Wiles Junior Cooker
 

These are pictures of a Wiles Junior Cooker I purchased from a fellow MLUer a few years ago with the intention of restoring it. Whilst largely complete its condition was very poor with much of it rusted beyond recognition. They are very basic in design so fabricating much of the componentry is fairly straight forward.

In searching for information on these cookers, a better and complete cooker popped up on ebay at a good price so I bought that. It was fully operational and had been regularly used by its previous owner. It was however fitted with an incorrect axle, wheels and had been retrofitted with vacuum brakes. The chassis had been modified and reinforced as these cookers suffered from a weakness in the chassis design.

I have used this cooker a number of times including club events at my property at Amphitheatre. Jake did some nice roast ducks in it last year. My steam pudding was not quite the fluffy success I was after but it was still edible. The VMVC President Rod Mills provided the perfect wood truck with his Mule.

This is not The Food Channel
 

Repeat after me, 'Rusty Trucks' 'Rusty Trucks' 'Rusty Trucks'.

Hanno.

I can see it now. A new thread for "Field Recipes"! 🍷🍰 :cheers:

David

A new thread for cookers!! :salute:

Cheers,

I just had breakfast and now I am hungry again :D

Whilst at this camp at Amphitheatre a fellow VMVC member indicated a desire to obtain a junior cooker. He also told me he picked up some surplus items years ago at an army auction and amongst the lots was a couple of heavy tanks in crates which he never knew what they were. Someone later told him they were new Wiles steam boilers. We struck a deal that there was enough to rebuild both cookers but there would be a fiar bit of work involved in rebuilding the first one. As he is an engineer that would not be too difficult. He had had the boilers for so long that the crates had rotted away.

The boilers still had wooden bungs in all the openings and were assembled with the heat exchanger and steam tubes so all that was required was sanblasting and a coat of stove paint and they are ready to fit. Manufacture date is 1971.

Before I got a chance to do anymore work a sale came up at Toolern Vale from an aging VMVC club member. His collection of Land Rovers, ex army trailers and other militaria included a Wiles Junior and Wiles Senior cooker and a large assortment of cooker parts. This included about ten boilers, water tanks, valves, gaskets, oven doors and grates and steamer bins and baskets. Most of it was NOS and had been parked under cypress trees and tarps for so long that a chainsaw was required to trim away branches before it could be uncovered. Most of the tarps and crates fell apart when uncovering the parts. I managed to acquire a NOS oven which only had a rusty bottom section that needed replacing due to many years in the weather. I also got a NOS tea urn in perfect condition and some NOS taps and valves and steam pipes.

I also picked up two NOS boiler covers.

The oven, dated 1971 had sat in the weather and water had gotten into the bottom via the smoke outlet in the top. The bottom corner had rustted out so I cut it off and welded a new bottom in it. The door had rusted shut but once heated up it freed open to reveal nice clean metal inside. Sandblasted and blacked and ready to fit. Under the brass plate was original paint.

This allows me to fit a new boiler, oven and tea urn and taps and valves to my cooker and pass on serviceable parts to the second cooker. They will still need repairs but not total rebuild as was going to be required. My engineer friend in the meantime is going to make new stainless steel steam bins. My bins are useable but rusty inside and there was no steam bins with the original cooker. So I stripped the original cooker apart. Another example of why everyone should have a small excavator.

I was disappointed with the rust to the chassis and boiler firebox. the extent of the rust was not visible before I pulled it apart. There was enough rust to fill a wheel barrow. Surprisingly though all the firebox heatplates were still solid enough to use.

While I had the chassis suspended I stripped the springs and axle out. The shackle pins and pushes were all in perfect condition. Wheel bearings (Made in Germany) were good and will be reused.

I am not sure what the wheels are and even if they are they wheels originally fitted to these cookers. File photos are not clear but they are 16" fitted with 6.00 x 16 tyres. File photos show bar tread tyres but I have not seen clear period photos of the rims. When stripped mine revealed a 53 date. I only had the two wheels on the original cooker and the later one had LandCruiser rims but a matching spare to my original.

Being six stud rules out jeep rims. As we often find when wanting rare spares, a local hardware shop not ten Kms from me has this old gypsy type wagon in the front yard for some reason. I just happened to take a bit more notice of the wheels last time I was there. Two are the same as my original cooker and two are the same as my spare. Can someone identify exactly what the rims are?

I have a WW2 4 wheel Aust Generator trailer that has the same hubs and just slightly different 6 stud wheels (earlier? WW2 Vs 1953?). These were off a 1940 Chev sedan.

The wheel bearings are an unusual design (compared to these days), with the inner bearing being ball bearings in a bronze cage. They are an odd size, and replacement for these or a modern tapered roller design bearings are somewhat pricey.

Can you post some pictures Tony. I have seen some Chev wheels with six stud but they have a slight indentation where my wheels are smooth across the centre as shown. I will put some better pictures up as the rims are not fitted with tyres yet. Bearings are ball bearings too.

Looks like the original wheels on the old three speed Nissan patrol we once had. We replaced them with Toyota split rims to make changing tyres easier. Conner shay chisel ploughs of the 50's had similar rims without the hubcap clips, but same stud pattern.

Yes, Jack, my wheels have the indentation. I also have a bit of a mixed bag, with one of the 4 wheels having a much more pronounced dome in the centre.

Have you looked at any post-war Chevs to see if/when they changed to the smooth centre dome style?

Here are the wheels. It seems they vary. These are fitted to my cooker and others as seen on Google images. Seems they are 1952 Chev

Photos loaded

And the spare I had is also seen on Google images of these cookers. 1938 Chev

That adds a bit more info. The '52 rims are Australian made by ROK (Rubery, Owen and Kelmsley, of Finsbury, SA), and 4.5" wide.

I would like to match the other two if anyone knows of one.

It figures that the rims are post-war, as the Wiles Junior was a post-war Army purchase.

Mike