Starfire

I know of at least one Ferret on full rego in QLD. Apparently, they had no trouble. I've passed on your details, hopefully they can give you a pointer or two. Cheers, Terry

I think you're going about it wrong, Tim. Go in there demanding full rego; there is little to no reason that it can't have it. If they then scale it back to club rego, then accept that as an alternative. There are plenty of constant 4WD vehicles on the road, so road wear is not their concern, and aside from slightly limited visibility (which was within the specification of the ADRs at the time of manufacture, and therefore the only rules that they need to abide by), the central driving position is the only thing that may cause some concern, but again, that was fine at the time. Cheers, Terry

Where abouts in Aus are you? They are some mighty fine looking toys...

Hi Gina, Welcome in. Cheers, Terry

In South Australia, there are no restrictions on registering a Ferret that I'm aware of, and they fall under a standard Class C - remember, they're only ~3500kg and aren't LHD Are you on Facebook Tim? I know a Ferret owner in QLD; he may be able to give you some more info: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4671802746/ Cheers, Terry

I know a guy (possibly me, but I'm not admitting anything!) that accidentally "topped up" the radiator by pouring a heap of water into the oil filler on his Saracen and drove it for about 30km. He's blaming a lack of sleep the night before an early start, but it may have just been rank stupidity. Fortunately there was no damage, aside from a horrible mess, and the oil that was drained out would best be described as looking like "chocolate milk" - it was obvious that there was water in it and it was thoroughly mixed with the oil (and blown out of the breather on the side of the hull). I don't know what would be causing your issues with the B60, but it would be apparent that there was water in the oil, even on the dipstick, but the Saracen holds lots of oil and therefore takes a lot of water to make a noticeable difference. Cheers, Terry

Have you made any progress with yours, Montie?

Everything in this thread has been of help to me, especially when I was replacing a wheel station on the Saracen a few weeks ago; the manual will get you only so far, but your descriptions and pictures really helped. Cheers, Terry

I don't know about your Fox, but the Saracen doesn't have enough electrical power for a BV, and the Saladin uses a different one to just about every other AFV (round one). Cheers, Terry

Congrats datadawg, You'll get used to driving it eventually, then it will be lots of fun. If it doesn't already have one, install an intercom and only drive it on the road with a commander. As for your oil leaks, get a couple of graduated bottles/flasks etc. and check everything (engine, gearbox, transfer case, bevel box x6, hubs x 6, oil pump and hydraulic fluid) every time you drive it. Record the date and how much you put into each box and you'll soon learn what the problem areas are. My gearbox leaks a fair bit, so I top that up before any drive longer than a couple of km and I always check the engine oil before use, but everything else can be checked once a month or so, with my front-right hub being the biggest offender, but still not too bad. Others will know the idiosyncrasies of their vehicles. A recommendation that I subscribe to is to not check the flywheel too often - it's a **** of a job, but I know that mine doesn't leak much and I top it up as soon as I feel any slipping. Cheers, Terry

Good luck with it all. As a test, you could try filling the fluid flywheel before anything else and seeing how much it takes. That will tell you if the fluid came from there... Cheers, Terry

Maybe these guys can make you some up? http://brasstag.com/ Cheers, Terry

Knowing my luck, it would probably break down part way there anyway

I'm looking forward to it, and will try and be there for the entire week this year. Unfortunately, it's a bit far to drag the Saracen Cheers, Terry

Where are you based?

I see no problem with what he's doing, other than the safety concerns highlighted by others. I drive my Saracen on the road fairly regularly and have taken it into the Adelaide city centre during business hours; I've never had any negative reactions to it and everyone seems to have a good time, but I will never drive it without someone acting as an observer and never without a working intercom. Fortunately the Saracen has lots of seats, so appropriate seating positions for everyone is easy to arrange Cheers, Terry

It's a bad copy, because of the quality of the work.

Nulon Australia confirmed that their GL-5 EP90 and 80w90 are fine for use in the Saracen.

To the best of my knowledge, the Saracen never had a physical bridge plate; it was always painted on or a sticker. Depending on what you want your Saracen to represent, however, it may not be appropriate to put one on it. As stated by Clive, bridge plates weren't affixed to vehicles serving in the UK, so if you're going for NI spec, it wouldn't have carried one. Also, they went from being black on yellow to black on grey at some stage, so you need to pick an era. There wasn't exactly a fixed place for the marking; Clive's documents on vehicle painting give some general information, but most Saracens had it on the right fender, inboard of the headlight, or on the bottom right of the lower front, under the grille. If you do a Google image search for "Alvis Saracen" you'll see plenty of examples. Cheers, Terry

I would be wary of posting conjecture on the incident on a public forum, but am a bit conflicted about it. In one way, it provides us, the MV community, with some insight about what can go wrong and cause catastrophic incidents like this, but in another way, this is a public forum and we are discussing what, I am certain, is an active investigation. Forum posts can and have been used in court as evidence and there may be restrictions about discussing certain cases in "the media", which also includes the interwebs. In any case, this is a very unfortunate event and it is always a great loss to the community when we lose any member, and particularly when they are active and influential members. Cheers, Terry

This has been covered many times before. Clive has prepared some excellent documentation on the subject: http://hmvf.co.uk/pdf/PAINTINGpart1.pdf http://hmvf.co.uk/pdf/PAINTINGpart2.pdf http://hmvf.co.uk/pdf/PAINTINGpart3.pdf Cheers, Terry

As I explained to the old guy taking the photos (as I was standing next to him at the time), it is a (bad) copy of a prototype built by the Australian Army during WW2. They discovered the same problem with them that the builder of this one did; the wheelbase is too short and it can't turn a corner to save its life. I personally feel that while it is an interesting vehicle, it shouldn't be at the museum, but there are some politics at play there and it probably won't be going anywhere any time soon. it's currently getting painted and some minor repairs done by some school kids. Cheers, Terry

It sounds more like the setup in the Saracen and is probably related to gearing down the final drive to compensate for the much larger circumference of the tyres on the "big wheel" Ferrets. I dare say that they raided the parts bin for the bits they needed, as it doesn't make sense to engineer a new solution to an existing problem.

The radio trucks are quite different to the gun tractors - that Number 8 Ford is quite fun to drive though :-D The museum also has a Number 3A Marmon Herrington and a Number 9 Chev gun tractor. The Chev is almost finished being restored. Cheers, Terry

I'm still trying to track down info on the funnels especially, and more information/manuals for the vehicle would be great. Please let me know if you can help out. Cheers, Terry