restoration Mk1 Militant Tanker

[MatchFuzee]

Museum conservators are the people to ask e.g. Science Museum, IWM and Bovington. 

[Zero-Five-Two]

14 hours ago, ltwtbarmy said:

Ok, had a response and the guy’s going to look on Monday. If he finds them, he’ll let me know, and I’ll pm you his details. He was asking for twenty quid each at the time, but that was in 2018. Fingers crossed!

Many thanks for the help, but I've got one coming from forum member Marvinthemartian, he had one in the back of the shed.

[ltwtbarmy]

7 hours ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

Many thanks for the help, but I've got one coming from forum member Marvinthemartian, he had one in the back of the shed.

No problems, glad you’re sorted. If he does find them, I’ll get one or two for myself, and presumably, he’ll put the rest up on ebay as he has in the past.

[Zero-Five-Two]

And just for a change, it rained a bit more this weekend.  Struggling to make any real progress at all just now, it's all a bit here and a bit there, time of year I suppose. 

Anyway screen wash is all in, jets adjusted and working nicely.  Both wipers are now going, thanks to a replacement motor from Marvinthemartian.  Cab electrics and dashboard are all secure, after the not charging game, and everything seems to work as it should.  I've got a couple of webbing straps to fit for holding the pick axe and handle, and a fire extinguisher bracket to go on and that is the inside of the cab finished, barring a damn good clean up of dirt, dust, wire clippings and the odd nut or bolt.

Tanker top catwalk is back together with it's new wood slats

 Just need to get it on top of the tank now, it's not that heavy, just long and wobbly.

In the last post I said the valves appear to work.  Bit ambitious that statement, the green one turns, but the others don't!!  So off they come.

As a side thought, bearing in mind I'm doing the hoses as a back ground activity, the red and yellow outlets are 2.5" BSP same as the hose ends.  But the black one is 3" and a much finer thread.  Presumably, there should be an adaptor for it.  One to consider for later.

In the meantime 2 valves back to the shed for refurbishment.

Had the electrolysis bucket going again, cleaning the valve handles.

Start with this

Couple of hours in the bucket, and a quick brush up and you get this

All shiny and ready for repaint.  I think, in service, they wouldn't have been painted, and would have stayed clean through regular use and liberal coatings of spilt diesel.  But as they now enjoying their retirement, a brush over with some black hammerite will keep them looking good.

According to the parts book, I should have 8 of them, 3 left handed and 5 right.  I've only got 7, but that said there is only 7 valves to use them on, so I don't really need the missing one.

 

 

[67burwood]

2 hours ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

Had the electrolysis bucket going again, cleaning the valve handles.

I’ve not tried this technique yet but it certainly does a good job. 

[Zero-Five-Two]

They say it's good to read books and educate one's self, and with education comes enlightenment. Oh dear!

It all started when rain stopped play, again, and with nothing better to do I had a look at the Tankers Operator Handbook.  I acquired it a while ago, and as most of it is about the Militant generally, I hadn't really looked at it.  I know how to drive a Militant, I've had the other one for 14 years.  But there is an important chapter at the back, all about how to actually work the tanker gubbins, which valve does what etc.  And I did learn a lot!!!

The inspiration for this came from this mornings efforts in the shed

 

First valve cleaned, refurbished and ready for painting

And one valve with a broken bit!  It's been broken for a while and as it is cast alluminium it will take better skills than mine to repair it.

Then it got cold, wet and miserable so I went off to read the book.  First thing I learnt was I do need the 8 valve keys listed in the parts book, because I am a valve missing from the pump compartment

Mine looks like this

When really it should look like this

('Scuse the dodgy photoshopping) Should be 2 red outlet valves

So, what happened to the second red valve?

Remember taking these off not so long ago, and wondering why there was an odd red one at the far end, that was made of ally and not brass like the others? 

Now here is the answer.  The brass ones are actually called Cocks, BTW, and it looks like the end one got damaged, so it was replaced with one of the red valves, from the pump control, which was then blanked off with the black outlet cap with the strange thread.

So I am actually a brass cock missing as well as the key for opening it. And although it solves the mystery it leaves me with a bit of a problem.  Can I find one of these valves/cocks?  To return it to original or just pretend it's always been like that

 

 

[Gordon_M]

Take the red one off the outlet manifold and blank that output with the bit you have to take off the valve box.  You won't have full functionality without that red valve back on there, but the number of manifold outputs isn't that critical.

Start looking for one more aluminium valve and one more brass one, with handle.  I'd guess on a wartime unit those valves were all brass, but when this tanker came out they went to all aluminium. Maybe when the outlet manifold ones started to break too often it was back to brass.

 

[67burwood]

Any thoughts on where you would find another valve? 

Edited November 16, 2020 by 67burwood
Now sober !!

[Zero-Five-Two]

22 hours ago, 67burwood said:

Any thoughts on where you would find another valve? 

Just one at the moment, but it's a good one. 

A couple of years ago, I found out, from a fellow forum member,  that the place where I got the Tanker from has a second yard, so we went for a snoop.  Daft as it sounds there is a public footpath that runs right through the place, and while out for a walk you might happen to get a bit lost and wander off the path, as you do.  Amongst all the other stuff (see forum thread "Elephant Graveyard") I found this.

The Thames Trader box van could make an nice little project, but more interesting is the Militant Tank sitting on top of that other thing.

I didn't climb up to have a look at the time, but I've dusted off the hiking boots ready for a little stroll round this weekend.  BTW I'm not planning on acquiring a valve by nefarious means. Just find out if they are still there first.

The god of Militants must be smiling on me anyway.  Had a look on that well known auction site, this morning, just on the off chance, and found the valve key I'm missing.  Exact match and a reasonable price.

Not only that a friend with a TIG welder is reckons he can fix the broken valve too. So thing are looking up.

[67burwood]

I think the word you are looking for is “ Jackpot “ finding a discarded tanker! What a result.  

[10FM68]

What a fantastic find.  After all, I don't suppose there are that many about at the best of times.  I hope you are able to do a deal and get what you need.  Of course, we all have you down as that spotty "urban explorer" wandering around with his iphone now😊 - the one I was whinging about earlier this week on another thread.  Good luck!

[Zero-Five-Two]

Weather has been better the last two weekends round here, not brilliant, but dry and workable, so much has been achieved in Tanker world.

Collared our Stuart to help me lift the cat walk on, last weekend, and take the tubes off to have  their end caps fitted.

Carried on with stripping out the pump cupboard valve gear.  I was surprised how heavy it all is, feels like it is made out of quarter plate, each section is as much as you want to lift comfortably.

 

Does leave a very oily, sticky mess.  Looking into the pump itself, the gear appears to be in good condition, but I'll get to that later.  In the meantime this lot will keep the home workshop going for a while.

Replacement handle from ebay turned up during the week.  A quick trip through the electrolysis bucket and a coat of hammerite and it joins the rest to make up a full set

All I need now is to get hold of the replacement valve.  That may be easier said than done.  Yes I became that spotty urban explorer that was mentioned earlier and went for a look round the scrapyard last Sunday.  The scrap tanker is indeed the jackpot.

All five cocks are still in place, and although I could not get a decent view into the pump cupboard, what I could see looks to be complete too.  All I've got to do is get their owner to part with them without taking my trousers down.  Spoke to him on Tuesday, and like most scrap men he seems to think they are made of gold bars and everybody wants them, despite the fact they have been there 30 years.

Going back again next week to have an official look and hopefully not too much money will change hands, especially as I have to get them off myself before he will even discuss price.

According to The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy all you need to survive in the universe is a towel.  I haven't done too much inter-galactic travel lately, not since the Doc told me to lay off the mushrooms, so I'm not sure about the towel thing.  For myself I prefer a piece of string, you can do so much more with a piece of string.

Our Stuart wasn't available this weekend, so no help refitting the hose tubes.  They aren't that heavy, but at 10 foot long they are a bit ungainly for one man.  So you need a piece of string.

Well, 2 bits actually.  Lift one end of the tube and tie it up, lift the other and tie that too.  Walk the tubes up the side and into place.  All went very well except one tube which would not fit into the end cap nicely and had to be persuaded, causing a bit of damage which will need a spot of filler, and a couple of straps that needed a bit of help  to get in place.  Nothing that cannot be touched up with the kiddies brush and polished out.

Bit of a poor picture, as the light was going, but all four tubes fitted and looking good.

Back to the pump cupboard.  First job was clean off sixty years worth of grease and oil.  Took a fair bit of scrubbing and a substantial quantity of degreaser, then a good dose of  brake and clutch cleaner.  As far as rust goes it's in quite good nick.  Where the valve blocks bolt to the floor there is a bit, but overall as it is galvanised and it has fared quite well.

Once cleaned off a good coat of bondaprimer improved it no end.

Obviously, there is much more to do in here, but at least I can get in and "do" without getting covered shite.  One of the things that needs doing is the roof mounted lamp 

No info on it in the parts book, so I'm looking forward to being able to get up close and see how it comes out.  I would assume it will have a red lens, to protect night vision, but we'll see next week 

 

[Scammell4199]

On 8/28/2017 at 9:03 PM, Zero-Five-Two said:

Set about replacing the fuel filter last week, original one looked a bit past it's best.

 

 

Quite simply it is a piece of linen cloth about the size of a large hankerchief wrapped around a brass frame.

 

 

Top is secured by a couple of turns of string

 

 

Bottom is held in place by a wide head nut

 

 

New filter, big hankerchief. Needs a small hole cut in the centre to locate onto the bottom nut

 

 

Used copper wire to secure filter this time, wont rot or corrode and contaminate fuel

 

 

New filter slides into housing ready for fitting.

 

Near side wheel arch has been getting it this weekend. Has a lot less rot than the drivers side, but I reckon some of the tankers drivers, over the years, should have been a little more attentive of the steering wheel than they appear to have been.

 

Awful lot of dents needed knocking out and a fair bit of straightening was also required. But despite best efforts with the panel beating hammers, much filler was required.

 

 

First off strip off all the old green.

 

 

Two repair patches can be seen on the under side

 

 

But an awful lot of filler needed sanding down and flatting

 

 

Doesn't look too bad in its first coat of red oxide. Couple of bits need a little more smoothing but overall a pleasing result

Just been going through your thread and loving it.

Have you found that re-wrapping the fuel filter with new cloth has worked well? Our Scammell has the same arrangement, and i had found modern paper elements that fit inside and i was going to turn up adaptors to make the modern elements marry up with the seats in the original housing, but after seeing your post wondered if i shouldn’t just retain the original setup.

Cheers, Richard

[Zero-Five-Two]

Filter seems to be OK, that said I've only done about 40 miles so far with it in, so not a real test yet.

The company I work for runs 2 Routemaster buses that use the same filter and they do alright.  The Routemaster club can supply the proper filter cloth too

[Richard Farrant]

1 hour ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

Filter seems to be OK, that said I've only done about 40 miles so far with it in, so not a real test yet.

The company I work for runs 2 Routemaster buses that use the same filter and they do alright.  The Routemaster club can supply the proper filter cloth too

Hi Rob,

I was doing a lot of overhauls on Militants in the late 70's, in the REME Wksps and I remember the cloth filters, but there was a modification which I recollect doing, to replace the filter assembly with a more modern CAV type with a better filter element. Could have been due to depleted stocks of cloth filters in Ordnance stores no doubt.

Tanker looking great!

regards, Richard

[Zero-Five-Two]

I must be having a senior moment here, or something.  Talking about how good the original cloth filter might be, I completely forgot about fitting this

CAV modern paper filter and water separator, fitted in the line before the lift pump and the cloth filter, which is now pretty much redundant and mainly just for show these days

[Gordon_M]

39 minutes ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

I must be having a senior moment here, or something. 

It'll be fine, by sheer co-incidence we were all looking the other way at the time, weren't we chaps?

I'm assuming it separates the water first before it gets to the paper filter, otherwise very soggy and ineffective?

Edited December 3, 2020 by Gordon_M
grammar

[67burwood]

9 minutes ago, Gordon_M said:

It'll fine, by sheer co-incidence we were all looking the other way at the time, weren't we chaps?

Nothing to see here, move along now 🤪

[Zero-Five-Two]

The "Jackpot" scrap Tank turned out to be a major disappointment.  Spent the best part of an hour rigging up a ladder and stuff to actually get to the thing without breaking my neck.  Tank is stood on a truck body that is laid on it's side, and it is a bit precarious and wobbly to say the least. Got the pump room door open, well, it fell off in the end, but the cupboard was bare.

Nothing of any value left, unfortunately.  As for the valves on the side rail, the tank is actually leaning on them, and given it's wobbly state I decided it was probably a good idea to leave them alone.  Yard owner wasn't interested in lifting it down unless I wanted to buy the whole thing, so I came away empty handed.  We shall manage with the blanked off outlet for now.

Weather dictates all Tanker work, damp and miserable today so work at home in the shed.  Invested in a small heater last week, only a cheap one, tenner from screwfix, but makes a much nicer working environment.

Wheel valves first.  Both were seized,  and well rusted inside, but cleaned up well  and the diaphragms are in reasonably good condition.

Lever frame next

These work the bowden cables that open the foot valves on each tank compartment.  Levers are steel, cable clamps are brass, and the frame is an alloy, very light but contains some steel as a magnet sticks to it.  As with the wheel valves, bit seized, but came apart easy enough and cleaned up well.

Everything in the pump control box is painted silver, except the colour coded tap handles etc, so it made a change from spraying DBG. 

I acquired a litre of silver paint a while ago, no idea what make, it's in a plain white tin with no label.  Likewise, no idea what sort of paint it is.  Doesn't smell like cellulose, it's not oil or water based, and is certainly not 2 pack.

It does thin down OK with standard thinners and it sprays on beautifully.  Touch dry in a couple of hours with the heater going.

Just need to pick a nice shade of green and blue for the colour coded wheel valve handles.  Haven't found anything I like yet.

 

[67burwood]

11 hours ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

The "Jackpot" scrap Tank turned out to be a major disappointment.

That is disappointing, anymore leads on another valve?

[Zero-Five-Two]

Nothing at the moment.  It wont be too bad with one missing, the blanking plug on the second outlet does look the part.  If you didn't know better, you wouldn't notice the difference.  I'll keep looking, hopefully next year will return to some sort of normal, and there will be shows and autojumbles etc, you never know what will turn up.

In the meantime, here's the lever frame now back together and ready for refitting

[Zero-Five-Two]

Quick update, got the repaired valve body back today, and a fine job too, can't see the join, as they say

All fitted together now, and awaiting a coat of red paint

 

[Scammell4199]

On 12/2/2020 at 11:00 PM, Richard Farrant said:

Hi Rob,

I was doing a lot of overhauls on Militants in the late 70's, in the REME Wksps and I remember the cloth filters, but there was a modification which I recollect doing, to replace the filter assembly with a more modern CAV type with a better filter element. Could have been due to depleted stocks of cloth filters in Ordnance stores no doubt.

Tanker looking great!

regards, Richard

Thanks Rob and Richard, think i'll try going with the cloth filter. Theres a paper filter further down the line anyway.

Richard

[Zero-Five-Two]

As my Christmas hols started a bit early, I've done quite a bit of Tanker work this week, despite the naff weather.  The new shed heater has been great,  makes a heck of a difference to the work area, which is more than I can say about some of the results.  There have been a couple of issues, starting with painting the repaired outlet valve red.

This is Hammerite red, but it looks far too pink for my liking, no where near dark enough.  So I bought a can of Halfords car paint, in a darker red, to spray over the top, but it reacted rather badly with the Hammerite and the whole lot will come off and start again.

The blue and green wheel valves came out quite well, though.

Blue wheel is Hammerite blue and the green wheel is a made up shade of blue and yellow Hammerite.

The two main valve blocks have been cleaned off and sprayed in silver

Paint finish came out quite well, but a couple of the valve retaining nuts were jammed on their studs.  My attempts at separating them were only 50% successful.  One nut came off and cleaned up OK, and one nut just chewed the stud up.  So new stud required there.  The rest of the nuts, bolts and washers have been cleaned, oiled and the threads chased through all ready for refitting.

Also stripped cleaned and painted a couple more pipes, the engine speed control, and the cover plate that allows access through the pump room floor to the fuel tank sender unit.

Need to make a lot of new gaskets now

   

[Zero-Five-Two]

Part 2.  Hasn't all been home workshop, I have managed a couple of visits to the Tanker in between breaks in the rain.  First off, attack the pump room light.

 It didn't go well.  Lamp body has a long shaft the goes through the roof with 2 retaining nuts on either side.  The lamp body is alluminium, the retaining nuts are brass and pump room roof is steel.  Three different types of corrosion combined to ensure the light shaft sheered off rather than undo.  Not a major crisis, and reasonably easy to fix.

Stripping it down to clean and repair was the next hurdle.  It is in two halves which unscrew to allow access to the bulb holder etc. Two days soaking in penetrating fluid didn't help and any ideas of separating it carefully achieved nothing.  Worse case scenario the glass lens gets broken. 

Well, I tried every trick in the book and got nowhere.  After a good few hours of frustration, I finally got the two halves to separate, mainly by clamping one half in the vice and using a big set of steilsons on the other half.

Yes, I got a result, but as you might have guessed,  I did break the glass in the process.  Bloody disaster!!!  where on earth do I get a new one of those?  Not only that, the ceramic bulb holder is also in bits, but I didn't do that, it's been knackered for a long time by the look of it.

Having got it apart and cleaned up, and repaired the damage caused by the steilson jaws I can see that there is a locking ring on the front that holds the glass in.  Another couple of hours was spent fighting to get that to undo, and the level of violence used would've definitely broken the glass if I hadn't broken it earlier.

Still it's all clean now, and as for a light lens, try this.  The side light unit from an early mini looks like it will slot straight in complete with bulb holder and rubber surround.  So one on order for after Christmas and we'll see how it looks.

Today might have been dry round here, but the north wind made sure it felt like winter had truly arrived.  Plan of attack was the pump room floor on the off side and also to remove the last bits of pipework.  Both involved working climbing into the thing, so effectively I was indoors and out of the wind.

You just have to dress appropriately

Now ready for Covid tier 5 regulations

 

 Floor is just a mess of wet rust cornflakes so first job scoop it all out and dry up as much water as possible.  Then out with the electric wire brush and start scrubbing.

This bit is still solid, but I think it will benefit from a skim of filler to fill the deeper potholes 

 This bit will want a bit more effort, and I can see a new bit of plate going in here.

Last lump of pipework and the filter were removed along with the pump chain drive cover and chain oiler.  Back home with these for cleaning and repaint.

Now I can get a good look at the pump itself

And the good news is it doesn't appear to be seized.  A spanner on the end of the shaft can achieve a little movement, but only as far as the drive chain will let it.  Looks like the chain oiler has been neglecting it's duties for some time, and the chain is locked up solid.  Light reading over Christmas is going to be the tech manual to see how it comes off.  

I think the same chain set up works the winch on the timber tractor, and I do have a new spare chain for that if this one is completely shot.  As for the pump, even if it is free to turn I think it would be a good idea to have it apart to check seals and bearings etc before putting any power through it.

For now the floor has received a good coating of rust converter and then red oxide to help keep the enemy at bay

Back home again, and investigate the filter housing

 Nice gauze filter

and an awful lot of stuff that shouldn't be there.

And the chain oiler

Looks like it would be at home on one of the Gosling lads first world war trucks.  Nice little thing, solid brass, just hasn't seen any oil since way back then.

Came apart nicely, just needs cleaning and filling with fresh oil

Hope everybody has a reasonable Christmas day, and look on the bright side, with no visiting allowed that annoying relative isn't going to turn up and spoil your party.