MWR - An introduction / Restoration blog.

[Rob.Brindley]

Hi folks,

New member here. I'm Rob and I've been browsing the forums for a little while and thought it was time to introduce myself. My Dad and I have just finished restoring our 1943 Willys Jeep and we are now in the process of buying a Bedford MWR as our next project. I've been looking at a couple of threads on here and there appears to be a wealth of knowledge and very useful information regarding the MWR. 

The truck has been off the road for at least 40 years and has been disassembled for most of that time. It is, however, 95% complete and substantially original - all the wood work has survived bar a few small pieces that can be repaired and all of the original fixtures / fittings are there. 

There is a small plate on the chassis located by the passenger side step from when it had a rebuild that gives us the following information:

Chassis Number: WR44502

and a Vehicle Number: 43YR07.

With this information, I got in touch with the RLC archive and they provided the following slip with shows it was disposed of at the Central Vehicle Depot Ashchurch in 1960. Can anybody here help us trace the vehicles history any further? We'd love to know more about it's life in service. It's post service life is quite well known to us. 

We're also looking for a few MWR specific parts  - The box that replaces the Drivers side step for the generator and the spare wheel mount to fit the spare wheel on rear. 

The deal will be done this week and I look forward to documenting the restoration / sharing some photos on here as we go. 

 

Kind regards,

Rob. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Rob.Brindley
Image added

[wally dugan]

Built 1942 Wartime number Z 49O4605  you will be very lucky to find anything as to it's army service

[Rob.Brindley]

1 hour ago, wally dugan said:

Built 1942 Wartime number Z 49O4605  you will be very lucky to find anything as to it's army service

Hi Wally,

Thanks very much for taking the time to look into that for us.

I'm sure it's a long shot, but it's worth looking to see if we can find something. It would be nice to know where it was if we can. Perhaps some clues will come to light as we start stripping and cleaning parts.

Rob

[64EK26]

Hi

Chassis number will be MWR44502

Contract V4714, this was for 1700 Wireless Trucks (MWR), contract was let on 29^th August 1941, first deliveries were on 24^th October 1942. Yours was the 904^th vehicle produced under that contract and was delivered in late Feb 1943

As Wally says, there is very little chance of getting its war time history

Cheers

Richard

[Rob.Brindley]

1 hour ago, 64EK26 said:

Hi

Chassis number will be MWR44502

Contract V4714, this was for 1700 Wireless Trucks (MWR), contract was let on 29^th August 1941, first deliveries were on 24^th October 1942. Yours was the 904^th vehicle produced under that contract and was delivered in late Feb 1943

As Wally says, there is very little chance of getting its war time history

Cheers

Richard

Fantastic, Richard - Thank you! 

I've added a couple of photos of the project as it stands at the minute. It's currently spread out across four barns at the current owners farm. We know following it's disposal in 1960, it was used as a breakdown truck by a local garage for 15 years or so. Following that, it was stored at the garage owner's farm (stripped down) until 2011 when the current owner bought it. 

It was transported to the current location and has remained stored in the same condition until now. Some work was carried out on the chassis at some point and it is currently primed and ready for paint. 

The deal will be done this week and the current owner has very kindly offered to let us work on it at his farm so we don't have to transport it piece by piece to our garage which has limited available space. All being well, work will start in a couple of weeks.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Rob.Brindley

[64EK26]

Hi

Looks a good project, please keep this forum updated, also in case you don't know, there is a good Facebook group for MW's

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1591282927751361

Cheers

Richard

By the way I own a Bedford MWC (Water Bowser)

[Rob.Brindley]

2 minutes ago, 64EK26 said:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1591282927751361

Thank you for the link - I've just applied to join. I'm sure that will be very useful over the next year or so as we work on the truck.

Would love to see some photos of your MWC!

All being well, I'll post regular updates in here as we work. The first real job is clearing some space at the farm to work in, collating all the parts so we can do an inventory and figure out exactly what is missing and then blasting the wheel hubs / wheels so we can get a rolling chassis. 

[64EK26]

Hi

Here is link to my restoration on this forum https://hmvf.co.uk/topic/36001-bedford-mwc-restoration/

 

Still work in progress - will get there in the end

Cheers

Richard

[Rob.Brindley]

2 hours ago, 64EK26 said:

Hi

Here is link to my restoration on this forum https://hmvf.co.uk/topic/36001-bedford-mwc-restoration/

 

Still work in progress - will get there in the end

Cheers

Richard

Just spent the last couple of hours reading through your thread - fantastic work! Some very impressive fabrication going on there. We think we're going to need to make the tank trays and I noticed you had to do the same. There's parts scattered across the farm so there's a small chance we'll find the originals, but we don't think they're there. 

[Rootes75]

Looks a great project and well worth saving.

[Rob.Brindley]

The deal is now done, the truck is ours and we spent Friday up at the farm collecting all the small parts together that we know of. We can now do an inventory and get a better idea of what we're missing and need to look out for over the next few months. We also palletised 2 engines one complete (with all the ancillaries) and another disassembled but substantially complete. John, the previous owner, has very kindly allowed us to take both engines and make a decent one out of the pair before we return the unused parts.

Hopefully, in the next week or so the rear tub will be coming out of the barn and over to Dad's house so we can work on that at home. Fortunately, most of the woodwork has survived very well and we shouldn't need to replace much (if any). There are a few damaged pieces, but we have a friend who is very good with woodwork and he's going to help us repair the damage pieces whilst saving as much of the original as possible. With the exception of the brackets which hold the hoops for the canvas, all of the metal brackets are also still present. 

Once the rear tub is completed, the tub will head back to the farm to be fixed to the chassis and the cab will be taken to Dad's. 

The chassis will be staying at John's farm as the finally assembly will be done there (simply because it wont fit up Dad's drive and I have no storage space at my house). We'll be working on the chassis intermittently as we can only get to John's farm at certain times so having parts at Dad's home will allow us to make sure work is constantly happening.  

All being well, we plan to have the MW In Arnhem in September... (Yes, it's definitely ambitious).

Here's a few photos from Friday:

Edited October 2, 2023 by Rob.Brindley

[Rob.Brindley]

Little side note - We also took our Jeep to Crewe Heritage Centre this weekend for the Wheels of War weekend. We followed John there and back in his Ward La France. Great event hosted by some very friendly folks and well worth attending in future if you can.

 

 

[Rootes75]

Does sound ambitious but no harm in giving yourselves something to aim for 😉

[Rob.Brindley]

40 minutes ago, Rootes75 said:

Does sound ambitious but no harm in giving yourselves something to aim for 😉

Indeed - We should be shipping out both engines to a friend who has a lot of experience rebuilding these engines and has most of the commons spare parts required on the shelf (saving us a big headache as neither of us are true mechanics).

The chassis is already mostly complete. I've got the wheel hubs here for blasting at the minute and, once they're cleaned up and painted, we should be able to get a rolling chassis relatively quickly. The brake pipes need replacing and we need to get master / slave cylinder kits.

 

Dad was a panel beater / sprayer for years so the metal work wont be a problem for us and we have  a friend coming to assist us with the woodwork side. If all goes to plan (which it rarely does), it should be doable...

[Rob.Brindley]

Stayed late last night / tonight and started cleaning up the first few parts. I've started with the wheels hubs as we plan to have a rolling chassis in pretty short order. Here's a before and after shot. One down, 3 to go... 

 

 

[Rob.Brindley]

3 down, 1 to go. Slowly making progress.

[Rob.Brindley]

Whilst I was away all this weekend gigging with my bands, Dad had a busy few days up at the farm. This project has been stored at Johns farm for the last 12 years or so and had slowly been blocked in with other projects - Some that could be moved under their own power and some that required some muscle. 

Friday was spent clearing the main shed and moving vehicles to allow us to position the chassis in the area that John has very kindly let us use to work on the truck. This also allowed us to get the engines that we palletised last week near to the door so that we can get them sent off for refurb in the next few days. In the process of clearing the shed, we also found the bow bars for the cab canvas! 

The truck is now in position, the wheels are nearly finished and we hope to be able to get them fitted and start painting the chassis this coming weekend. 

On Sunday, the bed saw the light of day for the first time in 11 years! If anything, it actually looks in better condition than I thought. We have a friend, who is a very talented wood worker, that will be coming up to help us repair the damaged pieces in the next few weeks. The body was transported to Dad's house on Sunday afternoon (thanks again to John for the use of his flatbed) to allow us to work on the body in our own garage over winter. It should mean that we're able to do bits and pieces on the body during the week and spend the weekends at the farm finishing off the chassis.

We do have a facebook page running for the restoration that I'm using as a diary - It will be nice to be able to look back once it's complete and see the progress easily in one place and interact with other Bedford owners. If you fancy following the page, you can find it here: Facebook

Anyway, Here's a few photos and we'll post another update in a few days. 

[david1212]

'If you fancy following the page, you can find it here: Facebook'

Facebook & I are not friends.  Hence I will be watching this thread for updates as and when you have the time.

[Rob.Brindley]

1 minute ago, david1212 said:

'If you fancy following the page, you can find it here: Facebook'

Facebook & I are not friends.  Hence I will be watching this thread for updates as and when you have the time.

Thanks David - Trying to post on here as often as we do on Facebook.

The wheel hubs are now blasted and ready to be primed.

It's been a productive couple of days up at the farm this weekend. Whilst I was at Duxford yesterday crewing a couple of Spitfires, Dad was removing the old brake lines and prepping the chassis ready for paint.

We arrived at the farm at 9am this morning armed with 2 tins of paint, a few brushes and a radio. 4 hours later, the chassis is green and ready for the new brake lines to be made and fitted. The external over the truck will be sprayed (Dad was a professional panel beater / sprayer for years), but the chassis has been brush painted as we want a nice thick coat to help protect it from the elements for years to come. 

 

Whilst we're working on the truck, we're constantly on the look out for more parts. This week, we managed to acquire another fuel tank and tray (Still on the lookout for another tank tray) and a couple of manuals that will definitely help with the rebuild. 

 

Dad's heading the Malvern next weekend on the lookout for more parts. I'll stay back here and start cleaning up the wooden bed as we have our wood working expert turning up the following week to make a start.

 

Anyway, here's a few photos....

 

 

 

 

 

[earlymb]

15 hours ago, Rob.Brindley said:

...

 The external over the truck will be sprayed (Dad was a professional panel beater / sprayer for years), but the chassis has been brush painted as we want a nice thick coat to help protect it from the elements for years to come.

 

Great job! You could consider treating the inside of the chassis now with Tectyl or a similar product, now everything is in easy reach?

[Rob.Brindley]

4 hours ago, earlymb said:

Great job! You could consider treating the inside of the chassis now with Tectyl or a similar product, now everything is in easy reach?

Cheers! There's a couple of small things that we want to do first, but we will look at protecting the chassis before the bed / cab and engine are refitted.

We picked up a kit for the master cylinder last week and we're looking at what pipe is required to replace the brake pipes so that will be the next job (Along with priming / painting the wheel hubs). 

 

Rob

[Rob.Brindley]

Small update this week as we spent Sunday at Malvern selling some surplus parts to help fund the Bedford restoration. 

On Saturday, we rolled the body out of the garage and brushed out all the dirt, dust and grime that had accumulated over the last 45 years... Once it was brushed out, we scrubbed the bed with degreaser to try and remove some of the oil as the truck was previously used as a recovery vehicles. We also managed to free the tailgate off which hasn't moved for nearly 50 years! The brass latches in the floor hatch are still present but currently seized. Hopefully we'll be able to free those off too and keep them.

After scrubbing out, we rolled the bed back into the garage and built a sealed polythene tent around it that contained 2 dehumidifiers. Other than emptying the dehumidifiers periodically, we'll leave it alone for a few days to try and dry the wood out as much as possible before we start repairing the damaged sections. 

Pictures  attached. 

 

 

[Rootes75]

How did you get on at Malvern? We went and found quite a bit of good stuff so came home with a car full and empty wallet..😉

There were certainly a lot of people there and a lot of people coming away with things.

[Rob.Brindley]

2 minutes ago, Rootes75 said:

How did you get on at Malvern? We went and found quite a bit of good stuff so came home with a car full and empty wallet..😉

There were certainly a lot of people there and a lot of people coming away with things.

Very well on the sales side, not so well for buying the parts we were looking for. We took all of the SAS parts that we removed from our Jeep earlier this year and managed to sell them all to one chap who's currently building one (with thanks to his friend who spotted them and phoned him to broker the deal).

We found a nice radio battery box for our Jeep and bought some more primer / paint for the Bedford, but no major parts that we're looking for unfortunately. It's now when I realise that MW spares really aren't like Jeep spares...

How did you get on? Find anything nice?

[Rootes75]

We didn't find any vehicle parts for ours. We did however find some very good ammo boxes to add to our display and my youngest who is finding his feet into reenacting bought a couple more good pieces of 37 pattern kit.

Oh, and I did buy a very nice 1944 dated canvas tool bag for our Commer.