We are now lucky enough to be joined by Ian,
and Ian is one of the drivers here at the tank museum, of the fantastic Tiger 1.
Ian thanks very much for joining us.
On tanks every morning what we would have to do was a First Parade
and of course the Tiger 1 was no different.
So to give you an idea now of what the First Parade actually involved on the Tiger 1,
Ian is going to take us on a quick spin round.
On the Tiger. First Parade, it's quite a long winded process so it does drag on but it is better to be safe than sorry.
The first thing we do check on the outside of the Tiger, the exterior, its tracks.
Tracks are really important because track wear and track pins.
Each pin has a clip on the end so it retains the pin within each link so you've got to watch out
for things like that so nothing comes apart.
Slack in the track so, if there is too much slack it's going to be too sloppy,
it's going to make the drive not very good on the tank so we always check adjustment.
On each side obviously is what’s called the final drive.
Within the final drive is, they are filled with oil so the other thing we have to do is check the oil levels.
If the oil is too low obviously it can cause a catastrophic failure within the final drive, which we don't want.
So they are checked as well.
You've got one this side and obviously one on the driver's side.
What's the drip tray for then?
That's ah
You've got a leak.
You always get a leak so no matter but so as long as you check it and you check the right levels, happy days.
We check for sprocket wear, any pick up marks on the teeth we try to keep an eye on those.
Road wheels.
We try, every wheel station is greased so that has to be checked as well and greased up.
The rubber on the road wheels we check there is no more being picked off or cracking
or it’s deteriorating so we keep an eye on the road wheels.
We've got some access panel here.
This really is for the enurser starter.
You can take it off and visually get inside with a torch and look all within the engine bay.
You've got coolant pipes.
You've got obviously the engine there and just checking for any suspect oil leaks and that.
Anything we find.
As you can see it is pretty dry on the floor you know.
But obviously there's things called burly plates on the hull of the Tiger.
Sometimes we take those off and just double check to see if there are any leaks or anything like that.
Must say that's pretty amazing because even on Challenger 1 and Challenger 2
you find drip trays underneath it and leaks and all the rest of it so.
Don't get me wrong you are going to get the odd leak, yeah.
Going back to the adjustment of the tracks, the track adjusters are housed in here.
Wow, that's really unusual.
So they are in there.
So it works on like a cam sort of idea, so to adjust the tracks so it's all housed in there.
And when you said about the track tension Ian, what is the sort of right track tension then?
I mean I would suggest at the moment, obviously that..
...the track has just got to be touching the second row in and the outer edge, so it is just right where it is now.
Ok there was two ways to start the tiger I
The first one obviously was a very traditional method
I'm using the electronic start of the driver's cap
the other way is to do an inertia start
Ian now is just going to quickly take us through and demonstrate how to do an inertia start
Fist of all we have to the access cover that has to be removed
and then we've got the adapter's plate for the inertia start handle
lower down here, mounted, is the actual handle for the inertia start
you push that key in and it engages the starter
and the fly wheel and bong
easy?
No. *laughs*
We have now moved up on to the back decks and Ian is going to give us a quick spin round
what we actually do on a First Parade on there.
Within the engine compartment
there's a, more or less, 3 main things to check
We've got things, what's called fan drive gear boxes
One's located on this side, one's located on the right side
they have got oil in them, and dip sticks so they will be dipped and checked
We do them when they're stationnary
and what we do, when we run the tank and we've got them engaged
we check them as well, when the engine's running, and the fans are engaged
so we check them as well
The next thing is the main engine oil.
Main engine oil is practically directly underneath me.
It is a, because it's a dry sump there is a separate oil tank.
There is a dip stick underneath it as well.
What we do is pull the dip stick out.
Obviously if there is oil on the dip stick, it's safe to start.
Re put the dip stick back in and the other thing is just another visual check,
all round the engine we have got coolant pipes,
petrol pipes any sort of smells that we are not you know of
fuel because being a petrol driven engine you got be to safety all the time.
Carry on with the First Parade on the Tiger,
the coolant side, is checking the coolant on Tiger.
Either side of the rear of the tank are two radiators.
To check it, we have got this radiator here down by my foot.
Obviously just we undo the cap and check the level for the coolant in there.
Make sure there are no leaks or anything or there's no damage or anything to the radiators.
Also on the coolant side, where Richard stood,
underneath the grills there are the cooling fans.
There are two fans each side.
So what we do on the First Parade is, those would be lifted and we would inspect the fans
for any wear, any damage and make sure they are moving freely.
To check the fuel, it's round here on this side of the deck of the tank.
There is another access panel I've removed.
There is the top of the fuel tank.
That's the way we would fill the fuel tank is there.
We haven't got a luxury like a fuel gage,
we just use a measuring stick to check quantity of fuel within the fuel tanks.
So basically that's the bits that we do on the outside of the rear deck of the Tiger.