Welcome to our family Tiny!

Well, we bought a Green Goddess.... Why? I hear you ask? Well, I was looking for a rolling project and my previous project (lashmidget.blogspot.com) only had two seats, no good for taking the family out - so any addition needed 6 seats. 

After several car shows, steam rallies and a good chunk of Googling (and some very helpful conversations with friends - you know who you are) a fire engine became the natural choice. 

Significantly more consultation of online resources followed (Googling!) and i was surprised just how much choice there was! 

I had always wanted a 4x4 and a 'military' vehicle add to that the fire engine dynamic and the Bedford RHLZ Self Propelled Pump was the perfect choice. 

Curiously the Goddess is neither a fire engine or a military vehicle rather its a Home Office Auxiliary Fire Service pump designed for relay pumping water over many miles from lakes and rivers into Nuclear Bomb stricken cities during the cold war. Nonetheless it was perfect for what we wanted! 

After viewing a few Goddesses we settled on one which we bought home last weekend. 

1954 with less than 3,400 miles on the clock (not bad for 65 years old!), she runs like new, barely run in, no oil in places which are not meant to have oil (A few seeps and weeps but nothing major), all the gear in the right places and most important of all, a good roof - dry in all the places it should be. 

On day of collection the whole family were very excited - after a short 'crash course' in the 'crash box' (Who needs synchro mesh anyway) we drove her the 40 miles home. 

There is a good deal of tidying to do - need to figure out how to switch the head lights on and am pretty sure it needs a manifold gasket as there is a healthy whistling once warmed up, the paint on the outside needs some attention but apart from a few dings and scrapes, she is a great specimen. 

Need to also figure out the pump, which is kind of intimidating as it delivers 800 gallons per minute (Just over 3 tonne) at 100psi when operating at 3,000 revs. 

The 'portable' pump will deliver 300 gallons a minute at 100psi, I might start there......

The kids, and more importantly my long suffering wife, are very excited and can participate in the restoration as it will involve a lot of cleaning, sanding and painting with a brush, not welding or mechanical re-construction. 

We have settled on a name which was arrived at by consensus - Tiny.

Welcome to our family Tiny, we look forward to the adventures together over the coming years, there will be plenty. 

Smug Mode On

No jokes about length of hoses please....

This is the 'light weight' portable pump which is a five man lift powered by the same engine as in the Hillman Imp. 

No sirens this time, don't want to annoy the neighbors anymore than strictly necessary!