Bulldog smoke unit conversion

[Alstone]

After fitting low profile HD gear boxes to my Bulldog I found that there was not enough room for the smoke unit, now I know that a lot of people remove them anyway, but I like smoke!, especially as I had just bought a proportional unit. The problem was a lack of head room, I found that the smoke pump and heater unit off the new unit would fit in the middle of the gear boxes but not the drive motor, so I cut the motor off the old smoke unit because it is thinner mounted it on an aluminium plate with the pump unit, with this arrangement I could just get the tank top on, the next problem was connecting to the original silencers, but after giving it a lot of thought and also noting that not much smoke came out anyway I decided to change the design of the Bulldog back end.

The smoke produced by the smoke unit consists of roughly 80% steam and 20% smoke and the further it has to travel to it’s exit point the less there is, because the steam condensers in the feed tube and all that comes out is very little smoke, so if you blow the smoke out as near to the smoke unit the more smoke there is.

I drilled two holes in line with the smoke unit and made an exhauster to plug on top, this produces plenty of smoke and by feeding it through a slot it looks more natural, ( the original looked like the tank was driven by a steam engine ) I also removed the original exhaust pipes.

I know the purest amongst you will not like it but it’s my tank, and I sure if you look long and hard enough some one will have done a conversion like this, so it might still be in keeping. How about the M41 No1 #1 before they decided where the silencer boxes should go.

[Saxondog]

Good bit of fabrication, seems to work very well.Great job,Sax