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Rob, I might well be able to re-machine it if you cannot get another. I would like to try in any case! John

Dear All, Some observations. The German Armed Forces are seriously under resourced as they only spend 1.2 % of GDP on Defence compared UK's 2 % plus our meeting the 0.7 % of GDP on Development aid. They must have even more horrible gaps in their capability than we do. I am not trained on the in-service SVR recovery vehicle (I would not even know how to start it). However, operationally I would rather have three modern Foden type recovery vehicles to one of those. Whilst it is an amazing vehicle, it can only be in one place at one time. I would love to be able to study the Staff Requirement and the business case for buying it. Does anyone one know how many they are buying? John

Ruddington?

I would not put stale petrol into a modern car. Petrol and water don't mix well so any water will sink to the bottom of any container. Just don't use the last few drops! John

Once you are using the vehicle regularly, I would put 5 litres of stale in every time you fill it up. Make sure that any sediment does not come over. I did this quite a lot with my Perkins 4208 in my SII rover in order to use up petrol / diesel contaminated fuel. I was obviously careful not to let the viscosity go down too much. You should not have a problem with a little bit of stale fuel. It is not easy to burn it off safely and cleanly.

COOLING I am just wondering how the British Army was able to operate CVRT in the Gulf or the Balkans summer! Keep it standard and don't muck about with engine output. John

I would be interested. Can you PM me your price? John

I don't think it does because there was no need for it. It was for cargo use not plant or Lt A vehicles. John John

Follow the thick cables from the starter motor. John

Dear All, There is very little that I will not 'repair by repair'. I will develop the necessary tooling and capabilities. But a speedo is too much for me. Maybe someone who does clocks might be able to do speedos. One of the very difficult bits to deal with is the spiral spring controlling the needle. My advice is to send the head to Speedy Cables, Thomas Richfield or another specialist. The paint on the inside is just to reflect the light around. John

Simon, I would not hesitate to use loctite. For instance, why risk having a stud unscrew rather than the nut with all the attendant difficulties when a dab of loctite will solve the problem. Easy to get undone with heat if nec. It is difficult enough to work on old equipment without turning down some modern technology. John

Dear All, Bearing in mind that the premiums are so affordable, what matters to me is the knowledge of the staff at the broker and the underwriter. I don't think my current broker understands the difference in the risk factors between an Austin Seven and a Mk II Antar! I spend more on batteries than insurance. Go for quality! I suspect that the insurers whilst chasing our business with a low claims rate, are getting stung by covering vehicles or drivers that they ought to avoid. I never get asked: How long have you been doing classic military vehicles? What experience have you and your team got? How long have you had the vehicle? How did you acquire it? What facilities have you got? Did you restore it yourself (in which case it will be a treasured possession)? What shows do you take it to? John

Rick, If you remove the clutch pedal assy you will almost certainly find the bearings / bush in a mess. Servicing the bush will reduce the pedal effort and make it more pleasant to drive. It would be worth the effort! John

They are called "barn finds"! John

I would have thought that the Belleville washers have just rusted solid. Each one only moves a small amount. I would not expect you to need new washers, just clean up the old ones. John

So far as the land owner and quarry operator are concerned, the notional storage charges would far exceed the value of the trailer which is scrap, ie about £2K. Do a deal with the land owner / quarry op, IN WRITING, accepting that they are unable to pass on good title but they want this piece of scrap moved and include the storage charges, say notionally £6K (the more the better but they will have to accept no one will actually pay more than scrap value). So far as the courts are concerned, it is only scrap. Once you have secured a deal in writing and have moved it away to your premises, then put a decent sized advert in the "Commercial Motor" magazine. "Lost 50 ton Dyson Trailer found" or words to the effect. If someone does come out of the wood work, they will have to pay the storage and transport charges which will be far more than the scrap value of the trailer so you would not loose out (and they will be deterred). In any case, to secure it, they would need to have evidence of good title and given the passage of time, no one else is likely to be a position to show better title than you. If not, you have done everything possible to locate the legal owner, if one exists. Remember, it may have been owned by a limited company that is now defunct. We might get very excited about a 50 ton Dyson trailer but in fact it is just 18 tons of scrap. If you want to waste a lot of money, use a solicitor, especially a high street one. In terms of restoration, my recollection is that it has plain air brakes, that is no hydraulics which would be a nightmare to overhaul. Final thought, is a service VRN on it? If so someone might be able to say when it was auctioned off. John

Wally, I would obviously be very interested in any info on the Conqueror, particularly the ARV. The stowage sketch would be exceptionally useful. John

Dear All, It was a monstrosity called, I think, and FV1000 or 1100 or 1200. Wally can remind us!. It was supposed to be a cross country tank transporter, something that does not exist even now. They had such problems that they had to buy the commercial Antars as a stop gap. Fortunately, they found that an Antar could do everything that was needed apart from carry a tank cross country. It could, of course, carry a tank along a track. An Antar (or a Commander) does not need a metalled road. They found the solution was to tow the dead tank with an ARV to the Tank Transporter Pick Point. If the tank was so badly damaged that an ARV could not tow it to the Tank Transporter Pick Point it was not going to affect the outcome of the battle! With regard to the third diff on the Antar. I asked Blackie Widdows of 19 Sqn fame if it would be a good idea to fit a third diff to my Antar. His very strong advice was NO as they were nothing but trouble. Without a third diff it is necessary to keep the tyres the same size. Easy in the Army as it is a big firm and they all get changed at the same time when worn out. I used to run my Antar at 107 tons gross train weight carrying the Conqueror ARV and we never had any problems with the axles. In the range of vehicles with this monstrosity there was a heavy artillery tractor, again with a fuel injected Rover Meteorite engine. That was put to sleep as well. Only the Leyland Martian that we all love came into service but I believe that an AEC Militant was better in all respects. Again, the AEC was basically a commercial pattern vehicle militarised. Of course, the Champ had its own problems and was soon superceeded by the Landrover which was far cheaper and more reliable. Probably not as much fun though! Why did they waste all this money developing these ridiculous vehicles? Because Defence was told to re-arm and spend money. A lesson for the future if, god forbid, we have to re-arm again big time. John

Dear Sam, Further to Clive's advice I had a problem with a B81 in my Leyland Martian recovery on exercise in BAOR. The exhaust manifold gasket had failed and flames were overheating the distributor. It was so bad that the solder on the condenser melted! To get around this I used a Landrover condenser mounted on the air cleaner and connected with a bit of wire. It worked fine. Then the points pivots started to seize if I worked the engine too hard! Obviously I tried to make shielding to protect the dizzy from heat. Personally, I think that the most important thing is for the condenser to be designed for a 12 or 24 Volt system, be of new manufacture and good quality. Like Clive, I don't think it matters which one is used. I would put a cupful of petrol straight down the carb and try to start it with throttle wide open. When the mixture becomes right it should run quite well for a very short while (seconds). If it does nothing, you obviously have an ignition problem. Fire extinguisher! Like others, I would not touch the timing. I would put my money on the carb diaphragms as I have similar problems with the 'J60' on the Conqueror, ie very poor starting etc. John

Sorry, I did not see page 11. The reason why they would have done the headlamp conversion is that for a long time the original Crusader headlamp units were very hard to come by. I think that they were made by Ciebie. John

Is it a Crusader or is it the Amazon made into a recovery by Guardian Recovery equipment in Kent? John

Dear All, Does anyone know about the request below that has been e-mailed to me? The salutation makes me very suspicious. John. "Hi There A few days ago I sent you a proposal email about writing for hmvf.co.uk, did you receive it? I'd love to discuss this with you further. Best, Sara Don't want emails from us anymore? Reply to this email with the word "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject line."

It should be easy enough to test once you know how it works (probably reluctance). Try googling the part number on it or find the NATO stock number from a parts list. It is conceivable that I might have a microfische. Mogmaner appears to be on the ball with this one! John

David, Thank you for this. I think that I have cured the problem. I did not take into account that Serial.Print and digitalWrite are slow functions that get in the way of measuring a pulse that might only be a few milliseconds long. (When I used pulses of a few seconds, it worked perfectly.) I now have it so that the LCD display on the 'transmitter' development board shows the same value as the receiver's LCD and the needle on the servo for the prototype gauge moves in sympathy with the pot on the transmitter development board. The rest of it should be fairly straightforward and well within my humble capability. John

No problem about the English. It is good enough. I suspect that there is one shaft inside another but they are seized. You have to strip it down to its component parts to make sure all is free and you understand the mechanism. John