T16 and Bren carriers for sale on Milweb

[horsa]

A friend in Georgia (USA, not Soviet) has a T-16 that he plans to sell to help offset costs of another restoration he is doing. This one hasn't been driven for several years but did run when it was parked in the shed. It will need work to put it back to wartime configuration since the armor has been cut but it doesn’t appear to be a basket case like my carrier was when I started out.

I can't answer specific questions about the vehicle but the seller can. I'm only posting this since he wasn't sure how to attach images on the forum. Seller's contact information is:

Knox Herndon
Phone 770 719 2365
eMail khern2365 at aol dot com

He is new to MLU but should also be able to respond via this message thread.

[horsa]

Three more photos of the carrier. Now you know what I know about it

[colin jones]

Hi David, what type of wheels has that carrier got as they look very unusual.
Colin.

[horsa]

Hey Colin,

It has the solid disc pattern wheels all around. They were produced at the same time that the curved spoke pattern came out to replace the straight pattern that only the very earliest production T-16s had.

The disc type are supposed to handle mud and snow build up better since it can't get packed up into any spokes. But so far nobody has found any documentation on any of the wheels in terms of what was going on with production and if certain vehicles were built one way or another for a particular reason. You see this type in some wartime T-16 photographs of Canadian troops in Holland and Germany in 1945.

A few years back there were WWII reenactors that selected this type T-16 for conversion to German armor since they needed running lower hulls with disc wheels for the look. Usually they put the driver at the rear so the drive sprockets would be in the front and then altered the steering linkage for the new short run. Somewhere on MLU there are photos and discussion of some of the conversions that came out looking pretty cool.

[kevin powles]

Hi, I went and saw an old boy a year or so back to buy some carrier wheels off him, he had once restord a T16 that came out of the pounds scrap yard. We got talking about T16 wheels and he told me they produced the solid disc type to prevent sabotage from the enemy, apparently you could disable the vehicle by putting iron rods through the wheels jamming he tracks, he was about 90 years old and seemed to know what he was taliking about.

this could be the reason?.

[horsa]

Anything is possible. Its too bad that so much of the history has been lost, or at least temporarily misplaced. For T-16s with solid disc wheels, I know of three people personally that have them in complete sets on their vehicles. Ray in New York, Dan in New Mexico and Brennon here in Texas. Sure there are a lot more out there.

On the wheels, there were at least four variations that we know of. The straight spoke, curved spoke and solid disc we mentioned. But there are actually two patterns of curved spoke wheels. Some have a casting on the back that is a raised projection which we've been told is used to help sling mud and snow buildup off before it can harden up on the spokes which can cause issues with the tracks and sprocket. Some of the T-16s also have ice scrapers on the rear at the back.

One other good thing about the solid disc wheels is they can be reversed to allow presentation of the side with the best rubber and metal surface area. Guess this is possible with the straight spokes as well. My carrier has curved spokes so flipping one around would look really odd.

[RichardT10829]

Pablo50cal has solid wheels on his carrier (resides in Argentina) This carrier is now advertised on John Bizal's website, being sold with another one (more complete.. as a pair) $12000 for the pair.......bargain if you ask me !

http://www.midwestmil.com/2T16salep1.html