Jeep waterproofing/ fording picture taken in March 1944

[Silly's MB]

Thanks for confirming the location Yves, Bideford was the Ordnance experimental section where the waterproofing trials were carried out.

The Jeep was a class B vehicle and officially had an allowance of 10 days for full cleaning, de-greasing 6000 mile service and waterproofing, stage 2 was 4 hours and stage 3 was 15 minutes preferably on-board. Class B vehicles included all trucks, armoured cars and half tracks so I guess it was an average with the Jeep taking a bit less and the half tracks possibly taking a bit longer. Tracked vehicles were class A and had an allowance of 15 days for stage 1 and the same times for stages 2 and 3.

Derek Eddlestone has/had a NOS waterproofing kit viewtopic.php?t=140087

The Waterproofing inspectors course was 3 weeks and covered all aspects of Ordnance including small arms and artillery.

The Waterproofing of vehicles continued all the way through June although it was stopped on 19 th June because the US Mulberry harbour was ready and then it was destroyed on the 19th in the storm so they continued waterproofing again.

I read an account of the Bren Gun carrier taking 6 man days but they called the material compound 219 instead of AWC. I think it was because the mixture formula was conceived in the meeting room 219 when Shell Mex BP came up with it. The British also used a different way of marking to show the different stages had been completed with 3 stripes of enamel paint,Blue, Yellow and red in that order.

[YLG80]

Cool link to Derek post. Thank you.
There is an interesting information on how they were doing with the throttle.
I'm surprised to read that the driver would adjust the throttle while fording in deep water.
This was perhaps when the water level was decreasing, below the carburetor.

Approaching the beach with the engine warmed up the driver would adjust the hand throttle to allow the jeep to make progress in 1st gear until the vehicle emerged from the deep water and proper control could resume.

I still don't understand what 's the use of the throttle lever in the mysterious kit ??
Yves