radiomike7

Is it him that owns the ex Hills of Botley Constructor?

Is the end recessed with a flange facing outwards? If so it may have been welded by passing the flanges between two copper wheels with a large current passing from one to the other. Think of it as a continuous spot weld, but there is no way you are going to take it apart without serious damage.

Explorer helping set up giant Scalextric:confused:

Quite correct Bernard, I have first hand experience: Re: What's your claim to fame....... Back in the summer of 1968 while waiting to go to college, I was working for a company in Cricklewood that supplied juke boxes and fruit machines to clubs and pubs in the London area. One evening, the boss asked for 2 of us to work late on a huge juke box installation in the Windsor area, so we set off in the van along the M4 and as we approached Windsor I looked at the job sheet to find the address - Windsor Castle! It turned out that HM put on a huge party for her offspring every year based in the games room at the castle, a huge room with a wooden polo pony on springs surrounded by a net as the centre piece. After dragging all the kit in, my job was to connect everything up, so there I was trying to hide the speaker cables behind all the exotic plants when a pair of playful dogs leapt up and grabbed the bottom of my t-shirt. Somewhat surprised, I let out a 'get down you b**tards' and sent one of the dogs flying with a smart back hander. At this point I was suddenly aware of a casually dressed female who was taking three Corgis for a tour of the grounds, and my immediate thought was that she looked very familiar.... Yes, you have guessed it, HM herself, grinning from ear to ear at my antics. Bashing a royal mutt, swearing at another, I was expecting to get arrested on the spot, but as far as I could see there was no visible security and HM came over and chatted for several minutes before continuing her walk. Later as we were testing the system, Andrew and Edward appeared but were most concerned that they had no money and would be unable to play their favourite top 20 tunes. Needless to say the machine was set to free play and I showed them how to pre-select a number of records. From memory the princes were 6 and 10 at the time, and the Corgi soon recovered and made friends.

Am I not right in thinking the the very first contract, 3724 had a FV dash? These were the ones with coil ignition, gearbox handbrake and some other differences, possibly a double skinned cab:confused:

Thanks for clearing that up, I think Stan only referred to two on tank transport, but there may have been more.

Stan wrote an article for one of the club news letters some years ago in which he mentioned the two Constructors. I don't have the article to hand so I write from memory, but apparently the second one was always a bit of a rogue, starting off on the day it was collected from Watford by breaking down with a prop centre bearing problem. On another occasion while delivering a tank it took a bend at a depot too fast and rolled the FV3601 loaded with a (Centurion?) which had to be returned to the manufacturer for repair. Stan's one had a couple of head gasket problems, but I got the impression that Stan treated his tractor with more mechanical sympathy than the other drivers and hence experienced fewer problems. Stan also mentioned that rear tyre wear was initially a problem but this was cured by lightening the ballast load carried by 2 tons or so.

Tony, is PGK the second MOS Constructor, otherwise known as 'Flipper' due to it's habit of throwing propshafts and rolling tanks:cool2:?

Mike, it is the standard winch as fitted to all Martian variants except the recovery which uses a 2 speed hydraulic winch. It is essentially the same as on the vehicles listed above plus Constructors and is always referred to as a Scammell vertical spindle winch.

I am a bit out of touch, didn't realise it was now yours, how long have you owned it? Hope you didn't mind me using 2 of your photos to answer some technical queries on the CCMV site?

Slight correction there Tom, the 150 was the LX, 180 was LXB. Sounds like you enjoyed your day.

What's the orange primer Mike - doesn't look like normal red oxide?

Rob, if the bottom end is knocking I would check the con rod big ends for ovality and size - they can be re-claimed by a decent engine machine shop. Removing an Explorer engine is dead easy once you get the rad out of the way, but be prepared for sheared metalastic engine mounts as the bonding has a habit of coming apart. Mike

The pulse jet or Schmidt engine is also unsustainable below about 190mph, the starting procedure being to force air through the inlet shutters on the launch ramp, warm the engine for about 7 seconds then blast it up the launch ramp by combining potassium permanganate with hydrogen peroxide to produce superheated steam. By the top of the ramp the device was travelling at about 250mph and would fly until either the air log initiated a steep dive, the petrol ran out, the inlet shutters burned out or it was shot down by AA gunners or fighters.

http://www.scammellregister.co.uk/history-of-scammell.html and scroll down the page

I see you found the Speedtalk site :-D. Some excellent photos including a Chrysler Multibank like Adrian's and a 5000hp Lycoming. http://speedtalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?=&p=49786

Pegasus is poppet valve, Hercules is sleeve valve. There is a superb sectioned Hercules in the Wellington Museum at Moreton-In-Marsh run by Gerry Tyack, an ex WW2 groundcrew from RAF M in M. Well worth a visit if in the area and if you speak to him nicely he will show you the complete tail section of a Wellington in his back garden. I can also recommend a tea shop just round the corner in the High Street!

Mike, was the Mat engine known as an AV 470 (which was a true 7.685cc) or was that a later developement?

Not sure my father in law would have agreed with you - 101 ops and he was almost deaf in one ear:-(

Is that not the Wasp Major, with 28 cylinders?

How about the Napier Deltic? 18 cylinders, 36 pistons, 3 cranks with one running in the opposite direction to the other two, 2 stroke and scavenge blown. Smoked worse than a steam loco if left idling for too long and prone to exhaust fires, but had a sound all of it's own.

Sadly no, the only photo was taken by Adam Crouch when we were unloading it from David's low loader using my Martian. It was bought from a scrap yard just outside Market Rasen in 1991 having been abandoned by a steel fabricator as the tyres were bald and traction was non existant. It supposedly had a seized engine but started first time using a pair of car batteries and ran well. David and I also bought all the mechanical components of it's sister which had recently been cut up as the cab was damaged.

I know for a fact that my old one, chassis 9281, 83BL02 was sold to a recovery operator at Downham Market as the twin 14.00 x 20 rear tyres would give more stability in some of the recovery operations he used to carry out. I never got to see it once it was converted.

Might this be Nelson Green's one from Bourne? Nelson told me that he had bought 5 and was exporting them to Australia but that one had missed the boat. It was in a very similar condition to this one but the birds had pecked away everything under the bonnet that was not made of metal!

That sounds very familiar, I assume we are talking about a 5th wheel Constructor?