robin craig Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 I am hoping that this thread will be interesting to some of you but also share information and find out answers. A good number of years ago, a friend Mike Calnan bought what he knew was a significant vehicle from a scrap yard in Moose Creek, Ontario, Canada. His intention was at least to see it saved, period. It was a Cambridge Carrier, which specific version is up for debate. What is known is that an armoured observation post was trialed here in Canada at one time. I am, mostly interested in vehicles of a British lineage or use and hence I was drawn to this vehicle when I saw it at Mike's place and took these photos many years ago. These are the only to that as yet have been digitised from that series I took. I have seen the others recently and hope to get them done at some time to enable me to publish them. Both Mike and I suffer terribly from Peter Pan syndrome as my lady calls it. We both figure we will never grow up and we will live forever and achieve everything on our plates. Slowly he and I are having to admit that is not so. Mike let the Cambridge Carrier go to a wonderful friend of ours who is younger and very smart and incredibly enthused and has a good piggy bank. Jon Bradshaw also lives in Ontario. Jon is being sympathetic but also realistic and very pragmatic. I respect and laud him for that and while I am a bit of a self confessed anorak myself I get his approach. So, with that being understood please do not be too critical about what he is doing as I share with you more in this thread. Jon will likely never post into this thread, it isn't his thing. The basic approach has been to get the vehicle moving under its own power as a starting point. While it was originally powered by a Rolls Royce engine and some kind of gearbox, they were beyond his scope of refurbishing and so he chose to remove and replace them with a GM diesel that was readily available from the MLVW series of vehicles surplussed from the Canadian Forces vehicle fleet. He has also removed the fuel tank and had another one built and installed. He has started also with the obvious cleaning and painting. If you have information about this particular one please don't hesitate to send it to my email or post it in here and I will make sure it gets over to Jon. We believe that this vehicle may have been an infantry carrier in early life and that is because of the wading screen but as Mike points out it was armoured observation posts that were trialed here in Canada, so we connect the two and with the fact that thicker upper armour was welded on at some stage but then cut off later. What I am posting as pictures here are as follows. Side views of the vehicle as it sat at Mike's which is untouched from how he bought it. The engine and gearbox as removed and now sitting at my house. The fuel tank as removed. Can anyone help with identifying the gearbox? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryb Posted April 17, 2023 Share Posted April 17, 2023 wow! 432 road wheels, rear idler, top rollers, early rr B80 engine, looks like a very early pre selector gearbox. Be nice to see what differential/steering mechanism it has. You can see how this would have evolved into the 432 range of vehicles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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