Commer Q4
We'd been doing a few of the Scottish military vehicle shows with the jeep, but with two adults, two large dogs and a 18 month old sprog, it's not really possible to all go in the jeep and we were having to take two vehicles just to get us and all the camping gear there. Time for a truck :o) I'd flicked through Bart Vanderveens "Historic Military Vehicle Directory" a few times, looking at the trucks and trying to find something which was nice, but a wee bit unusual without being silly. I had noticed the Q4 workshop truck a few times and thought it was nice, but was more interested in the Canadian GM C60X. Scanning Ebay I came accross a Q4 breakdown truck with silly price tag, phoned the bloke and tried to buy it, but he said it was sold. A while later it's back on Ebay and I went for a look-see. At the same time there was another Q4 listed in the toys and models section of Ebay, so I went to see it as well. Ended up buying them both (not through Ebay) to get enough parts for one nice truck !!!!
Breakdown truck. The chassis had been chopped just behind the spring hangers and a home brew crane fitted. Quite a nice job, but not much use for taking the family to shows...... The cab is nice and rust free.
The other truck was much more original, but the woodwork and cab had suffered greatly from rot and sitting on a Manchester industial estate for a few years. Note the dead rat next to the headlamp.
Arriving home after a long trip from Manchester.
Breakdown truck with the crane removed and the quarter inch steel rear removed. Not an easy job getting it all off as it was "robustly" constructed by someone who enjoyed welding....
Body removed from yellow truck and the green truck with the body unbolted and swung round so I could chop the chassis legs off.
Legs welded on and chassis cleaned and primed.
Ready to transfer the body. A couple of round fence posts set accross the chassis and a little muscle power soon had the job done.
Like all projects this one ended up much bigger than first expected. I thought all I would have to do was swap the bodies and do some minor repairs and paint, but the reality was that the "good" body had much serious rot and about half the crossmembers were split where the bolts had corroded and swollen.
I ended up making new side members from an oak tree which the farmer down the road had felled the year before. See the chainsawmill page for details. I used selected crossmembers from the two bodies which sounds simple enough, but for some reason one body was 2" wider than the other and once I started measuring things I discovered that all the crossmembers were different lengths and the centrelines were far from central. I found one which was the same size as the headboard, used it for the rear and chopped all the others to suit.
Painting day. I chose a nice warm day with enough breeze to blow the flies away and there didn't seem to be any forestery trucks working, so no dust from the dirt track (the track is just behind the fence) The paint went on nicely and all seemed OK, then a timber truck turned up and showered it with dust.... Bugger !!! Och! well, it doesn't really matter.
The floor is just the old boards from the two trucks cleaned, wood preserved and screwed back down upside down with stainless screws. I bought 400 screws, used most of them, killed the cordless drill, wore my arm out and knackered my knees. Looks good though :o)
We decided to go to the East Fortune show at the last minute and spent a totally mad 8 hours dashing around putting the last few parts on the truck. Bled the brakes, fitted the lights, sorted out the wiring, painted wheels, fitted wheelarches, don't know what else but the sweat was flying and the language colourful !!! We made it though :o)
There's still some wee jobs to do but 90% of the work is done and "Calamity Commer" is ready to go whenever we feel like going somewhere and can afford the petrol !!!
email me at chaz@goatpark.f9.co.uk