My first restoration was my first military vehicle and is
an incomplete, almost unknown, amphibious tank. I first
saw it in 1968 and patiently waited for it to come on the
market. The first sight of the vehicle was not impressive,
at the back of a disused part of a working factory, covered
in debris. There were so many parts missing that it was
difficult to identify it. No part of the engine covers,
driver’s roof or hatches was there and only one of
the radiator doors remained. The track guards had been trimmed
either side by about 8 inches and the rear part removed
entirely. The part of the turret that remained was the gun
mounting, mantlet and front right quarter only. The front
left hand quarter of the turret was found, along with the
traverse motor and parts of the turret roof. On the other
hand, the basic hull was sound and contained all of its
components, dirty but intact and apparently workable. There
was also the more complete hull of a Mk III Valentine; subsequently
this went to the
Budge Collection.
Following the owner’s death a sale was organised for
July 1984 I was just successful in purchasing the Mk IXDD
but had someone else bid another £50 they would have
got it as I had completely used up all the money had and
all of the credit I had arranged. I got a handbook from
the auctioneers and this contained the original receipt
when it had been sold in 1948 for £450.
I turned the engine over on the tank and discovered all
the controls worked with the exception of the engine to
gearbox clutch. I collected some batteries, connected them
up and hopefully pressed the starter button but nothing
happened. I realised however that it was fitted with a pre
engaged starter motor, which means it does not turn until
it is engaged. Close inspection showed it trying to engage
but not moving far enough. Bit of oil and levering freed
it up. Another push on the button and it turned over briefly.
One more press and after about 3 seconds of turning it started
and ran cleanly on all six cylinders on the original wartime
diesel. Ran like a dream in fact!
I drove it by pulling both steering levers back, engaging
the gear and then engaging both levers at the same time
to move as the engine to gearbox clutch would still not
free. It seemed probable that there was something wrong
or broken inside the clutch itself as the linkage was intact
but the pedal just hung lifelessly on the hull floor. I
went up onto a lowloader without directions but this time
with the added complication of not being able to stop and
gently correct the steering. I had to get straight on the
road and go up and on in one movement.
I secured some storage on a farm amongst preserved busses
and then “restoration” started. I knew about
engines but had never welded, angle ground or bent metal
before in my life. In fact I never even did metalwork at
school. The fact that the engine ran was if anything a hindrance
as I was reluctant to do work that meant it could not be
driven (storage was a somewhat insecure tenancy). I did
however have plenty of ancillary work to do.
After I bought the tank but before I moved it from the factory,
I was approached by a scrap man who had purchased the rights
to all the scrap in the fields around the building, old
tractors combine harvesters etc. He said he thought he had
found a part of my tank and indeed he had. It was the rear
right hand quarter of the turret. This was secured at a
very reasonable sum and later he found the missing quarter
and the centre section of the engine covers. Once he had
finished he gave me permission to search and with a metal
detector I found 3 of the missing 4 engine cover doors,
the cut off rear of the platform and the turret basket.
The latter two were in the very last stages of collapse
due to corrosion but yielded very valuable construction
and dimensional details. From inside the factory came the
missing pieces of the turret roof and bustle but the latter
had been used for cutting practice and consisted of several
chunks of metal not much bigger than 2 fists together. The
propeller power take off also appeared, the shaft where
the propeller should have been was still shiny but the propeller
itself never came to light.
I dismantled the engine covers and taught myself thread
cutting, riveting and some fabrication. The missing fourth
engine cover seemed an insurmountable problem, as was the
missing radiator door.
All the time I was looking for information and discovered
that there is almost nothing in the public domain about
these tanks. I got into contact with some divers in Dorset
who had recovered some parts from seven wrecked DD’s
off the Dorset coast. Sometimes they has almost useable
pieces made of bronze and sometimes fragmentary steel components
but all the information was useful to make sense of the
parts list and start the long process of doing technical
drawings of the pieces I needed to fabricate. I spent a
lot of time at Bovington Tank Museum in the archives and
this contact eventually resulted in me joining a group of
Museum friends doing Range Recovery. While on the artillery
ranges I always had my eyes open for Valentines. Pirbright
in Surrey gave me a drivers roof panel and doors, Sennybridge
gave me a radiator door, Warcop gave me a 2 pdr turret in
pieces to stop it looking like a bulldozer and Salisbury
Plain yielded a number of small components. I was originally
looking for a turret ring to use as the “former”
to rebuild my own turret but found all of the bolts were
in different places and anyway I had found enough Mk I components
to make a whole turret. This temporary cosmetic expedient
actually lasted from 1988 to 2000 or about 4 times as long
as the original turret remained in place! By 1988 this “temporary”
turret was in place and the trackguards extended back to
their original size, albeit only tacked in place. The platform
rear was similarly fabricated by tack welding and the tank
had been road registered. My reluctance to take it off the
road had been overcome by a friend from Wigan who arrived
with a team and in one day almost removed the engine. In
fact it took several months to complete this removal as
the transmission had to be partly dismantled and the day
after I had swung the engine/gearbox out I received a phone
call from Tyne Tees Television wanting to book my tank for
a film in 2 weeks time. There was now a frenzied period
to fix the clutch and get the engine and gearbox back in.
Finished work at 2 am on the day the lowloader was coming
at 5am. The test run at about 12.30 am came as a considerable
shock to 3 courting couples who had parked their cars in
the lane leading to the barn.
My tank joined 2 Churchills, a Mk III from Budge and a Mk
IX from Vickers, which had been recovered from a bog in
Northern Ireland and restored, to running order. The Mk
III looked magnificent having been restored to the very
highest standard, money no object. That was to be the start
of a long period of excuses and subject changing whenever
I was questioned about progress “the Mk III is finished,
why isn’t yours?” “Well I had less to
start with/less money/had to earn my living/doing a degree
in my spare time/4 children etc. In fact I knew I had bitten
off far more than I could chew but would never have admitted
it then.
For the filming in Newcastle, the tanks were props to give
the illusion of a tank factory production lines and mine
was painted in pretend red primer, in fact red poster paint.
The weekend afterwards, the 2nd turret had arrived from
Sennybridge, courtesy of the TA and was craned on. At last
it looked like a tank not a piece of construction equipment.
In the autumn of 1989, the group of friends from Wigan came
down to try out their handiwork. We took it in a quarry
and had a drive about for a bit and then disaster! While
going over a soft crest the tracks filled with sand and
rocks and then on a steep decline the overtight and packed
tracks tore the front right hand idler from the hull and
severely strained the left one. Within an hour, we had short
tracked the machine taking the track around the middle top
roller and front road wheel instead of the missing idler
and we drove it home towing the removed section of track.
It proved possible to find a right-hand idler bracket on
Sennybridge eventually and fit it. It is of an earlier and
weaker pattern and no amount of searching produced a left-hand
one so all driving had to be seriously curtailed. The turret
proved more of a hindrance than a help as it has to be turned
to gain access to the engine and because of the state of
the ring this had to be done with a crane. There was a lack
of money as I was on a University Course and I had realised
the enormity of the restoration task I had taken on. I lost
the storage due to a disagreement with the farmer necessitating
outside storage under a sheet and imperceptibly work came
to an almost complete stop. A few parts were made, each
one being a minor triumph in itself due to the lack of information
and my lack of skill and I took to spending more time on
other vehicles I had acquired. I missed my original target
of getting it to France exactly 50 years late (The Valentine
DD never made it on D Day, being replaced y the Sherman
DD just before the invasion.) When looking for photos of
work on the tank for this article there is an almost complete
lack from 1989 to 2000 and that is an accurate reflection
of the activity. In the early 1990’s I booked myself
on a casting course and a number of things including frame
clamps and a propeller were cast but general progress was
so slow I did not bother to fettle (clean) them up. By the
end of the 1990’s I was in the dreadful situation
of having “reverse” restored the vehicle in
that although some work had been done, the overall condition
of the tank was worse than it had been 15 years before.
In 1998 I had a contact from a man in New Zealand who was
also restoring a Valentine Mk V. We exchanged letters and
phone calls. General discussion led naturally on to me asking
if any turret rings were available. Yes, he had several.
Would he part with a ring? Eventually, after a couple of
years of negotiations, Yes! He also included a replacement
bustle because of the damage to mine and also a Mk V roof
plate to act as a former when welding my turret back together
which in the end was not used.
With the turret parts on the high seas (Jan 2001) it was
time to take stock. Could I get it restored, to fully working
order by the 60th anniversary of D-Day in June 2004? Even
better than that, could its first public appearance be 3/4
April 2004 at the 60th anniversary of the exercise when
the Valentines were lost off the Dorset coast? Decided to
have a bloody good try!
I was thinking
of calling this “Zen and the art of tank restoration”
but common sense get the better of me.
I do not know how other people set about restoring vehicles
but to me there are three sections: to fix what you have
got, to get or make what is missing and to deal with the
philosophy. THE WHAT?
Well, I am someone who could not hacksaw a straight line
so knowing you are capable of doing it and being happy with
what you can do is important. I am not talking of confidence.
All the confidence in the world will never make me a mountain
climber or teach me to weld come to that. It is a willingness
to have a go, then another go then another until you get
it right. Practice on new stuff, not old. It costs money
to break a new part you have just made but it is better
than breaking an irreplaceable original. If you do modifications,
do them to the new replacement bit so if an original piece
turns up then you can replace the pattern part. Recognise
there is no such thing as complete authenticity, I mean
how far do you want to go? Wartime fuel in the tank or wartime
air in the tyres? A case in point: most of my tank is made
from metric sized armour plate and imperial sized mild steel.
To all intents and purposes, the only thing I have available
now is metric mild steel. Do I use it or do I wait and search
for original material? How much do I replace due to rust
or damage? You have to make your own choices and compromises.
The only thing I have made a point of doing is to record
when I have compromised, for future reference.
Up to the point of the turret ring being expected, (see
last issue) I had no real plan. Just do whatever I could
was the order of the day and I “messed about”
in a number of areas. If the work was ever going to be finished,
I had to make some decisions. Due to the nature of my tank
and the reasons for its survival, I was presented with 3
different restoration situations, all of which had to be
dealt with differently.
The basic hull, engine, transmission etc was very good,
having spent the whole time since the war under cover. I
had to choose whether to retain the rather poor but original
paint, hoses, wiring and fanbelts etc. I decided largely
to clean and save with maintenance. In particular, the engine
was not disturbed.
The second situation was the damaged parts. The turret had
been cut up and this along with some other bodywork parts
had been left outside for 40 years. The damage had to be
made good and repainted but as far as possible, original
parts were retained. This even extended to brass bushes
and nuts and bolts recovered from absolutely rotted steel
components, even though it would have been easier in some
cases to make new.
The third situation was the missing parts: bodywork, frames,
screen and the external parts of the hydraulic and pneumatic
system for the DD equipment. As a unique survivor, there
is no other one to copy but there are several under the
sea, lost on exercises. Divers tend to collect souvenirs
and if they recover bronze parts then they could be used
straight away after cleaning. Brass appears sound but in
fact the alloy has been affected by seawater and is very
brittle. Even rotted steel parts are useful in giving general
dimensions. In fact, to determine an original tube size,
I used rust alone! As a special request, a diver recovered
about a foot length of tubing and did not clean off the
barnacle type growth, called concretion. When cut open,
the tubing had entirely disappeared but by measuring the
empty cast I could determine the outside and inside sizes
which perhaps unsurprisingly turned out to be 2 inch bore
(nominal) water piping. What was really surprising is that
this is now called 60.8 mm o/d mild steel tubing, exact
imperial size and readily available, just now measured in
millimetres. Identifying the dimensions was difficult but
actually making the frames was nearly impossible. I realised
that I could not do the corner bends by hand as these need
to be to a fixed radius. That was simple, pay money and
get a local company to bend them. After that, a friend and
I set to with a hydraulic hand bender and over a single
weekend made the remainder of the two frames completely
although it took several weeks to persuade another friend
to help with the critical and difficult job of welding them
together. Some parts of the mechanical props were copied
from items recovered from the sea but one part out of four
is a hypothesis of knowing what each end has to fit into,
how long it is and one very poor photograph. Knowing the
same designer made this and the steering components, I copied
the general arrangement. Many parts were made from plans
drawn up by myself by scaling up the parts list and free
use was made of money for commercial flame cutting of profiles
and blanks. One piece of engineering I had to pay for was
to have the frame hinges milled. These were just too big
for my converted lathe to handle although that is the only
piece of milling or turning that I had to get someone else
to do. I do not want to tell you how many parting tools
I have broken though! In some ways, the research involved
in making pieces has been the most rewarding part of the
job, reverse engineering so to speak. You get to recognise
the designer’s “style” and say to yourself
“now how would Cyril Hutton have dealt with this?”
He was Metro Cammel Asst. Works Manager during the war.
I am getting ahead of myself. While awaiting the turret
ring, I decided on a plan of attack. This was to build the
turret basket first, then fit the turret to the ring. Then
complete the exterior bodywork, then the DD equipment. Before
fitting the screen, take the whole thing apart for needle
gunning/sandblasting and then painting. Re-assemble, final
painting and fit the screen. Good plan, pity I could not
stick to it!
As time went on and 2004 approached, I realised that I would
have to look for shortcuts. Perhaps only remove the turret
and engine, and then paint inside in situ. Do I really need
the turret stowage? Do I need to disturb the engine at all
etc?
It has been said that restorations take twice as long and
are twice as expensive as you think Ha Ha again. Try 100
times of each!
The work itself was fairly easy, technically but of course
very heavy. It is a major undertaking to remove rusted bolts
and the turret has more than 70 inside and about 50 outside
up to 7/8 inch in diameter. All were rusted in with the
heads rusted away and in most cases both the metal and the
bolt are made of armour that is almost as hard as a drill
or a tap. Say half a day on each on average? Anyway, all
bolts out by the time the turret ring appears from New Zealand.
Ring was fitted to hull and the turret basket fabricated.
The only original parts are the centre casting and cover,
recovered from Sennybridge range. The basket itself was
a complete fabrication, built with details from the fragmentary
remains recovered in 1984 and scaled up plans from the parts
list. The curved sides were rolled in a Probation Service
workshop one weekend by offender labour. (I earn my living
as a Probation Officer). Good to see them doing something
useful! Next, try my turret sides on the ring, of course
they do not fit. English tanks were built “in situ”
and boltholes were individually marked out and drilled.
Result is that even parts from consecutive vehicles off
the line have boltholes in slightly different places so
do not fit. Some hole slotting and the use of knecked bolts
etc and I managed to fit all but about 4 of the turret ring
to turret bolts. Dismantle again and shotblast, reassemble.
Then the turret roof. I had to compromise due to the damage
and retained and repaired the front half and three doors.
The rest I made from mild steel.
When the turret had been welded, I decided to leave the
welds showing. Why? Well this turret (not just the correct
type but it is actually original to this hull remember)
was complete for 4 years then apart for 53. The cuts are
a genuine part of this vehicle's history so I have “retained”
them.
The missing engine cover is partly made from original pieces
recovered from under the sea with the large slab being flame
profile cut. This is actually two layers of 15mm steel,
cut with the nozzle at an angle and to two slightly different
sizes. Result is a 30mm slab with almost all of the milling
already done. Originals were riveted; replacement is welded
and bolted for of ease of construction.
Missing radiator door came from a range wreck. This was
from a Mk I, which had armour sides 17mm thicker than the
Mk IX. This entailed reshaping the (armour) hinges to make
allowances for the thinner sides. Three half inch countersunk
rivets could not be replaced so these are now bolts and
nuts. The labour involved in closing rivets seems to go
up in a geometric series: 1/4 is easy, 5/16 is hard, 3/8
needs a large hammer, 7/16 a sledgehammer and I could not
effectively do a half inch one with anything I had, hence
the bolts. Rivets of that size do not seem to be made anymore
either. Some 5/8 rivets in the turret roof were also replaced
with screws for the same reason.
Welding the trackguards was a major problem due to the thinness
and length involved, it was just asking for major distortion.
The reinforcing bulges are lengths of tubing, slit lengthways
and the rounded end forged and then welded on over slots
pre-cut in the trackguards. A tedious job but it has come
out ok, I think, particularly as I had to teach myself to
do this welding with no prior instruction.
The pneumatic system is a major problem as there is not
the slightest possibility of obtaining the correct mazac
castings. To have some blanks sand cast with all of the
attendant machining was going to cost £1000 plus and
would still not be correct. I thought I had secured a supply
of American bronze ones, recovered by a French diver but
when I went all the way to Normandy he changed his mind
and refused to sell. As a result I have ended up fabricating
them from mild steel with plumbing fittings. They look similar
to the originals and they work but in any case cannot be
seen. More importantly, they should enable me to demonstrate
the machine but can be readily replaced at any time in the
future if either English Mazac or American bronze originals
ever appear or more accurate copies are made.
The canvas is the part that most people assume was the most
difficult but in fact it was one of the easiest. My son
and I made the prototype (to get shape and size) from a
lorry sheet in an afternoon by fitting it to the frames,
rather than trying to cut and shape it on the floor. We
draped it on, cut to fit; temporarily “stitched”
it together with Copydex glue and then took it off to use
it as the pattern for the proper one. Quite easy really
and it gave us some great photos for publicity purposes.
More about this later however.
Quite a bit of the work done over the years by myself was
in fact unfinished and a sole destroying part of the last
period has been spent in finishing parts I thought were
already finished or indeed scrapping poorly made items and
starting again.
In between this, there was a host of small parts to be made,
aerial brackets, controls, radio tray fittings etc.
The first 5 years and the last year the restoration has
been under cover with the intervening years being worked
under a canvas sheet. The conditions were not good, even
though it was under a roof and the floor was frequently
a quagmire. This necessitated wellingtons and the certain
knowledge that any spanner or small part dropped was a “goner”.
The time spent in 2003 building a lean to building to work
in has transformed the job, which could not have been done
without it.
Simultaneously with finishing the restoration, I was organising
its first public appearance, to commemorate a pre D-Day
exercise that went wrong due to the weather. This is Exercise
Smash, not the better known Operation Tiger when German
E boats attacked an American rehearsal. I had originally
pictured myself and tank on the beach and a brass plate
on the wall but as things went on it became more and more
complicated, involving several ex service associations,
the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Army, (both regulars and
TA), and the Royal Airforce. A number of other organisations
were involved, particularly the Tank Museum and the organisers
of Beltring. At one point, 3 landing craft were involved,
later reduced to 2.
By the autumn of 2003, I was clearly not going to be anything
like finished but an appeal at the Birmingham MVT meeting
drew several volunteers who performed sterling work in truly
appalling conditions. It would be invidious to name them
but I must mention Don who almost single-handedly scraped
and painted the whole of the inside, sometimes with ear
defenders on as someone else was needle gunning the outside.
Ken took away many parts and brought back beautifully welded
assemblies. Andy came straight from a nightshift to help
and for most of one of the days he was there he lay in the
mud under the tank and needle gunned the inside of the suspension!
Gaz spend hours re-tapping out holes to ease bolt replacements,
Dave was a whiz on the angle grinder and Colin was a jack
of all trades. Any visitors were set to work including Phil
and Greg, even my sons next door neighbours were roped in.
Dag helped me with the frames and Bob the master welder
welded those frames and the turret although he was unable
to assist with the track guards. That job fell to me. 4
weeks before the first appearance, as much fabrication as
was going to get done was done and the last parts were removed.
Quite frankly, in its partially stripped condition, the
tank looked so appalling that I was genuinely worried it
would not be complete enough to appear, let alone be finished.
There then followed a frenzied period of work to clean,
paint and reassemble. On the Sunday of the last weekend
I worked until 3.45 am and restarted at 6.30. The canvas
was still not fitted, the air system was not tested and
the propeller drive was not assembled as the Royal Engineers
called for it, exactly to the minute as arranged.
We followed it down to Bovington with a car full of tools
and unfitted parts and work continued late into each evening.
The landing craft was loading on 2 April so the evening
of 1 April was our last chance to try to get the pneumatics
to work and to fit the canvas. This had to be the prototype
canvas as the correct one had not been completed but as
it was the correct shape, no problems were envisaged. As
we drove it into the workshop it laid a trail of oil and
inspection showed a broken main oil pipe that links the
sump to the oil cooler. Instead of sorting out the pneumatics,
we spend until the early hours making and fitting a new
pipe, which entailed removal of the tanks belly plates.
Did I make it? Well, almost I suppose is the answer. I had
such high hopes of it being absolutely finished and perfect.
In truth it looked the part and it performed faultlessly
over the weekend and drew many positive comments. However,
it had an inoperative, prototype screen and a propeller
drive that was held out of engagement by string as the lock
required some attention with an angle grinder to fit the
parts together. Neither the pneumatic nor hydraulic systems
are 100% and the turret lacks a lot of internal fittings
and ammo storage. The (working) 19 radio set is fitted but
not wired in. The engine compartment is just steam cleaned,
not painted.
The tank is now at Bovington and will stay there for a few
months. It then does a series of appearances at shows before
coming back to the Midlands in the early autumn. Then it
is back to work on it to complete it. I have been congratulated
for doing a restoration lasting 20 years. Unfortunately
the job was a 21 year one!
John Pearson 11/04/04
