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.