Eddie - Good to hear you managed to save the Service Info literature from the bins. We'd probably weep if we knew what was thrown out. I managed to score some stuff from a country IH dealer here, after he sold his dealership.
He said when Westrac were under poor management in the late 1980's, and they closed a number of country branches, he found the local Cat blokes up at the rubbish dump, dumping boxes and boxes of literature galore.
When he asked what they were doing, they said they just had instructions to dump everything that was in the branch, because it was being closed down, and they wanted the property clean, so they could sell it ..

He managed to officially redirect a lot of stuff to himself, by telling Westrac he had IH's with Cat engines in them (which was true) .. but the basis of his decision, was that he was just appalled at the waste of useful info, and had to try and arrest it. He said a substantial amount had already been buried, before he found out (accidentally) what was happening.

Yes, the professional bindings of a serious number of copies make it hard to scan them. I often take a (digital) pic of a page, if it's too hard to scan .. then load the pic into the computer.

Glad to hear you got onside with DVA. I know that feeling. They wanted more info from me - so I gave them a 48 page submission .. with a heap of pics such as you saw on the ACME post.
Coupled with a very good RAAF woman advocate from the RSL, who walked me through the 'Veterans Entitlements Act -1986' (a minefield if ever there was one), we got DVA onside .. but only after they took 18 months to come to a decision to classify me as TPI.
Like so many Govt Depts, I think they either want you to give up or die. Too many good blokes have done both, whereas they deserved better from DVA. Some of the stories the advocate told me, about blokes who were more than entitled to TPI, but who went about their application the wrong way, and were rejected, would make you spew.

Hi Ozdozer,
Amen to both of our dealings with DVA. You are right I was never any good at essays etc. at school but I am sure all the hundreds of reports I wrote as a serviceman helped me thru. I was also lucky the Good Lady Fiancee, now Wife, kept all the letters I wrote home of our daily works, I could then place myself at incidents I did'nt write about. At the last, going to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, they settled the day before the hearing. Battling the Historians ,I also submitted many pages of photos of both my own and from the sites you have put up here, and copies of the mentioned letters. They had the Vung Tau quarry in the wrong place. Photos of the bridge job really fixed it, they claimed it never happened and that 1 Field FE's not Planties would have done the job. Also found a witness, who was part of our team there, in Albany, after all these years. A Work collegue's cousin did himself in at the DVA office here, bad business that.

As an apprentice from my earliest days I was always getting kicked in the butt for digging stuff out of the bins, never detered me, the thirst for knowledge was too great, Yellow fluid flows in the veins!. Eventually some people realised and stuff used to appear on my tool trolley.
Any way weve hijacked this thread I think so enough for now.
Regards
Eddie B.

Hats off to all the vets everywhere in the U.S.,but also back to the thread. If the problem is the ring land alone, does anybody install Perfect Circle ring groove inserts anymore? They used to work pretty good in gas engines. Just another idea for whatever it's worth.

Jack