Restoration of Hull 731- Carrier, MG (Aust) Mortar Carrying

[Darrin Wright]

During the last 2 weeks I borrowed a 12V battery to assist with winding the engine over to get it to start as I thought the battery/Jeep did not have enough power to turn the engine and get a good air/fuel mixture down into it.
The battery worked well; however, the smoke left the coil. I had some doubts about it as it had some damage on the case. I will have to look at replacing/repairing/upgrading the system.

I contacted Pertronix in Aust during the week to see if they do an electronic ignition system for the helmet distributor system. Unfortunately they do no. This leaves me with limited options as I always wanted to convert it over to electronic ignition to make it more reliable.
Option 1: replace the Bakelite coil and ensure all items in distributor are at 100%
Option 2: replace the coil with a remote standard coil and modification kit on the distributor
Option 3: convert to a crab distributor and upgrade to electronic ignition

I am leaning towards option 3 due to electronic ignition option and cost of like parts- but this will mean changing the timing gear cover, rebuilding a crab distributor and I must investigate the drive key/gear to cam shaft for the crab to see if it is the same as the helmet distributor.

After speaking with Euan and placing an add in the VMVC newsletter for ammunition carriers/tubes to suit a 3"mortar, I had some good fortune with the required carriers coming into my possession. I now have enough ammunition carriers to fill the right side with ammunition (6 in total, 18 rounds all up).
Just have to find a bi-pod...

Spent time on the front armour with a sanding board rubbing it back, some masking tape and it is now ready for a coat of spray putty when the weather improves.

Also replaced the thermostat in my Chev and gave it a bit of a run. Cleaned up the points, replaced the spark plugs, stripped the carby down and got some gunk out of the idle circuit in the Jeep.
Recovered a 42 CCKW front chassis section for another project and another thread much later.

Last task was to clean up the workshop a little, put tools away and remove the pallet workbench that was used to rebuild the engine on.

[Nathan Clark]

Hi Darrin, please keep us all informed about the guy making the leather boots as I no there are quite a few people on the forum chasing them at this time. I'm sure the members on the forum would make it worth his while to make a batch.
Regards Nathan

[Lynn Eades]

Hi Darrin, do you plan to treat the leather with anything?

[Darrin Wright]

Lynn, I was planning on using a leather dressing or Dubin boot dressing/water proof, brush on paste/mixture. On the inside will be grease from the lubrication of the roller and axle. This should keep the leather in good condition.

On the weekend I fitted the RH brake drum, drive plate & sprocket. I also filled the diff with a gear oil.
Started cutting & shaping the R exhaust pipe and adjusted the Mig welder for light gauge steel. Welded up the Y section (see pics) so that all that is left is to place the bolts in and find 2 wing nuts for the small end flaps.
These Y section exhaust sections are different to the later model exhaust in that they are very short. This must have directed the exhaust gas around the diff, hence the later model exhaust's are longer (to get the exhaust gas out from the diff and armoured diff cover). Then there are the BGC with no muffler fitted and just a straight through system.
Placed the remains of my original, old muffler into position just to see what/where I need to concentrate on next.
Beauty about a project at this point in time, no shortage of tasks to go on with.

Still researching into my ignition problem and options, but did fit an accelerator linkage ball to the linkage on the back of the RH cylinder head.

Had a tidy up of the parts that are painted and put them away (were stored on the back of the hull) and also organised some items for sandblasting and some items for painting next time.

[Ian Fawbert]

Still researching into my ignition problem and options

Hi Darrin,

Just a thought, did you check your plugs/have the ability to swap to some others- based on my comment a few replies above about the poor quality of new champion plugs at the moment?

Cheers,
Ian.

[Darrin Wright]

Ian, have not got that far as my coil was a bit suspect (hoped that it would have worked) to start with, but the smoke defiantly got out.

I have emailed Jolly's Engineering in the UK asking about their electronic ignition systems, waiting on a reply.

[Ian Fawbert]

Hi Darrin,

Sounds like a good place to start! Best of luck getting it sorted and I hope she's up and running soon!

Cheers,
Ian.