A few questions for the T16 experts out there.

[Jon Bradshaw]

I have my reproduction Vickers tank running on a reversed T16 hull and when it was out today the seal where the diff meets the drive shaft leaked fluid. It was only about 1 cup of oil but it made me put it back on it's trailer and head home. Once home I opened up the engine bay (remember Tank hull, armoured engine covers, lots of lifting)looking for where the oil had come from. It was puddled under the seal but there has not been any more leaks since I took it into the garage. The fluid level in the differential is fine so it was a very small amount that leaked.
I was driving it a bit hard and was doing a fair bit of steering so wonder if it just got too hot.
Was this an overheating issue?
Was this a pressure blow out, which once it blew made it happy again?
If so how often will it do this?
Is the seal gone but will only leak sometimes when driving more than a few miles?

Second problem is that I seem to be drifting to the left constantly when driving straight. This is causing me to correct about every 50m or so. I have backed off the "braking" drum brake until it barely engages and it still pulls left. I was told it may be a difference in the number of links in the track but they are the same. I wonder if the axle needs to be aligned since I see in the manual that this is done with a spacer. Has anyone needed to do this? How do you determine if it is aligned?

[Lynn Eades]

No idea about the first bit, but the going left is probably because your tracks need balancing. you need to lay your tracks out on a flat floor and compare. one probably has more links in it than the other. 1/4 your tracks and swap 2 1/4s from one side to the other. this should balance them. put em back on ant test drive.
I hope that solves your problem.

[charlie fitton]

I cant see how it has anything to do with the tracks...track speed is proportional to sprocket RPM

and check your diff vent..

f

[Lynn Eades]

Charlie, have a read of a carrier manual.

[Jordan Baker]

Yes differing track speeds will cause a turn to the slower side. However track length also plays an important role. As Lynn says take the tracks off and lay them out flat. Count them and then count again to be sure. It could be simple as some track is more worn causing one to be slightly longer even with the same number of track links.

[charlie fitton]

Mk1* and MkII* manuals at hand - Carrier parked in my garage...tell me where this info is....

The number of links per side has no bearing on the Carriers' ability to drive straight.

Road camber might, but he's in canada so it would be opposite to his problem, and an adjustment in steering every 50 meters or so aint bad.

Your car wont even do that.

[colin jones]

Hi Jon, it might be a bit of a pain but you could remove the tracks and swap sides. If the carrier pulls to the other side then problem answered. If it makes no difference then you can eliminate the track. My money is on the track though. Before you take them off you could mark one link on either side while your carrier is on a flat road surface and mark the road as well then drive your carrier until the track mark goes a full revolution and mark the ground again and repeat 2 or 3 times. Then simply measure each distance and see if there is much discrepancy. Just a process of elimination.
My 2 bobs worth.
Colin.

[horsa]

Make sure your differential vent (on top of the pumpkin) is not clogged up. Heat from use will build up pressure which needs to release. Otherwise your seals pay the price and will be damaged and leak.

On a related note in case you damaged them or simply want to ensure no leaks from the axle housing coming from the pumpkin, I still have NOS seals which are part number G166-03-82860. These seals prevent leaks which would ultimately affect your brakes and outboard steering.

http://www.visualcollector.com/Tommy...TommyStuff.htm

[Jon Bradshaw]

I need the seal that does the driveshaft. Part # A-250047

If you have that then we may be able to deal.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

I've always found that topography or the crown of the road (and where you were relative to it) had a great deal to do with how a carrier drifted. But I speak only for Bren carriers as I've never piloted a T16.

[horsa]

Sorry, can't help with that one. What I have are A-333947 and two are required per vehicle. If you have any traces of oil in your axle shafts, then you would need them as the pressure ruined them all. Never seen the seal you are looking for and the ones that I have are the only source for them as they were a T-16 special pattern that nobody else has.

Best option will probably be building a seal from leather and making sure you don't overfill the pumpkin. Also verify that breather is functional.

Good luck, having completely rebuilt mine in the past, its some heavy lifting.

[Andrew Rowe]

Interesting question about track pulling to one side or the other. We had this problem on a Tank and even went as far as swapping tracks over from one side to the other, and even marking the final drive to make sure there was not a different ratio. Turned out that one side had an extra link, even though I am pretty sure we set both tracks up with the lineal length the same on both sides. Once we had taken the link out, we also "quartered" the track as well to achieve the correct lineal lengths. Tracks worked perfect after this.
We also run a M113, which has 64 links on one side and 63 on the other, and this is factory setup. Not entirely sure why they did this, whether it was for road camber? , but it is a bastard driving down our roads and it pulls to the left, but we drive on the left hand side, so is it the camber doing this? if I was in the good old US of A, where they were made , I would be on the other side of the road and it would be driving straight?Cheers Andrew.

[Lynn Eades]

Here it is Charlie.
1. from Australian worksop manual
2 from British manual (Chilwell 63/63)

[charlie fitton]

Well I learn summit new every day. Many thanks, Lynn. I'll try find that in the Cdn Books

RE: oil leaking.

If I'm not mistaken, the back of your machine is now the front?

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Andrew Rowe

We also run a M113, which has 64 links on one side and 63 on the other, and this is factory setup. Not entirely sure why they did this, whether it was for road camber? , but it is a bastard driving down our roads and it pulls to the left, but we drive on the left hand side, so is it the camber doing this? if I was in the good old US of A, where they were made , I would be on the other side of the road and it would be driving straight?Cheers Andrew.

It is because the torsion bars are offset from left to right, so it ends up making things a little longer on one side than the other. Note that the final drives and the idlers are lined up.

Mathematically, it shouldn't make very little difference. End of the day, the sprocket teeth are a certain distance from each other, and they drive the track one pad at a time. The amount of stretch on the track is important, and this is where the problems will occur. It is one reason why the proper track tension is so important. There is a certain amount of stretch with rubber bushed track. In the end, the two rubber bushings on that one extra track pad will add very little distance overall.

I recall in my younger days driving the M113A2s from Shilo to Winnipeg and vice versa. They did not drive in a straight line, and one arm got very tired constantly pulling and releasing the one tiller bar. You could not drag on the bar for a long period as it would cause the differential to overheat.

[Jon Bradshaw]

The back of my machine is now the front and it steers to the left as I am driving the new "forward". The oil leaked after a good hour of hard driving and I am blaming it on overheating. I drove it again the next day for an hour of less heavy steering and there was minimal leaking. Gear oil on the floor is terrible to clean up.....
For the rest of you I will certainly be counting track pins tonight. I can pull a link if that works out to be the problem. As for laying out the track to measure it that will need to wait until I have some help.
Here are some pics from the weekends fun! That deuce never had a chance. He came over the hill and bang!
Not a re-enactment just two of us playing around. I had a guy with a drone flying around doing video but I am waiting for him to email me some of it.
For anyone in the Edmonton area looking for a machine of metal shop I can recommend the ones I used, that barrel is a complete fab job and I think it fits/looks the part pretty dam good.
A big thanks to Dave for letting me come out and drive on his land.

[rob love]

Perhaps some of the more modern synthetic oils will have a higher boiling point.

Most pinion gears are cut for forward movement. So there may be a little extra heat created by the gears. Also, how is the pump set up on the T-16 differential cooler. Is it trying to pick up oil from the dump side and pump it into the bottom of the diff? Just spitballing here...I have minimal experience with the T-16, but I do know that those diffs were used on snow machines like the Nodwells and have seen them with 8.2 liter detroit diesels powering them.

[Tony Smith]

Does the seal surface on the Pinion have spiral groove to encourage oil back into the diff under normal rotation, but tend to drive it out past the seal in your reverse rotation application?

This feature appears on various Ford shafts, bushes and seal surfaces from the 40's, but is more usually seen with felt seals than leather.

[Lynn Eades]

I would think that more heat is generated by driving technique or "too tight" brakes, than the cut of the gears. Sure it is designed to work one way, but it is not a hypoid. Only later U.Cs had a pinion seal at all. I doubt the T16 has a spiral slinger. The earlier carriers had nothing to stop the oil migrating (which it must have done, or they would never had modified them)
Rob,I think you covered it in the last line of your previous post.( #15)
Should these diffs with wet brakes, run a special oil?
btw. I have no experience with a T16 (except to look in one at W&P 2014)
Jon, If you suspect the breather valve, you could do away with it and run a (non kinked) hose to an inside the hull fuel filter?

[charlie fitton]

I was envisioning the oil piling up against the pinion gear as the crown gear pushes it that way now. that , possibly with what Tony suggests would leave a lot of oil piled up in the pinion housing.

extend your filler plug with a tube. Catch what falls out in a dish, clean up the mess, and replace the same amount....with new oil.

[Bruce Parker (RIP)]

I'm confused. Are you running this forward in only one reverse gear?

[Jon Bradshaw]

This topic of my carrier is covered in more detail in another thread. I am running this carrier with the original diff but a newer engine and transmission. The diff is at the "front" (the old rear) and running in reverse but the drive train is running as normal in a 3 speed tranny. I set it up to spin the tranny in forward but the diff in reverse.... The Engine is in backwards with the tranny at the "back" and running through a transfer case and a long driveshaft past the engine. Pics in the other thread.
There is a possibility that the spinning of the shaft is pooling the oil against the seal but I think upon further thought and reading the comments that it was probably excess heat due to overly aggressive steering.
I will not make any mods to it except that it now has a better breather.
As suggested I simply cleaned up the oil and replaced the amount that was lost. As I said it was only about a cup or two.
I removed one track link from the left and will have it out tomorrow to see if it made a difference.

[Lynn Eades]

Jon, there is more to it than removing a link.
The idea of quartering the track is to get you two tracks the same length (which you may already have now) by mixing the less worn with the more worn to even things out.
You probably haven't gained anything in that the pitch of one track is still different from the other (they may be the same length but one has less links) Does that make sense?

[David Herbert]

I very much agree with Lynn.
Driving in a straight line the sprockets have the same number of teeth and are turning at the same speed. This means that the tracks are being pulled round the sprockets at the same number of links per minute. If one track is more worn/stretched than the other the pitch is longer and that track travels further so you slowly turn. If one track is more worn than the other it would often result in it having a link or two removed so that it can be tensioned but the cause of the drifting is the difference in pitch due to wear. Any difference in the number of links is incidental but indicates different pitch. As has been mentioned, if everything else is equal, different tension on each side will also cause drifting but simply because a tighter track has more drag so the vehicle will tend to drift towards that side.

David

[rob love]

I guess the best analogy would be having two different size tires on an axle. A 9.00-20 on the left and a 11.00x20 on the right just won't work well.

Regarding the differential moving to the front, the armoured snowmobile (and the later penguin variants) used a T-16 differential on the front, but the designers made the neccessary changes to flip the gearbox over, thus being able to run the engine and transmission directly into the diff.

[David Herbert]

As the pinion is at the same hight as the crown wheel it should be possible to flip the crown wheel, controlled differential and brake drums assembly within the housing to engage the other side of the pinion. It will need setting up for backlash but looking at the photos above and the manual I can't see why this can't be done. It would be dead easy and saves extra/special gearboxes.
David

[andrew honychurch]

Originally Posted by Tony Smith

Does the seal surface on the Pinion have spiral groove to encourage oil back into the diff under normal rotation, but tend to drive it out past the seal in your reverse rotation application?

This feature appears on various Ford shafts, bushes and seal surfaces from the 40's, but is more usually seen with felt seals than leather.

I would have thought that you are on the right track here. I cannot believe that the T16 diff is set up to run backwards all the time. I didnt strip my rear axle right down as David did so he will be best to answer this, but I feel sure it won't be designed to run like this and the oil cooler may not be working correctly as a result.

edit, or of course the oil bathed brake bands for steering. these work by not grabbing and sticking on the hub ( much like a Jeep handbrake early type) and literally drop cooled oil on the bands. If the pump doesn't work in reverse you will be getting seriously hot oil in the diff etc etc