T16 restoration starts in earnest

[andrew honychurch]

Its been a little while since I posted any updates on the T16, and to be honest its been pretty dull stuff going on. I have now refurbed 3 of the 4 suspension units but the best news was a trip to my metalwork chap today, who has made some real progress. This Carrier had spent a long while in Pounds of Portsmouth scrap yard and like so many had filled up with water which had not done it any good inside, so there was a lot of new metal work to do . This has involved new track guards full length left and right and across the back. Even the bulkhead behind the driver and gunner had rot in it at the bottom and even at elbow height! Anyway, we have now replaced most of this and I have also replaced most of the rotted out drain holes in the floor. This entailed having new rings machined with the correct thread and then letting into the floor where they had rotted out. You can see most of this in the photos, there will need to be quite a bit of making good once it is blasted but I am beginning to feel quite pleased and excited at moving on once again. Hope you enjoy the photos which are not brilliant as they were taken with a blackberry and are not that clear

[Lynn Eades]

When you have the hull blasted and painted, and you start bolting bits back on, you will feel great!

[andrew honychurch]

indeed I will! The floor inside this T16 is very scabby with rust and I had been worrying about how this was going to come up when blasted. However, I have a little vision of it as the metal worker has to heat up the floor to blow the rust off it and what is left where he has done this is really not too bad! We will see in a few weeks I hope. Still plenty of tin work to do, which is pretty expensive, but I can get busy on making it move back and forwards once more

[RichardT10829]

looking great Andrew...i look at where you are and for some reason all i can hear in my head is the Thompson advert tune "Welcome to my World" hahahaha

Mine is due its first spray now and i know it will be great from that point so Lynn is right there as soon as its clean again.....much better feeling

[andrew honychurch]

thanks Richard, The first spray is always the turning point, suddenly this great lump of rust starts to look like something worthwhile. Dont forget to post up some photos of your Universal when its painted.

[andrew honychurch]

what a great day for painting. The UK is bathed in fantastic sun today, and so i took the opportunity to repaint the suspension units and wheels. The first batch of paint that I got was off colour so I got a new batch and I am pretty pleased with it.

So all I need to do is get my hull back and I can get the shop back on the road.

[andrew honychurch]

things seem so slow going at the moment, I dont know whether its the hot weather we are having or the lack of the hull for me to be geeting along with, but anyway, I have done half my bogie units now. For some reason I was not looking forward to the job of cleaning all the bearings and seals and washers and putting them all back together. I must be getting overly sensitive to dirty nails in my older age! Anyway, I did two of the units today, taking my time and sitting down for a rest in the sun every now and again.
Its all pretty straight forward, nothing really to be aware off other than trying to line up the hubs, guides bushes and washers so that the axle spindle will go through. In the book they recommend a large spindle sized taper driver which would align everything. Not having one of those I had to use the mark one eyeball but it worked. here are some photos and I have updated the photobucket site as well

http://s714.photobucket.com/albums/w...sal%20Carrier/