1954 Daimler Ferret armoured car

1954 Daimler Ferret armoured car

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Shadow R1

3,798 posts

175 months

Thursday 15th April 2021
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Great stuff. smile

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Saturday 17th April 2021
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Removed props today and scraped out decades of dirt and oil from the hull, sadly all I found was several nuts, bolts and washers in the bottom, nothing interesting like bullets etc laugh
I gave it a good scrape out and hoovering, then moved it over to the pressure washer. We put the front wheels up on some sleepers so all the water would run to the back flowing out through the access plates on her belly. Ready to start the repairs now


LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Sunday 25th April 2021
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Small progress this afternoon, removed a wheel and brake drum for a look at the shoes/general condition inside, removed a few internal brackets, rusted brake pipes and the handbrake lever assembly.
The rear armour is normally held on with square nuts on the inner lip held from spinning in small folded tab cages, after nearly 70 years these are mostly rusted solid so I've cut them off and sanded clean ready to simply weld nuts directly on, with plenty of copper slip applied it should be OK for the foreseeable future and assist with easier removal in future if need be.
The master cylinder will also be taken out as speaking to Dad he said he put a new set of seals in it when we first bought it and the bore condition inside was poor then, thankfully in his wisdom he bought a new old stock spare that's still sat in the shed so I can put that on instead. Getting there slowly

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Monday 3rd May 2021
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Took a leisurely jaunt down to East Sussex on Saturday to pick up a wheel station for the Stolly and some gaskets, seals etc for the Ferret.
During the week I welded the captive nuts on for the rear armour panels and some hairline cracks in the hull around the exhaust outlet were also ground out and welded up, so that's a pretty pants job sorted. Unfortunately to get access I had to take the offside rear wing off and that snapped the majority of the mounting studs so one step forward and two back on that front biggrin
Yesterday I cleaned up the shoes and adjuster then stripped the expander unit and slave cylinder, thankfully I did as they were full of greasy mud and ste, all back together with fresh grease now and handbrake cable thoroughly oiled. Bolted all that back on and fitted one of the new brake flexis
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/7dzteCh2[/url]
Today I made a start on drilling the broken studs out, what a pig of a job, in the end I only managed to get 2 finished as all my drill bits are blunt. Armour is hard believe it or not.
Defeated for now with that I removed the master cylinder and stripped that down for inspection, there was some pitting in the bore so I dug the spare out of the shed only to find it seized up, once it was freed off I removed the piston and the bore was pure red flaky rust so looks like we'll have to go with the original for now!




And with a nice coat of finest Hammerite silver to freshen it up a bit


Edited by LewG on Monday 3rd May 18:07

Shadow R1

3,798 posts

175 months

Tuesday 4th May 2021
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Great to see updates on both projects. smile

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Thursday 6th May 2021
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Yesterday evening with renewed enthusiasm and fresh drill bits I drilled out and welded in several of the studs for the wing, then removed the RH rear wheel and removed the drum and shoes for inspection and a good clean up, this side needs the new handbrake cable and expander fitting as it's damaged, so at least no faffing around stripping and rebuilding that
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/hdDPVYwc[/url]


Mrs G was then really happy when I used her nice shiny oven to bake the paint on my master cylinder

RoverP6B

4,338 posts

127 months

Thursday 6th May 2021
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And the divorce petition is going through when? biglaugh

Dan_The_Man

1,057 posts

238 months

Thursday 6th May 2021
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Been reading your fantastic thread since day one, I have been looking for the right one for about 6 years, finally struck gold and had a MK1 delivered half way down the country.




LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Thursday 6th May 2021
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To be honest she seemed quite ok with it, the only complaint was the smell but apart from that I seem to have come away unscathed laugh
Nice one Dan, I did see that on the Ferret FB group, looks really tidy and good to see you went for the best model!

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Saturday 8th May 2021
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Fairly productive one today. Master cylinder resealed and all back together ready to refit. Lubricated other side brake expander and fitted the new slave and handbrake cable which saved a lot of time stripping and rebuilding the old one as that was really a properly fiddly chore on the other side.


The way this works is slightly odd in that the slave is external to the drum and sits on the rear of the backplate, it's missing in this photo but there's a pair of arms that are pinned together and work as an X pattern so when the piston pushes on them they both push in opposite directions, which then pushes two small followers inside the drum pushing the brake shoes out. Quite clever in its own way as the hub design is pretty complicated so for any major brake surgery at the wheel station it means stripping it down to a stub axle first.

Next job was work out why the handbrake pivot was so tight, it must be the most over engineered handbrake in history with little bronze shell bearings inside and scrollings for oil lubrication, the clearance is even determined between the two halves by small pieces of shim brass biggrin
Over the years rust on the steel part had set in and started to bind on the shells, they were clearly dry and nasty and hadn't seen an oil can in years so for a good clean up and fresh grease it should be like it was 68 years ago hopefully.

It then received a good coat of paint, so that should look a bit nicer when reinstalled

The list of jobs inside the hull is definitely getting smaller. I believe it's just brake solid lines to do (not looking forward to that), paint some of the driver's floor and the engine bay itself, a couple more snapped studs to sort and repair some dodgy wiring that's been bugging me for a while. The wiring can be a pain as it's all the same colour and indicated with little yellow printed tags as to what's what, unfortunately after 60 odd years those tags have faded away pretty much to nothing so some guesswork is involved!


Edited by LewG on Saturday 8th May 22:52

yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Sunday 9th May 2021
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LewG said:
...and repair some dodgy wiring that's been bugging me for a while. The wiring can be a pain as it's all the same colour and indicated with little yellow printed tags as to what's what, unfortunately after 60 odd years those tags have faded away pretty much to nothing so some guesswork is involved!
Ah, yes. FV wiring harness. Not something we 'Driver/Maintainer' types were ever allowed to touch. But there was oodles of it around the inside of the hull, under floor plates, etc. Later (1960s) era stuff on the FV 432 had a little plastic sleeve around wires as a guide to what was what - a yellow printed sleeve with the labelling printed on it.

I love seeing your pictures. All those grey painted assemblies, and the aluminium paint inside the hull. And all of those incredibly awkward bolts holding things like seats and battery trays in place. I still miss looking after the damned tings though, after living in one like a second home for several years.

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Tuesday 11th May 2021
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That's the one YJ, they are horrible old things but do seem to have a strange allure at the same time.
Handbrake assembly built up tonight and shimmed up with fresh grease, the action is just perfect, it's up there with a Lee Enfield rifle bolt for mechanical clunky satisfaction laugh
Removed a few more bits and removed the front brake pipe so that can be renewed now, a bit awkward but came out without too much drama. Next step hoover, clean and paint the engine bay

gweaver

906 posts

157 months

Wednesday 12th May 2021
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LewG said:
it's up there with a Lee Enfield rifle bolt for mechanical clunky satisfaction laugh
Let me know if you know where I can try one. I've been kicking myself for not shooting with one when I was in Vegas. The Bren was an experience though.

yellowjack

17,065 posts

165 months

Wednesday 12th May 2021
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gweaver said:
LewG said:
it's up there with a Lee Enfield rifle bolt for mechanical clunky satisfaction laugh
Let me know if you know where I can try one. I've been kicking myself for not shooting with one when I was in Vegas. The Bren was an experience though.
Ah, the Bren. I took one to war in 1990. I mean, it had been converted to 7.62mm by then and renamed the L4A1 Light Machine Gun. But it was an original Bren Gun, with 'Bren Mk III, 1944' stamped on the side. Two lines were struck through this label, and the new name engraved below it, kinda like this one...

...but without the white paint. I bloody loved it. An incredible weapon from an engineering perspective. Perhaps not the best at "being a machine gun" because of the limitations of the (max.) 30 round box magazine, and it's accuracy (it was too accurate, whereas the GPMG gave a better spread of rounds in it's cone of fire). I took 5 Iraqi prisoners at the pointy end of my Bren/LMG. In most respects the GPMG was a more effective weapon of war, but a GPMG simply doesn't have the "feel" of a Bren. I get that it is wrong to romanticise about machines designed to kill, but hey...


Ferrets were the same too. They were quite unloved things in service in 1990. We had a few, our Sergeant Major had one. But it was VOR when the wagons were loaded with our vehicles to off to the Gulf, so he took a Land Rover 90 instead. But a Ferret has character, as does an FV 432, and to an extent a Chieftain AVLB or AVRE. But I never felt so "involved" with any of the CVR(T) series. One Spartan is much like another, really, devoid of "personality".


Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 12th May 21:59

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Thursday 13th May 2021
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That's proper, I'd love to have a go with a Bren, as you say more of an accurate fast firing rifle of sorts rather than a buzz away at everything machine gun. You do get some impression of the sort of punching power it'd have just by cocking the bolt back and pulling the trigger.
I cleaned out the engine bay as best I could last night and rubbed it down, then got a few coats of paint on it all. Looks rather nice compared to how it once did!



Edited by LewG on Friday 21st May 09:37

IroningMan

10,154 posts

245 months

Thursday 13th May 2021
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yellowjack said:
gweaver said:
LewG said:
it's up there with a Lee Enfield rifle bolt for mechanical clunky satisfaction laugh
Let me know if you know where I can try one. I've been kicking myself for not shooting with one when I was in Vegas. The Bren was an experience though.
Ah, the Bren. I took one to war in 1990. I mean, it had been converted to 7.62mm by then and renamed the L4A1 Light Machine Gun. But it was an original Bren Gun, with 'Bren Mk III, 1944' stamped on the side. Two lines were struck through this label, and the new name engraved below it, kinda like this one...

...but without the white paint. I bloody loved it. An incredible weapon from an engineering perspective. Perhaps not the best at "being a machine gun" because of the limitations of the (max.) 30 round box magazine, and it's accuracy (it was too accurate, whereas the GPMG gave a better spread of rounds in it's cone of fire). I took 5 Iraqi prisoners at the pointy end of my Bren/LMG. In most respects the GPMG was a more effective weapon of war, but a GPMG simply doesn't have the "feel" of a Bren. I get that it is wrong to romanticise about machines designed to kill, but hey...


Ferrets were the same too. They were quite unloved things in service in 1990. We had a few, our Sergeant Major had one. But it was VOR when the wagons were loaded with our vehicles to off to the Gulf, so he took a Land Rover 90 instead. But a Ferret has character, as does an FV 432, and to an extent a Chieftain AVLB or AVRE. But I never felt so "involved" with any of the CVR(T) series. One Spartan is much like another, really, devoid of "personality".


Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 12th May 21:59
We had Brens in the CCF, pukka .303 originals to go with our No.4 rifles. Never before, or since, have I encountered anything quite so potentially lethal.

Conventional .303 blanks wouldn't work in the Bren, so instead we were issued with 'bulleted blanks' - a .303 cartridge with a bullet made of balsa wood - and the Brens were fitted with 'shredders' which blanked-off half the muzzle and converted the 'bullets' into an impressive muzzle flash.

Meanwhile everyone else in the Section has their rifles, which, being bolt action and using conventional blanks, don't have any need for any kind of muzzle cap or blank firing attachment/BFA.

Mix-and-match the two with a bunch of 16 and 17-year-olds.

gweaver

906 posts

157 months

Thursday 13th May 2021
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yellowjack said:
An incredible weapon from an engineering perspective. Perhaps not the best at "being a machine gun" because of the limitations of the (max.) 30 round box magazine, and it's accuracy (it was too accurate, whereas the GPMG gave a better spread of rounds in it's cone of fire). I took 5 Iraqi prisoners at the pointy end of my Bren/LMG. In most respects the GPMG was a more effective weapon of war, but a GPMG simply doesn't have the "feel" of a Bren. I get that it is wrong to romanticise about machines designed to kill, but hey...
I think you could make similar points about classic cars vs modern cars. Engineering, effectiveness, image, dependability and reliability all count. It's probably not clever to romanticise about fast cars either, but many people do. I suppose one of the big differences between guns and cars is that guns don't deteriorate in the same way, so many of successful ones have a service life measured in decades, with a few mods along the way.
Incredible to think that the Bren was in service around sixty years, when a typical car is almost extinct after around twenty.

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Saturday 15th May 2021
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On that subject just look at the mighty M2 Browning 50 cal, designed in the latter years of WW1 and still in use now. Amazing piece of kit, most certainly not something you'd want to be on the receiving end of however

Psycho Warren

3,087 posts

112 months

Saturday 15th May 2021
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LewG said:
On that subject just look at the mighty M2 Browning 50 cal, designed in the latter years of WW1 and still in use now. Amazing piece of kit, most certainly not something you'd want to be on the receiving end of however
i got to fire one on a kuwaiti gun boat when on an exchange. was epic fun. they are defeningly loud except when right behind it doing the firing its then just about acceptable for short periods of time.

20mm cannons were louder for sure but didnt have the "feel" about them. probably because of the mounting i guess.

LewG

Original Poster:

1,357 posts

145 months

Saturday 22nd May 2021
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Tidied up some damaged threads on the rear hub studs today and refitted the rear wheels for now, removed a front wheel and drum to check over the brakes, all in lovely condition and just need a clean off and adjust then they'll be good to go

Then moved into the hull and made and fitted the front solid line, just the two rears to get sorted now

The master cylinder was then refitted along with linkages etc, some of these were a bit tight so I drifted the little pins out of the clevises and cleaned them up.

What a luxurious interior to sit in and enjoy biggrin