Postwar Civil & Civilian use of WW2 Vehicles.

Just googling round I saw....THIS!!! :p A de-clawed panther?

 

Swords into ploughshares...?

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS7Jl1KaUmTlmd8UzyGVtYbZhIyBi99GqVQ1HlG1qAtLUP27pSaCa1liaWQTw

 

Here's a Jeep-towed hay baler in New Zealand...

 

Took ages to find this; I knew it had existed, but didn't know if there were pics of it - an Australia Matilda converted postwar...



It was a brilliant piece of recycling....

• Home made blade
• The trunions for the blade were made from cannon barrels
• The trunion caps were cannon barrell counterweights
• The top skid bars for the tracks have been replaced with rollers
• Excess armour has been removed
• Plough disks and scraper bars have been attached to the sprocket drive to stop sand entering the final drive seals.
• The original Wilson Power Shift transmission has had some the the spacer planetarys replaced with cogs. Some of the planetary gears had two planet cogs and two spacer blocks. The two cogs sometimes broke, but with 4 planet cogs there were no further problems.
• The fuel tank was from a General Grant tank
• The canopy was made from Bren Gun Carrier axles
• The engine is half a GM 6-71 twin pack engine set (still with transfer case) from a Grant tank.
• The second engine has been replaced with the hydraulic pump
• The hydraulic ram was home made

!!!

Interesting to see the top line of the track run revealed....

 

Another one I KNEW there had to be pics of - the famous Red Sherman converted to pull a plough in the soft farmland of the Lincolnshire Fens....

 

Another one I KNEW there had to be pics of - the famous Red Sherman converted to pull a plough in the soft farmland of the Lincolnshire Fens....



Very nice.

I wonder how many plow blades it could pull?

Looks like it might have the Continental engine, judging from the deck height. (which makes it even cooler, of course.)

 

Here's a Wiki one - the converted Stuart tank belonging to Thomas Moore, Meenaar, Western Australia in 1951...

 

Words fail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-6rvEvc3IE

 

Words fail.

[YOUTUBE]z-6rvEvc3IE[/YOUTUBE]

If they can do that with old Stuart chassis, what would they make of a Challenger 2 ?

 

I wonder how many plow blades it could pull?



Dave, it's been ten years or so now since I saw it on a short tv documentary, and I sadly can't remember...but in googling for it I came across some HUGE plough-and-harrow arrays being pulled by crawlers and caterpillers! Look at the Stuart tank in Western Australia, for instance...

In this case, however, I DO remember that while the plough wasn't THAT large - the virtue of the converted Sherman in the Fens wasn't in the number of furrows it could plough at once, but the weight distribution of the plot on soft going

 

If they can do that with old Stuart chassis, what would they make of a Challenger 2 ?

Looks like they have a couple of T-55s and maybe a Paladin in there too, as well as who knows what else!

 

Surprised this has not been posted yet but the famous Willys jeep abandoned in the Phillipines after WW2 & converted by the 10's of thousands for civillian transport . The Jeepney" is still manufactured today however modern materials & reconditioned japanese engines.

 

A few CMP's from Australia
Chevrolet C15A?

Chevy GCT 8




Ford

Ford F60L

Ford F60S

C60L with additional chassis attached for bed

C60L tourist bus

 

Interesting thread.
My father spoke of many post war logging companies in Ontario which were entirely equipped with surplus CMP's. In remote logging camps they parked them in a circle on winter nights. The oil was drained from each one, kept heated in a 45 gal. drum over a fire and poured back in the morning so they had some chance of starting.
I am quite sure that I've seen hundreds over the years in various places across the province. Usually rusting in some back field on a farm or as a jury rigged tow truck, snow plow, camper or whatever other use could be made.

 

Oops!

 

A buffet of old and new here:

fhttp://www.lacamomille.com/videopage/on/Y1vfa47Jrlo.html