Great War truck Posted September 2, 2008 Share Posted September 2, 2008 The Autocar is our favourite truck in the collection. It was very well designed and engineered and is never any problem. This August we started it up for the first time in 12 months. The second revolution of the handle it fired up just like that. It seems however the Autocar is not just our favourite as i have now had requests from three different chaps asking for photographs so they can make a model of it. It is not ours that they wish to replicate, but one of the Canadian armoured versions that looked like this: They all had the same chassis and running gear, just a different body. I asked Tony to look in the manual for schematics and he came up with these. I hope the modellers find them of use and those who like full size models find them of interest. Perhaps they will post pictures of their completed model once finished. Tim (too) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 3, 2008 Author Share Posted September 3, 2008 The Canadian military Autocars were best known, but the UK was also a user with 454 being purchased. 265 of these were used on the Western Front as water carriers and 189 used in East Africa as GS trucks. This is we are certain the sole survivor of those used on the Western Front. As a water tanker truck is of little use and as the original body was missing we set about restoring it as a GS wagon, like this one: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 3, 2008 Author Share Posted September 3, 2008 After we got it home, Steve did a bit of tinkering with it and soon got it running. It had obviously been well cared for but well used. Every bit of it was worn out. On the side of the truck was a metal plate indicating it had been in service with a French coal merchant. We think that it was in daily use up until the 1950's, before eventually making its way to the hands of a French collector. The body on the back had been raised with the addition of a second chassis and a wooden wagon body perched on top. It also came with a spare engine fixed to the body. After getting it registered we ran it around for a little while, then Steve started the restoration. The first major problem was the wheels. We had new ones made to the correct pattern by a local wheel right. This made travelling in it much more enjoyable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stormin Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Those wheels looked too good to paint. Pity to hide that craftmanship. Is this Autocar restoration now on hold whilst the Dennis one progresses? Looking forward to the latest instalment on that one too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 3, 2008 Author Share Posted September 3, 2008 Yes the wheels do look nice unpainted. This restoration is long finished now, but i have been asked about it so thought i would do a brief summary of what happened. Here is the chassis after dismantling, sand balsting and repainting. Then the thing started coming back together. The seat box is resting on the back for convenience. it would sit over the engine normally. The steering wheel got broken during removal, but a friend made a new one on the original spider. The rad needed quite a lot of work and Steve built a new top tank for it. The engine with two cylinders horizontally opposed site nicely under the seat. This photo gives a clearer view of how the seat is raised. It is on springs and rises without too much effort. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest catweazle (Banned Member) Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Looks great thanks for posting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 3, 2008 Author Share Posted September 3, 2008 Many thanks Cat. here are a few more pictures. The headlamps are made by Rushmore and look like this: A close up of the engine, which we had to remove to replace a broken piston ring: And a couple photos of it in its natural habitat: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rlangham Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Great photos, thanks for sharing. Don't supposed you're at all tempted to put an armoured body on it are you? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abn deuce Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 What was the regular maintance requirements like ? were the exposed valve stems oiled ? what was its road speed like ? transmission speeds ? Great looking job I m sure you must have spent thousands of hours bring it back from the edge of destruction ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bill Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 Yes, it certainly got its fair share of hours. Those were the days when I lived with parents and didn't have to do my own cooking and laundry! Autocar were emphatic about the necessity of regular lubrication and lay down a full programme in the manual. A certain amount of daily attention is required including filling the top-up tank (6 pints) and oiling the spring shackles as well as all linkages and the valve stems. They are lubricated with kerosene. I'm afraid that I don't follow the programme as the lorry gets so little use. Generally, it gets a complete oiling round every time it is due to go out. This is a wonderful lorry but its one real weakness is an inability to keep the oil in the engine whilst running. As it is a twin with both pistons going up and down together, the volume change in the crankcase with every revolution is enormous. The effect of this is that there is an oil mist continually blown out of the breather and the lorry uses one pint of oil every sixteen miles. I thought there was something seriously wrong with it until I read that on the 1914 1000 mile reliability trial, they only achieved 14 miles per pint. On the plus side, the underside is unlikely ever to rust! It is a wonderful machine to drive and we love it dearly. It has a three-speed box with progressive change ( the gear lever keeps going forward and has no gate) and is tremendously fast. Father clocked me at 26mph on one occasion. At that sort of speed, one learns to smile with ones mouth shut! Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 7, 2008 Author Share Posted September 7, 2008 Don't supposed you're at all tempted to put an armoured body on it are you? You are not the first person to ask us that. The answer is that in all probability no. We are certain that ours is an ex WD truck used for carrying water, however other running/rolling chassis do turn up in the USA without any bodywork on ocasion. I think it would be ok to armour up a civilian chassis with a replica armoured body as long as it is stated that it is a replica. We have too much to do to take on such a project, although the more i think about it the more fun it sounds. Ideally, i would like to find one of the missing original armoured versions. Examples of which dissapeared in the UK, France, Germany and Canada. Who knows. It would be great if a second one could be found. Tim (too) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great War truck Posted September 21, 2008 Author Share Posted September 21, 2008 Here is a link to a clip of ours on HMVFTV. It is the first time that it has been started in 12 Months and started just like that. It also proved to be very smokey indeed. http://www.hmvftv.com/watch/feedfdeaab192ead4ac0/Autocar-UF21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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