Richie's Mk1 Restoration

[Ron Pier]

I used an Acetylene cutting torch to heat the rivets on my 2 Pounder for removing them. Ron

[Lynn Eades]

Is the blower working on the forge?

[RichardT10829]

did not have a blower matey. i have contacted the farrier, it eems that butane does not poperate at the same preasure as ropane, so he has got em a large propane bottle and an adjustable reg. i will keep you all posted on how i progress with this.

cheers guys.

[RichardT10829]

christ i need a new keyboard hahahahaha my reply above is insanity typing......

have confirmed (on a side note) that the cammo style i am going with as per the model was also used on BEF vehicles during Scicily this is from an actual mod document so happy days i can rest easierish in the knowlege that the scheme will be correct to my grandfatehrs timeline.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/weapons...-sicily-4.html

[martyn]

Hi mate iam off to collect my furness nxt week end you can borrow that and it just need a compresser plugging to it hahaha makes life so much easyer
you start a fire fill it with boiler coal and after 30mins you should have enough heat to melt your arms as you pull your rivets out.... gas works ok but its slow and gets expensive when your doing a lot of rivets

[Aidan]

At last I have time to catch up on the MLU, I have been looking for a Universal carrier and may have found one . I heard it's a T16 and was at Camp meade in Vermont or NH? and was shipped down on Cape Cod a few years back. Going to check it out this weekend. Hopefully I can be apart of the Universal Carrier Crowd. Rich your Carrier is coming along, You have anymore pics of her? Thanks
Aidan

[RichardT10829]

Yes but only of the rear axle har har. i have stripped and rebuilt the brake assemblies which were shall we say mega seized ! if you remember when i managed to finally get the drums off they looked like this

other than the pads being good the internals were a bit caput.....

i pulled them apart and moseyed back to the clean workshop aka Kitchen and began the strip down (of the components that is)
carefully teasing the spreader to bits i managed to free up the stuck pistons without damaging the castings, luckily for me my fingers are small so could get them right into the housing, once stripped down i initially washed them with cellulose thinners then popped them into the sink and sprayed them down with oven cleaner and left for a while. returned and rinsed off to have nice clean and dry bits to work with.




next i attacked the cast housing (the outside) with 80 grit pads rubbing away all of the oxidised materials and loose paint, finishing it off with a 350 grit pad to make it smooth (but keyed), i used some 1200 grit wet and dry on the chambers and removed the pitting. then placed the housing into the oven to gently heat through. once warm or slightly hot to the touch i added a coat of spray, resulting in a quick drying nice satin coat finish.


finally after pollishing and cleaning the internals i added some grease and rebuilt the spreader unit like so.


i noticed the retaining pins were missing... rotted away perhaps or removed for greater travel, none the less UC-F1 says they should be there so i replaced them.

i wire brushed and red oxided the back plate and metal sections of the shoes so they were nice and clean then rebuilt the assembly



i have replaced the old ruined leather gaiter with a rubber equivalent... i used a 1970 vauxhall viva one cut down and it looks a good finish, plus it wont let any water in so happy days

I am going to take a gamble and not rebuild the diff, i have justified this by looking at the oil condition that came out and the fact when spun it is perfectly smooth and everything works...........remember this post if in future i blow out a diff har har har !

strangely i have anjoyed rebuilding the brakes, normally it is the most painfull and mundane task on a vehicle, but in comparisson to my other tasks this one has been nice and straight from the book

i have also stripped and rebuilt the drivers side bell crank that mounts onto the rear pannel so that is working great, just got to do the gunners side and the axel can go back on. unfortunately the grease nipple is missing from the drivers side one so i will have to go on the hunt.