https://www.facebook.com/1234664946390967/

Bedford MK8 RAF Crash Tender

Home
United Kingdom
Castle Donington
Bedford MK8 RAF Crash Tender

Directions

The Bedford MK8 crash Tender was introduced into service in 1972, this example began life in 1973

02/11/2026

The search light is looking a bit cleaner as last and all the odd layers of paint have been removed in readiness for its new paint.

I've also been able to free up the bulb slide, used to focus the light beam, and this is now ready for conversion to use an LED bulb in the future.

02/11/2026

The rear storage box for the O2 tanks is now straightened out and a repair patch applied to the damaged mounting points, this just needs a good clean and we can get it remounted.

30/10/2026

After several days of soaking all the bolts and screws with penetrating oil, today I managed to get the search light fully dismantled down to its various components.

As I had cleaned up the front ring and lens protector previously, whilst waiting on the screws to loosen up, I have managed to get these re-joined into a single unit.

Having found the manufacturers plate on the inside of the housing it raises a question, the plate shows it to be a 24V unit, whilst the bulb is marked as 250V, so I suspect I will need to do some more digging into this.

I have now cleaned up the reflector and lens and they are looking good, with age related marks as to be expected.

Hopefully the clean up will be completed over the next week, and then to choose its final colour.

29/10/2026

I know this is not a Bedford post, but we had a little excitement at the museum with the arrival of our new exhibit.

This is a 1953 Thornycroft Nubian fire tender that last worked, as far as we know so far, at Rolls Royce, Leavesden.

She is fully mobile under her own power, and looks to be completed with all hoses and tools as far as we can tell, although we have yet to do a full inventory of her

Photos are courtesy of the East Midlands Aeropark Museum.

28/10/2026

With the sun out and slowly warming the day up yesterday it was time to give the truck a spruce up and the morning was spent with buckets of water and some wash and wax, before looking at anything else.

Once the wash was over I took a look at the two rear lockers that are going to need new floors as a minimum.

Once the floors were out, it was time to inspect the supports and whilst the near side were corroded, they can be salvaged with a good clean and some additional small braces.

The off side though was in far worse condition with at least half of the supports missing or badly corroded, which meant replacement would be required.

The floor supports are a folded extension of the side and back walls originally, so I decided the only option left to me was to replace this with some aluminium angle, and rivet this in place.

The offside locker is now ready to be sanded back and then primed before the new floor pan is made and riveted in place.

The near side will hopefully be dealt with on my next visit.

19/10/2026

As I'm not able to get to the Aeropark until late in the week I decided to have a look at the search light I had brought home recently, and assess its condition.

At some point in its previous ownership the lense protector had been separated from the rim and someone had decided to paint it in grey primer to cover up the damage to the main body.

First up was to clean the lense rim and protector so they could be rejoined, and this showed that the search light was originally brass.

Once the two parts have been set aside after getting them rejoined, I had a look at the main body, and again this was also brass, but during cleaning I found evidence that it had previously been painted signal red, which points to why it had been primered.

So now I have a conundrum, do I clean, polish and lacquer the lamp in its original brass, or do I prep and paint it signal red?

Let me have some thoughts please, I know my preference but am happy with either solution.

15/10/2026

This week has been a little quiet on the tender, with some of the smaller jobs getting completed on Tuesday and first thing today.

There has been a little development though, and after discussing things with the hanger team, we set too moving the engine exhibits around to free up space to drag the tender out from the shadows of the hanger at last.

This probably won't be her final place but at least she is now fully accessable to the public.

10/10/2026

Now the video

Address

East Midlands Aeropark
Castle Donington

Website

facebook.com

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Bedford MK8 RAF Crash Tender posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.