LP2a SAR restoration

[Phillip]

I am nearly at the end of the suspension. The last bogie is all stripped and the springs, rods, balls, cups, washers etc have been cleaned of rust and painted, ready for assembly.

The idler wheel bearings were in excellent condition so the wheels, once cleaned of solidified grease mixed with dirt (making something akin to concrete), only needed modern seals to replace the old perished cork seals.

I am still waiting on the engine machining to be completed and the re-rubbered wheels to arrive.

Here is the spring and rods prior to cleaning and painting and the other front bogie installed.

[Phillip]

I’ve sure that subconsciously I’ve been putting this off but tonight I finally assembled the last bogie.

Without this clever little spring compression tool, I do not know how you rebuild spring packs as there is a tremendous amount of pressure required to compress that spring.

At the end of these I almost feel like I know what I’m doing

[Lynn Eades]

The brake boot is available under a ford part number via Macs auto but is a common size from back in the day.
If someone needs a wire dia. and length etc. for the return springs, I can check it out.

[Phillip]

The wheels from Hugh arrived a few weeks ago and have now been cleaned and painted.

Bearings have all been completely cleaned of 70 years of petrified grease to reveal very few issues. I have a good supply of bearings and so picked out the best ones before re-packing them. Modern seals have replaced the old cork seals

New wheels installed on a rebuilt bogie, might have the rest fitted by end of the weekend. Booyeh - progress

Looking forward to picking the engine up from the machine shop next week.

[David Dunlop]

Phillip. I was just reviewing your thread and great work on this carrier and spotted something regarding the exhaust system I had missed earlier.

It looks like the exhaust flows up through the two muffler assemblies ant the pipes exit two holes in the upper rear plate assembly.

However, it looks like a “Y” exists ahead of each muffler with a short straight exhaust pipe coming out just below the rear plate, and these two pipes are covered with blanking plates.

Now I am curious as to the purpose of these lower alternate exhaust pipes. They must release a mighty roar when opened up!

David

[Phillip]

David, I do not know the answer!

The manuals are silent on the matter and some carriers do not have the bypass, mufflers or heat shields - just straight pipes exiting up high through the rear plate.

I assume that the engine is more efficient if the lower pipes are open and hence you would get better fuel efficiency, but obviously the trade off is a lot more noise and therefore, less tactical, hence mufflers!

Possibly someone out there has some documentation on the subject that they can share?

[Andrew Rowe]

Evidently, with the New Zealand production of Local pattern carriers, mufflers were introduced in the last 200, of our total production of "roughly" 1200 carriers. Hull Serial numbers were pre dated by an "X" , Cheers Andrew.