Adam Elsdon

Hunter, nice and agile but a bit weedy, nobody talks about how epic they were, bring in the Lightning, short range but monstrous performance, and more stories about them than you can shake a stick at.

After that i would of gone for the Harrier, a very successful aircraft.

Dont really understand why they are testing a vehicle in its 1967 looking spec, arent they using an upgraded version these days?

We've made a start on the trolley, the rear extension has been removed, so we have a cross-member behind the rear wheels only, takes about 2.5ft off the length. That must have been nearly 100kgs of metal! all solid bar on the sides and shackle points.

 

As we'll need to move this thing around once we get to site, we will need to have either a 50mm coupling on it, or a NATO hitch on the Disco.

 

The coupling dismantles easily, got it all on the bench in bits, and it's the larger 76mm ring size.

 

Do we modify this or just buy a NATO hitch? Does the NATO jaw assembly fit a standard Land Rover Discovery tow bar, as it has four holes?

 

If anyone has the answers, would appreciate a reply.

 

Peter

I have the older style military hook as per champ/pig etc and it fits onto the back of my Mitsubishi Shogun no problem, it required two holes drilling so that all four lined up, and its a 5 minute job to unbolt and fit the standard 50mm ball hitch. Works quite well with my 1 Ton Brockhouse trailer, drove from Notts to Aberdeen no problem, obviously not a major consideration if you are using it primarily for shunting around or moving it in a show area, i nearly said put a hook on the front, but i dont think the Disco will have anywhere to do it.

Dry solder joint in the bulb, causing intermittent fault?

Just had an e-mail thats going around the Scottish Military Vehicle Group.

To firstly set the scene, we attended the Armed forces and Veterans day parade in Aberdeen in July, with a total of 15 vehicles in attendance for the parade, and as a group made our way down to the after event function, and parked up the vehicles and Al, one of the members set up his Dodge with his Help for Heroes banner and collection tin, "Doing his bit".

During the course of the afternoon, his wife noticed a young chap put what she thought was a £50 donation into one of the collection tins!

This is the e-mail that we just had from them:-

"We opened all of the Help for Heroes tins last night at the CoM so we could seal them up again ready for Leuchars and Scone. I had previously marked the tin with the suspected £50 note inside so I set about opening it first. Sure enough a folded up Fifty quidder fell out of the tin, but it fell out rather heavily on to the table. So I unfolded it and to my surprise there was another three fifties inside it. This chap had donated an incredible £200 to Help for Heroes in a rather selfless and anonymous way.

Now ain't that something."

Something, its absolutely brilliant and to my mind shows how a few old Military vehicles can add to the spectacle and provide such a draw to the public, the anonymous donater could of put his money in any charity tin that day, but he chose to put it into a Help for Heroes collection held by an MV owner.

And what an excellent charity to give his donation to, a totally non political charity that also helps other charities so our boys and girls get the best of care.

I am inspired.

Glenmorangie is near RAF Tain bombing range, so you may get lucky and see Tornados from RAF Lossiemouth doing their stuff. There are a few range wrecks, mainly modern stuff like Saxon APC's and CVRT.

Ready for the scrap man... maybe a custom car forum would be more suited to your hobby, as said before this one is for restoration/preservation of MV's:coffee:

No ones made an attack....Mmm, I thought the above was reasonably negative, actually telling him where to go! and it's definitely lacking a bit of constructive criticism, not the usual good natured HMVF banter we are used too.

You should be sent to the club house bogs and given latrine duties, making sure you use your own toothbrush to clean the crevices!

Fold out the bed and put bar on at one end, stand bed upright with the bar already in place at the top, now put one side of the bed into the bar on the floor, put your foot on the end of the bar that isnt in place yet and use the bed as a big lever, pull into position and voila. Used to work on my American issue version.

Where are you learning to make whisky???

Hi Chris,

Have a look here:- http://www.scottishmvg.org/1.html

Plenty of Military vehicle owning types, stuff comes up for sale from time to time so keep an eye out on the sales pages, and its on the right side of the border!

not the rarest vehicle in the world,lifes about havin fun,if thats what suits you best of luck.

How many of you would moan about a V8 hemi headed ,chopped ,pimped 1930s ford.none i bet.you would all think it great .loosen up.

It doesnt say in the rules of the forum that you have to restore your HMV to genuine ex military condition.And i think we need to be carefull that our opinions dont verge on the insulting.:coffee:

While its not the direction i have chosen for my own pig, i'm with Catweazle, some of the comments are a bit brutal, after all, this has been restored and preserved in a fashion and is in use, which ultimately means it will be about longer. Nothing as far as i can see has seriously been changed.

I fail to see what the difference between this and a Hotchkiss jeep, painted in Airborne/SAS/D-day type markings and festooned with guns are, at least it isnt pretending to be something its not.

For other examples go to the Matador thread, its full of vehicles that have been hacked around from the original manufactured state and some of them are even wearing multicoloured circus themes.

I think the main problem here is, it lacks rose tinted spectacles Nostalgia.

Note to owner!, dont put a massively powerful engine in it, you will shred its drive shafts/Tracta joints and unfortunately, you wont be finding them for sale off the shelf.

You can also hook it up in trees, on a fence, or the side of a building!

Mine works well on the side of the Pig, but there is quite an expanse of body covered in hooks and racks to tie it too.

Good tents though, with its built in ground sheet and the overall shape they seem to work quite well when the weather gets a bit "Inclement".

Marlin, go have a look at my restoration blog, "Humber Pig getting it ready for the season", it shows the paint job i done on it, before and after and the paint sheen, it should give a pretty good indication on what to expect!

Make sure you get the thinners "Protega Thinners 1006" its £16 and doesnt add to the postage cost, you will need it to thin the paint when it gets a little bit thick as it dries fast, and to wash your brushes out.

The paints been on it for about 5 months now, and it looks just as good as when i put it on, it is very hard wearing and seems to shrug the muck off, and some of the places that were bare steel when it was painted on directly show no signs of rust at all, which isnt bad as it lives outside.

Link:- http://hmvf.co.uk/forumvb/showthread.php?t=12839

If you want the original in service "Camouflage" green colour, it would of been Olive Drab (BS Colour chart 381 298 Olive Drab).

www.smithandallan.com do some excellent paint called Protega Containerguard, which can be brushed or sprayed, i brush painted my Humber pig with it, and it came out a treat, has a nice satin finish, and is very hard wearing.

5 litres was £35.00 and £15.00 for 5 litres of thinners, enough to paint your landrover, all its bits and bobs, jerrycans, tin helmets and your driveway a number of times!!

NATO green wasnt in use until 1974 i believe. (See clives painting article in clives corner).

Driving postion looks awkward to say the least. Pick a gear and stick with would be the order of the day unless you have very skinny legs.

Is the handbrake meant to be applied after the driver has left the cab?

 

Looks like there's a link missing from the cooling system between the heads!

 

Apart from the above looks a very good truck, buy it now!

I took that photo sat skew, with my right foot over the handbrake lever and my left leg against the lever, a manky rotten seat cushion a good reason to try and hover!

Anybody know about Warner Electric Brakes? The Matador has such a unit fitted, which would of been wired to a connector at the rear for connecting to the towed unit. As it is an Artillery Tractor, did 5.5" Howitzers etc use this sort of braking system?

Seen the thread title and thought it was an extract from Hitlers Diaries!

Just so happens i have a pic of the front axle!

O8536901 was H5470111 later 18YZ41 mid 1944 at a guess (O853 7289 is June 1944)

 

So yes definitely Army

Mike, Thats more than i could of hoped for! :thumbsup:

It still has its winch lever in the cab etc, the winch gear inbetween the chassis rails has been removed. As far as i can tell the rear sprung cross member and fairlead rollers have been unbolted, and the present state of affairs bolted/welded on, so reasonably straight forward to return to standard.

Another question, the windscreen opens differently from others i have seen, the top half doesnt open, the small part of the split screen is hinged and opens up and outwards, and the door glass is raised lowered using a canvas strap with holes in that go over a peg to set the height, are these a late in the war cheaper faster to produce "Austerity" modification?

Driving postion looks awkward to say the least. Pick a gear and stick with would be the order of the day unless you have very skinny legs.

Is the handbrake meant to be applied after the driver has left the cab?

 

Looks like there's a link missing from the cooling system between the heads!

 

Apart from the above looks a very good truck, buy it now!

Its not a bad driving position, im a big bloke and dont find it too bad, apart from getting past the levers/pedals on the way in with size 11 boots. The gear lever is easy enough to operate in any position, you can push it over to the left with your leg to select a lower gear or reverse.

And that is indeed the cylinder heads cooling crossover that is missing between the heads, we have found it, one of the studs is bust, but not end of the world to fix.

So Croc and I for GDSF next year, creeping down in our Geriatric trucks!

Any takers on the age of the thing, going by the S/No's???

At a very quick glance something doesn't look right. RAF matadors generally had the rear towing spring mounted on a sub frame, hung below the chassis rails. This doesn't look right in the photo. RAF Matadors generally also has vacuum brake connection for towing the many vacuum braked trailers the RAF had, yet no sign of this (ie no vacuum guage on the dash, by the look of it)

 

My guess is it is an Army Mat that may have transferred to the RAF or it may be someone has just repainted an Army Mat as RAF, even though it never was.

 

Could be wrong, wait to hear more.

 

Also from photo looks like rear Roundel is actually a transfer, Air Bubbles, seems to span the Bevel on the T&G. surely at the age this Mat appears to be this should be painted on (yes I remember the thread that went into roundels on the rear of RAf vehicles, before I get reminded)

I wouldnt get to hung up about the originality of the paint job! its an old restoration, its been green and yellow, possibly a local council vehicle at some point, it fits their scheme, and then it got the RAF Blue treatment.

The winch has been removed, and the original air tank disconnected and an alternative tank fitted where the winch was.

The rear crossmember has been modified and the fairlead rollers removed.

Also the rear canopy isnt what it seems, its been made up to fit and look the part, and the steps up into the rear bed are different.

But apart from that it seems reasonably straight, it hasnt been desperately hacked about, and its still a Matador!

Pic of the rear crossmember;-

A couple from inside.

More pics..

Just been up looking at a Matador with Croc (from this forum) I have known about it for a long time, but this was the first time we have pulled its tarpaulin off and had a good look at it.

Its chassis number is 08536901

Its Engine number is 7602.

If anybody would like to pontificate over the numbers and tell me what its all about, it would be much appreciated!!

We have noticed a few things that are different, but we'll see what you think...

Drink enough Jagermeister and it could be an ex anything! :beer:

British, PW, and embarrassing - got to be a Land Rover, or God forbid, a Champ!!!

Nah, You need a Humber Pig!, it is the MV equivalent of the Deathstar to get you into the Dark Side of the Empire within this forum, Darth Elliott will be along soon to crush any rebel resistance!