In article <065e01c1ca3f$39c53360$0100a8c0@lucifer>, Kai M. Radicke
<kmr@pil.net> writes
>This television show has piqued my interest. For the (mostly) US membership
>that doesn't know, Salvage Squad, is a show which airs in the UK and
>consists of finding some wreck of a vehicle and having it restored to its
>original condition in a set time period. They've done some interesting
>things so far, a Bristol 407, a firepump truck (with Coventry Climax
>engine), and even a Lola Formula 5000 race car, and some ancient WWII tank.
The tank actually dated from 1950. It was one which had led the
invasion of the Suez Canal Zone in 1956, and also served in the Gulf War
converted to an AVRE. They had to bodge up mild steel armour as MOD
wouldn't tell them how their top-secret additional armour, fitted for
the Gulf, worked, or what it was made of!
>
>Never having seen the show, only hearing about it since I live in the US,
>I'm interested to know the actual results of these speedy restorations.
>From the photos I saw of the Bristol, it actually looked like a quality
>restoration job... and from what little information I gathered, they had
>only two weeks to restore it (which included stripping the paint, major
>panel beating, and repainting, retrimming, and engine overhaul). It was
>apparently judged at a major Bristol Owners' Club event? How did it fair?
It came first in its class, with a very respectable score. No other
cars were entered in the class. This one was a little out of the
ordinary run of Salvage Squad restorations, as the owner was a retired
Rolls-Royce Bodyshop foreman, and wouldn't let them cut any corners. He
also did most of the bodywork himself (Salvage Squad's welder proved
himself totally incapable of welding aluminium). Looked like a nice
job in the end. By and large, most of their restoration jobs will be
heaps of rust in two years' time. The fire engine was *horrible* -
huge lumps of rust were just painted over. They did the same thing
with a Stalwart (amphibious six-wheel-drive military lorry).
My favourite programme was the one where they restored an early
microlite. Again, their resident expert wouldn't let them bodge
anything, and after stripping the machine down, and inspecting every
part, he scrapped all but about six components!
>
>How about the Lola racer? They sure did that authentically, they had a
>month for that, and even reproduced the cast magnesium wheel uprights at a
>specialty foundry (mighty costly)!
This was aired last weekend. I was rather confused at their approach
to this car. Given that one of the top mechanical straightening
companies in the world is based about three miles from where the
restoration was taking place, I couldn't understanding why they
straightened components such as the steering rack using pry-bars, and
accepted a straightness tolerance of 0.003".
They had to have the Magnesium alloy uprights remade because the
originals had been broken and poorly welded, and when they tried to get
them re-welded, they failed during retapping of the screw threads.
Having said that, I don't believe that they had to have any patterns
made, as this would probably have blown the budget for the entire
series!
> The tank seemed interesting too, I liked
>how they fitted the V12 Rolls engine with electronic ignition from a Jag V12
>to get it started! Bright idea.
Yes, a good idea, but hardly "authentic".
ATB
--
Mike
Michael Hargreave Mawson, author of "Eyewitness in the Crimea"
http://www.greenhillbooks.com/booksheets/eyewitness_in_the_crimea.html
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