Restoration of Hull 731- Carrier, MG (Aust) Mortar Carrying

[Darrin Wright]

Well in the last 2 to 3 weeks I have not been able to do too much as I pulled a muscle in my neck. Restricted movement and pain are not idea for doing much, especially working on the BGC.
But I now have the LHR suspension unit fully painted and ready to be mounted into the hull. Some other items have also been painted.
I spent some time knocking wheel bearings etc out of 5 road wheels and pressure cleaned them ready for sandblasting.
Got side tracked and bought another BGC, having to juggle parking spaces/hard standing for them as we go into winter, as the ground is soft and they sink.
Followed up on a lead and visited a farm with some BGC track and front wheels and mounting plates. Settled on a fair price and will collect Anzac day weekend with trailer.

[Darrin Wright]

Prior to Easter I had some machined items for the front & drivers floor plate arrive. This allowed me to get stuck into the drivers floor plate. It was a case of marking out all the bolt holes, creating a template to ensure holes went in the new plate correctly, test fitting and welding in of new pivot posts. After approx 3 hr and help from my son, we had a new floor plate ready for bolts (which I have to buy) to be placed in & welded so that they do not come loose (accelerator and clutch & brake pedal mounts).
Also installed the LHR suspension unit into the hull, installed all the bolts correctly this time.

Installed seals into the 1 wheel that I have ready for installation, also buffed up 2 wheel pins ready to install the wheel later.

With the 5 wheels stripped the previous weekend, it was time to clean 5 sets of bearings, seal retainers and spacers. Found several different types of roller bearings fitted to the wheels. Also found 2 crook bearings.

Another job that I had been putting off was the modification of my jack bracket, for some reason it was 13" high, this is too high for the Joplin jack. The correct BGC bracket is only 11" high, so I removed the base plate, shortened the bracket and re-welded it back to the base plate. It got a coat of paint later in the day with the seal retainer plates for the wheels.

Made the strap that holds the shovel onto the pioneer tool plate, just need to know how high it sits off the plate that it is welded to.

Picture 4 shows the drivers floor plate with the LH 'L' pivot bracket on the pivot post, I am missing the RH bracket, so if anyone has a spare good bracket and they wish to sell, please message me.

Also managed some gardening....but that is not as exciting as making progress on the BGC.

[Lynn Eades]

Well! no you have a really great project to start on (one with rivets!)
What a find!
Can you post a picture of the ID plate please?

[Dale Jordan]

Excellent workmanship Darrin . How come your floor plate has that cut out in the bottom left hand corner , also what height and length did you end up making the shovel bracket ? Dale

[Darrin Wright]

Dale, this weekend I will finish the shovel bracket and hopefully also the bracket for the track adjuster socket bar.

Lynn, just for you, some pics. I think I am fortunate to have 2 great projects, but this LP1 will be long term.

The ARN is 6573, disposed of on 20 June 1943.

I am a bit puzzled with several things with this vehicle.
1. The rear brackets as it appears to have had a tow pintle attachment.
2. The camouflage markings, it is painted khaki green but there are large traces of red/brown camo and black with a sand/white line to separate the black from the green. Very similar to WW1 patterns.
3. The markings on the LH side of the hull, appear to be an upside down triangle or most probably a 'V' (not sure on colour).

[Lynn Eades]

Thank you Darrin. She looks to be in quite good condition, with many of the small fittings still in place. A nice project indeed.
Where do the axles go.
Has anybody put together some form of registry for these LP1s.
I know of a few of them now, but not sure that all the owners want to go public.
Any how, I should let you go back to the project in hand which you are doing a great job of

[Keith Webb]

I have a total of 11 in my database, I'll list the hull numbers but in case some of the owners want to stay under the radar I'll leave out the other details.

I've created a thread on the subject here.

[Darrin Wright]

Finally bit the bullet and commenced the strip down of the bogie suspension units.
Due to the vehicle coming from a desert area everything came apart pretty easily with the exception of 1 wheel pin castellated nut. When undoing it, something caught the thread and destroyed the wheel pin thread and nut. Luckily I have several spare, so this is not a big problem.
All the bearings look to be ok with dried grease in them. Will clean them up properly this coming weekend.
Pressure cleaned 1 unit to remove the grease & dirt, ready for sand blasting.

[Darrin Wright]

The machined turnbuckles for the linkage adjusters arrived during the week, so test fitted them and tidied up some threads in the clevis yokes that they engage with.
Removed them and undercoated them.

Installed another vision shutter assembly, installed and drilled a new nut so that it suits the bolt for that location. Also pinned all the nuts on the 2 vision shutters installed so far. Will tidy up later when I next spray green.

Replaced the left upper coolant hose and placed the rust inhibitor and demineralised water into the system. It required approx 25 litres. Unfortunately the right water pump leaks. Leaks like a sieve. I have a feeling the fibre disc that came with the water pump kit has not bedded in to the sealing surface inside the pump housing. Since I have not had the pumps rotating by the V belt, this is most likely (for initial engine cooling I had the garden hose flooding the water jackets and pouring out the water pumps). Perhaps I will fill the cooling system with water and install a belt and run the engine and see if the seal will bed/wear in. That might be easier than removing the pump.
Pumps were cleaned up and rebuilt with new kits, impellors and seals/gaskets.

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Darrin Wright

I am a bit puzzled with several things with this vehicle. 2. The camouflage markings, it is painted khaki green but there are large traces of red/brown camo and black with a sand/white line to separate the black from the green.

Some of the early carriers featured 3-tone camo which I assume to be one of the Jan '42 schemes:

2. Mechanization Circular No. 301 2nd. January, 1942. Mechanical Vehicles- Camouflage Disruptive Painting.

Approval to paint all mechanical vehicles in disruptive camouflage.

Basic colour of vehicles for use in Australia is Khaki Green No. 3

One coat only of disruptive paint is to be applied, either by brush or spray, on top of the basic colour, in either the following three-tone or two-tone designs. All edges are to be kept sharp, it may be necessary to paint the boundary between two colours to obtain sharp definition.

The colour combinations employed:

Three-Tone
1. Light Stone N. Light Brown P. Khaki Green J.
2. Light Green H. Khaki Green J. Black U.
3. Light Stone N. Light Green H. Khaki Green J.
4. Light Stone N. Khaki Green J. Dark Green M.
5. Light Stone N. Light Brown P. Basalt Red S.*

Two-Tone
6. Light Stone N. Khaki Green J.*
7. Light Brown P. Khaki Green J.*

The colour combination selected should approximate to the colours of the country in which it is expected the vehicle will operate.

- For Australian Coastal areas use Sets No. 2, 3, 4, or 6
- For Australian Central and Northern Areas use Set No.5 or 7
- Set No.1 will merge under almost any circumstances.


The presence of black indicates Set No.2 while the presence of red/brown indicates Set No.5 which suggests this carrier was re-camouflaged in the field upon relocating from Coastal to Central/Northern Australia. The sand/white line may be an artifact resulting from this change or perhaps misinterpretation of instructions. Following pics show correct application of 3-tone pattern.

134428 CARRIER 3'' MORTAR (AUST).jpg

Snapshot 5 (7-05-2014 4-54 AM) - Copy.jpg

[Darrin Wright]

Thanks Tony for posting that info, I think I may have seen it before but you have now given it some clarity and put it into perspective/relevance.
That would explain the differences as they belong to different time periods and different locations. I did not think that the LP1 would have got around that much, being manufactured in late 1940 and disposed of mid 1943.
Differnet units and locations may have given it a different look.

Thanks Lynn, that was just the lead I needed to source some boots. I now have a fine pair of boots to use in location. The local brake place had some clutch slave cylinder boots, Lockheed 1778, Made in England for $5ea. The fit is good at the hull 1 3/4", and a little big at the rod end where it should be 3/4". The length is about right, but may be a little short on the extension; however, since it will only be in the compression action I do not see it being a problem. It will function correctly and keep the mud/dust out as much as possible.

A very productive weekend, met a BGC owner passing through on a weekend away, talked and exchanged info for several hours.

My machined items arrived during the week, so these were bronze welded to the brake rods, installed NOS return springs and washers. Still have to be painted green.

A minor job that I had been putting off, was to cut and modify the choke & throttle cables to suit so that the ball ends were in the right place. I suspect that the cables were all made to the same length and, when installed, were cut to the correct lengths.
When cut to the correct length, my wife and I then bronzed the end fittings into place. Managed to finish the throttle linkage and start the choke linkage.

I also had all the materials at hand to manufacture the front seats, so commenced this. One problem that I had was the left seat lower bracket, where this bracket engages in the lower tabs was also where they tested the hardness of the armour. This meant that the lower bracket had to be bent to allow for the bulge in the armour (see attached pic).