bcoycqms Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Ferret rescue Back in the summer wemanaged to rescue a very sad looking ferret from a well known seasideattraction. The picture below shows theeffect you get when salt air meets tin wear. After finding this ferret in such a bad statewe just had to rescue it. After some negotiations with the owners we were givenpermission to remove it. As you can seein the photos it wasn’t being well looked after, in fact positivelyneglected. With one of the engine coversmissing, the general public, in its usual unthinking manner, used the openorifice as a dustbin. With the tin wearbeing in such a bad state the only thing we could do was to cut all the binsaway, and scrap them. The next problemwas to get inside the vehicle, which wasn’t easy. The drivers hatch had rusted solid in theshut position. With a little heat, a lot of oil, a five foot crowbar and a lotof effort we managed to prise it open. To get into turret was slightly easier, with the removal of a bolt wherethe padlock should fit and a lot of hammering we managed to move the lid, onlyto have one of the hinges snap off. But,at long last, we were in. Once inside wefound that the salt air had wreaked havoc with the tin wear. That was just the start of our problems, as I said before,with the tin wear in such a bad state, the only option was to hack them offwith angle grinders. To help us to work on the inside the vehicle it would benecessary to remove the escape hatch behind the spare wheel. When this vehicle was first restored andplaced on this attraction they had welded the escape hatches shut. So it was a case of mini angle grinder out, tocut the welding to get them open. Once inside the Ferret therewas virtually nothing left of the tin wear. While seeing if the vehicle was in gear, I found the gear selector wasrusted solid and the forward and reverse lever came away my hand. I disconnected both gear selector and forwardand reverse lever at the gear box, but still couldn’t work out if the vehiclewas in gear. So the only option was todisconnect the drive shafts, this done, I connected my Land rover to the ferretwith a fixed bar ready to move it. I waswildly over optimistic to think that we could move it easily after so many yearsstanding. It was a case that the brakeshad seized on, so it was a matter of jacking the vehicle up and trying torelease the brake shoes with the rear adjusters, but this was to no effect. So it was a case of wheel off, hub off. Thisferret was restored in 1989 before being parked up and left to the elements, sowhen I had removed the hubs I was surprised to find they had fitted new brakeshoes, unfortunately these had fixed themselves to the hub. After a fair bit of hammering we managed toremove the hubs and take off the brake shoes. Once we had the wheels back on we were able tomove the ferret. This all sounds as if we did this in a single day, but I’m sure as you are all well aware that this takesa fair bit longer, in fact this took us four working days from the start toactually getting it on o the low loader to get it back to the yard. Ihave only added a few photos to this blog and will add more photos later Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrettkitt Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 Would this vehicle be at a local fort type attraction? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Would this vehicle be at a local fort type attraction? You got it in one:yay: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 More photos Internal shots to follow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrettkitt Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 You got it in one:yay: Nice one I glad somebody saved it a gent with the initials T. R sent me pictures of it, he wanted to rescue it so I sat on the pictures rather than publishing them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrettkitt Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 (edited) Hopefully this is it if it isn't that just means that another one needs saving somewhere [ATTACH=CONFIG]71303[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]71304[/ATTACH] Edited January 2, 2013 by ferrettkitt grammar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 Hopefully this is it if it isn't that just means that another one needs saving somewhere [ATTACH=CONFIG]71303[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]71304[/ATTACH] yes this is the very one, as you can see from your own photos it was in desperate need of saving. We didn't say anything until we had safely back at the yard. Shane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 2, 2013 Author Share Posted January 2, 2013 A view of the rubbish bin And now some of the inside Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
34ba37 Posted January 2, 2013 Share Posted January 2, 2013 how did you get it over the bridge, i was told the bridge couldn't take the weight? but that was before the rust took hold! still cant see shane's pict's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferretfixer Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 I WAS going to obtain this ferret myself, a couple of years back. But knowing it VERY well at it's location. & having had the privellidge of seeing inside it before it was almost inaccessable. I decided against it! You are a VERY brave man for taking this one on! Agreed! Seaside SALTY air does NOTHING to help any metal object sitting outside for a prolonged length of time! It does have an interesting Military History though, & also the smoke dischargers are present. Unlike a lot of Ferrets released later on! Well done that Man!.......... Also, the Centurion got saved & is under restoration now, & has been for a while! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 I WAS going to obtain this ferret myself, a couple of years back. But knowing it VERY well at it's location. & having had the privellidge of seeing inside it before it was almost inaccessable. I decided against it! You are a VERY brave man for taking this one on! Agreed! Seaside SALTY air does NOTHING to help any metal object sitting outside for a prolonged length of time! It does have an interesting Military History though, & also the smoke dischargers are present. Unlike a lot of Ferrets released later on! Well done that Man!.......... Also, the Centurion got saved & is under restoration now, & has been for a while! brave or foolhardy :nut: I couldn't just leave it slowly rotting away on the fort. I think in the end the museum was pleased to see the back of it because it was becoming a health risk to the general public. But as for the restoration I think is going to be a long and slow job. Shane Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bcoycqms Posted January 4, 2013 Author Share Posted January 4, 2013 A another day and another attempt at a bloke in these pictures I hope this time you will be able see them. The bridge was a problem at the beginning and it looked like we would have to lift the ferret over the wall using the largish crane. But the museum had engineers inspect the bridge and said it would take the weight of both my Landrover and ferret so that is how we got it out. To give you all an idea of what we're talking about see the pictures attached. This is the view from the fort down to the road, is a very tight turn when you got the ferret behind the Landrover the bridge itself is just wide enough to take them. The second picture is looking back from the road into the fort. The last two show wooden construction over the dry moat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ferrettkitt Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 (edited) Its a shame that nearly all the tinware has rusted away it looked to have been fairly complete inside when it first went on display. It just goes to show that you can not leave vehicles without any type of plan to keep them in a reasonable shape whilst on display. Oh I can see the pictures :thumbsup: Tar to the mod or mods who sorted out picturegate:tup:: Edited January 4, 2013 by ferrettkitt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmite!! Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Tar to the mod or mods who sorted out picturegate:tup:: No problem, took a fair bit of digging to find the problem, simple in the end, the photos were loaded from Shane's album which he had set to private which meant only the Mods could see them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fesm_ndt Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Mike any Pig items by chance ;-) Not that I seen, on that note I've never seen a Saracen preserved over here. Makes me think a lot of stuff went back to UK. I saw recently two diesel ferrets still operated by the Army for National day parade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
griff66 Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 yep pics all good who ever said that bridge could not take weight looks well strong , health and safety ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marmite!! Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 As the photo problem has been fixed I have cleaned up the thread... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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