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Cheers for the reply's Adrian,

 

It seems a shame that the T number and its Bitish Army cannot be sourced, just imagine what it might have seen:shocked:

 

Will the new owners be keeping the same tracks?

 

Cheers,

 

Luke

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Having seen the M10 shortly after it arrived at Adrian's and sit there for many years, I am finding this thread is absolutely fascinating.

 

Isn't it marvelous that there are collectors out there who have the resources to fund these kind of mammoth projects, because it will be to all of our benefits (not just the proud owner) when we see this machine trundle through the streets of Dorset in the summer.

 

This kind of project is totally out of my league, but I'm so glad that there are people out there who commit the huge amounts of resources into restorations of this nature. This has been a real eye-opener.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post all these pictures - Not a 10 minute job in its own right; I don't know where you find the time!!

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Hello Luke ,

Its no big secret who the owner of the M10 is , im affraid its me ,ive owned it for well over a year now ,and as you know by this thread that Adrian is kindly posting, it is being fully restored for me by Carl Brown with all the heavy type steel fabrication work being under taken by Adrian Barrell, i hope every body agrees what a excellent job that they are doing and we are hoping with crossed fingers that it will be ready to take to A and E in June .

In answer to your question Luke regarding tracks , it comes on good rubber block track and i have also managed to buy a set of NOS / referbished Canadian dry pin metal tracks as well . I know that the CDP tracks are not technically correct for the M10 , but my thoughts were that a new set of CDP tracks are better long term than perhaps a old or worn out set of "Sherman" metal tracks at this time with spares getting ever harder and harder to find.

We will post more photos as we get them from Carl , but i think the photos are fairly upto date with the work at the moment .

Hope that answers a couple of questions , Regards Adrian Scott

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Hawk

It seems a shame that the T number and its Bitish Army cannot be sourced, just imagine what it might have seen:shocked:

 

 

 

Luke

 

As you live in Dorset it would be fairly easy to make some enquiries at Bovington to see if the Post War ZS-ZV registrations for the M10 are held at Bovington. If the Serial number (the number stamped into the towing lugs) is recorded on the vehicle registration card for Post war vehicles it should be possible to find the vehicle, either they could be held at Bovington or may be in the records of the RA.

 

The Post war Registrations for Churchills for example have many diifferent numbers including chassis and engine numbers, list the struck out T number and even mention final fate of the vehicle.

 

After 1948 the M10c retained by the Army were numbered in ZS and ZV registrations.

89 ZS 60 to 98 ZS 17 a possible 857 vehicles?

99 ZS 04 to 99 ZS 07 3 vehicles

 

37 ZV 86 to 39 ZV 97 which is a batch of 211 numbers that were originally alocated to the A30 Avenger SPG and may have been re-alocated to M10c assuming the Avengers were unavailable. It seems unlikely that all these numbers were atually issued it is more likely that a few hundred survived long enough to be re-registered as Post war vehicles.

 

Steve

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fantastic job! Were the tyres NOS or new ones?

 

Tim

 

Hi Tim, the tyres are new production from Holland. They should last a long time!

 

Even during the war, shedding tyres was a problem if speed exceeded 20 mph for long periods, the diameter is relatively small, 20", and they get quite warm in use.

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Luke

 

As you live in Dorset it would be fairly easy to make some enquiries at Bovington to see if the Post War ZS-ZV registrations for the M10 are held at Bovington. If the Serial number (the number stamped into the towing lugs) is recorded on the vehicle registration card for Post war vehicles it should be possible to find the vehicle, either they could be held at Bovington or may be in the records of the RA.

 

The Post war Registrations for Churchills for example have many diifferent numbers including chassis and engine numbers, list the struck out T number and even mention final fate of the vehicle.

 

 

 

After 1948 the M10c retained by the Army were numbered in ZS and ZV registrations.

89 ZS 60 to 98 ZS 17 a possible 857 vehicles?

99 ZS 04 to 99 ZS 07 3 vehicles

 

37 ZV 86 to 39 ZV 97 which is a batch of 211 numbers that were originally alocated to the A30 Avenger SPG and may have been re-alocated to M10c assuming the Avengers were unavailable. It seems unlikely that all these numbers were atually issued it is more likely that a few hundred survived long enough to be re-registered as Post war vehicles.

 

Steve

 

Thanks Steve, I may have to do some enquiries down at the Bovvie archives, should be easy enough, my Dad built them in the ninties.

 

Can't wait to see this, we will be at A & E for sure, wouldn't miss it for the world:-D All those Shermans, M18's and hopefully this M10c, can't wait! If you see two burkes wearing Tankers jackets and looking very very envious give us a shout:-)

 

Cheers,

 

Luke

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  • 4 weeks later...

Time for another small update, despite work continuing all the time, it's been primarily on internal parts where lots of hours show seemingly small results!

 

A case in point being the clutch mechanism. The M10 has, like the M4A2 it is based on, a twin powerpack. The two GM Detroit supercharged two stroke diesels are coupled together by a clutch housing that allows each engine to run individually. To achieve this, there is provision to lock either clutch in the disengaged position.

 

The mechanism incorporates an equalizer mounted just ahead of the clutch housing. The first picture shows the clutch levers with the slotted top holes to allow one side to be held disengaged. The second picture shows the whole unit mounted in the floor with the equalizer fitted on top.

 

Doh! The pictures are in the wrong order but you get the idea...

2010-02-03_17-39-44&.jpg

DSC00980..jpg

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Unusually for an American tank, the M4A2 and M10 use conventional i.e. not electric gauges so the temperature and pressure gauges use very long capillary tubes. There are also low oil pressure warning lights activated by pressure switches but these are also mounted on the panel and take their feed from the oil pressure gauge lines.

 

The two black knobs on the panel are priming pumps for cold start. These pump fuel under pressure into the engine at the same time activating an electric igniter to burn the atomised fuel to heat up the inlet tract.

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i hope every body agrees what a excellent job that they are doing and we are hoping with crossed fingers that it will be ready to take to A and E in June .

 

Adrian, Adrian and Carl - get on with it! Remember NO SLEEP UNTIL A&E..........

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A very nice find indeed on the NOS instrument panel. Nice thats its going to finially be used as it was intended when it was packaged all those years ago ! Makes a nice display piece all by its self :-D

Edited by abn deuce
correct text
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  • 3 weeks later...

A quick update on progress , both the Detroit engines have now been stripped down and have been found to be incomplete , they are missing the liners and piston rings and oil pumps and alot of bolts in side were loose as if the engines have been thrown back together in a hurry , so what we thought was going to be a relatively easy job to get the engines running and back into engine bay has now all changed !!

Carl and myself and Carls machanic Peter had a meeting at a Detroit engine specialist in Horsham West Sussex on fri morning to discuss options open to us in returning the engines to a usable state . I think at this moment we are considering up grading the engines to a more modern spec by using new 4 valve per cylinder heads and upgraded fuel pumps and injectors which should up the horse power to around 460 and make the engines run clean ,ie no smoke or a lot less than the original Detroits , but we are awaiting costings early next week so we will have to wait and see which path we follow . Adrian .

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Hi Eddy ,

its not quite as simple as that as the Detroit tank engines in a twin pack turn anti clockwise and normal 671 engines turn clockwise !! , its not going to be cheap at all but at least the engines will be fully rebuilt and upgraded and it should go very well .

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I m sure it was a shock to find the engines in that state Adrian :shocked: AT least you uncovered it now , if they had been complete but not reassembeld to proper spec . say loose internal bolts or a bad oil pump how much worse it could have been to have one or both engines fail while running :wow:

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I thought perhaps I should chip in at this point with reference to the engines. The pack in question is the one that I supplied with the M10.

I had bought it as a take out from a well known dealer, unseen and in fact before I had the M10. It was a Stoneleigh militaria show where I found out the M10s rough location having known of its existence for some time. Not half an hour later, I was being offered the engine! I took this to be a good omen and so agreed to have it.

 

The M10 itself took a little longer to track down as explained earlier.

 

If it had still been mine at this point, I would be a tad annoyed to put it mildly but such are the risks when buying takeouts!

 

You can see why the engines were so free to turn....

2010-03-10_17-13-50&.jpg

2010-03-10_17-14-04&.jpg

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A quick update from last week , we have decided to get the specialist Detroit engine firm that we visited last week to rebuild both the engines upto long blocks c/w new 4 valve heads , new pistons , rings and liners and new fuel pump/injectors ,Hopefully Carl delivered both of the stripped down engines to Horsham today , so hopefully within about 4 weeks they will be rebuilt and ready for collection !!

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  • 1 month later...

Another update at last! The freshly rebuilt engines are back and are ready to be built up into the pack.

The rebuild included new pistons, liners, heads and injectors. The heads are now four valve which together with the appropriate other items should give a bit more power and a great deal less smoke! The four valves are all exhaust as the two stroke Detroits use ports in the liners for air induction.

2010-05-11_16-30-22_110520101388.jpg

2010-05-11_16-29-52_110520101385.jpg

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