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

[Darrin Wright]

Prior to Easter I had some machined items for the front & drivers floor plate arrive. This allowed me to get stuck into the drivers floor plate. It was a case of marking out all the bolt holes, creating a template to ensure holes went in the new plate correctly, test fitting and welding in of new pivot posts. After approx 3 hr and help from my son, we had a new floor plate ready for bolts (which I have to buy) to be placed in & welded so that they do not come loose (accelerator and clutch & brake pedal mounts).
Also installed the LHR suspension unit into the hull, installed all the bolts correctly this time.

Installed seals into the 1 wheel that I have ready for installation, also buffed up 2 wheel pins ready to install the wheel later.

With the 5 wheels stripped the previous weekend, it was time to clean 5 sets of bearings, seal retainers and spacers. Found several different types of roller bearings fitted to the wheels. Also found 2 crook bearings.

Another job that I had been putting off was the modification of my jack bracket, for some reason it was 13" high, this is too high for the Joplin jack. The correct BGC bracket is only 11" high, so I removed the base plate, shortened the bracket and re-welded it back to the base plate. It got a coat of paint later in the day with the seal retainer plates for the wheels.

Made the strap that holds the shovel onto the pioneer tool plate, just need to know how high it sits off the plate that it is welded to.

Picture 4 shows the drivers floor plate with the LH 'L' pivot bracket on the pivot post, I am missing the RH bracket, so if anyone has a spare good bracket and they wish to sell, please message me.

Also managed some gardening....but that is not as exciting as making progress on the BGC.