members and fellow enthusiasts

The Australian War Memorial records have books 126 - Army Vehicle Identification Books finally on line.
These books contain the vehicle information of vehicle sent to the Australian Armed Forces.
i understand they are yet to involve all of the records but eventually it will happen.

Recently the AWM have started digitising and placing on their website the registration and disposal information. There are 27 books and so far they have uploaded eight here .

I have downloaded and looked through them all and they are up to about the end of 1941 and ending at about engine/frame no. 45,000. Over time they intend to upload all 27 books.

The info is a bit difficult to interpret but it is all in there, you need to spend a lot of time going through it all.

link to the information can be found by typing the below into Dr Google and you can search, there is where i found all of the information on my BSA wm20, when it arrived, it was sent to 4th Military District - Adelaide South Australia, then sold by a local motorcycle dealer with the amount of 45 pounds and the name of the purchaser.

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/AWM126/

happy searching
Brian FOrth

email (option): forthy@picknowl.com.au

This is good news and I know Jan is on the case. It does look like a seriously laborious task, but guys like Jan and Rik thrive on it Ron

email (option): ronpier@talk21.com

Thanks Brian, and its not even my Birthday, Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

I have found an interesting entry in the Australian archive

Book AWM2016.38.196 Page 96

35655 BSA 500cc Engine T400.18.P Frame EX285

EX285 is a typical BSA experimental frame number.

But does anyone recognise the engine number T400.18.P

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

285 is a B30 frame number shown in the dispatch records but it is not shown with an EX prefix.
EX 289 is also a B30 frame number...Sent to the war Office in London and shown in the same records...

There are no further details given in the B30 records I have but this bike is shown in Orchard and Madden as the B30 fitted with the AMC engine.....

Interestingly, this contract also contained the B30s that were sent to Canada and the USA...

The experimental lightened M20 had the frame number EX311 and this tends to lead me to think that it may have been created by fitting an M20 motor into a B30 chassis...The first experimental B30 had the frame number EX290 and the second one EX309, not too far away...

So, to me it seems likely EX285 was another B30 fitted with a different engine..I don't recognise the engine number though.. ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

I've looked through my copies from the MEE ledgers but can add nothing to what is in O&M.

As I read it, EX311 was the M21 swd outfit.

EX315 was fitted with engine WM20 499 which doesn't appear in the factory despatch ledgers.

The multi-make hybrids, with the exception of EX289 which had the Matchless engine 23297 retro-fitted generally seem to have been taken from machines delivered under existing contracts rather than prototypes. EX289 may well have been supplied with a view to them sending it on to Matchless?. It was despatched by BSA 31/1/41 and received by MEE 26/4/41.

The B30 engine fitted to a Matchless frame looks to have been numbered WB30 556.

I tend to suspect anything with a 'T' in the number of having a Triumph connection but this engine doesn't fit in their sequences.

Beraing in mind that it is clearly marked as 'Impressed', I'd be inclined to suspect a demonstrator sold on by the importers and perhaps fitted with a rebuild engine (amybe even an M20)stamped by them. There were certainly Nortons to WD spec exported there via commercial channels. It seems likely that they were responsible for trying to interest the Australian authorities. Some contracts were closed directly with Australia rather than via the Ministry of Supply.

Your right of course Rik...EX315 was the lightweight M20 not EX311..

Unfortunately there's no information (yet) on that or the SWD M21 both of which would make interesting 'replication' projects if there was more than guesswork to go by...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

There are lots of typos and errors in these Australian ledgers so its possible that some or all of this is wrong, perhaps its not actually a BSA?

Rob

email (option): robmiller11(a)yahoo.co.uk

[' As we know, there are known knowns..the things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know..
But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know...These are the difficult ones..']...

Donald Rumsfeld..(and the WD motorcycle forum...).. ...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com