Early Risers.

[tigerburnie]

I seem to recall an apprentice mate of mine had a Champ, sure he said it had a Rolls Royce engine under the bonnet, not that I bothered to look, I was more into motor bikes in those days.

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Weather much the same as yesterday but seemingly fewer clouds to hide the sun although not much warmer for that extra exposure of it.  The lad has today received something called an iphone. (which i of course is exactly what I do when I make a 'phone call so not exactly teh brightest marketing gimmick around in my view.  and the thing I use when I phone is considerablty cheaper than one with the name if the process.  Good job he's been saving a bomb on petrol money due to WFH - maybe I should be charging him for the bandwidth he's consuming for work including online conversations all over the civilised world?

 

Now talk of the Centurion reminds me of the fact that many, many years ago I had a ride on (not in) one on a day out with the CCF at, I think, Bordon.  We were split into two groups and there was much jocularity because before the second part of the day we dined in the NCOs' canteen so of course one group of us ate mightily because we knew the others would be getting their tank ride immediately after lunch.  However the laugh was on us because the groups were swopped so we went straight from a heavy diet of chips and everything to go round the trials course, which definitely went up & down; but nobody was tank sick.   Interesting comparison of how the army fed themselves because barely a decade later I was a lunch time guest in the officers' mess at Longmoor as I was there assisting in adjudication of their annual rail transport training exercise and the choice of food was vastly restrained compared to that offered to NCOs but on the other hand the availability of pre and after lunch drinks was definitely far better although far short of that at an evening dining in the RAF officers' mess at White Knights Park in Reading back the days of Training Command.  But to round out this inter-service comparison by far the most hydraulic session I attended courtesy of HM Forces took place in the CPOs' mess of a frigate at Portsmouth Navy Days one year when I was allowed fully onboard by the OOW (as opposed to the usual upper decks stroll) because a friend was the duty Chief Mechanician/Stoker.  All the CPOs on watch duly gathered in their mess and as the vessel was actually the Portsmouth Guardship at four hours notice for steam the Duty CPOs were responsible for actually getting it ready to go to sea - including flashing up the boilers - it could have been very interesting should the Russians decide to send a ship down the English Channel that day.

 

Hmm after that lot it might be safer to take herself to Tesco and wander round the car park watching the punters, always good for a laugh.  Not surprisingl;y I've never seen a Maserati in the car park there but I have seen several Ferraris - they do at least make a nice noise.

 

Have a good day one and all and stay safe.

[The Stationmaster]

25 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

That's a series 3 '88'.

Thanks. Some one got it wrong trying to sell new hoods for LRs - I wonder who fell for it when buying?

[Tony_S]

9 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I seem to recall an apprentice mate of mine had a Champ, sure he said it had a Rolls Royce engine under the bonnet, not that I bothered to look, I was more into motor bikes in those days.

According to Wikipedia that is correct. Most  built under licence by Austin though. 

[The Stationmaster]

5 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

I could guess three but had to look up the fourth (Romansh) of which I had never heard. Ignorant of that I would have punned "Swiss Cantonese". 

Right so without googling or going to wiki whatsit how many official languages are there in Belgium?

[The Stationmaster]

2 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

According to Wikipedia that is correct. Most  built under licence by Austin though. 

We had one at school as well and that had an RR engine - which the MT section of the CCF regularly took to pieces and then reassembled.  But the engine was never run and the Champ only moved if it was pushed, which was very rarely.  Back in the late '60s/'70s there was firm down in Surrey which regularly offered ex-Army Champs in 'Exchange & Mart' -  'From £195'

[petethemole]

14 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

I seem to recall an apprentice mate of mine had a Champ, sure he said it had a Rolls Royce engine under the bonnet, not that I bothered to look, I was more into motor bikes in those days.

 

A friend/colleague had one in 1971. The front bumper was a red painted RSJ. We used to go to work in it but it had no top and that winter was very cold, so he sold it and bought a Rover 90.

[TheQ]

1 hour ago, tigerburnie said:

I used to drive my old Aston Martin round your neck of the woods when visiting family in Tunstead.

The Tunstead Road is almost a major road to us, I bet you went slow over the level crossing though...

[Tony_S]

I was convinced that all Ferrari cars came with a recovery truck. Neighbour’s Lamborghini seems reliable though. I don’t know how well it would cope with Norfolk roads but the industrial estate where he works is quite “interesting”. 
Tony

[Happy Hippo]

Nobody seems to have mentioned the Austin Champ's desire to roll over when cornering at high speed on anything less than a perfectly smooth and level road.

 

when the Army finally retired the Centurion ARV, which was a long time after it went out of service as a MBT, the last one was delivered from BAOR to ODA (Ord Depot Antwerp) for backloading. As it had to wait for a suitable LSL to come into the  docks, it was parked up at the Emblem sub Depot for about a week.  We did a lot of driver training with it during that time as many of the younger soldiers had never driven a tracked vehicle with a fully manual gearbox before.

 

What fun we had, although my SQMS and I had to do some creative accounting to balance our fuel account, as we used about  3 months fuel in one month compared to our usual usage.

[Tony_S]

36 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Right so without googling or going to wiki whatsit how many official languages are there in Belgium?

I thought four perhaps, French, Dutch(Flemish), German and Luxembourgerish (no idea how to spell it). I have now checked with Wikiwotsit and it all seems quite political. 
Tony

[TheQ]

By the time you get you get to the Defender the later ones don't have the hole for a mechanical PTO on  the Chassis, But do still have the place on the transfer box for PTO attachment. so if you want to use the PTO you have to cut a hole in the chassis or use a Hydraulic pump or generator to use it..

 

K post affix letter is 1971  which is the year the series 3 was Introduced, it continued until 1985, early series 3 often included parts from the 2A.

The first 110, was produced 1983 a pre fix letter of A and often included parts from the Series 3.

The first 90 was produced 1984 a pre fix letter of B

The first Defender was 1989 which is a pre fix letter of G,

 

The Champ Had a RR B40 Engine, (2800 ish CC) though the modified later ones were built by Austin.

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by TheQ

[Tony_S]

I think the newer Land Rovers have an invertor option for electrical power tools. 

[Tony_S]

I am just off out to the garage to look for something under the model railway layout. I have received a PM request for some information about a post I made in 2012. I have replied with what I think is the answer but just off to confirm. I may be some time!

[Coombe Barton]

4 hours ago, Tony_S said:

engineering (never ever called metalwork) department had an Austin Champ and an Austin Gipsy

Our sixth form transport revolved round a project by a group who designed and built a hovercraft round an old motorcycle engine. Its one and only journey was at the summer Open Day just before the end of our last term. It had been tested for hover, but during tea at the cricket match this spluttering, noisy hovercraft ran down the side of the cricket pitch with the (barmy) pilot in charge at a fast rate of knots (uncontrolled)

 

It was all going so well until the engine exploded, fortunately without injury except to pride and grass stains after the sudden stop when he fell off.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Coombe Barton

[45156]

Afternoon All

 

Again, some (a lot) of skipping, and apologies for that.  Generic greetings are, of course, on offer to all fellow ERs.  It does seem that this laptop is getting a lot of non RMWeb use at present. 

 

Had to have a fairly long chat with HMRC this morning, and of course, the question that I wanted to be answered was not one that they could deal with immediately, and "a case" has been raised and will need some weeks to be resolved, apparently.

 

Dump run also completed, and another booked for next week to follow the fodder run.  Each week, I am taking one different type of waste - this week it was stuff which can't be recycled, next week it's wood.

 

Tomorrow, a walk with Lily, then a trip to do battle with the Barclays IT "non system" again.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[tigerburnie]

1 hour ago, Happy Hippo said:

Nobody seems to have mentioned the Austin Champ's desire to roll over when cornering at high speed on anything less than a perfectly smooth and level road.

 

 

Those 1 ton landies used to turn over nearly as easily as the early Suzuki's did too.

[jamie92208]

Good afternoon.  Various tasks have been completed. The hall is cleared, wine stocks have been replenished and some pueces of skirting board have been fitted in the bedroom. Just polyfilling to do in the morning. Now is time to go and start marking out for assembling the new pool.  

Interexting that HH mentions the Centurion's manual gearbox. My mate who drove them told me tbat it was always awkwRd to get i to, IIRC, 2nd gear but if you justvtouched one of the track brakes it went in easily, though the tank lurched slightly to the left.  One day hecwas watching a TV report of an Israeli military parade. He told the others, in a few seconds all the tanks will make a little jink to the left. Sure enough the whole line did.

 

Jamie

[TheQ]

5 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

Those 1 ton landies used to turn over nearly as easily as the early Suzuki's did too.

for those who don't know.. I believe he's meaning one of these..

[Shedman5]

Afternoon, Cloudy here but I am sure we will get some rain later as Ive spent the morning washing the cars, cleaning inside and checking tyre pressures etc so rain is inevitable!

 

Not a lot to report absent over the weekend due to what seemed a good idea at the time which was to tidy up the mess that was the wiring for my layout under the baseboards!

Power feeds to the track were fine just the wiring for 17 points and 18 lights which frankly were a mess. All sorted now and tidy and I now know which wire is for what!

I did not take to working under the baseboards very well must be an age thing, next layout if ever will have to have tilting baseboards for ease.

 

Waiting for the postman who should have my decoders at which point it will be off to the shed fingers crossed they arrive today.

 

Enjoy the rest of the day

 

[J. S. Bach]

Good morning owl from the Piedmont. Well, I just got back from doing my civic duty, voting in the primary. Next one will be in November; I can't wait!

Edited June 9, 2020 by J. S. Bach
To correct a punctuation error.

[Tony_S]

I have returned. I found the box for the item the enquiry was about. Unfortunately the item (CMX track cleaner wasn’t there) but the broken truck (bogie ) was and I said I was fairly sure I had replaced it with the cheapest similar looking Kadee one from Modeljunction. A lot of the running gear on US models seems to be interchangeable between brands. The track cleaner isn’t exactly a prototype model. 
My clippers have arrived. I shall read the instructions and hopefully look for a YouTube video. Aditi’s main concern seems to not that I will make a mess of the haircut but deposit hair on the floor. 
Tony

[Simon G]

Good afternoon all,

Dry and calm here today but not much sun.  Some pottering around the garden has been done, and I have noticed mole holes going into part of my vegetable patch!  I used to have moles in the garden about 30 years ago, and I don’t want them back!   They tend to undermine the roots of all the plants thus killing them off.  
 

Last week I got a letter from Green Flag telling me that my breakdown cover had been renewed and was now valid from 29 May 2019 to 28 May 2020.  I phoned them up pointing out the error.  They told me that they had had a computer problem and would send a new updated letter.  The new letter arrived today and has exactly the same mistake!  What a bunch of numpties!  Another phone call has been made!

[J. S. Bach]

26 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

 ...snip... A lot of the running gear on US models seems to be interchangeable between brands. ...snip...
Tony

Not on three-rail O scale! Unfortunately that makes it even harder to convert them to two-rail. A side note, some of the newer releases from MTH and Lionel have pads with pre-drilled holes for mounting KD couplers.

[Happy Hippo]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

Good afternoon.  Various tasks have been completed. The hall is cleared, wine stocks have been replenished and some pueces of skirting board have been fitted in the bedroom. Just polyfilling to do in the morning. Now is time to go and start marking out for assembling the new pool.  

Interexting that HH mentions the Centurion's manual gearbox. My mate who drove them told me tbat it was always awkwRd to get i to, IIRC, 2nd gear but if you justvtouched one of the track brakes it went in easily, though the tank lurched slightly to the left.  One day hecwas watching a TV report of an Israeli military parade. He told the others, in a few seconds all the tanks will make a little jink to the left. Sure enough the whole line did.

 

Jamie

Istr it was nicknamed a stick change. You didn't need to use the clutch either!