attleej Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Dear All, Some of you will be aware that I am rebuilding my Antar TMU371Y, or 33BP08. I bought her direct from Ruddington in 1983. I have used her fully freighted at 107 tons gross train weight carrying the REME museum's Conqueror ARV. Sadly I have had to keep her outside for many years and the time came for a complete rebuild. There is very little wrong mechanical with the major assemblies. The biggest problem was the dried out, flaky paint and rust on the chassis. There was no alternative to a complete strip down. I think that this project qualifies for the term a 'nut and bolt' job. Below are some of the photos that I have taken during the process. I have taken many more, particularly of the brake pipes. There are about 100 of them so there are about 10, 000 ways they could go together. Fortunately they are all labelled and photo'd. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m109a3uk Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Good work there John. Lots of heavy lifting there. Cant wait to see it done! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_bish Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Impressive. Quick question - when your labelling bits you have taken off do you follow a method on how to do this e.g. follow the workshop manual labelling or use something like left rear wheel assembly 1... I plan on getting some space in the next year or so do do something like this myself and labelling seems a good process to understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hummermark Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Hi, Your sequence of pictures reminds me of the scene in the film The Lord of War with Nicolas Cage where the indigenous population reduce an aircraft to a skeleton! Why is the fan in the centre of the two radiators - it doesn't strike me as an efficient place to put a fan? In the picture sequence where you are using the extractor tool on a link arm; the link arm from the chassis there is a steel plate with two springs - what does that do? Regards Mark Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antar Posted January 4, 2015 Share Posted January 4, 2015 Thanks for posting John, although I rebuilt 12DM60 between 1988 -92 I did not go this far as it had had a Fazakerley Engineering rebuild in 1980. You are doing a fantastic job. Did you fit the diesel ? are you planning to increase the BHP during the rebuild ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timbo Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Brilliant pics - thanks for posting, very impressive...! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
attleej Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Dear All, In answer to Paul I have only labelled the air pipes because there are so many and there are too many perms and combinations. I used a luggage label for clarity AND a stamped ally disc wired on for security. I want to take off all the tube nuts for re-plating. The threads are ridiculously fine and having re-plated nuts and tube studs would be a great improvement. On the Antar all the bespoke metal parts generally have a part number stamped on them. Most can only be seen / read after plating or shotblasting. Since I bought the vehicle in '83 I know it intimately so I know where most parts go in any case. WRT the fasteners, Thornycrofts used the ideal size to the nearest 1/8" so after plating I sorted them out into size and length. The parts list is ESSENTIAL (don't even think of doing a job like this without one) however, sometimes it shows 3 diff lengths for attaching a part without saying where each size goes! So a bit of detective works is req. In answer to Mark and "Antar" I fitted the Rolls Royce Eagle in about 1992. The petrol engine would continually foul its plugs, even on a motorway. It was certainly not a practical proposition although quite fun to use. I have never heard tell of an Antar overheating. The Mk I and II had twin radiators. Each of them far bigger than any lorry with a Roller in it. I judged that the original fans were not necessary. All there is the one original Rolls fan in the middle and with no cowling. It did not even think about overheating. Not even pulling up Reigate Hill on M25, in July, at 9 MPH at 107 tons gross train weight. The only snag is that it does not make the noise of an Antar! On the other hand, the Contractor does have a lot of fan noise, very impressive but it only does 2 MPG. Using 20 HP to drive the fan probably has something to do with it! John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul_bish Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Dear All,In answer to Paul I have only labelled the air pipes because there are so many and there are too many perms and combinations. I used a luggage label for clarity AND a stamped ally disc wired on for security. I want to take off all the tube nuts for re-plating. The threads are ridiculously fine and having re-plated nuts and tube studs would be a great improvement. On the Antar all the bespoke metal parts generally have a part number stamped on them. Most can only be seen / read after plating or shotblasting. Since I bought the vehicle in '83 I know it intimately so I know where most parts go in any case. WRT the fasteners, Thornycrofts used the ideal size to the nearest 1/8" so after plating I sorted them out into size and length. The parts list is ESSENTIAL (don't even think of doing a job like this without one) however, sometimes it shows 3 diff lengths for attaching a part without saying where each size goes! So a bit of detective works is req. In answer to Mark and "Antar" I fitted the Rolls Royce Eagle in about 1992. The petrol engine would continually foul its plugs, even on a motorway. It was certainly not a practical proposition although quite fun to use. I have never heard tell of an Antar overheating. The Mk I and II had twin radiators. Each of them far bigger than any lorry with a Roller in it. I judged that the original fans were not necessary. All there is the one original Rolls fan in the middle and with no cowling. It did not even think about overheating. Not even pulling up Reigate Hill on M25, in July, at 9 MPH at 107 tons gross train weight. The only snag is that it does not make the noise of an Antar! On the other hand, the Contractor does have a lot of fan noise, very impressive but it only does 2 MPG. Using 20 HP to drive the fan probably has something to do with it! John Cheers John, seems logical Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulob1 Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Cheers John, seems logical which rolls royce eagle john, 290, 350, ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
attleej Posted January 6, 2015 Author Share Posted January 6, 2015 Paul, It was a 265 but after I opened up the fuel a bit it is more like 300. Out of interest, when I visited Rolls at Shrewsbury, the Chief Applications Engineer told me that you could "open up the max fuel screw until it smokes as much as you can tolerate". For sometime, the limitation of a MkIII Rolls was when it started to smoke. When the engine has a designation L eg 290L, it has boost control so it does not deliver max fuel until the turbo has boosted inlet manifold pressure sufficient to stop it smoking. The problem is that it adversely affects the torque curve so that you do not get all the torque just after you have changed up. You will not be surprised to hear that my engine has not got boost control! John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Comber Posted January 6, 2015 Share Posted January 6, 2015 Nice work John, showed your thread to my old pal Darren Briggs at the weekend who reminisced about changing the engine with you in the 1990's and being rear steersman from Borden to the hop farm, sounded quite a journey. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithy Posted January 7, 2015 Share Posted January 7, 2015 Great pictures, and what a strip down so far! Been running through some old picture albums of late, stumbled across these shots from a very wet Belvoir Castle. Despite the conditions they were and still are some of my favourites simply due to the way your Antar dealt with the problems that others faced. Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandit Posted January 9, 2015 Share Posted January 9, 2015 Im seriously impressed, what an awesome machine, and have to say I am wickedly jealous about your workshop facilities, that strip down is an enormous task and very interesting too, something that I could really get my teeth into and enjoy every minute, makes my truck look a tad tiny :laugh: excellent thread too, cant wait to see this and other trucks in real life at some point hopefully. As an aside how old are the tyres on your truck ?? Im having a debate with myself on whether to replace some of mine or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
attleej Posted January 10, 2015 Author Share Posted January 10, 2015 On that weekend at Belvoir I was supporting the Road Rescue Recovery Association. We had two vehicles that had mobility and utility. One was a Bedford MK / MJ belonging to Jon Beech. The other was the Antar. All the commercial recovery vehicles, whilst I am sure that they are good at what they are supposed to do, had winches with relatively short ropes and were very slow. The Antar has 300' of rope and can winch in, or out, quite fast. I think that they were all rather surprised! I have the winch dismantled and it is still in very good condition. As for tyres, they are not a problem. The fronts are showing a some uneven wear but have a bit of life left. The rears are fine. They don't seem to perish much. I do have several 1400 R 24s. Unfortunately they are not all the same size and the Antar does not have a third differential. Running with diff sizes AND high axle weights could cause half shaft problems. The advice I have received is not to try to fit one because they were a bit of a weak point. When in service, it was easy for the Army to keep to one good and equal sized set of tyres on the back end. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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