teletech

I bought a ramp truck so I'd be more compact and maneuverable.  It's a single-axle truck, so where the CVR(T) sits will affect axle loading a fair amount.  There is a friendly scale in town, so I can weigh the empty truck on each axle then go get the CVR(T) and do it again but I'm also interested in taking the rig some places out in the sticks so I can play in the dirt, as such doing the stability calculations would be a prudent safety measure.

I can come sort-of close assuming the CVR(T) is a uniform density, which all things considered might not be too far off, but I know for US military hardware there is a big book with rigging information for pretty much every vehicle in the inventory complete with centers, weights, lifting points, and tie points.  I would have assumed such a thing existed for commonwealth vehicles as well and just hoped someone had a copy ready to hand.

As I am working on setting up a transport truck for my CVR(T), I realize it would be greatly beneficial to know the nominal center of gravity for both the Spartan and Scorpion.  I'd also like to know what privately-owned vehicles weigh in practice (i.e. without a combat load of ordinance).

In my case, the Spartan is dieselized and the Scorpion is original.  Neither has and additional armoring, etc.

On 9/18/2019 at 2:56 PM, patracy said:

Mind sharing a few more details?  What specific turbo is that?  How did you plumb the oil supply and return lines?  What carb is that?

That carburetor is  surely a 2-bbl Holley, but I too would love to know more about which model and how they have it jetted.  I guess if you don't get pitchforks and torches for installing a half-a-Holley and a turbo, nobody is going to mind if I install fuel-injection on mine, right? 🙂

I also have always wondered on these blow-through setups how you manage the fuel level in the carb, Mechanical pumps are typically just good for a few PSI, so having to fight the boost pressure seems like it would be a problem.  Obviously they got it to work, I just don't know how?

8 hours ago, Diana and Jackie said:

In the back of the CVRT Diesel repair manual are the instructions for welding CVRT armour.

There has been a lot of dodgy welding when the Belgian CVRT were built (in Belgium)

Really, that's very interesting!  I don't suppose you have a copy you'd care to share or know where I should look?

I mean, I'm mostly done but it would be interesting to see what I *should* have done.

Overall, I feel my hull was well done, the rear sponson was damage in service followed with a shoddy repair and decades of neglect.  I suppose the engine mount corrosion may have been the result of incompatible metals, but since they had steel brackets bolted into them and were at the bottom of the hull I suppose some of that isn't too surprising.

As a roundabout way of followup, I did eventually buy a set of Ferret fenders.  I found a set for sale locally and even more conveniently they were still attached to a pretty-complete Ferret which I bought for far less than it would have cost to get that sad specimen I was looking at back in 2015 in even close to as nice a shape.  Sometimes waiting pays off. 

I eventually gave up on finding something better and went with the fairly-compatible 5083 as the repair part for my rear sponson.  I bought 5556 in both rod and wire forms.  I TIG welded the torsion-rod box that needed attention and also where the rear sponson met the side sponsons.  Then after totally failing to get the wire to feed through the new short MIG gun liner I gave up and fabricated a field-expedient spool-gun.  Turned my MIG up and went for it.  I was running 3/64" wire at over 15m/min at ~24VDC nominal and I wished my feed motor was faster or that I'd had bigger wire.  I would consider this amount of wire and power totally inadequate to weld up hull plates, but for attaching thin plate or motor mounts it seems just enough.

It's not perfect by any means, but it withstood the not-insignificant pounding and bending to post-straighten it and general handling since then just fine.  Heady from that success I decided to have a go at the motor mounts.  The real issue here was an inability to clean the aluminum well enough to be fully satisfied, this alloy is fairly porous and the floor of the motor compartment has been marinading in oil and crud for nearly half a century.  One went pretty poorly, one so-so, and one went quite well.  The fourth mount block came off completely during disassembly so I have to locate it and give that a go.  The three I added material to seem sturdy enough and hopefully catching a wider swath will make future failure less likely.  Once I locate the fourth mount block and re-affix it, the hull will finally be ready to go out for sandblasting.  Then at long last I can start putting thing back together.

I didn't get used to it, just wandered off.

I haven't visited in months.  The only reason I'm here now is the new post in thread notification.  I might come back some day, but I've enough annoyances without a recreational forum having high friction for me.

02FD92 (now wearing a Sabre turret) made it's way through Withams and on the the United States.  I saw it a couple years back in a very sorry state.  The fellow doesn't want to sell but also hasn't touched it in a decade or more.

25 minutes ago, fv1609 said:

Not that birthdays are that important but if the are to be displayed could they be DD/MM/YYYY rather than the US MM/DD/YYYY thanks.

I'd  rather we went to the scientific/ANSI standard of YYYY/MM/DD .

On 11/1/2017 at 12:19 AM, ferretfixer said:

However, I don't know if it's just Me. But I feel now that the Forum is a little too 'Spaced'

Between subjects.  The old layout was MUCH quicker to navigate. Due to the Left margin list of topics. Closely spaced on top of each other.

Beyond my understanding in the computer World.  I personally find the new layout MUCH less interesting. & far slower to navigate.

As I have such a Busy Life (Don't a LOT of US?)  I now visit the forum VERY infrequently now.

I feel the Forum has 'Lost' something.......Am I alone in this thinking?

I am in agreement with the OP's observations about the new layout.  It has taken me a while to say so simply because the new look has sufficiently reduced density that I've not spent the time to do much more than glance at it.

I think a lot of it for me is just that the fonts seem much larger bu default with more space between text, as a result less text fits on the screen.  Reducing the scale of the view helps somewhat, but then I get large margins that hold no content.

I will say the timeline markers ("last hour", "Today", "last week", etc.) are pretty handy in going back to see what I've missed.

I've been running MUCH smaller batteries in my vehicles for years for a variety of reasons, weight reduction on smaller vehicles is the most common.  In all cases, I've had no problem at all with battery life or charging system issues.  If you have parasitic loads or engine troubles it will become apparent much more quickly (don't forget and leave your lights on)  and I wouldn't try it in very cold climates.  I should say I've been using odyssey batteries which are a high-current non-liquid battery so that might be some of why it works so well.  Two of their PC925 crank the Cummins lump in my CVR(T) with no problem at all and they take up very little space so are easy to move in and out of the hatch.

That's what I thought as there are 2 other similar ones. the strapping arrangements have me confused. I'll research some photos. How's your rebuild going?

Mine sort of stalled out after I bought a big AC TIG and correct filler rod but I couldn't find the correct plate alloy to repair the rear sponson.

Then in rapid succession my uncle died, I quit my job, moved house, moved my parents, rolled my Jeep, bought a crane truck, found that my landlords are planning to sell the building my shop is in, found a new building,... it's been busy. In any case, I'm pretty booked until spring with buying and selling some property and prepping the new shop, after that it will be time to get serious about the armor again.

Really looking forward to owning my building cutting down on nagging from the landlords and artist neighbors who seem allergic to anything in olive drab.

Or I might just be stalling until you have finished the picture book for a complete restoration! :-)

Nice work, I've been wanting to do the big stuff but it's good to remember that all those little brackets and fittings need doing too.

Brackets installed. Middle 2 are for holding cooking vessel and spare periscope. What are the 2 at each end for please?

Isn't the one aft for an ammo box for the co-ax MG?

Since the Sterling was what was used as the imperial blaster in the Star Wars movies, A lot of folks in the US made blasters using real Sterling parts when they all got ZFd (sorry about that). I wonder how hard it would be to buy a blaster and remodel it back into a Sterling?

Just a thought.

Are you expecting to go into combat with your Ferret?

He might just want the project to feel original from an operational standpoint, he might want to be able to drive around in areas where there might be some rubble that could puncture a tire and be worried that getting a recovery vehicle in could be a challenge (and in that part of the country, fatal due to heat), or he might want to hire himself out as part of a security convoy. Not sure how it changes the answer.

He's implicitly clear that he isn't worried about using different-looking tires changing the external look, so that frees things up.

I suspect that finding some more recent military wheels/tires and replacing the centers would be a way forward.

ill look into it!

 

if anyone has links to appropriate motors please send!

It seems that Zero motorcycles made a big run of a motor and then changed to a different one, so some of those have made it out into the wild. 44 or 54HP per motor times 4 should be enough. It would be an expensive toy though by the time you buy batteries.

https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=50367

However, by the time he does all those mods, it will go about 10km before the

bevel boxes and hubs suffer massive failures from torque overload.

I think the proposal was for a V8 replacement for the I6, so the torque might well go down.

In any case, who knows, he might be the one who finally drives the supplies over the edge and we could get new high-strength bevel boxes out of the deal. Think of all the effort and support for making Jeep replacement parts now.

I do think military vehicle collecting is going to be in crisis very soon as all of the older folks die off and the youngsters who can't drive a manual transmission let alone adjust drum brakes come to the fore. So as long as sufficient original vehicles and important examples are spared, I don't mind seeing people express their own uniqueness. Heck, I think a four-motor electric Ferret would be cool.

If I had a lot of money and time I might consider going out and finding a really poor specimen to play with, making sure all the original bits I took off went to another collector in need.

It's nice to see more women in the building trades and she's pretty and all, but screwing dimensional lumber together would not be considered joinery here in the states. It might be that the word is used differently in other places.

Here it would be carpentry and joinery would be reserved for projects with carefully fitted, well joints, a simple dado would suffice but think mortise and tennon or dovetail.

, oh and the most important one of all, no Main battle tank will ever charge into the fray on a battery :-D

 

Actually, I'm not so sure...

Imagine having no fuel cell to rupture and burn, no heat signature at idle, distribute batteries around the hull so any one hit won't disable the vehicle and either a single set of motors or hub motors in each road wheel so you can take several hits and keep moving. Oh, and as quiet as you can be and still run on tracks.

The combat advantage to an electric MBT is enough that I suspect it will happen eventually.

The logistic disadvantage is of course not insignificant, I can imagine some sort of towed generator that gets dropped as you get to the field of battle or large truck-mounted tenders.

Zero Electric Motorcycles is already selling bikes to police and military customers, including for combat purposes (think infiltration fast-attack).

OK, so I'm in a pretty sunny part of north America and while an electric car isn't right for me, some of the quoted information has problems:

Charging an EV can be done quickly or slowly, if you aren't in a rush 20 Amps is fine, if you want it charged quickly and have 75amps great but you are moving the same number of electrons, you are just charging your car in one hour rather than four. So, if everybody goes home and plugs their cars in at the same moment there might be an issue, stagger the arrival times and the load averages out to manageable pretty quickly. Most new houses or remodels around here are being equipped with a 30-amp service to the garage for EV charging. That's the same as an electric clothes dryer, hardly a technology that broke the grid when it came out.

Renewable energy is growing much more quickly that any other power supply and around here most of that is taking the form of rooftop solar. If you make 20-amps of power and set to slow charge, you could actually break even. This is one of the reasons Tesla is selling solar carports. Now, it's true that solar is a daytime technology and people tend to charge in the evening, but commercial buildings are also getting rooftop solar and often have much heavier electric services so charging at work or a mix of home and work will further reduce the strain. Sure, there will be local problems but I think just saying the grid will break is a shallow view.

Yes, it may well take 10 hours to *fully* charge a battery, assuming a typical 30-amp service. Any of you who have charged an automotive battery or laptop, or your phone for that matter know that it's not a linear thing. You get a much faster charge when it's low, decreasing as the battery voltage increases. So that 10 hours for a full charge may well result in an 80% charge in an hour or two.

Tesla quick chargers (that 75-amp thing discussed earlier) will do something like 50% charge in 15 minutes. It could easily take me 15 minutes to drive both ways to a filling station (using more fuel) and wait in the queue some days.

Due to battery technology, safety margins, charge and discharge rates, etc. The Volt battery isn't going to be nearly empty when the generator kicks on. I suspect it will still have about 30%-50% charge, this way the car still has full acceleration should it be needed and you don't drain the battery too much and shorten it's life.

I can't remotely follow the charging cost math below.

Around here I pay $0.15 per KW/h of power, but actually that's a lie, by the time it's all done it's a bit over double that, so lets say $0.32/

So, 25 miles=65% of a battery is about 10.4KWH, for me that's $3.33 to go 25 miles, so $0.13/mile.

Ok, so my 1979 Datsun does better, right now... a few years ago the advantage would have been to the Volt and I can't make gasoline on my rooftop like I could electricity.

Onward to cost of ownership.

Car dealers in this part of the world make most of their money on service and repairs, the rest they make on lending money (financing), anything the happen to make actually selling cars is pretty incidental. The electric car that Henry Ford's wife drove

https://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/11/henry-fords-wife-wouldnt-drive-model-t-kept-electric-car/

required almost nothing aside from a new battery to run again. Electric motors have two bearings and that's about it for moving parts.

So, your service department at the dealership just isn't going to do any engine work and you the electric car owner aren't going to be paying for any engine work, for the life of the vehicle.

I'll compare this to the old diesel/petrol situation. In this country you can expect to pay a heavy premium for a diesel vehicle and yet people pay it gladly, particularly the people who can do the math because they have accountants (businesses). Why, well partly because the vehicle life is so much greater and maintenance is so much lower.

Oh, we already have electric heavy trucks plying the lanes of our motorways around here. Mostly local delivery, but I see them.

So, yeah, they aren't for everyone but they are also not some great conspiracy doomed to failure.

As we are on the subject, a few weeks ago an overseas friend sent the following, I think it originated in North America:

 

The Electric car boondoggle

I always wondered why we never saw a cost analysis on what it actually costs to operate an electric car. Now we know why.

 

 

 

At a neighborhood BBQ I was talking to a neighbor, a BC Hydro executive. I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities. For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service.

 

 

 

The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

 

 

 

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles ... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy the damn things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system! This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead-end road that it will be presented with an oops and a shrug.

 

 

 

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are eco-friendly, just read the following:

 

 

 

Note: If you ARE a green person, read it anyway. Enlightening.

 

 

 

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors...and he writes...For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

 

 

 

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

 

 

 

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $116 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery. $18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery. Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

 

 

 

The gasoline powered car costs about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000........So the American Government wants loyal Americans not to do the math, but simply pay 3 times as much for a car, that costs more than 7 times as much to run, and takes 3 times longer to drive across the country.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of older 3-axle military transport trucks see some results of a wind-up as well, the original M35 (deuce-and-a-half) with the sprag clutch for the front axles had the potential for all 6 wheels to move at different rates and even just having both back axles driven at different rates.

Many collectors fit hubs so they can unlock the front and sometimes back axles and report much improved steering, tire life, and fuel economy. In cases where locking hubs are not available, or they would alter the look of the vehicle in an undesirable manner, it is common to find some extras and de-spline hubs you don't want driven and just swap back in the originals should you think you might need the traction.

Of course, the modified driveshafts for the Stolly have the same utility.

A funny feature is that they have a only two grove rifleing

I don't think it's universal for marked receivers to have 2-groove barrels or for 2-groove barrel receivers to be marked.

I know it's something that has come up on occasion, 1903 Springfields are sometimes seen with 2-groove barrels and a number of those wound up cut into a sort of liner for aftermarket companies to salvage M-1 Garand barrels.

I think they were all rush jobs, the ones I've shot have not done better than "acceptable" accuracy.

Of course, compared to the Sten Mk III barrels where they just cut some grooves in a flat plate and then wrapped that around a mandrel to weld they seem quite good.

Loads of them made it back to the U.S., or never left the states for the ones produced here.

Of the No. 4 Mk I rifles I've met, more than half have been so marked.

In the US those so marked don't seem to command any premium over those not so marked, which is interesting since almost anything else with that marking is increased in value to collectors.

I'm sad to say that a lot of these rifles get cut down into "replica" jungle carbines, which makes them lighter to carry but brutal to actually shoot. Not that the metal butplate on the regular item makes shooting them comfortable exactly...

Yes, it could happed that the starter could stay engaged and get cooked.

If it's the same an my CVR(T) starter, it's a motor with a spring-loaded centrifugal gear rather than a separate solenoid to engage the drive. As such, the motor spins at least a tiny bit to get the gear in mesh. I had a situation with a seized motor where the starter would engage the gear and then stall, if you kept it engaged it would surely gotten hot enough to smell. Can you turn the motor with a prybar OK? Can you turn the starter by hand?

In the states I've noticed what feels like a precipitous drop in interest in tracked armor.

Medium-sized vehicles seem pretty price-stable, jeeps continue to increase (only for very nice specimens) and mules (M274) have increased dramatically in the past few years with no sign of that reversing.

I do think a lot of the attention of late in the USA is on the now-available HMMWVs finally being released in large quantity and everybody wanting one (or so it seems to a disinterested spectator).