A Second N.Z. Bren hull.

I’d heard about another carrier hull in the South Island, rumoured to be another
oddball hull. A timely trip with a diversion had me on site. Andy Fox thought it was worth more than I
did, but I bought it anyhow.

What else could I do? This one was about the same as the first one, but nowhere near the rust. It came
with a few special bits that I needed.

These are important bits. I had one bell crank, now I have the two I need…… and a spare!

This hull from the Greta valley turned out to be no. 21. The serial number disappeared when the top of
the Division plate was cut away, but as it happened the serial numbers appear in other places as well.
The major components were individually fitted and numbered to each carrier, so the 2 rear bogie frames,
the speedo drive housing, (gbox to diff) and the brake backing plates are all numbered. 21 stamped in 5
places. Early on when I borrowed the I.D plate, from Paul Burr, I traded a Stewart tank part for a
complete rear axle assembly from Carrier number 29.

With a plan in my head, I made a lifting frame and took the floor out of the 21 hull. I used the lower hull
sides (having straightened them) the lower rear plate. I used the division plate from NZR 6 and the front
lower plate from an English U.C. I had folded up new engine bed rails and new track guards. The upper
armour is all new except for the gun mantlet and the steering box armour. The division plate was missing
the upper left corner and the bottom was badly rusted so I replaced 100mm at the bottom
At this time (2010) I have become friends with Ben Hawkins in England. Ben has good skills and he sets
off on a course to build a Bren carrier from about the same start as me.

By this time, I’d had a couple of trips to Australia. I spent a week in Pukapunyal camp and visited the
museum there. The major interest being the LP1. Then later we did a family trip through the Canning
stock route (a 6 week 4wd trip from Darwin to Perth) I tried to catch up with Jared Archibald to see his
LP1 but the timing was no good. We did however manage to stay a night at Nungarin hosted by Philip
Hastings. I was able to crawl all over his rare British Scout carrier.

Here is NZR 21 as she was on Andy Fox’s farm when I bought her. She was a POL trailer for a bulldozer.
She had a tough life, but the rainfall there is only about 8 inches per year! Very dry. She had been on the
farm for more than fifty years.
Ben and I need each other. I need his skills and he needs me to round up details from the two Brens in
N.Z. This entailed me tripping to Waiouru and Christchurch, armed with a plan from Ben. I send him
chicken scratchings and he sends me CAD drawings. A win win I hope? Chris and I later had a wedding to
attend in the U.K. We tied in a week at Bens, just missing the arrival of the Scout that Ben had bought
from Phillip Hastings. Below, the floor goes in and out a few times transferring hole locations.