Minesweeper

I was there on Saturday,too - and sorry I didn't catch up with you Chris! I am also coming to the conclusion that it is a waste of time - I bought some electrical stuff and some thin cutting discs - but saw no treasures. A French Dealer had a WW1 P and H WD Sidelamp which was quite nice - still original green - but he wanted £110 for it - a nonsense. We have enough and the average price that we have paid for those is only £40 - and that's for a good one. But the trouble with saying that we will not go again is the fear that you might miss a treasure - so what do you do? Tony

Yes, it was very difficult to get the Thorny chassis to move. Our friend the Game Keeper had a nice new Land Rover and he said that when we were ready, he would just tow the chassis up to the road with it. Not a chance! The L/R slipped in all directions and would not move the chassis one inch. But the Recovery Lorry had a winch - and that did the job easily. As soon as we got the Thorny Chassis home, the end that had to be cut off was immediately welded back on - a nice job, so no lasting desecration there. It still awaits restoration but Tim will recount the rest of the tale and tell you of our progress with it over the years and what is to come next.............

Will look out for you! Tony

Remember going on Exercise to Normandy in June 1960 - 20 Land Rovers and Trailers and one RL (carrying fuel in Jerry Cans) crossed the Channel in RASC Landing Craft. We camped up in the grounds of a French Chateau near Granville. Dug holes for Thunder Boxes in a very pretty wood - but ground too hard and full of tree roots so just impossible to erect screens. Wonderful sitting there at Dawn, communing with nature in such pretty surroundings and passing the odd greeting to anybody passing by.........

I seem to remember them being made of hessian. Not very satisfactory- didn't last long. Tony

Yes, I shall be there on Saturday! Tony

Might take a bit longer than a week, but at least on the plus side we wont have to worry about leaking water. I found this advert in the April 7, 1917 Literary Digest. Sorry about the poor quality. It says: "After exhaustive tests - after the United States Army's experiences with trucks in Mexico - all the fifty one trucks sent with the motor truck regiment were FWD trucks. These were sent to Honolulu - two thousand miles from factory or service station - a reason for absolute assurance of dependability". It would seem quite likely that the underwater FWD is one of the 51 in this picture. A few days after this was published the US Army declared war on Germany. FWD production was then diverted to the European theatre Tim (too)

Wowww. Wht a picture. There are several people who were looking for FWD parts to complete restorations. Never once did i think of suggesting Oahu. I have an advert from FWD somewhere which talks about a number of FWD's going to Hawaii to equip an artillery batallion during WW1. I always wondered what happened to them. Do you think they were deliberately dumped at sea or did they just fall overboard on the journey? Amazing. What else was there? I am still looking for Peerless parts.

Several people have asked us how we got into the hobby with World War One trucks. If anyone is sufficiently interested to read it, Mark Barnes did one of his "Interviews" with us a year or two ago under the title "An interview with Great War Truck and his family". You can find it by clicking on http://www.hmvf.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102:great-war-truck-tim-gosling-a-family-by-mark-barnes&catid=24:interviews&Itemid=26 We should have some more photos of the Dennis restoration posted up soon. Mod Edit.. Copied Over from http://www.hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?p=157152#post157152

Several people have asked us how we got into the hobby with World War One trucks. If anyone is sufficiently interested to read it, Mark Barnes did one of his "Interviews" with us a year or two ago under the title "An interview with Great War Truck and his family". You can find it by clicking on http://www.hmvf.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102:great-war-truck-tim-gosling-a-family-by-mark-barnes&catid=24:interviews&Itemid=26 We should have some more photos of the Dennis restoration posted up soon.

Use the dealer that is closest to you. You will save a fortune if you can pick parts up as opposed to having them posted.

The differential case has now been painted and all new studs made and fitted. We will give the paint a few days to harden off and then give the case a final internal clean with fresh paraffin. Then we can start to put it all back together again. Tim (too)

Strange that. Not sure what happened there. If my understanding is correct the Champ Camp bet us a bottle of Scotch that they could get more Champs there than every other sort of MV put together. Well, i think there was about 9 Champs and 16 of everything else, so the Scotch should have come to me. However, every time i raised the subject Mr Plumb said that there were more Champs still on their way. I left the matter for later on and then before i knew it everyone had gone. So, i am uncertain as to where we stand. Perhaps you could raise it with Mr Plumb at the Champ Camp AGM? Tim (too)

I think that it is. As the airfield is in the Thames Valley and was considered an ideal landing place for German glider troops in the planned invasion they went out of the way to camouflage it and also protect it from attack. It is a fascinating location. Tim (too)

Many thanks for everybodys positive comments (and yes, you are quite right about the oil situation, Andrea). We are amazed that this blog seems to attract so much interest and that the number of hits keeps leaping upwards. I notice that the number of hits seems to jump up between about 11:30PM and 6:30AM,BST, so I assume that there are a number of interested people in different time zones. With comparatively few surviving MV's coming from the WW1 period I am delighted that people keep reading this and offer such enthusiastic replies and advice. I think that the "basic technology" of WW1 trucks makes it very easy for the layman to understand especially when you see it all broken down into hundreds of photos. We can tackle this level of restoration as we can do most of the work ourselves, but we would probably be unable to do the more complicated modern stuff that you lot do (anything from about 1930 onwards is modern to us). If nothing else, I do hope that this restoration thread gives some advice or encouragement to others who might consider the restoration of a similar age vehicle. Thank you everyone for all your support and your useful comments. Oh yes and before I forget, we are still considering what to do about the half shafts. Tim (too)

Interestingly, although i logged Tony out and logged myself in these posts are coming up as made in Tonys name. Nevermind. Anyway, we gave out several awards at the barbecue including this one for most interesting vehicle. We also went to Bibury airfield on the Saturday, but i missed out on that. On Sunday we set out in convoy to Enstone airfield Which was used to train bomber pilots. One runway survives and is used by a flying club. Some hangars survive but the buildings are disappearing fast: The club laid on a barbecue for us and drinks in their bar. It was a very sunny afternoon and we had a leisurely time before heading for home: Tim (too)

Then it was on to the RAF site at Macaroni Woods. A great number of buildings still survive (some having an industrial use - others are lived in). We couldnt stop, but took some photos as we drove around: Just down the road from the buildings is the airfield. Interestingly (well to people like us), the control tower and buildings were well camouflaged and built to look like a farm house. This is the control tower (really): With a concrete plaque on the side: With a double Norcott (Norcrete?) pill box across the yard: SOme war time grafitti inside: Back to the control tower again There are about 18 pill boxes/bunkers around the field like this one:

The next stop was a loveley country pub - The Victoria Arms where we parked up and took lots of photos: Also at the pub were a bunch of Riflemen just back from Afghanistan. When they saw that we were collecting for Help the Heroes they came to have their photos taken.

On the way to the next airfield we stopped off at this small village which has a unique WW1 memorial: A hand from the clock on the Ypres Cloth Hall set in stone. Never seen anything quite like it before. AT this stage of the day we had 24 vehicles in convoy. While travelling down one very narrow lane we ran into a combine harvester, which caused great fun, but we all managed to get by after about 10 minutes. We then formed up for a group photo.

The North Oxfordshire and Cotswolds MVT have an annual gathering each year which is combined with a road run to places of local interest and a barbecue/booze up on the Saturday night. This year it was held in the memory of David King who tragically passed away after a long illness. In all we had about 30 vehicles and their owners join us from a cross the region and much further afield (the furthest coming from Norfolk). The first stop on our road run was Broadwell airfield which was used to fly paratroopers and gliders in Normandy and at Arnhem. The control tower is still accessible although not in the best of condition. The stairs look a bit dodgy though: One of the three runways is very much still intact - all 1.5 miles of it (albeit with a road going over the middle). The Jeep is in about the centre of the runway.

Here are some pictures of the half shaft: Here is the inside of the axle casing showing where the oil seal retaining assembly goes.

Steve has had a go at filling the indentations in the half shaft around where the seal will sit and this may work. I'll leave it to him to post details of what exactly he has done - probably later on today - but I will post a picture of the half-shaft later as that will help explain - and you will be able to see it for yourself! Tony

Tony has had a go at cleaning the rust out of the two "Differential wheels" inside the Differential assembly. The splines in both wheels were quite heavily rusted as they were not protected from the elements when the chassis was put aside all those years ago This shows the splines before any work done on them. The splines after chipping, wire brushing and scraping. A trial fitting on the end of the half shaft (another challenge approaching there as we only have one half shaft! The one that we have is very deeply pitted along its length so it may well be that we will have to make two as the oil seal - leather - runs on the half shaft and will never seal on it in its existing condition). Obviously the Differentail wheels do not look pristine, but they are going to be a good snug fit on the half shafts so I am keeping my fingers crossed on that one!

Interesting to see the Landing Craft in the background. Can we start a topic on R.A.S.C. Landing Craft - in the 1950's and 1960's and where should it go?

The pitting is not on all the teeth - say bout 30% of them - and scattered around the circumference in no regular pattern or groups. Tony