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

[Darrin Wright]

This weekend before Christmas have done a few small/light jobs, such as:

lightly rubbed the painted surfaces back (the only section not rubbed back is the front interior) this is for a flat coat

made/completed the modification to my choke & throttle cables by brazing the spring loaded yokes to the inner cable, this is so they can attach to the balls/levers on the carby. The spring loaded yokes are from Mac's Auto, an item used to run a dual carby setup on a sidevalve V8, I cut the shaft in the middle & drilled a small hole down the centre of the shafts for the cable to go into to.

continued making clevis pins to suit all my square yoke ends for the steering/braking rods.

Painted my fuel tap and some more steering/brake rods.

Merry Christmas to all over the festive season and take care.

[Darrin Wright]

Over the new year break I took a trip to South Australia to collect many of my parts that I will require. Also picked up items that I have collected over time for the Jeep and Chev.
Returned via Adelaide and stopped off to see Colin Jones and catch up with him and view his projects and current BIG truck project.

Since returning I have unpacked the trailer, made a mess in the workshop, packed away the mess and started work on the BGC.

With the good weather in the last few days I have pushed the hull outside and painted/re-sprayed the hull (except for the front interior compartment) with a 30% universal flattening base. This has resulted in a satin/low sheen affect. Not totally flat, but this will dull from the sun over time and also repel water a little bit better.
Also painted some smaller brackets that will go into the hull straight away.

This was the last task that I had to complete before placing the engine into the hull.
So I hope to get the engine into the hull very soon with my workshop floor crane.

[Darrin Wright]

After leaving the hull outside for the night to dry (warm night) I pushed it into the workshop and commenced fitting some items.
Installed the track winch stowage brackets and turnbuckles.
Replaced the leather strips on the Vickers Tripod mount and bolted it into place, being an early BGC, it did not have the slots cut into it for the bottom 2 bolts. This was a tight job with the steering tube axle in place.
Also fitted 2 weapon mount clamps/posts to the rear of the hull and the air scoop.
Installed the main power cable and shield/conduit from the solenoid to the starter motor.
Installed the rebuilt fuel tap into the hull and the linkage that connects it to the rod in the engine bay floor.
Also installed some clamps on the hull that hold tools etc. It gives me an idea of where everything goes and fits, also if there are problems with items I can start to rectify it/them.

I was going to place the RHR suspension unit in the hull in preparation for placing the engine in, but discovered that by doing so would mean that I could not later install the electrical conduit for the rear lights. Bugger. I have the new conduit, just needs to be painted in the next day or so.

[Darrin Wright]

Found and painted a number of items including all the conduit pieces that I had, while waiting for paint to dry I made up and upholstered the rear seats. I had the hi-density foam cut and a roll of olive vinyl (leatherette as they used to call it).
I had bought back from SA another, better oil cooler; so I washed that out with a cleaning solution and let it soak to remove dust and any oil deposits.

A friend of mine, Ian, came up from Melbourne; so with a little bit of discussion we both set about placing the engine into the hull. I had already placed the conduit in. First lift had the carby & fuel pump attached, unfortunately the crane did not have the lift to clear the hull side with a long sling. So off with the carby and fuel pump and a much shorter sling. This time it went up and cleared the hull, pushed it into position and lowered it down onto the engine rails. Then it had to be man handles back onto the duplex coupleing. After that was done Ian set about tightening the rear mount to the hull floor and I installed the front mounts.
20 Min was engine in.

[Ryan]

Watching and reading on Darrin with much respect.