Ransomes MG5 Crawler

[Dieselman 63]

Old boy fitter came over and showed me how I could use a big cold chisel and various lengths and thicknesses of steel plate to pop taper keys, very cool. He’s a cool guy I’d have loved to do an apprenticeship with but he vowed never to take any on, and so his awesome skills will go with him, sad. Still, imparts knowledge for free.

I got the shaft for the scythe welded up by a friend, then turned on a big lathe I happened to have at my disposal. That was exciting to a saddo like me.

I’ve also (finally) bought a hydraulic press. It was very dirty so I decided to strip and repaint it, it’s taken ages! Proper Tangye jack on it, taper flange steel, nice and sturdy. It’s not complete, I’ll get around to it soon (within 6 months give or take).

A friend and I joke that watching Brum as a kid gave us the dream to build our own little world like the intro from the TV show (real world Cotswold Motor Museum). Mine is a bit more railway themed than all the automobilia on Brum, but still a good start. Just need a 1/2 scale Austin 7 chummy now!

 

[Geoffm]

Old boy fitter came over and showed me how I could use a big cold chisel and various lengths and thicknesses of steel plate to pop taper keys, very cool. He’s a cool guy I’d have loved to do an apprenticeship with but he vowed never to take any on, and so his awesome skills will go with him, sad. Still, imparts knowledge for free.

I got the shaft for the scythe welded up by a friend, then turned on a big lathe I happened to have at my disposal. That was exciting to a saddo like me.

I’ve also (finally) bought a hydraulic press. It was very dirty so I decided to strip and repaint it, it’s taken ages! Proper Tangye jack on it, taper flange steel, nice and sturdy. It’s not complete, I’ll get around to it soon (within 6 months give or take).

A friend and I joke that watching Brum as a kid gave us the dream to build our own little world like the intro from the TV show (real world Cotswold Motor Museum). Mine is a bit more railway themed than all the automobilia on Brum, but still a good start. Just need a 1/2 scale Austin 7 chummy now!

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Have you seen the "crazy garden railway". Dunedin based i think, he is our sort of people...

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

Crazy Garden Railway New Zealand | Facebook

For those interested in following my Garden Railway project and construction of our Air B@B in Ravensbourne Dunedin New Zealand .

www.facebook.com

 

[cheb]

Did you get 'The Secret Life of Machines' over there? A TV series, on Channel 4 in the UK, presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, Rex being the creator of Brum.

The Secret Life of Machines (TV Series 1988–1993) ⭐ 9.2 | Documentary, History

25m

www.imdb.com

 

[Geoffm]

Did you get 'The Secret Life of Machines' over there? A TV series, on Channel 4 in the UK, presented by Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod, Rex being the creator of Brum.

The Secret Life of Machines (TV Series 1988–1993) ⭐ 9.2 | Documentary, History

25m

www.imdb.com

It is on YouTube.

 

[cheb]

It is, I poked about yesterday and found loads more by him too. That's my winter evening watching sorted.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Have you seen the "crazy garden railway". Dunedin based i think, he is our sort of people...

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

Crazy Garden Railway New Zealand | Facebook

For those interested in following my Garden Railway project and construction of our Air B@B in Ravensbourne Dunedin New Zealand .

www.facebook.com

Yeah I have. It’s a bit full blown for me!

 

[Dieselman 63]

I’ve had unsupervised access to a parts washer and ultrasonic cleaner. Made some awesome progress yesterday with all these bits tidied up.

 

[angellonewolf]

I’ve had unsupervised access to a parts washer and ultrasonic cleaner. Made some awesome progress yesterday with all these bits tidied up.

View attachment 463916

does that mean your other half was out and the dishwasher was empty

 

[Dieselman 63]

does that mean your other half was out and the dishwasher was empty

Interpret the words your own way

No sadly no other half and the dishwasher is just for that. But I ran another load through today. Just the tank left to wash now.

 

[Dieselman 63]

My Follows and Bate A3 came home today after secondment. This is the first thing I ever restored. There’s a bit of a story behind its being. I forgot how small it is, now that my ‘small’ is the Allen scythe!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Howard Hoe progress.

Air blower tidied up along with the housing, off for blasting.

I’ve stripped and cleaned the engine and discovered very worn rockers and a melted piston so that’s something. I have spares of everything. Working my way through cleaning all the bits, plus there’s a gbox change in the works at the moment.

For now, it’s a good place to hang extension cords. Maybe I’ll get it running for the API in January.

 

[Dieselman 63]

More madness. Swapping one crank pin from a crank to another. Not sure this was the best idea as I’ll have to get them back into alignment now, but one crank pin was just totalled. The replacement isn’t really much better but will at least work.

And a special thanks to this cast brass wedge I picked up a while back ‘that’ll be useful one day’. Well it was. So is everything in this workshop, briefly, and sometimes once every five years. I’m not a hoarder…

 

[Dieselman 63]

The crank pin I took off wouldn’t receive the nut easily. A total pain - the thread was quite damaged and none of my thread files would fit. Manual needle filing - oh joy. Still, it’s back together. More good news, my friend has machined me two steel V blocks, no doubt they’ll come in handy for this job.

 

[Dieselman 63]

A rather large but also boring update today, the gearbox has been separated from the rest of the machine. Now, to swap the box over and reconnect everything.

 

[Dieselman 63]

More fun. Cleaning threads with powarrrr, Gordon bisquare 1/4 socket with drive adapter to 3/8 for the Milwaukee m12 ratchet. Not a bad idea I must say.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Then, more stuck stuff. I don’t seem to have much luck with bungs at work as I’m not allowed what I do at home! I like to get the surrounding iron red hot and swell the plug a bit, then wire brush it and smack the top with a few short sharp taps. Then, the bung usually comes out. Work says this is a waste of gas so we end up spending an hour drilling it out and peeling out the thread with picks, not my preferred method!

And a wheel stud, this was brought out with my big heavy duty stud puller and a few whitworth bolts I stashed, perfect for the job - save everything, it’ll come in handy! I will get it out eventually.

The case is cracked on the box I removed, the replacement box isn’t cracked so that’s a positive. I’m looking for gear damage, so there will be a lot of work here, but happy to have made a bit of progress and an opportunity gained to tidy up a bit too!

 

[Dieselman 63]

Lazy Sunday post.

 

[Dieselman 63]

Great to see almost nobody watched the video, great stuff. I won’t make video content again, not even in horizontal format to please @fizzy

Back to ye olde photographs, the new Starrett punches I bought are way too hard and shattered when I tried to knock a split pin out with one. Majorly disappointing, @Brad93 tells me I’m to go with PB Swiss, so I’ll give them a try.

Mild excitement Tuesday, this impeller and housing are back from the sandblasters and are in primer, wow! First bit of proper progress in a while, slapping paint on I have some truly ancient orange paint I found in a deceased sale, that will be going on this. You won’t see the innards of this at all once the machines back together.

 

[Milkybars]

I have just watched the video ..nice workshop

 

[Dieselman 63]

I have just watched the video ..nice workshop

Haha, thank you! And yes, it's finally getting to be how I wanted it to be. All that steel shelving was given to me for free by someone who wanted rid, fast. I kitted out the workshop and then the other garage, it took me just over four days to put it all together, that's how I spent my New Years!