Conger Carrier restoration, Overloon The Netherlands

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hello Everyone and a happy new year!

Below you will find some pictures of the current status of the Overloon Conger; the hose-box is nearly done and the plumbing has come a long way as well. 2009 will be an important year for this project.....it needs to be finished before the end of it!

@ Nigel. When is the deadline for pictures for your third volume? I will try to arrange to pull the Conger out in the sun for some pictures.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

I just received word that the Conger has been added to the exposition again! Hurah! After months of work the project is about done; just some lettering, accessories and possible replacement of little components.

Over the past two weeks the hose up front was fitted, the firing box was finished, the hand paint work sanded down and a fresh coat of paint sprayed on.

The carrier was "carried" from the workshop to the exposition, rather than "driven" on it's own tracks, to avoid stress on the track-pins.

I will be taking a look myself in the next few weeks.

Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

DONE!!!

A few weeks ago we visited the Overloon museum to see how the last stage of the Conger restoration turned out and to see the finished vehicle in the exposition, rather than the workshop. My good friend Tim Böhme, a car race photographer, who also has a great interest in WW2, came along for the ride.

This thread started with the sentence “The greatest challenge will be bringing the Conger back as close to its original configuration as possible, within the museum’s budget”

Funding these sorts of projects always is a great struggle for a museum, especially when you consider that they are only possible when enough entrance tickets are being sold. So, in stead of ordering all the parts outdoors, most of them were fabricated indoors; with a lot of ingenuity and hard work the 8mm steel plates were produced, as well as the launch tube, plumbing etc. This meant that the project took longer than the projects the museum is used to, but the staff was very patient and also very determined to do this sole Conger survivor justice.
I think the volunteers at the museum really did a great job and it shows what can be done with a limited budget. Together with them we turned a section of the museum into a small photo set. Tim took a series of pictures, three of which are displayed below.

Soon the Conger will get a sign next to it, but visitors that day were already very interested in this unusual vehicle....especially when they heard that we believe it is the sole survivor of the 5 or 10 (?) vehicles initially converted by Chubb in Wolverhampton.

I will post an impression of the 3D CAD work I did for the project in the next few days. This will give an idea how we determined location of fasteners and some of the measurements.

A big thanks to all the MLU members that helped with suggestions, pictures, expert advice, information etc. A special thanks to Nigel Watson who helped us to find the original provisional working instructions!

Please enjoy the pictures!




Alex

[Alex van de Wetering]

Attached you will find two screenshots of the Conger 3DCAD computer-model. It's basically part of the carrier, with the most significant Conger parts all drawn in the actual size, using Solidworks, which I basically use dayly at the Design office.

Initially Nigel Watson provided us with the "provisional working instructions" of the Conger, along with two of the illustrations that came with them. At a later moment Nigel was able to find the other illustrations as well. Some illustrations were 2D scale drawings which could be used directly to manufacture missing parts, while other drawings were pretty basic views, which were not to scale. We had a side and a top view of the Conger showing the armoured "dog-house", but no rear or front view, so we weren't able to determine the correct angle of the plates.

This is where the original period pictures came in, along with a number of pictures of the Overloon carrier, when it still had the superstructure. The CAD-model was built up using measurements of the carrier and the remaining Conger features. Combined with the measurements from Nigel's info, this gave us a good start. To determine the correct angle of the dog-house and the position of bolts etc. I placed screenshots of the CAD model onto original pictures in Photoshop. This enabled us to determine the missing measurements and also ensured the bolts and other fasteners were in the correct position.
The last two pictures give an idea what this looks like.

regards,

Alex

[eddy8men]

while recently reading a thread on another forum I got to thinking about congers and that I had intended to recreate a conger setup using my bren carrier and my Churchill avre but the reality is I may never get to do it the good news is I have an original conger towing frame and I think it would look best on the overloon conger so I would like to donate it. could someone get in touch and let them know. I could take it to Stoneleigh and pass it on to one of the dutch guys.

cheers

rick

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Rick,

Great gesture

I'm sure Alex can give you the contact details of the museum. I can help with transportation on this end of the pond.

Hanno

[eddy8men]

thanks hanno, I'll pm my mob number for you to paas on. cheers

merry xmas

rick

[Alex van de Wetering]

Hi Rick,

Thanks for bringing this old thread back to the surface after so many years; I can't believe it has been almost 6 years! I can get you in touch with the museum if you like, or contact them on your behalf.

I also saw the thread on HMVF with the mistery A-frame and I have to be honest...it does look somewhat different when compared to the drawings of the provisional working instructions of the Conger. The open ends of the "A" look exactly the same, but the towing end looks different; the drawing shows a triangular shaped plate wth a hole, in stead of a fancy towing hook like in your pictures. The length adjustment has also got me puzzled; it isn't covered in the drawing, nor is it mentioned in the instructions itself. The pictures I have aren't very conclusive on this subject.
These are my observations, but as mentioned the info I got from Nigel Watson are maked "provisional", so the drawings might have differed from the real setup! I hope Nigel doesn't mind me displaying a small piece of one of the drawing (?). I think it's also displayed in the second volume of the universal carriers books.

regards,

Alex

p.s. Overloon also has an AVRE with 95mm Close Support, Cromwell and a number of carriers! Well worth a visit

[eddy8men]

hi alex

I must admit it was only an educated guess as to it's true purpose and I did wonder why it had adjustable legs but it is too small to tow a tank and looks to have been build for a specific task so it's quite possible it's for the conger, I will measure the centres between the pin attachments in each position and if one is the same as the conger then we might be on the right track.

rick