Thread: 1418 prefix engines

Originally Posted by Shonky

Nice!

It isn't ex-Army though. It predates the initial supply of LRs to the Army. (the earliest are '59 models with 1439 chassis numbers)

The early history of ex-army LRs is still to be written. I had acquaintences years ago of early LR distributor employees. They told me that when the Series 2 came out, the army didn't want that new fangled 2 1/4L motor & insisted for some time to have the OLD 2L, that they knew. I had a 1956 86" that was ex-army. The army sold a large quantity of surplus spares in Darwin in the 1950's, for 80s. I hope I still have some of the tags that were attached to these parts, because they've got unit no.'s on them. As an aside, when they tested the Rolls B40 in the 80s, they appear to have also tested a Holden powered one. How many of the early Aussie LRs were in Korea & Malaya & not in Australia is an interesting topic.

The early history of ex-army 80s & Series 1's is I think muddied by the likelyhood that they were absolutley standard with little if any mods & markings. In the list of early mil LRs recorded, 2 at least that are described as S2s are actually 1958 Series 1 88".

From a National Library search, heaps of as yet undigitized stuff,
"Test Instruction No 1515 - durability trials under Australian hot wet and hot dry weather conditions of: 1. B40 Rolls Royce engine: 2. Holden engine: 3. Fordson truck with Martin Harper conversion: 4. Cvt 4 x 4 3 ton WD truck for comparison [supplementary keywords: Chevrolet, Landrover, Land Rover]" 1951
"Atomic Weapons Research Establishment Report No T79/54 - Operation Totem - Effects on a Landrover (Car 5cwt 4x4) and Generating Sets - E R Drake Seager, Captain R F C Butler REME [Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] - August 1956, Copy 47"
"Holden Engine fitted to Land Rover [contains 13 photographs]" 1951.

Are you sure these were Army 80"?

So far from the ARN book only two 80" are recorded, while plenty of records exist for GPW and Austin Champs. The two 80" have known provenance and photographic evidence.

There were many 80" held by the Navy, we have the records of those delivered in Sydney and have subsequently identified existant vehicles including one with RAN in paint evidence. The RAN parts supplies would have been sold through the same Dept. of Supply auction system as Army parts were disposed of.

The ceremonial S1 now held by the Army, were once used for ceremonial events of Betty Windsor and the Governors General subsequently transferred to the Army. The Army S1 used by Australian Troops in the Malay Emergency and Korea were from British Army fleet and even carried Brit Army "Tag" numbers.

BTW: I am the person who identified and accessed the Holden Test Instruction from the National Archives and which is now held by REMLR.

Diana

Other than the trials series 1s, I expect that any ex mil series 1s were ex Brit series 1s that were used here and stayed as it was not cost effective to repatriate them to the UK.

As Diana mentioned the Navy certainly had 80" - I have seen a short vid of HMAS Tobruk at sea off Korea in the Korean War which has an 80" stored on the main deck - mid ships. Unfortunately the quality of the vid is not real good and the vehicles colour cannot be determined. I put a link to the vid on AULRO a few years back if anyone wants to search for it.

Garry

Edit - here it is http://www.gunplot.net/korea/korea4.html

Picked it up today , very , very exited !
I have put the photos online ,you can see the set here Series II LandRover - a set on Flickr
There seems to have been some writing on the front guard , someone may recognize it . Also there was a round tag sitting in there if anyone knows what it is please let me know.
Thanks

Originally Posted by sanderm2

Picked it up today , very , very exited !
I have put the photos online ,you can see the set here Series II LandRover - a set on Flickr
There seems to have been some writing on the front guard , someone may recognize it . Also there was a round tag sitting in there if anyone knows what it is please let me know.
Thanks

Very good Photos. Well worth restoring because those 58s are as rare as hens teeth now.

I notice it has the clutch Reservor with 2 pipes out of the bottom. Only the first 1000 or so had these before it was modified with one out the side and the other out of the bottom. Very rare.

I would be very interested in some of the dates on the parts. Above the dynamo on the block is the casting date for the engine like 3 58. The first number being the month. Nearly every Landrover unit has a date on it.

I can see the one on the distributor is 3 58 so that is march 58 which is very early.

Cheers Richard

Have been digging around my (limited) records, & found one of my S2 2l had engine no. 141804085 when I put in eng 170610176 ('56 2 l). This seems an extremely high no, any one know how many were produced. I have a couple of radiators lying around & 1 is a serck with tag 6M 58. I was always too smart on most of my rego's & didn't report chassis no's in case I ever wanted to change one , so don't have chassis no's for the 2 I had registered at different times. The other 1 had a holden in it so that's not much use.

Originally Posted by fc110

The early history of ex-army LRs is still to be written. I had acquaintences years ago of early LR distributor employees. They told me that when the Series 2 came out, the army didn't want that new fangled 2 1/4L motor & insisted for some time to have the OLD 2L, that they knew. I had a 1956 86" that was ex-army. The army sold a large quantity of surplus spares in Darwin in the 1950's, for 80s. I hope I still have some of the tags that were attached to these parts, because they've got unit no.'s on them. As an aside, when they tested the Rolls B40 in the 80s, they appear to have also tested a Holden powered one. How many of the early Aussie LRs were in Korea & Malaya & not in Australia is an interesting topic.

The early history of ex-army 80s & Series 1's is I think muddied by the likelyhood that they were absolutley standard with little if any mods & markings. In the list of early mil LRs recorded, 2 at least that are described as S2s are actually 1958 Series 1 88".

From a National Library search, heaps of as yet undigitized stuff,
"Test Instruction No 1515 - durability trials under Australian hot wet and hot dry weather conditions of: 1. B40 Rolls Royce engine: 2. Holden engine: 3. Fordson truck with Martin Harper conversion: 4. Cvt 4 x 4 3 ton WD truck for comparison [supplementary keywords: Chevrolet, Landrover, Land Rover]" 1951
"Atomic Weapons Research Establishment Report No T79/54 - Operation Totem - Effects on a Landrover (Car 5cwt 4x4) and Generating Sets - E R Drake Seager, Captain R F C Butler REME [Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] - August 1956, Copy 47"
"Holden Engine fitted to Land Rover [contains 13 photographs]" 1951.

Yes, but this is a Series II, not a series I. Total number of 1958 Series II Land Rovers (with 1438 chassis numbers) known to be procured by the Australian Army? 0.
(talking Army here, not Navy or Air Force)

Surely you have to agree that this Series II Land Rover that predates the Army supply contract is far more likely to be one of the hundreds of civilian ones of it's type, rather than a mystery one off that nobody knows about or has any records of.

I don't doubt that it looks ex-Army... it's a Land Rover. They all look ex-Army!

(surely that was a lot of effort to make a moot point...?)

Originally Posted by bulletproof

Very good Photos. Well worth restoring because those 58s are as rare as hens teeth now.

I notice it has the clutch Reservor with 2 pipes out of the bottom. Only the first 1000 or so had these before it was modified with one out the side and the other out of the bottom. Very rare.

I would be very interested in some of the dates on the parts. Above the dynamo on the block is the casting date for the engine like 3 58. The first number being the month. Nearly every Landrover unit has a date on it.

I can see the one on the distributor is 3 58 so that is march 58 which is very early.

Cheers Richard

Hi Richard this is the date on the wiper motor .....


Thanks