Motleyholt

This week's headlines..... Locks. Batteries. Windows. Whilst stripping the door to fix the drivers window I took the door lock out to see if I could replace them. As we used to make these locks where I worked in the 90's I stripped the lock down to find the key number which is stamped on the inner part of the lock. As it happens there is a seller on Ebay selling new old stock keys and had the correct key. Two were ordered and now I have two working door locks. The rod that connects the inner door handle to the catch, to lock and unlock, was also missing. The donor cab had one but it was badly bent. Easily straighten and fitted though. It's the inner top rod. The donor cab was deprived of a window runner, which was duly fitted to my cab. Now I can open the window which is rather useful. But then I found out why the door lock rod was missing and the donor bent. The window regulator catches the rod! So a high tech solution was devised as seen below..... The cable tie nicely guides the window regulator past and pulls the rod away. Win win. I finally purchased a pair of correct 6TN batteries at great expense. I had the battery tray but was missing the clamp. The parts drawing is a little vague so I've made my own interpretation until I see the correct one so I can copy it. The stepped ends allowed for the clamp springs and washers to be fitted. Replaced a poorly fitted battery terminal whilst I was at it. Rear marker boards have arrived which will complete it's civilian transformation. Have been doing some more rust removal and painting on the front of the cab ready for heater and wing refitting. Once this is done the trade plates are going on and we will be off for a pre MOT brake test and head light set.

Bits and bobs week, swapped the wheels on the nearside and torqued all the nuts. Continuing the process of prepping for MOT some legalities need addressing. Rear marker boards need fitting and additional reflectors along the sides. Salvaged a couple of reflector brackets from the donor parts. Sand blasted, painted them and bolted them on to the mud wings. Reflectors to follow. Modified a Land Rover washer bottle cap to replace the rotted out bit on the truck. Just had to make the hole bigger in the centre. G clamped a couple of washers either side as not to deform the thin tin when I drilled it. Then once assembled gave it a coat of paint for good measure. Used about 500 cable ties resecuring all the pipes and cables where the original ties had degraded and turned to a bakalite brittleness. Untangled a few pipes that seemed to have been platted together. Maybe a bored Foden employee?? Hopefully will reduce the risk of a failure in the future. Also have some keys coming for the door locks, fingers crossed they fit. And should have the front back together soon too. Shame that work gets in the way of having fun!

Looks to be new old stock never fitted. Clean inside looking through the ports. Stamped APGA6216C R1 10/69 Open to offers and information if you know what it fits. Can be posted at cost or collected from south Bedfordshire. PM me with offers.

Open for offers 3x Michelin 16.00R20 XL tyres on rims, no centres. See pics below. One has about 20mm tread but wear off the back of the tread blocks. One is about 15mm and the last is about 10mm. A few battle scars but no apparent serious damage. None are inflated. If I have time I'll lift them out, check them and see if they hold air. Located south Bedfordshire, can deliver locally if you have the means to unload them from a trailer. Otherwise collection only. PM me if interested.

Accidentally posted the last one twice, how do you delete a post??

This week's update time has come again, I knocked up a couple of cab mount guide rollers on the lathe. Nothing too exciting just face it off, run a 15mm drill through the middle, part it off and chamfer the corners. Forgot to take a pic of them installed! Drained and refilled the transfer gearbox, another 20 litres of oil gone. Just the hubs to go now. Put some green on the cab front corners. There are some holes if you look close enough and these will be delt with later.my current mission it to halt the progress of the rust devils and get an MOT passed. Speaking of which it's now on the DVSA system so it can be booked in as soon as it's ready. Heaters can now go back on and be plumbed back in. I wasn't too worried about over spraying all the other components as some kind military types had already done that with nato green!! The front quarter panels, or wings?, were next on the agenda. Whilst off they got some de-rusting and repainting on the insides. The O/S has a bit of unauthorised adjustment in the past so needed a bit of readjustment with the sheet metal spanners. It's going to take a bit more work this side as the damage had cracked the paint off and the rust has got in the the seams. My Sunday morning was spent replacing all the steering ball joint gaiters. This needed the No. 1 jack and the No. 2 stands. It always amazes me that the people who design things never leave the extra 5mm needed to make a job simple. I had to take the spring eye grease nipple out to remove the drag link as my ball joint breaker was too big to be able to pop the rear joint first without twisting the drag link up in the air. The split soggy remains were removed and some replacements fitted. All done Whilst it was on stands I checked the front brakes and found the N/S brake was binding. The cam appears to be sticking slightly on its bushes. I slacked off the adjuster, added some more grease and worked the brakes and now it seems to be free. Another job will be to strip and fully service the brakes. I'm not expecting much wear from its 4000 miles of use but probably lot of sticking parts with dried up 40 year old grease. Last job was to swap the best two tyres to the front. For my peace of mind mostly and to keep the MOT testers as happy as possible. Luckily the farm has purchased a tyre changing trolley, for the tractors, that allows you to lift, rotate and move big wheels with ease. This was really appreciated after I pulled the first one off the old fashioned way. They need some green paint as well. That's all folks

Time for an update, heater No. 2 now fully reassembled. An extra foam seal was fitted to the motors to keep the water out. Two complete heaters, the light guards and wing mountings all ready to go back on. But before they can go on the cab needed a clean up and paint. So out with the wire wheels, wire brush and die grinder to clean it all up. Then on with some rust stabiliser. Followed by some primer. Just the green to go. Also started changing the axle, hub and transfer box oils. Oep 220 in everything according to the manual. So 80w90 was purchased in bulk. And on the hottest day the plugs were pulled. Front axle had 2 magnetic plugs, 2nd axle 2 plain drain plugs and axle 3 the correct No. of each. So at least I know it's had one oil change! So after a swap around the first two drums were slowly pumped in. Transfer and hubs still to go. A bit of nylon arrived to make 2 new cab mount guide rollers. As you can see the original had biodegraded. Have also started the ball rolling to get it Mot'd. A vtg1 form was filled in online and submitted to the DVSA so that a TAS file can be generated which gives the information to the Mot tester for brakes, emissions, tyre ratings etc. The vtg1 is fairly straight forward as long as you have a manual or handbook. All the dimensions were taken from these and axle weights were taken from the chassis plate. Once this is completed and I have finished the remaining jobs I can book it in for a test. If it passes I can apply for a registration plate and tax. Then it will be released into the world and maybe get to some shows.

Yes there is a paragraph on them. The book quotes 7 were ordered with EKA D2030 recovery gear and sleeper cab versions of the s90 cab as fitted to the fh70 Foden. I have noticed a couple of errors in the book so wouldn't take the number ordered as gospel. There were also were 4 100t ballast tractors built with fuller 9 speeds and 50000lbs winches, also with the s90 cab. I would be interested to know if any of these still exist?

Update time, mostly paining, flatting and more painting. And I've painted enough parts in the evenings to put some of it back together. Refit foam seals Reassembly was a bit fiddly partly because of the design and partly because my foam is slightly denser than the original. The end cover needs to be fitted over the matrix pipes and then cover and matrix fitted to the heater box. But it sits at an angle inside the heater box and needs twisting against the foam to align the screw holes. Trying do do this without removing too much paint through a 4" square hole was great fun! All fitted in the end, used some longer screws to aid alignment. A little instant gasket was used, not original, but will hopefully stop the ingress of water in the future. Have ordered some stainless steel self tappers which will replace the old ones. Just the motor and fan to fit.... and repeat for the second heater...which is well underway The box has been stripped in the blaster to reveal the weak bits. Corner cut off and new metal marked from the old part. A little extra metal left for and adjustment. Weld it in, grind back with a flap wheel. All the parts for the second heater have been painted this weekend so next week I should be able to refit them to the cab. Had a look into the drivers door to see why the window glass is not attached to the mechanism any more. Found the runner in the bottom of the door. Rust has got under the rubber channel and weakened the steel until it lost its grip and fell off the glass. If I haven't got a good one on the donor a bit of fab work will take place to make a new channel. The doors will come off later for reconstruction of the lower edges which are non existent in places. Lastly the truck needs it's standard pick and shovel. But there is a 3rd bit missing, anyone know what it should be? Pick head Shovel Pick handle and other?

Treated myself to a bit of reading matter Has quite a large section on military Foden's from the late 1800's to the companies demise in 2006. It says 139 limbers/gun tractors were built. I know of the whereabouts of 3 ,1 original and 2 converted, and the 1 deceased that is now my parts bin. Does anyone know of any more in original condition?

Found some of the little blighters on the bay and purchased a couple so I can repair the spare sediment bowl which already has a snapped screw. I wonder if anything can be applied to stop them corroding? Possibly a lacquer or more extreme anodising!

Very informative Adrian and a helpful hint for the accents. Thank you. I can empathise with the last one too 😂

This would explain a lot about my life! Is there something in french that describes the inability to stop mid pint? Even when you know you have had too many......

Thanks, it's taken a few years to amass and technically they belong to my company. Gets me back to my roots as I trained as a machinist many moons ago. Shortly before the company I worked for shut down after Vauxhaul's factory closed in Luton.

I rebuilt my first Land Rover at 15 and several in the years that followed with nothing more than the basics. It's taken another 30 years to gather the machinery I now have for work and play. But now I spend half my time maintaining the machines instead. So I'm not sure it's progress! If you are ever out Bedfordshire way and need something bending, chopping or machining then give me a shout. Always happy to help a dedicated enthusiast. And your WOT centainly is getting that dedication.

A lovely restoration made so much more special by your hand crafted approach. It's amazing what you can do with a vice, a selection of hammers and some angle iron. I did the same for many years and still dig out my lumps of angle now for a quick bit of fab work! Keep the tea and production going. 👍

Work has been manic recently, the modern commercials don't last as long as the old military motors, so have only managed a couple of jobs this week. Made some grey bits green. And made some green bits grey Getting deja vu (apologies I don't know how to add the accents). If the customers resist breaking things I'll get them all painted green and reassembled.

I also had the same suspicion, my Land Rover series 2 with series 3 wings fitted has 4 headlights also but there is a switch to turn 2 off. It could just be because it makes it difficult to check the headlamp aim at test. I'll just disconnect the wire. Shame as the land rover is lovely to drive with 4!

Update night, several more jobs either completed or progressed. Some time ago I ordered the original type of alternator belt, it's a tripple v belt all in one. The engine manual states either a 3v belt or 4 individual matched belts. The original belt is an odd length and I would have needed to order 10 as a minimum order! So I opted for the next size up as the safest option as there is plenty of adjustment. In hindsight I could have gone the next size down but it works fine and there is adjustment left. Next was to change the oil in the second part of the gearbox that deals with high, low and overdrive. It has a habit of sticking between ranges leaving you looking a bit silly with the engine revving freely before it decides to select. It was a bit mucky inside. I think it should be a heavy and probably a straight grade. Once I have the manual digitised I'll know for sure. As a temporary flush I've put in an ep 80w90 basic grade incase there is anything intolerant in there. Next was to strip out the second heater box. Oddly the heaters are different on each side. One side has a single control flap inside and the other a double. My donor cab has exactly the same set up. So either they have both been replaced or that's how they were built? And the other side... It's now stripped and awaiting the blasting treatment. Next was to replace the degraded wiring harness to the with the part from xmod. I decided to swap the wires inside for the larger originals. I regreted this almost imediately, the new conduit was slightly smaller than original. A draw wire and a spot of rubber grease made it work. It had to be trimmed to the right length and a some heat shrink fitted to hold the end together. Lastly a headlight upgrade to make driving a little easier should I find myself out after dark. Some wipac halogen headlights were purchased. Fairly straight foward to fit just time consuming. Originally the outer headlight is dip beam and both operate for main. An extra wire was added to allow both to operate dip and main. More fighting with conduit fittings, all eventually gave up with a little warmth and round jaw grips. The original headlamps and bulb harnesses were re-homed in the stores for a future restoration if someone wants it totally original. I know you concourse restorers are out there. Again a bit of variety where one lamp had been replaced. Then make up new harnesses for halogen H4 bulbs. Crimped and soldered for reliability. And assemble. Only managed to get two back in as they are a bit fiddly to get all the rubbers back in with the headlights straight. Two to go tomorrow. Once it's on the road they will all be stripped fully for a re-paint. Three are solid and one is starting to rust around the mounting. The rusty one appears to be the replacement. In the meantime a coating of wax spray will keep them sound. Just need to align them now. Hopefully the next installment will be refitting the heaters and reassembling the cab.

Had a look this afternoon and have only got the smaller fittings, sorry. Haven't had much playtime this week, just a bit of blasting and priming. Hopefully be more progress next week.

I'll have a look on the spare cab and bits of chassis. If I find any I'll let you know.

This link is a bit more straight foward to understand. https://movingon.blog.gov.uk/2020/12/09/ban-on-tyres-over-10-years-old-for-heavy-vehicles-and-some-minibuses/ It appears they dropped the 10 year rule on psv's unless they are single wheel at the rear. I suppose, as zero five two said, they couldn't read the date between the tyres. "Using old tyres on historic vehicles The new regulations exempt non-commercial vehicles aged 40 years and older from these requirements. However, you should get all tyres of all ages regularly inspected by a competent person. This should be part of your tyre management and vehicle maintenance system. Even if an older tyre appears safe, you need to assess and manage any risks associated with its use. A short journey at a low speed when the vehicle is lightly loaded, poses different risks to those involving long journeys, high-speed journeys, or use while the vehicle is laden." Does look like they have left it open for the authorities to take action if circumstances require, ie old, cracked and loaded or a combination of those. But I suppose that applies to all vehicles.

My apologies the wording is not used commercially for the carriage of goods. My bad. It has to be said the testing manual is very vague on the subject with no mention of exemptions and the requirement for psv's. I have a test for a civy truck test on Tuesday so will see if I can get a definitive article in writing from the tester.

Shame but at least you have a good one for referance should you take it on. Otherwise you have a lifetime supply of spares. What are the problems on the rough one?

EDIT: There are a few errors in this post, see following posts for the right info. The ten year tyre rule currently only applies to the front wheels, the reason is if a back tyre blows it is very unlikely for the vehicle to lose control especially as there is another tyre with it. Unless the vehicle is registered as a PSV in which case all tyres must be less than ten years old, higher speed limit and passengers. I've had lots replaced on horse boxes and low use trucks. The testers have said there is a 40 year old exemption but were unsure if it needs to be registered as a historic vehicle as well. And exempt vehicles cannot be used to carry anything. So if you claim exemption and get pulled over fully loaded you will get a prohibition as fa as i'm aware. I need to update my HGV testing manual and ammendments so when I do I'll look up the section and post it. The steel wires (cords) that make up the structure of a commercial tyre degrade due to age and fatigue, also where a tyre gets cut by stones etc the cords are exposed and will corrode. Eventually they fail, the tyre deforms and then bursts. It has to be said that some modern tyres seem to degrade very quickly and some 40+ year old tyres look fine. Possibly the ingredients used has changed? Unless you happen to have a tyre testing machine you would never know. Ultimately I will find out when my Foden goes for test! Its 42 years old so will the perfect candidate. This is my 40 year old spare.