decking going in !

more pics. Repro Boxes and fenders; Basically, we re-used the front of the box, and the doors, and fabricated the rest, as they were badly rusted out. Fenders once blasted showed too many pin holes to patch....so, new ones made off the old patterns.

Center Bevel Box Detail; note the Mk. 3 difference. Sliding shaft on the Box side that lines up with the output shafts on the Transfer case. The steel collars are two haves, and once installed on the Bevel Box shaft, keep the splines engaged. cheers Nick CWC Canada

Found it....there is a bolt above the shaft, it was torqued waaayyy down, once backed off a bit, the shaft rotated. whew....I didn't want to think about pulling that gearbox out again!

OK, NOS gearbox is in, and hooked up....but...when applying pressure on the pedal, the shaft on the gearbox will not move, at all. are these MOD rebuilds stored with a locking pin or something? cheers and thanks Nick CWC Canada

Hi there! glad you joined in, as there are lots of us here who share your passion. I had a '57 TRW that I fully restored in 1997, here is a recent picture for you ( I was pleased to find it on the web today actually, as I sold it in 2003 to fund other rebuilds, and I'm pleased to see that its as I had sold her) Our Collection is in Ottawa, if you are ever through this way. Cheers Nick

Gearbox in! big event for us, NOS gearbox and transfer case slid into position! cheers Nick CWC Canada

we had our Stolly out today so we could get the gearbox into the Saracen, here are some pics of her. cheers Nick CWC Canada

Yes, they did generally, the odd part with ours, is that it had a Mk 3 rear sliding roof installed, and it seemed to have been there during the up-armor process. during a previous partial strip down about 15 years ago, the roof was taken off, and lost ! but the pics are pretty clear that it came off the ship with the old roof in place strange, but true ! cheers nick

Hi All, Does anyone know if the forward rooftop sliding hatches on the ACV or Ambulance version of the Saracen, are the same as the rear? does it employ the same mechanism and design? as some can guess, we still are looking for a rear roof hatch, so after looking at a picture of an ACV range target, it looks like the roof hatches are at least close in size. as always, many thanks Nick CWC Canada

Richard, Thats really terrific work you are doing, and the process you mentioned will certainly help us. We have no source of the Trakmark here in Canada, and the sources in the UK, I have not been able to get a reply from, so we will end up using material that is as close as possible to the era, something you might find in a CVRT, same colour, but smooth. We figured what we would do is make cardboard templates on the hull, then transfer the hole pattern to the foam. Thanks for all the advice on the adhesives! Cheers Nick