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

[Darrin Wright]

Finally bit the bullet and commenced the strip down of the bogie suspension units.
Due to the vehicle coming from a desert area everything came apart pretty easily with the exception of 1 wheel pin castellated nut. When undoing it, something caught the thread and destroyed the wheel pin thread and nut. Luckily I have several spare, so this is not a big problem.
All the bearings look to be ok with dried grease in them. Will clean them up properly this coming weekend.
Pressure cleaned 1 unit to remove the grease & dirt, ready for sand blasting.

[Darrin Wright]

The machined turnbuckles for the linkage adjusters arrived during the week, so test fitted them and tidied up some threads in the clevis yokes that they engage with.
Removed them and undercoated them.

Installed another vision shutter assembly, installed and drilled a new nut so that it suits the bolt for that location. Also pinned all the nuts on the 2 vision shutters installed so far. Will tidy up later when I next spray green.

Replaced the left upper coolant hose and placed the rust inhibitor and demineralised water into the system. It required approx 25 litres. Unfortunately the right water pump leaks. Leaks like a sieve. I have a feeling the fibre disc that came with the water pump kit has not bedded in to the sealing surface inside the pump housing. Since I have not had the pumps rotating by the V belt, this is most likely (for initial engine cooling I had the garden hose flooding the water jackets and pouring out the water pumps). Perhaps I will fill the cooling system with water and install a belt and run the engine and see if the seal will bed/wear in. That might be easier than removing the pump.
Pumps were cleaned up and rebuilt with new kits, impellors and seals/gaskets.

[jack neville]

It kink it pretty normal for Ford water pumps to weep slightly till they are bedded in Darren. Did you resurface the pump housing where the seal engages? I had to do that with one of mine. There is a proper tool for it but I polished mine up with emery tape and a home made tool and drill.

[Darrin Wright]

I did clean up or have machined the sealing surfaces in the water pump. Will run it and see if it seals up as that is the easiest option.
Not much progress this weekend, I did however remove the left water pump as the gasket at the top was weeping, and cut a thicker replacement gasket and re-install the water pump.
This was an easy fix and test run to removing the right water pump at a later stage.
I always pictured this job as very complicated as it is one of the front engine mounts- not so hard really.
I utilised a small bottle jack positioned between the engine rail and the manifold bolt to take the weight of the engine, removed lower radiator hose, removed all bolts (they are new and stainless steel), removed engine mount bolt and out it came. Using a little grease on the rubber hoses sure helps getting them off and on again.
Too busy working to take pics, but if the right water pump has to come off I will have the camera ready.

[Darrin Wright]

after sourcing dimensions from a couple of friends regarding the long brake rods that go nearly the length of the hull, I manufactured these rods.
They are:
7/16" diameter
2510mm long
the flat surface (for the rod return spring) of the welded olive is 131-132mm from the rod end.
the olive has an ID of 7/16" and a OD of 3/4", it is machined so that a clip or tie wire holds the leather or rubber boot in place. See pics.

I have the olives being machined and they should be ready in a week.

These rods are now painted green along with some other items, so next weekend they should be fitted.

Saturday night my family and several other BGC owners in Albury Wodonga got together at a local pub and held a BGC owners meeting. Managed to spend about 4 hours chatting about all things BGC related. Very good night and of those that attended, they represented 6 projects and 4 donor vehicles.

With the good weather I got talked into doing some gardening. So to make my job easier, I decided to get the Chev out to assist in tree pulling. Unfortunately with the water logged ground the Chev rear end bogged down in the lawn. I was able to engage 4WD and with the front of the truck being on firm ground, crawled out and parked it back in the workshop. Later there will be some more gardening to fill in the two trenches in the lawn.

[Lynn Eades]

Darrin, a boot like this

[Dale Jordan]

Hi Lynn . Now your talking , where can you still get these , I've been looking every where . Dale

Originally Posted by Lynn Eades

Darrin, a boot like this