Andrew Rowe

She now has "Eyes"! ,Install of the drivers periscopes now completed, after full strip and re greasing, they turn nice and smooth , in all directions. last pic shows one of the two drivers interior lights, that sit either side of the drivers head. A fairly standard British dash light marked TL3 , as also used in Bren Carriers. We have fitted 2 NOS ones . Cheers from The Tank Factory.

The commander cupola has come together with new bearings and periscope. Like all things British , the use of shims is an integral part of setting up hinges, etc, to allow for any variances in machining operations. hatches open and shut smoothly!

It bolts to the main Turret roof with 24 x 3/8" machine screws.

Cheers from The Tank Factory.

Possibly not even that. I can only think of the Bovington one that came from the same hole and the two bridgelayers in Oz.

There are only 4 Covenanters left above ground level, that I know of, worldwide. The 2 in Aus, one at the Pakapunal base, and one at the Lancer barracks in Sydney, when I last saw it. There is obviously the Bovy one , and I have one here in New Zealand. Cheers Andrew.

Hi Phil, great project , we can now run a "Troop" (3) locally! The NZ Scorpion was officially withdrawn from service in June 1996, and it was about 1998 that Helston's loaded what remained out of the country. They were still in the "Merdec" Camo scheme of the day. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

The two cast units for securing the transmission doors are shown. I had to make new internal treaded piece and knurled turning nob for the top. As I think I have mentioned before the thread is 5/8 BSW. I take it they manufactured it this way as it required less turns of the knob to secure the door back quickly.......designers always thinking of the safety and comfort of the crew! Last couple of pics show the pieces that go into the commanders cupola hatch. This was welded open at the hinges , as it had been in the playground situation, so fingers did not get jammed. There are 3 x hatches, one takes the periscope and the two traversing handles are also attached to this piece, so the commander can fully rotate himself 360 degrees, independent to the main turret. The hatches attach to an inner ring that rotates on 3 x bronze outer housings that have an internal bearing, all this sits in a tapered groove of this inner ring. The way this is assembled , the inner ring is now locked to the outer ring by these bearing units , and the outer is bolted to the main turret by series of 3/8" machine screws.

The ring shown is the outer one, which sits underneath, and the inner one also covers over this one, when assembled.

There is also a straight ahead plunger lock fitted to stop it rotating when the Tank is on the move, and catches to secure the open hatches, so as to prevent them smacking you on the head! Cheers from The Tank Factory.

More brackets have been refurbished. The first pic shows the Auxiliary fuel tank brackets and their clamps. These brackets mount on the rear left hand side of the Tank on the mudguard. I will also be fitting the Aux. fuel tank itself at a later date.

Next up is the 2- gallon spare can holders. This unit bolts onto the rear transom flap and when you unfold the flap there are steel bumper stops built into the bracket, so a bench is created, but in this setup it will bottom out on the pintle hook. Then we have the drivers doors brass open/shut catches, L/H and R/H. To open the doors you have to grab the handle and cable at the same time and then the door pops open with the aide of the built in torque rods as discussed previously. The 2 x little drivers periscope handles are also shown for being able to control the periscopes with one hand while driving. Next is a couple of pics of the top rear turret stowage box. This mounts on the turret rear bustle and the lid opens away from the commander for access and has 2 x little chains on the lid to prevent the lid going over too far. The 2nd to last pic we show the tow rope brackets that mount onto the exhaust mudguard brackets front and rear. The main tow rope is the wartime twin lead of about 1" diam., I forget the name it has, maybe someone could tell us it's proper designation, ie. No.9 Towing? This hooks on the rear towing eyes and lays forward across the top of the Left hand mudguard, and the big steel ring that is built into the tow rope is held by a leather belt that is permanently secured to the front of the left hand guard, by the guard support. Also in the bottom of the pic is the pick-axe head clamp. The last pic shows the shovel and crowbar holding bracket, this also bolts onto the rear L/H guard. The shovel is the standard British Tee-handle type.

Cheers from The Tank Factory.

I Have a few spare Turret blocks for the M3 Stuart, that were cast up. They just need some machining and drilling to finish. PM if interested, Cheers Andrew.

The steel we are using is spring steel, but the exact chemical combinations I could not tell you at this stage without further research, but works a treat!:-) Cheers Andrew.

The stubs that stick out on the hinges go into corresponding holes in the hull, a bit like a safe door , cut the hinges, but you still can not get the door open, ( explosion proof ? )

The second picture shows the 2 x tapered pegs, ( 9/16" dia. hardened ), one end picks up a flat on the torque rod for the door, and the other end picks up another flat spot on the rod and this pegs into an end cap that is attached to the hull and independent of the door. So when door is opened, a twisting effect is loaded on the 9mm rod, giving it a spring like action. The trick is when making these rods is to get the flats in the right offsets, so as to give you just enough tension, but not too much, as they are only little rods and would break, also do not grind flats too deep , as this would create a weak point as well. Cheers Andrew.

We fitted the drivers doors the other day, and made an interesting observation about their design. I did not realise at the time when I removed the doors from the Tank that the 9mm rod that went through the middle of the hinges, was in fact a torque rod. The weight of one door is at least 50 - 60Kg, which you sort of struggle with lifting it by hand. The old rods were rusted and destroyed getting the doors apart. So when we came to reinstall the refurbished doors we discovered that we needed these new rods, so a bit of a search around and the next day I had some turning up, with spares in case we had to play around with the first couple to get things to work. The doors now virtually open from inside with the push of a finger!( well almost! ). It is another little piece of design and attention to detail that we have come across , that impresses us about the manufacture of the Valentine. Picture shows components required for one door , top of pic is the brass hand locking catch with release cable. This works by, as you grab the inside door handle, you grab hold of the release cable at the same time, which pulls the plunger in , the door pops up as it is under tension from the torque rod, and you open it back onto it's resting pad .Cheers from The Tank Factory.

New Zealand troops inspecting a captured 88 in the Desert. Cheers Andrew.

A couple more pics of the periscope for the driver showing external armoured hood. Next we have the 2 x front headlights and conduit. These are the 8" CAV type, as used also on the English and Loyd carriers, but with different conduit fitting for the back of the shell. Then we have the outside bracket for the "gong" push button. This rings the bell inside to get the crews attention. Next is the group of catches and mudguard fittings for the 2 x stay brackets to attach to when the rear transmission doors are open. Very important that these stay rods are use to secure the doors back when open, as a guillotining operation will happen if you not careful! The knurled knobs for securing are 5/8" BSW, about the only time BSW thread is used on the Tank. Next little bracket is a protective cover for the cable release for the external fuel drop tank, mounts on the mudguard, back left hand corner. 2nd to last pic shows the external protective cap for the radiator filler cap. To open this you first have to pull the release cable in the engine compartment above the fuel tank to work the catch that locks it. Last pic shows the mirror arm and cast brackets ( complete with shrapnel damage ! ) that will mount to the front R/H corner on the mudguards. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

Some of the finer points of the restoration are being worked on now. The Periscopes are quite an intricate piece of work !

There are 4 required per Tank. Two for the diver that have U-shaped handles and 2 inside the roof of the turret that have small knobs for handles, there are a few different Mk's / models ,but essentially do the same job. When driving, the field of vision is surprisingly quite good through these. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

If anyone out there has a few spares or parts out there I would be extremely interested, PM me, Thanks.

After 20 years of sitting in the Barn!

Cheers Andrew

The Tank was next to the Barn , the parts were in it. Cheers Andrew

Out Pickin' , Barn find of the day! , a Mk2. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

Hi Ryan, what diameter is the A/C clutch, looks pretty close to a standard Ford V8 11" Flathead clutch that Clive sent you.

Common to buy at Mac's Auto in the USA , if that was the case, Cheers Andrew.

Nailing the Hatches down! , only the rear Transmission doors left to go. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

With another load of steel work blasted and painted , this can all be fitted. First pic shows the rear trans. locking catch, then the towing pintle and engine door side flaps and engine cover lock. The last pic shows the 2 x grease cups for each side of the steering clutch packs that are used to grease the internal bearing. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

I have some spare castings that we had made up for the M3 Tank, fuel tanks covers, air intake elbows , engine door hinges, etc. PM if interested in anything, Cheers Andrew.

I found these two ratchets the other day, Britool, one has "war-finish " on it. Does anyone know if these were for a particular vehicle or just part of a standard kit, they are 1/2" drive, cheers Andrew.

Thanks John 1950 for your kind words, we are just a couple of guys giving an honest attempt, looking for a quality restoration. The theory is aim high and see where we end up with the restoration at the end.

The other day we have started the engine and she runs very smooth. Exhaust smoke appears to be very minimal , so I think we have achieved that goal with the right mix of injectors and compression ratio for the pistons. We installed a fuel pressure gauge to determine the PSI of fuel running in the engine and found that it was 10psi at idle, which is correct, but when engine rpm increased to 1500 it was going to 75psi and hitting the relief valve, but still holding at 70psi, which was far too high. When engine is running between 1800 and 2000 rpm, we should be at about 60psi of fuel pressure, I think that equates to about a gallon an hour for a standard inline 671 2-valve head. The problem being, that at the end of the return fuel tube that is fitted to the head, there is a fitting that has a small hole in it, and that is what restricts the fuel returning to the fuel tank and gives you the right pressure for the injectors to run at. This hole dia. should be about 80 thou, which I worked out at about 2mm. We appeared to have a hole about 1.75mm in dia. Drilled the hole out , and it looks like the problem is solved, when increased to 1500rpm we are running at 50 psi and not hitting the relief valve, such a simple thing like that you would not believe!. The starter motor works extremely well, turning engine over at a very good speed, so that mod. we did to the drive pinion on a new starter, engages ring gear really nicely as well. Engine runs slightly over 40psi of oil pressure and drops to 20 psi at idle, which is what should be expected. The battery generator seems to be performing what it is suppose to do as charge light goes on when you power up and when engine is started goes to 20 amps and eases back to 0amps under running conditions with no load. We had a couple of oil leaks from the filter housings, and found that the rim surface that mates to the seal needs to be perfect. We did change one from nitrile to 2mm cork on the by-pass filter housing and this solved the problem extremely well. Cheers from the Tank Factory.

A few more parts heading for the protective coatings division. We have the four fold down flaps in the engine bay area, that the engine cover rests on. The pintle hook . There is the rear bevel box transmission flap and side plates that bolt onto the rear of the Tank. Also you can see the linkages and spring catches that attach to these plates for locking and unlocking this door flap. It appears that when you pull a cable the flap pops up, because it is under sprung tension from these little leaf springs, this is enough to get your fingers in to fold the flap back, being a one-man operation, such is the detail and thoughtfulness of the design engineers!. The last one shows the original engine covers , that were usually thrown in the scrap bin when engines were pulled out when the Tanks were disposed of in the 1960's. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

Testing and Calibration work being carried out on the 19 set , nearing completion for installation. Cheers from The Tank Factory.

Next in line are the 2 x radiators to be installed, L/H and R/H. I think originally they were installed in the factory as one big unit comprising the header tank. 2 x rads and the bottom tank. We have opted to install them individually , but at times this can be tricky to line up the outlets with the graphite packings , that you have to be careful not to damage. Once installed the radiators can pivot on these packings without leaking water, so you can gain access to the gearbox dipstick and also the "catch can". There is a big bronze ring that you just tighten down with the special spanner and that puts pressure on the packings to swell and seal the water in . Cheers from The Tank Factory.