[Big D]

Hi all,

I managed to get one of the guys in the workshop to give me a hand over the last couple of days and we got a fair bit done on the M8.

I wasn’t able to source another headlight guard so we fabricated one based on the one I had. I drew up some profiles, and got it cut out of 6mm plate. We then folded it to the correct radius and with a bit of panel-beating to get the shape correct we fitted it on the hull. I think it looks pretty good.

I used all the photos I could find of the engine cover mounting plate and managed to muddle my way through to a plan for fabricating a new one. What wasn’t clear to me was whether the underside of this mounting plate was a single piece of channel, or whether it was two pieces of 90 degree folded steel like the pieces under the fuel tank cover.

In the end I plumped for a similar construction to what was on the underside of the fuel tank cover and we put something together. We used a length of 5mm thickness box section and cut it so that there were two 90 degree pieces of the right width. These formed the reinforcing sides of the engine cover hinge mounting plate. We welded tabs on each end for the bolt mounting holes.

Rolling up new hinges like the originals would have involved a bit of work so I elected to get a bit of steel bar and run holes through the centre with a lathe, and then weld these onto flat bar to make up the two piece hinges.

The finished product is not perfect but I'm very happy with it. Both engine covers appear to have a little twist on one of their corners, and so sit a little high in those corners. I guess they’ve been in a war, so it shouldn’t be too surprising. I figure they should straighten themselves out a bit once everything is in place and the locking handles are fitted. I will make up some proper pins for the hinges when I get some spare time.

Thanks to Sylvain, I got the measurements of the locking handles and the lifting handles for the engine covers so I'm getting these folded as well.

I moved the mounts for the radio tray shelf above the ammo rack so that this shelf sits flush with the door over the 37mm ready rack. As David points out, there seems to be a couple of variants in the sizing of this shelf. A wider shelf would look better but if I put another FT-237 radio tray onto it, it won’t be a problem.

I also fabricated some mounts for the 37mm ammo rack to fix this in place and cleaned out the broken bolts that secured the First Aid kit bracket and tapped some new holes for the bracket to be fitted. A bit of paint on that and the protecto-scope box I picked up and they will be ready to fit.

I realised I hadn’t done a final fit of the tool lockers after the welding repairs so I tried them out and did a bit of adjusting. They are pretty good and a bit of dressing up of the welds and joints and they will be fine. The two repro locker lids I got and the two originals I had still need a bit of tweaking with the hinges, so I will be finalising them over the next few days.

I decided to get the rear engine mounts sorted now before I got the hull blasted and painted, so am in the process of sorting that. I will lower the block into the engine bay and bolt it to the front cross-member so I can confirm the length of the rear engine mounts. The lengths of these two repro mounts aren’t quite right, and the mounting holes at the end for bolting to the rear of the hull have the wrong hole pattern. I have made new plates to bolt to the end of the hull and I will cut the existing ones off these mounts, tack everything in place with the block in-situ and then weld them up out of the hull once I’m happy with the placement.

I am ordering the OD paint next week and now looking ahead to a date when I can get the hull and turret blasted and painted. The blasters have quite a workload so it could be a few weeks before the M8 can be done. I’ll get some progress photos of the progress, as I want to see the hull markings as they come up under the blasting.