Austin Champ

[Lahti35]

Saw an Austin Champ at a local MV show this past weekend. Very cool little critter. Anybody have one of these?

The guy was interrested in selling but no garage room here!

Some interesting things i saw were the radiator fan shroud was canvas, the hubs had attachments so you could use them as a winch, and you could adjust the suspension through holes cut inside the body near the floor.

Jason

[Andym2]

I have a Champ, have had it since 1979. I hate to burst any bubbles but the hubs are not winch capstans, they have an oil filler on them and use as a winch would damage the filler port. The rounded shape is to allow the vehicle to be easily lashed onto a pallet for shipping.

The Champ was built between 1952 and 1954 and was a hellishly expensive "replacement for the Jeep", costing almost 5 times more than the Land Rover of that time.

It was the smallest of the British FV (Fighting Vehicle) series, that also had the Humber 1 ton, of Humber Pig fame, the Ferrett and Saraccen armoured vehicles, which all use the same basic engine that came in 4 6 and 8 cylinder versions all with interchangable parts.

The majority of the cost was in the Rolls Royce B40 Mk5 engine, a wonderful piece of engineering and as reliable as its name.

One on the down sides of the Champ was its back axle, that not only has the differential of normal crown and pinion design, it had winch output shafts and incredibley the reverse gears. Which allows you to drive up to 65mph, tyhrough 5 gears forward and in reverse!!

Those torion bar adjustment holes should be covered up with a rubber boot. When they are missing and you drive through any standing water you get a fast awakening to put them back in place.

Thinking of water the Champ is designed to drive underwater up to 6 feet deep, and has a snork3el on the drivers side that flips up for the engine to breath. As the snorkel is almost 2 feet above the drivers head, it poses the question of how is the driver supposed to breath.

That canvas shroud is on the fan because the radiator and engine are not mounted on the same chassis and tend to move against each other. The fan by the way is attached to the end of the crankshaft and not to the water pump, and contains a clutch which disengages it when it gets wet or hits an object.

Andy

[Lahti35]

The seller was telling everybody that stopped by how those hubs were made for winching

We;ve got to nip those urban legends in the bud before they get going!

I was very impressed with the engine, though i can't say the body did much for my eye's.

The seller said he had a whole garage full of spare parts and had pictures of them to boot.

Jason