Any retired British REME types here?

Sgt Striker

Sgt Striker

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Great White North, Eh!
I'm hoping there may be one here in the Tillsonburg/Woodstock area, that spent some time working on the petrol version of the FV432 and would like to spend some more time one one, just for the fun of it..... so to speak. :D
 
I was just in Southern Ontario (Kingston) for 8 days. Would have been fun to play with an FV432 again. Gawd, I used to tear the #### out of my lawn with one of those.

Did you end up buying the one from John, or the other one from Saskatchewan?
 
stencollector said:
I was just in Southern Ontario (Kingston) for 8 days. Would have been fun to play with an FV432 again. Gawd, I used to tear the s**t out of my lawn with one of those.

Did you end up buying the one from John, or the other one from Saskatchewan?
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I was thinking of buying the one from John, but I've decided to put that idea on the back burner for now.
 
toomanyhobbies said:
Had me worried for a second, I though you wrote REMF instead of REME. I don't know what a REME is but I sure know what REMF is. ;)
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REME is Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers. This branch of the army includes the vehicle mechanics, the weapons techs, and the fire control systems techs. The old Canadian equivelant was RCEME (Royal Cdn Ele......) and pretty much every commonwealth country would add their country initial to the acronym.

The Canadian branch became LORE (Land Ordnance Engineers) in Canada in the early 70s, and changed to EME around 1990. The "royal" designation was removed from all the branches of the military back in the Trudeau era, and the RCEME almost lost it's identity altogether by almost being lumped into the LOG trades (truckers, clerks, supply). The trade managed to maintain it's autonomy with the LORE name, and the eventual return of the horse logo brought things back to normal.

The REME trade certainly does have REMFs in it, but also lots of FLMFs as well.
 
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Sgt Striker said:
I was thinking of buying the one from John, but I've decided to put that idea on the back burner for now.
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The FV432 is one of those things you buy on a whim, enjoy it initially, and then wonder why you needed it.

The good thing about them is that you can pull the pack in a matter of about an hour to do any maintenance on it. The bad thing is that you must pull the pack to do almost any minor job on the engine, the gearbox, or the transmission. If you don't have a crane or a large gantry, you will be extremely limited in what you can do on one of these.
 
This shows the home made lifting jig we made, this is a simplified version of what the REME use. The two engines are both here. We got the girl fully prepared for engine removal then had the oil field service truck come out and remove the old unit. He then left to give me a few weeks to clean out the engine compartment and prep the new engine ready for installation and then he came back and lifter her in. This way the cost was very reasonable.

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Keep your fingers out of the way! In the background is my old IH TD24 Bulldozer and you can just see the corner of the blade of my “baby” TD9 I use for yard work and range maintenance. As my wife will tell you: “boys have to have all their toys”
 
Mr Wolverine said:
This shows the home made lifting jig we made, this is a simplified version of what the REME use. The two engines are both here. We got the girl fully prepared for engine removal then had the oil field service truck come out and remove the old unit. He then left to give me a few weeks to clean out the engine compartment and prep the new engine ready for installation and then he came back and lifter her in. This way the cost was very reasonable.

100_2930.jpg


100_2967.jpg


100_2976.jpg


Keep your fingers out of the way! In the background is my old IH TD24 Bulldozer and you can just see the corner of the blade of my “baby” TD9 I use for yard work and range maintenance. As my wife will tell you: “boys have to have all their toys”
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I couldn't help but notice your nice Cockshutt tractor with front wheel assist,...is that the model with the Detroit diesel engine.....those engines really howl when wound out :dancingbanana:
 
Mk VII said:
I didn't think there were any of those petrol ones left. I thought they'd all been worn out running around Suffield
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That was the source for most of the ones running around Western Canada. They were sold off in two lots, one lot which was supposed to be scrapped ended up being sold individually by a guy in Regina. There ended up being an RCMP (and later a MP) investigation into those carriers. The other lot went to General scrap in Regina, where a few found there way to museums and various collections. Many of them ended up being bought for range targets in Dundurn and Cold lake.

The last large release of FV432s and ferrets all went to Wainwright for targets.

I found my FV432 to be an excellent vehicle once the bugs were worked out of it. They did suffer from the typical British over engineering. The Rolls Royce petrol engine was certainly not lacking in power once everything was set up.
 
I found my FV432 to be an excellent vehicle once the bugs were worked out of it. They did suffer from the typical British over engineering. The Rolls Royce petrol engine was certainly not lacking in power once everything was set up.
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Don't suppose you could send me a list of "things to do" for your FV432? :D
 
“New Engine” as in new to the APC. she was a used “spare” which had been acquired when the APC was first purchased. The engine in the APC ran OK but was blowing a little oil when I “pushed her hard” so I decided to try the spare engine. After the original engine was lifted out we sat the new engine in front of the APC so we could test run her. I also swapped the carburetor as I had recently rebuilt her. With the engine sitting in front of the APC electrical leads and fuel line can be connected, test runs must be kept short as the cooling system does not operate correctly. The 8 cylinder Rolls Royce with no muffler has a real bark! The rad was taken to the local rad shop for full cleaning and testing. The best air filters from the two engines were used. The engine oil tank (they have a dry sump) was removed cleaned and painted. Any hoses etc that needed replacing were seen to. Then she was lifted in.

Our home made lifting jig may look a little crude but it worked superbly, we had the point of balance almost exact.

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