gritineye

Thanks Jack, ....this is me clicking the like button..:-D

Can we have a LIKE button as per YouTube/Facebook ? If something makes me smile or I just like it, but have nothing to add, some times I just want to let a poster know without having to post some inane comment. Does anyone else want one?

Can you put up a picture of your coupling? There have been a few variations, some seem to have loose rubbers retained by plates, these should be easy to cast. I have cast two couplings for my explorer, it is not as hard as you might think...

My Scammell Explorer is one of six supplied to the FVRDE under contract no 9870 in 1953, and possibly the last one to be sold off in 1993...unless someone knows of one cast later. It has many small features not found on other Explorers, I think two others confirmed and another possible still exist.

Good question Niels, my take on why the engine is like that is because it is a variant of an engine built for commercial vehicle uses, which would include buses and forward control cabbed trucks, tracked armour was probably not uppermost in the designers mind, but it works well in this case. In this application the engine is fitted back to front, clutch to the front of the vehicle. But when fitted the normal way round in a left hand drive bus/truck, being canted over to the right would make more room for the driver. As the ancillaries could be placed on the other side no access for maintenance is needed in the drivers seat area, if the starter wasn't moved it may have been got at from underneath. Makes sense to me but I may be wrong.

Those holes appear to be blast or ordnance damage maybe due to time spent on ranges, other wheels have been obtained to replace them. You may have noticed the square grooves in the rims, these where filled with narrow strips of rubber before the main tyre was wound on, the heat treatment bonds it all together. As an aside, there was a set of steam roller wheels there that had rubber tyres put on them, a new trend which makes for a much safer and comfortable ride on the road, and a set of Foden wagon ones as well. Rear rolls Front rolls, on the left Wagon wheels

Depends what you call expensive, it is a very labour intensive power hungry process, but this makes it relatively easy to do one off jobs as no moulds are needed, and you can specify exactly what you want. Put it this way, I'm happy to be just posting on this restoration, and not paying for it! :sweat:

It certainly is possible to re-tread the wheels and top rollers Andy, and this is the result, collected today.. The rubber is built up on the shot blasted wheel rim by winding on a strip of the right width, until just above the desired finished height. It is then cured in a steam oven to vulcanize it all together. The final shape is then formed in a lathe. Any size that will fit on this lathe can be done, this is the hind wheel off a traction engine. A nice LandRover full :-)

Bit of a cheat really Clive, as I have the unfair advantage of having spent many hours of my yoof sitting bored on Polegate Station where a huge number of wagons where being dismantled, so the image was still lurking there in my mind waiting for just that moment...:-D

On Railway goods vans/wagons on side loading doors perhaps?

I have a Clarke 205TE, it's very good but a lot more than you want to spend, the spot timer went wrong but Machine Mart fixed at their in house repair facility no quibble.

As there are no actual colours shown, are they raised markings for tactile identification of contents, as in the blackout?

Very interesting! Does this mean you will need an even bigger cup now?

I thought the program really brought home just how much guts it must have taken to dig those tunnels. They would have known the danger of a cave-ins before starting and sand must have been constantly trickling in through the gaps, even in the good parts. As to their attempts to dig into Harry, I wonder if Channel 4 insisted on that for dramatic effect, as it was doomed to failure given todays 'self and hasty' regs. A better idea would have been to push a small tube in from the shaft and put a camera in, they could have afforded a few misses that way.

OOPPSS! just noticed Jack already posted about this...:embarrassed:

Tonight Channel 4 at 9pm http://www.radiotimes.com/episode/ns72y/digging-the-great-escape

Something went wrong...

See what I mean, that hand is morphing into something unworldly.......just look at those eyes! :shake:

Whatever scary thing is under there the guy nearest the camera ain't about to put his hand in there again, look what happened to it last time he did!

Thanks for that, very useful..:thumbsup:

Sorry to tell you this, but it's going to be broken for spares to keep another one going..:cry:

Third was getting the gear and winch levers mixed up!

Sorry, not trying to hijack this great thread, but loads of Scammells have played on Slab over the years Paul, and it's great fun, but I suspect that for most, once is enough as you may find out! The amount of sand that gets in every where can do a lot of damage, and Scammell swivel seals, brake linkages, drums and shoes ain't cheap or easy to get at!

The woodwork on my boxes was like yours at first, could never get paint to stick on the dry grey bits until I found Owatrol Oil. Stripped it all back and put a couple of coats of it on under the paint couple of years ago, and nothings peeling yet. read the description here for more info. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OWATROL-OIL-500ml-PAINT-CONDITONER-RUST-INHIBITOR-/180459921603#vi-content

Doesn't look too bad really, mostly all there, does it run? Have fun!