restoration Another Matador

[Jimh]

After a lengthy period away while we did things that were not even remotely military vehicle related we've found another project. We did a Pioneer earlier (Here) but never really liked driving it on the road because you always felt you were fighting the gearbox. Talking to a few people with Matadors suggested that they were nicer things to live with as well as looking quite good (the Matadors rather than the people who owned them) so we managed to track one down that had the makings of an interesting project without being ragged to death in a forest.

This might be a bit dull for a few weeks because it hasn't arrived yet but bits of it has so that is a start. I can't tell you much about it because we don't know much about it yet other than it is a Matador, it was an RAF one and I seem to remember that it is quite a late one. It was de-mobbed to Moray Council were it worked as a gritter which seems to have been the cause of its biggest problem namely fairly grim corrosion to the chassis rails at the rear. Nothing that can't be dealt with in one way or another. I'll fill in the details as they come in.

One minor problem with the new project was that when it was converted to a gritter it lost its winch but fortunately a winch from another Matador was part of the deal.  We popped down to pick up a truckload of loose bits including the winch and given that there wasn't much to do over the bank holiday we took it to bits. Normally this would have laid in the workshop until it was nearly done so it seems a bit odd starting a restoration here. Anyhoo, on with the oily bits.

As usual I didn't take my camera out until it was too late so the winch is already in pieces. The winch had a fair amount of water in it for a while which has done for the bearings on the input shaft. This is the outer race of the NDE roller bearing. 

And this is one of the outer races of the DE taper roller bearing. None of them are useable again.

 

The roller bearing is no real biggie but the drive end bearing is a double row taper roller and they don't come cheap. We may look at replacing them with a pair of taper rollers back to back which is standard practice and a fair bit cheaper. We shall see. You may also notice that the worm has suffered in a couple of isolated spots but that will just get fettled. There is no way that is being replaced. 

 

Just to show they are isolated spots. It has just gone where the worm was in contact with the wheel. The eagle eyed will notice that the thread for the bearing retaining nut is a bit mullahed at the end. Whoever had rebuilt it had not torqued the nut up properly so it had only been held in place with the split pin. This had given up the ghost eventually and galled the threads up. The nut had to be machined off rather that risk completely buggering the thread. The damaged section will clean up just fine. 

 

We were surprised how heavily these winches were constructed compared with the one on the Pioneer. I assume this is why they were handy for dragging trees out of woods. It really is a beast of a thing.

 

Next problem was that the clutch had been welded up. Correction, the clutch had been welded up twice. This required a spot of delicate grinding to avoid causing any more damage to the splines. As you may spot an earlier attempt to remove welds had been less than scalpel like. I looks like it had been welded up, someone had removed the welds, found out why it had been welded solid in the first place and welded it up again. 

However, the scars will TIG weld up and with some fettling it will all look good again.

 

The best that can be done with this is just tidy it up. The spline at the end isn't doing very much anyway. 

 

So once the clutch was removed (eventually) it was possible just to unscrew the retaining collar and slide the drum off. Nope, the drum would not turn at all on the shaft. The only thing we could do is drill through the retaining collar sideways to take out the screws to get it off. Even then the bloody thing would not shift. Careful application of a Monday hammer showed up the problem.

The bush which is supposed to be in the drum is very firmly seized to the axle. You can probably make out where the bush has been rotating in the drum. Heat did nothing to free it so it will have to go in the lathe to waste it away. What is slightly annoying is that the bush requires a sizeable chink of cored bronze to make a new one. 

 

And for completeness, the drum. This will need to go in the boring machine to clean out the lands for the bush because they are a little worn. The bush has clearly been seized on the axle for a long time. Might take the opportunity to tidy up the surface for the band brake. 

There are still a few bits to collect for the winch so if anyone has anything lying around we would be interested to hear what you have. 

 

Yes, yes. The details of a winch are endlessly fascinating but what as we actually talking about here ? Surely you have a picture of it? Well, not really. I have some happy snaps of details but the barn in which it has been living does not lend itself to photographs which illustrate the essential Matadoriness of the wagon. The only one I have that looks like a Matador is this one here and that doesn't show much as all.

 

We should have it in our shed in a few weeks time. 

[Scammell4199]

Great to see another british heavy being rescued.

We've very nearly finished a nut and bolt resto on our Pioneer. I've driven it a bit round the trading estate and yes its not the easiest thing to drive. Will get it out on the open road in the next few weeks.

We are also about to start on the resto of my Matador. I have a suspicion that the winch clutch is welded up, but haven't dug too deeply into yet.

It would be good to have a get together of british heavies at a show sometime.

I take it you have tried Matador Matt for any bits you need?

Best of luck with it. Richard

[Rootes75]

Yes, Best of luck. Looks like a great project.

[john1950]

No springs on the cab mountings!

[67burwood]

Look forward to following the restoration, I also have a Matador that’s waiting its turn to be restored. 

[Jimh]

The winch tedium continues...

The shaft was put in the little Swift and the bronze bush machined off it. It was seized solid and the only bit left was the thrust face seen sitting forlornly. It is obvious that the bush was replaced at some point but the clearance was hopelessly tight and there were no gutters for the grease so it never got any lubrication. Fortunately the bearing surface on the shaft is just fine. 

 

We didn't need to do much cleaning on the last project because almost everything was new so all of the wire brushes and crappy power drills had to be dug out to go back to scraping, cleaning and picking. I'd forgotten what a restful, if messy, job it is. 

 

Winch brake bracket with the rivets drilled out of the brake band anchor. The brake band had been cut off at one end so we are rolling up a new one. 

 

And what it looks like after you've spent an hour or so getting it clean. 

 

Other end of the brake band removed and awaiting repair. There is meant to be a longer threaded section on this to allow the band to be adjusted.

 

The winch drum retaining collar could not be removed as it was meant to because the drum was seized solid so the set screws had to be drilled out from the side meaning it is now buggered. Another thing to add to the list of things to make.

 

The remains of the bearing retaining nut. This thread had galled up because it hadn't been tightened properly and it had sheared the split pin which galled the thread. Rather than risk wrecking the thread on the worm shaft it was put in the milling machine and the nut wasted away and split. Which means making a new nut.

 

And here is the start of the new nut. No hex on it yet but it needed the thread cut to fit the the thread on the worm shaft. 

 

This is the worm shaft which got popped in the lathe and had the thread recut fractionally smaller to clean it up. It hasn't suffered to much for its trauma. The green stuff at the bottom of the thread is Time Saver from lapping the nut to it. 

 

New taper roller bearings to replace the duff one. Originally this was a twin row bearing but a replacement was going to be north of £300 so it can live with a pair of single row taper rollers back to back. It is hardly a high speed application and these can more than take the thrust so it's all good. 

Universal joint, stripped, cleaned and rebuilt.

 

And the bottom half of the gear case cleaned and ready to get re-assembled. 

 

Nice and clean

 

It's very nice cleaning stuff like this. It gives to time to think about the finer points of how it might have been made or why something was designed in a particular way. 

 

The axle was seized into the chassis mounting and it took a fair bit of heat and brute force to separate the two. Hardly much else to do to these other than clean them up.

 

Incidentally, from what I can see if this is a fairly late RAF lorry then it would have been painted in drab olive and depending on how late it is would have had matt black markings. Is that the case? It seems odd to get upset about it now but we need to order the paint. 

[Jimh]

Been a while since the last update so here's a bit of a splurge. 

This is the winch pretty much finished. There was a fair amount of work in this because it had obviously been worked on at some point by someone who wasn't exactly expert so very little actually lined up. The fit on the main shaft bush in the gearbox (the one you can just see in the photo) was hopelessly tight and it needed a fair few hours of scraping to get it right. On top of that nothing was true to anything else. So here it is with it's new drum bushes, new worm shaft bearings and turning as it is meant to. 

The hoop of flat bar is the start of the new brake band. We can't really make that until the winch is back in the chassis so we know where the brake arm sits.

We had picked up various bits of the body along with the winch so they wouldn't fall off on the transporter so since the winch was done we started humming and hawing about what we already had for the body and what was going to be needed. 

What we have is not a great deal but it is a start. This is a pile of side angle brackets and channels for the tail gate waiting to go off to the blasters. We'll try to save as much of this as we can but some of the sections are not worth saving. 

What about the rest of it then? Well we eventually managed to get the stars to align and we got it collected. Nothing blew off on the M6 and it got back safely. Here it is in its new home. I was surprised how little it looked next to the Super.

We had already started taking things to bits before I bothered to find the camera so it is already a bit lighter than when it arrived. 

Brake air tank awaiting refurbishment. Mercifully this seems to have avoided the worse of the damage. You can also make out two of the three propshafts.

Fuel tank which apart from missing its gauge and having a couple of repairs that need done properly isn't too bad at all. Next time we get the Super going we'll steam it out. 

Transfer box levers and operating rods. These are all rather worn so some lucky soul is going to get to make lots of new bushes and clevis pins. Also in shot is the overload roller for the winch which had gone missing from this one but was included in the deal. 

Its conversion to a gritter and snow plough was not exactly expertly carried out and there is a lot of detritus welded to the chassis which needs to come off. There is also a few bits for the winch that are supposed to be here but aren't so they will need found/manufactured. 

And now the problematic part of this job. Its role as a gritter has not been kind to it. The rear section of chassis  - the one under the body has taken quite a beating from the salt. As an aside I'd never seen the transfer box in a Matador before and was surprised by how heavily constructed they are. 

There is a lot of this sort of thing. These are the fuel tank mounting brackets and it is pretty clear to see how the salt has got to it. There is not a lot you can do with this other that drill out the rivets, straighten everything up, make good where needed and re-rivet them. Fortunately we are well set up for that sort of thing so things should look pretty original once it is done. 

More heavy corrosion and scale.

The road springs have taken a pounding too - the scaling has got to the point that the U clamps have started fracturing. We'll need to see what need to be done with these. 

It would appear that Moray Council rebuilt the brake system using modern pipes and fittings so there will be a lot of steel pipe to bend to get things looking right again. We have no idea yet what sort of state the rest of the brake system is in. Certainly most of the most that can move are rather worn so there are plenty of bushes to make. 

Sadly, there is very little of the cab left to save although from what I am aware this wagon has had several cabs on it so we can't get too upset about things not being original.

And that is about it. Next time you see it there shouldn't be too much left.

Edited June 28 by Jimh

[Jimh]

House, holidays and stuff have been getting in the way but progress is being made. Where to begin?

Transfer box sitting on a pallet. There does not seem to be too much wrong with this so it will probably be a case of strip, clean and replace the oil seals. You will probably see that someone cut the winch drive engagement lever with a gas axe so we'll need to find one of those. The salt has wasted many of the cover nuts to nothing so we'll need a box of two of BSF nuts. Notice non-trivial impact driver which has come in quite useful over the past couple of weeks. 

Note also lifting device as per AEC special tools list.

 

Front towing hook/rope guide brackets which are fine apart from most of the bolts having been replaced with UNF/metric which never looks nice. More BSF bolts to find. 

 

An radiator. After the experience with the Scammell's one we'll just replace the tubes now rather than wait until it is cleaned, repainted, refitted and filled with water. There is something that puzzles me about this which I will return to. 

 

A lifting attachment as per AEC special tools list. Handy. I'm very taken how they have reused essentially the same components (the radiator cap) in several locations. There is some neat engineering going on with this thing. 

 

And we need to make a new one of these. Not only is it corroded around the edges it has been poked with something blunt and heavy. 

 

The fuel tank needs repairing so we took the opportunity of getting the Super going to poke a pipe inside it and steam it out for a couple of hours. It is mostly all there except the gauge which we will need to find. 

 

To my surprise the cab came off intact. It can sit in the corner until the chassis is finished. Note also radiator surrounds and fan shroud as well as the finishing trim for the centreline of the grille which I am not sure how to repair/replace yet. 

 

And an engine. The gearbox/main mounting bolts had hung up in the crankcase and took some shifting. The engine mounting cross member needed to be removed anyway because the whole chassis will need to be dismantled and re-riveted so this can be used to fashion one half of the stand for the engine. As of yet we have no clue what state the engine is in. One thing that surprised us non-experts is that the engine appeared to be much lighter than expected. We haven't got scales so this was just based on how hard you had to pull on the hoist chain.

 

One thing I am very taken with is how incredibly narrow the engine is. Maybe it is just me not seeing too many engines but it seems incredibly slim. I'm also taken by the (almost) cam in head deign and the super neat gear/chain arrangement that drives all the ancillaries  including the cooling fan so there are no belts. I'm know next to nowt about AEC and what they did but I assume much of this thinking comes from bus design and operation and the need to minimise failure points. 

It is a really tidy looking engine. Note workshop vermin control operative wanting fed. 

 

While I am at the front of the engine does anyone know what was happening here? This is the radiator where you can see the lower hole through the bottom casting to take the starting handle in most AEC wagons but because the engine in the Matador being tipped way up at the front to clear the axle the crankshaft is lifted up so they have fashioned a route through the finned pipes for the starting handle - the flared pipe . All fair enough.

 

But the thing is the front of the engine looks like this. The other thing that strikes you is that because of the rather bold angle the engine sits at the starting handle would need to sit at a pretty crazy angle to actually work. The flared tube do not sit at an angle. What was going on?

 

So at the moment the chassis is looking like this. We have now started the rather painful task of getting the axles out. 

 

It is going to be very painful at the rear where the U bolts that hold the spring and axle together are few firmly hung up in the axle casting. We not mad keen to put too much heat into the axle casting so I suspect they will need cut off then the remains drilled out of the axle. That means that new ones would need to be made. 

We also don't know if the rear springs will need to be replaced or if it is still possible to recondition them. Note also the rotten drum backplate which has clearly suffered with the salt. 

 

Both rear brake cylinders have been broken by the volume of scale which built up behind them. You can probably make out the broken lug - you can also see it on the off side (photo above). 

 

Right I'll post this and then do another update shortly.

[Jimh]

Back again.

The condition of the chassis rails improves somewhat towards the front.

 

The gearbox and some propshafts. At the moment the only thing we've found wrong with the gearbox is the very worn bush on the selector shaft. Other than that a strip and clean should see it right. Note extremely persistent vermin control operative who would not piss off. 

 

Bits waiting to go in the bead blaster. Since I took the time to hard pipe the compressed air system in the workshop the bead blaster has been working very much better. This is very handy because there is a lot to clean. 

 

Front gear selector box. Like the gearbox the split bush is very worn. The spherical seat is spot on so hopefully we can get away with sweating a split bush into the old one and boring it to suit the shaft. What was noticed was that while this box has a filling plug for oil it doesn't have a drain plug. Odd. 

 

The brake compressor has not been stripped down yet but it feels OK so hopes are high that it doesn't need much work. 

 

The only thing we've found so far wrong with the compressor was that the roller bearings in the idler gear were absolutely donald. This seems odd because there isn't a mark on the teeth and the bearing runs almost submerged in oil. It's sitting on the press because the outer races took a bit more effort than normal to remove. 

 

Footbrake valve dismantled for reconditioning. Not much wrong with this than needing a couple of new seals. 

 

Various other brake and clutch bits blasted and primered. The clutch pedal was in need of a new bronze bush which has now been fitted. 

 

It's always worth giving the guide rollers a quick skim and tape in the lathe because it makes things look nice and new. 

 

Not sure what has gone on here. This is the tube that takes the throttle pedal spindle which as you can probably see has suffered a significant trauma although what we are not sure. 

 

Someone has clearly tried to solve a problem with the biggest hammer in their tool box. There is not much can be done with this other than throw it away and start again. 

 

We're not going to be short of things to do for a while. Even it is is Matador jackstraws.

 

Salt/wear seems to have finished off almost every part of the hand brake linkage. Plenty of pins, buckles and links to make here. Those who know their Matadors might tell me if the hand throttle linkage (the thing resting on the length of bright bar) is supposed to look more like a pretzel than a linkage. 

 

And finally the instrument panel which should hopefully survive the later modifications. There is enough left of the instruments for Speedograph to rebuild. 

 

That will do for now. Hopefully by next time it will be nothing but a pile of parts.