Our LRDG Chev

[Andrew H.]

Progress has been slow lately, but we try to do something to the truck almost every week to keep the momentum going. Recently we have been measuring and cutting out the bearers and cross beams for the tray and welding them together. We were lucky that Greg (tartan shirt) happened to come along today and give us a hand as he is a professional welder and his welds put ours to shame. He spent some time today grinding some of our welds out and re-welding them.

[Andrew H.]

We have worked out what we hope is a good method of attaching the flat sheet-metal on the sides of the rear body to the supporting "battens". Because they taper in at the top we had to cut the battens out longitudinally from a piece of box section steel. In doing that we left 6 small "tabs" which we will poke through slots in the sheet-metal and weld them on from the inside. That will hide the welds, greatly reduce heat distortion, save time and (we hope) make a neater job. We will see how well that works in the next instalment.

[Andrew H.]

Today we continued welding the bed framework and getting everything square, true and straight before starting to attach the vertical supports and the three top rails. It was quite tricky work and reminded us again of the old saying: "Measure twice and cut once" We were lucky to again have the help of our mate Greg (black singlet) whose skill and experience made everything happen so much more smoothly.

[Andrew H.]

We continued welding the rear ammo body last weekend. Its quite time-consuming to weld all the joins and there are more to do yet before we can start installing the sheet-metal for the sides and floor. Slow but steady wins the race

[Kuno]

Andrew - that will be a very nice LRDG truck!

[Andrew H.]

Yesterday we started cutting out the 2mm sheets for the floor and sides and seeing how they fit onto the framework of the rear Godfreidson ammo body. None of the sheets are welded on yet, they are just clamped to make sure they fit properly. We won't weld them on until we are sure they are right, but it still gave us a boost to see it all coming together, just as Mr Godfreidson intended it.

[Alex van de Wetering]

Great to see that rear body coming to life. Very nice work Andrew. That French replica has been the feature of an article in (the French) "Vehicules Militaires" magazine a few years ago. I thought I had the magazine here, but I guess I must have sold it. However the article did show some of the handywork the owner did in converting the civvy Chev parts.

Alex