Minesweeper

Yes - that would be acceptable to me! You can buy all of these easily and cheaply in the USA on USA EBay - but the killer is the postage - then VAT and Import Duty when they arrive in this country. The best way to do it is to find someone going to the States on holiday - or on business and get them to pop into a hardware store - buy them there and bring them back in their ordinary luggage. Put them in a suitcase with just ordinary stuff. Any big store - equivalent of B and Q or Wickes will have them on the shelf there! Tony

1/2"Whit and 1/2" UNC are one TPI different! Below 1/2", they are the same TPI! Tony

What a super picture! The lorry being lifted appears to be a Thornycroft "J" Type - our next project! Tony

Perhaps I can just tell you what we did on our three military lorries for I do not know of anybody who has found a precise formula for the exact colour used by either the USA or the WD. I think that you have already "spoken" to Richard P. who probably knows more about this than anybody else. Roy Larkin who will read this also has copious records of things and might be able to help. Richard will correct me if I am wrong, but I think that when he restored the Thornycroft J belonging to the IWM,some years ago, he found traces of the original paint on it which was then "analysed" by a Paint Company who were then able to reproduce it. This was given a code number and was named after Richard but described as "brown" when we would have called it "green"! We ordered this paint from that Company and used it on the military Autocar. This was some years after Richard had used it but the formula was still in the records of that Paint Company and they were able to readily find it and supply the paint to us. The paint was fine but I never enjoyed dealing with the branch of the supplying company in Taunton - I found them "negative" and unhelpful and I had no wish to deal with them further after that experience. When it was time to paint the FWD, that was the third truck that we completed but the second military one, we spoke again to Richard about the colour for this as it was American and probably different from the British colour and we came to the conclusion that it probably was not a lot different from the WD colour - so we ordered paint of the same colour again but from a different manufacturer. That worked out well and we were pleased with the result. Now when it came to the Dennis, we went back to the Paint Company that supplied the paint for the FWD. They had no trouble in identifying the earlier formula, but whilst I ordered many litres of "satin" paint - all supplied in one litre tins, I subsequently found that the paint that they sent was a gloss paint and really quite unsuitable for a military lorry. By that time, this paint company had gone out of business so that there was no recourse. Then faced with buying yet more paint for the Dennis, I painted a piece of steel, about 3 inches square with the gloss paint and passed it to yet another company who were able to analyse the constituents of the gloss paint and supply it with a satin finish. The colour match was excellent but we have covered in previous postings that we have found that satin paint is not as resilient to knocks as a gloss paint. If our three lorries look to be in different colours then it is only through fading over the years since they have been completed. If it would be of any help to you, then I shall be very happy to paint another piece of steel and mail it to you so that you can get it analysed by a Paint company close to you! Tony

Thanks, Jim - those are very kind and generous remarks. The three of us are all self-taught amateurs and when we talk amongst ourselves about the kind of information that we have put up on the forum, we do wonder if we are going too far and boring people with trivialities. We remain truly amazed that the number of "hits" on the Dennis thread has advanced so quickly and by so much and is now approaching the 200,000 mark so I guess that there must be a fairly wide interest in the story. We plan to continue the Thorny story in exactly the same way - unless Forum members say that they have had enough! Tony

A wonderful job! Congratulations to all those involved. Tony

Well, our limited "Rally Season" is now over and it is time to take stock of what has happened and to learn from our experiences! The Dennis has again not been too easy to start, but the stronger members of the team have managed to continually crank the engine instead of just doing a quarter of a turn with the starting handle which was sufficient in the early days to get it to fire - and that has helped - although all of us now realise that we are not as strong as either we think we are - or as we used to be! At the final Rally, the engine was left either just ticking over or running very slowly on the field for long periods - and after such engine running, it has been very reluctant to start. Cleaning the Plugs immediately remedied that after such running - although the plugs did not look particularly oily or dirty. We hope to have an Impulse Starter to fit very shortly. These last few days, we have been finishing off the floor and also the bows and beams carrying the body canvas and there are some pictures to follow. Our main worry now is the Radiator - both top and bottom tanks have proved to be very porous and new ones will have to be made. A friend, Mike S - who is a very experienced old vehicle restorer said in the early days that it is a waste of time trying to repair aluminium radiator tanks - and we now find that he was totally corect. Very disappointing after all the time and effort spent in trying to seal them. We will post some photographs later just showing how bad they are. Just a final thank you to everyone who has shown interest in our activities and for all the helpful advice proffered during the restoration. We look forward to moving on with the Thornycroft - although we stll do not have a Differential for it. Surely, there must be one somewhere - perhaps down under? Tony

We took all our trucks to the Honiton Hill rally today: We will be there again with them tomorrow. This is the first time that we have managed to photograph all four of them together.

Spot on, Barry! I thought it was just our workmanship and we were wondering how to fix that ! A difficult one to cure. I guess it is just one of those weaknesses in the design. Tony

And me! Tony

I have found my pictures of the Mack - Tim will put them up! Tony

There is a Mack in the Berliet Collection in France - I have a picture somewhere! Tony

Steve is the best person to comment on the ali shroud casting as a potential pattern - perhaps, too with some input and advice from Gordon - but the side ali radiator castings on the Dennis were done that way. I repaired one of the very rotten originals as best I could for a pattern and added a bit of 1/4" - may have been 3/8" plywood on top and bottom to allow for vertical shrinkage. the horizontal dimension did not matter - and that worked very well. The only thing that I would say is that the shroud is in very poor condition with quite a lot missing and is very brittle. Tony

The penny has finally dropped! The mystery bit of 1/4" steel bar mentioned in note 57 above is a locking pin. It was designed to screw down on top of the Gland Nut to stop that from turning. The instruction on the brass label on the pump has given the game away as it says the locking pin must be released before tightening or looseneing the Gland Nut! Tony

This subject has been covered pretty well - except - as far as I can see for the over 70's! When you become 70, certain legal regulations kick in as to what ordinary commercial vehicles you can drive - by weight limitation. I understand that if you have a medical examination and the Doctor says that you are still fit then you can carry on driving the vehicles that you have always driven. I have not had such an examination - but does that restriction apply to pre-1960 preserved vehicles of perhaps maximum 5 tons unladen weight - or would I have to go through all that rigmarole? Tony

The pictures were taken in the area of Arthur, Illinois which is the home of many Amish people! Tony

I have been talking to a retired "Spring Maker" over here in the USA and he says "Piece of cake!" Just anneal the broken end of the spring to dull red heat and bend it around the end of a drill of the required diameter when the end of the spring has cooled! Sounds easy - and probably is for him! Tony

I put something on the Dennis Link a month or two ago - "Meant to be" - is this another example of that? Tony

All very difficult to sort out and organise - you would need to have categories or classes!

I mentioned earlier that I was issued with one when I joined up for my National Service in 1959. The only times that I can remember using it was when I was transferred from an Infantry Regiment into a Corps and I had to sew on the new shoulder flashes on my BDs and then subsequently different Formation and Command Badges as I moved around. In those days, you were issued with three pairs of socks - heavyweight grey ones - and mine lasted right through my two years service without being "holed". However, after just the first week in the army, I remember a guy in my barrack room showing his new socks with already enormous holes in the toes and he was busy with his "hussuff" darning them up. He was laughing at the time and said - "I am always heavy on socks". I think that he must have had pointed toes!

I had one issued to me in 1959 - it was khaki in colour and was allowed to keep it on de-mob. Mine was still fairly complete on the completion of my National Service - foolishly, I gave it to my mother who quickly used the contents and the container was "lost". I still have the hold-all for my washing kit which I used regularly until a couple of years ago whenever I was travelling away from home - but my wife dislikes it and bought another posher version for me. Really, I still prefer my Army one and rather enjoyed seeing my Army Number written inside whenever I opened it after 50 years!

What's a Fordson 7v?

Just to add to that - really about Museums which I think was something that Tim started - and I think that he was looking a long way ahead! At least, I hope he was. Museums can be wonderful - but as soon as you part with something, you lose control of it. Some years ago, a very friendly museum - good friends always and still are - were short of two particular wheels. We had two spares and were very happy to give them to them. On our two wheels were very good solid tyres and the deal was that they would take the tyres off and return them to us as they had new tyres which they were going to fit to the wheels that we gave to them. After a period,we enquired about our tyres, only to learn - "Oh sorry, we didn't know that you wanted them back and we had to cut them to get them off............." Original good solid tyres are hard to come by and we were very upset about it - so it does make you think twice. Barry (Asciidv) may want to add to this from a recent experience that he encountered - but I leave that to him! I guess that one problem that you might encounter in dealing with them is that there is often a change in management/personnel over a period and any successor may not know what their predecessors agreed - especially if no written agreement is made. Tony

Never fear - nothing is going to leave us! The immediate plan is to do the Thorny engine as we can cope with that and the existing lorries in the present accommodation! We have talked about Steve building some kind of shed at his place which will be big enough to take the FWD - that is much shorter than the Dennis or the Thorny - so that might be on. Our friend Roly has identified some good storage near him and that could be on - but there is no immediate need to rush for that. We certainly do not intend to part with any of them! Tony

Well, that did make me laugh, Roy! We have certainly found out that every job seems to have taken a lot longer that we anticipated that it would. We still have some final jobs to finish on the Dennis, but the pressure has been "off" with the "Brighton" out of the way, so we have been relaxing and doing other things. The next run will be to the "Honiton Hill" Rally in August and that will probably be it for the year. As you will have guessed, our minds have been working on the next project - which will be the Thornycroft "J". We still do not have a "diff" for it and that is the worry. But we shall "crack on", nevertheless in the hope that one will turn up as it did for the Dennis. We thought that we would do the engine on this one first as that is already in the Lorry Shed - so it will not be the case of trying to find more room for another chasis initially. One of the lorries in there when we get to that stage will have to be found another home! Tony