Armour Dreams

[Jonathan Moore]

The next job was the petrol tank cover, on the original this was an armoured cover welded to the hull, access to the fuel tank would have been from under the tank via a removable plate in the floor. To remove the cover in mine, you would have to lift the top of the hull but I have added inspection, maintenance covers for the fuel sender and the fuel pump. I have also made the cover in two parts so that I can gain access to the engine electrics without having to remove the whole cover.

Jon

[Jonathan Moore]

I decided that I wanted to get the gearbox working so that I could connect the drive chain up and check my theories but I am a bit fed up with doing temporary works and then having to go back and do it properly, it feels like I am doing the job twice. Although the whole vehicle will have to be disassembled for painting I have decided to finish any areas that I feel confident will not have to be reengineered. I have spent hours studying photos trying to make sense of items and their position within the hull, interesting but some times frustrating.

To the right of the driver there are two control panels, a larger one that I have shown before and that has now been bolted in place and a smaller one bolted to the side of the hull. The small panel, contains a water temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge and the light switch.

[Jonathan Moore]

The throttle needed connecting up to the engine and as you can see from the pictures above, it runs just below the main control panel, through conduit and through the engine bulkhead to the throttle body.
You can see the conduit in the picture below, it is bolted to the top of the gearbox, eventually, when I have recreated a dummy box in mine.

[Jonathan Moore]

I have installed a battery isolator switch and routed the wires as per the original vehicle.

[Jonathan Moore]

The wiring duct from the engine bay to the front of the tank caused me some sleepless nights, I couldn't quite make any sense of the information that I had, until I found a picture from a unmolested interior and then all became clear.

The wiring runs along the side of the petrol tank in the 50mm x 25mm box, then down at a very un-Germanic angle, under the smaller control panel and into a connection / fuse box.

[Jonathan Moore]

Recently I have been concentrating on the wiring, a bit odd you may think as there are more pressing jobs with the drive etc but I needed something that wasn't complicated and that I could dip in and out of. I am glad that I did, as there were a lot of holes to drill, clips to make and trunking to run and head scratching to do.

There is a section of flexible trunking that runs in front of the driver, around the peddle area. I had thought that it was part of the wiring but I am now not so sure, as I have identified the wiring route and it doesn't use that section of trunking. However I have used it to run the gearbox kickdown switch wiring in, as it runs in the adjacent area.

The wiring is now complete and tested but I have made use of a lot more flexible trunking than the original. All the wires in the original appear to be black, I have used colour coded wires but where they can be seen I have jointed onto black extensions. I have left the wires long enough so that they can be pulled out of the end of the trunking so that the various colours can be identified as they join the black ends.

The interior of the hull contains light sockets for the magnetic work light as well as adjustable station lights. So far, I have been able to identify the location of two sockets, one by the driver and one in the turret and two station lights, one in the turret and one by the radio operators position. I would have expected to find three of each so I will keep on looking.

[Jonathan Moore]

I posted a question on another forum with refence to the station lights and amazingly one of the various styles is still produced, but for an automotive application.