[Big D]

Hi all,

It’s been a few weeks since I posted any progress reports on the M8 so here are a few pictures of some work I’ve been doing.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the hull, removing old broken bolts, cleaning out mounting holes, re-tapping threads where necessary, and cutting and grinding off the odd post-war mount.

I’ve removed the first section of the armoured floor. As you can see from the photos, the remnants of the original floor are still in place around the sides of the hull and the first cross member. I’m going to remove the rest of the armoured floor so I can clean out all those old rusty bits and pieces. I have a second-hand original front floor coming from Belgium but this won’t be here until Xmas. I’m not sure how much of the outside of that has been cut off and it will need repair to a few places but I’m hoping that it will be better than what I’ve got here. If not, I’ll go back to the armoured floor.

I’ve fabricated some new mounts for storing the headlights at the foot of the hull by the co-driver’s feet. I still need to make up the spring plate that sits in the mount and holds the light base in place in the mount.

I tidied up the top hatch mounts and started tacking them in place. One hatch needed the hinges removed altogether from what was left of the cut off mounts and straightened with a bit of heat. The other side still had part of the cut-away hull plate attached to the hinges so I have cut that piece to size to fit into place on the hull and tacked it in. I’ll fill in the joints the next time I’m in the workshop.

The driver’s front hatch is now in place and I’ll finish welding the hinges in next week. I had two hatches to choose from. This one has a bit of bullet damage to the front but the hinge mounts were in much better shape than the other, so I decided to use this one. The bullet damage will be a conversation starter anyway…

My father in law has fabricated new handles and mounts for the underside of the top hatches. It took us a while to work out how these were designed but the finished product looks quite good. These are now fitted to the top hatches.

I’ve fabricated some new visor/pistol port slides for the front hatches and side ports, using the existing pieces as templates. I have one good working retracting spring plunger and another that I should be able to get going. I also found two modern spring plungers which look similar to the originals. These have a knurled handle as well but are a bit smaller than the originals. While they won’t look quite right, they will do until an original hopefully turns up one day. Does anyone have any spare originals?

I’ve also replaced some of the original studs for mounting the slide levers.

I am working on the top hatch locking arms which hold the top hatches in the horizontal position. One had been removed from a hull at some stage and the mechanism was completely frozen. Despite lots of penetrant, some heat, plus a little bit of encouragement from a press, it refused to budge. As you can see I had to be a little surgical and get access to the mechanism by removing a strip of metal from the top. Penetrant was never going to do it! Once I have got it all working again, I’ll lengthen the activating rod and weld the top strip back in again. I’ll repair the other locking arm in situ.

The shovel and axe mounts, rear tow cable mount and siren mount are fitted along with a handful of footman loops I had.

The spring latch that sits on the glacis on the front of the hull for the two front hatches is repaired and ready to be welded on.

One mine rack has been repaired and ready to fit (thanks for the measurements Sly). The other one is being fabricated along with the missing top hatch handle and front hatch lever/handle.

The guys in the engineering shop are going to see if they can straighten the headlight guards. The ones I’ve got are pretty beaten up so it may be a case of starting afresh with them, and the bends in them are not something I can create.