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

[Darrin Wright]

Last weekend I took a break and got the Dodge out for a car show supporting a local school and the road safety message.
Very good weather, lots of cars from the 1960s to 2014. It was marketed towards cars with chrome.

My Dodge and another persons 44 Jeep were the oldest cars there.

The peoples choice awards went to a 1995 Ford Falcon, a HR Holden sedan and another car of the same ere. All were customised and had huge V8 engines.

Still, each to their own and it was a good day out.

[Darrin Wright]

In the last week the fuel tanks have dried with the POR-15 fuel tank sealer, have installed the pick up tubes with new gaskets, installed the flame arrestors and caps.

Fuel tanks have been painted green a couple of times and have been installed.
Prior to installing the tanks I had to cut the felt spacers/lining strips and glue them onto the mount brackets.

The tanks fit snugly into their location.

Installed the new fuel hoses to the pick ups, purchased the hoses from Macs Auto in the USA.

Installed the RH seat and assembled the LH seat and installed it into it's location.

The dash has been installed and have only minor tasks to fix there. Have installed the horn into position; however, the new horn I had purchased years ago does not work. Have used the multi-meter and it appears that it just does not work, there are no obvious faults and the volts go where they should. Will try and source another Ford horn internals.

I panelbeated the LH guard and had it sandblasted, it has now been painted green and installed. With this on, it allowed me to install the headlights and connect them up. I have modified and installed a new light and lens into my head lights, they are running at 55W and a bit bright and get a little bit hot. Will look to installing a smaller wattage globe to see if this helps, but I will definatly be able to see at night.

So after all this work it was time to test the vehicle, started with cranking the engine over by the remote button on the starter solenoid in the rear. No problems there, so started it from the dash. With a little bit of choke (I adjusted the idle screws during the week and it runs a little better than before) it fired up straight away.
NOTE: when the tracks were put on I had a dodgy wiring circuit for the ignition.

I have driven it around the back yard, up the drive way, around the house nearly took out the mail box and my sons apple tree. But it steers, stops & accelerates when it should.
I have found that the driving controls are not very well placed, and when trying to displace the track on a slope (turning) is a bad idea as you are trying to move the weight of the hull against the slope or gravity. For the steering to work the vehicle must be moving.

Took my boys and wife for a drive around the house and they love it, smiles from ear to ear.

So will continue to work on the little jobs and continue to iron out the little issues. Have already adjusted the brake linkage on the LH side.

It is lots of fun.

[Darrin Wright]

headlights work with their blue lens and the dash installed.
dash still requires a final paint and the speed plate to be installed.

I did install 2 new water pumps as the RH pump continued to leak, sourced them from Flat Attack Racing in Adelaide and they work well with high flow impellors. The cooling system is not getting too hot, the gauge sits just above "N", but unsure how calibrated the gauge is. May look at getting a lazer temp gun to check.

[Howard]

Great work, Darrin. A great read.
H

[Darrin Wright]

Howard, the story is not over yet, still have to camouflage paint it, apply correct markings for the 10/48 Inf Batt AIF for when they were in Darwin during 1942-43 and install the CES and what little 3" mortar equipment it have.

[motto (RIP)]

Darrin, I'm not specifically acquainted with the horn used on the UCs (as well as various Fraud vehicles of the time)but would have thought it to have adjustable vibrating points like most other horns.
If it is adjustable and you try to do so, the horn should be mounted on its correct bracket as they can behave quite differently if just hand held or lying on a bench.
Also, like any set of points, they must be clean.

Dave

[Mike Cecil]

Darrin,

10 Aust Infantry Battalion (The Adelaide Rifles) were linked to 48 Aust Infantry Battalion (The Torrens Regiment) as at 27 August 1942. Note the preservation of traditional State-based linkages in unit amalgamations.

The unit 'went AIF' sometime in 1943, to become 10/48 Aust Infantry Battalion (AIF), at which time they formed part of 23 Aust Infantry Brigade.

The unit markings should be:

Unit marking: 53 in white on a red square
Formation marking: buffalo over a boomerang (Northern Territory Force)

As an added touch, you could mark the crews kitbags or extraneous unit equipment etc with the USN:
Unit Serial Number marking: 46169 over a grid of three colour bars, top to bottom: buff/white/buff

Mike