[Big D]

Hi all,

Just a quick update showing some work done in the last few weeks.

I am still awaiting the axle housings to come back from the blasters. I have new diff carrier bearings, pinion shaft oil seals and bearings, and axle oil seals to go into the housings.

All the hubs have been cleaned up and primed. Interestingly, there was a mix of original US, French and Italian wheel bearings. One of the US ones was a little rough but I think I will get away with it considering the limited use this vehicle will get. The torsion bar, torque rods and steering U joints have also been cleaned up and are ready to fit/paint.

In between time, I have fully restored the turret seats. These were painted white on OD and the remnants of the black lettering for ‘CARBINE’ was still there under the white paint. The seat towers required some new spring retainers at the bottom of the towers which I have fabricated. All the rollers were locked up so I had to heat them up to get them off. All roll freely now. The seat pans were corroded so I removed these and replaced the corroded pieces of metal. I need to make up the padded seat bases and backs now.

With the exception of the spring I need for the sliding gear, the traverse mechanism is all set to fit. The gun mount has been cleaned up and painted, albeit in a shade I am not happy with yet. I’ll tidy that up later.

I have started work on the hatches. The hull has one of the front hatches fitted and I have two hatches to choose from for the other side. I started removing the frozen visor parts off these today and I am still working out which hatch to fit. One is rougher than the other one but has some hinges on it that I think I can work with. The other one is tidier overall but needs both hinges fabricated.

The visor assemblies need to be completely rebuilt on both the front hatch already fitted and the one I am going to fit. What a battle to get those little nuts off that had corroded. I need to fit new studs and spacers for the straps and fabricate the locking pin assembly.

At some stage, someone has stripped the hull of its original top hatches by cutting a square around each hinge. I have two top hatches to replace the missing ones. One of these has been removed from another hull by cutting horizontally right across the width of the hatch under both hinges, so I can shape the metalwork around the hinge mounts on this one to fit the cut outs on the hull fairly easily. The other hatch has been really knocked around with the mounting plate and hinges all twisted. I had to cut the hinges off that and will have to straighten them or rebuild them before I can fit that hatch.

I have a few questions about the hull and the hatches.

• I will need to fabricate new visors and straps for the side ports on the hull. Are these side visors and straps etc, all the same size as the port assemblies in the front hatches?

• Has anyone rebuilt the locking pin assembly for the visors? Alternatively, has anyone stripped one and has photos?

• Has anyone rebuilt the rotating handle on the top hatches? This seems like it would have had some sort of spring loading in the mount and an indent on the end so it would lock in the folded up position and in the 90 degrees position. Am I correct with that? Mine just have the remnants of the handle rusted into the mount so I need to start from scratch with them.

Thanks.