Jump to content

Halley restoration


DAN THE STEAM

Recommended Posts

I would have thought that the worst failure mode would be if a piece came loose and caught a ring when it was part way out. We are talking about quite small pieces I assume, but still big enough to break a ring or to cause trouble if it got wedged between two rings beside the piston.

 

My feeling is that if the pits are smaller diameter than the width of a ring they will do no harm at all. If they are bigger than the width of a ring when measured along the bore, they will allow gas to blow past the ring, but still in quite a small way unless there are a great number at the same height up the bore. The other question is if there are enough of them close together that the remaining good bore is not enough to support the ring or will wear away so fast that the ring can drop into a hole, there would be a real likelyhood of breaking rings as they get caught on the edge of the hole.

 

Of course this engine is never going to be expected to do many miles or run at many RPM, and a little extra oil or petrol consumption just doesn't matter, so I think that the safe option is to use it as it is as long as there are not enough pits together to catch a ring on.

 

I have certainly seen modern engines that ran reasionably well with great gouges in the bore from broken rings or gudgeon pin circlips that had got loose. This will be nothing like as bad and I doubt will get much worse given the likely use that it will get. I have even seen an engine that was described as "running a bit rough" that turned out to have one piston totaly disapeared and the con rod smashed its way through the bore. The water in the oil was the trigger for investigations to start !

 

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Evenin Dan and everybody,

 

I have been in this position on a couple of early engine rebuilds, as long as you don't have any pits in line with a rusted-in ring set for instance, a few pit's cause very few performance and reliability problems and as has already been mentioned these engines run very low compression's and a little more oil around won't hurt, if you have one particularly poor cylinder think about boring that further and getting a piston to the next size but weighing the same, are you able to get a cylinder wall thickness test done for piece of mind ?

 

Keep up the good work.

 

 

Andy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I`v got a Lister SR1 with quite a bit of discolouration on the bore

 

it also had a broken ring....and there was a bit of rough where the gudgeon pin was....(sat in a farmers field for 20 odd years)

 

 

I just wiped it all out by hand with some 1000 grade & oil in a crosshatch pattern

 

 

discolouration is still there and there`s a bit of pitting where the rough was

 

 

 

but it'll live to fight another day

 

 

 

 

its all about how you feel it'll cope.....then just go with it...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 11 months later...
Hi Dan. It is a year since we had an update on this fascinating rebuild. What's new?

 

All the best Robert

 

I was talking to Dan on the phone yesterday and mentioned the above. Unfortunately Dan cannot get onto the internet much these days so I have now been delegated as Dan's honorary PR officer !

 

Last year Dan had to move his business at very short notice. There was very little choice of affordable industrial units but eventually a deal was done on one only just large enough for the actual money earning work, not the Halley too. All effort then had to go into the actual relocation of the machinery and stock and then trying to catch up with the backlog of work.

 

As a result the Halley has been safely hidden away but not forgotten. Dan has been making small parts and further researching how to rebuild the partial engine (believed to be a Continental) that is shown earlier in this thread. This will involve making conrods and other key parts from scratch so not a minor task. Obviously Dan would still very much like to find a correct Halley engine, in any condition, and also an original gearbox/transmission would be a huge help. There must be a dead Halley with trees growing through it somewhere !

 

I will happily forward any leads to Dan who I know has been very gratefull for the interest shown in this project from all over the world.

 

Dan will be back.....

 

David

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Hello all, sorry for the lack of progress reports, as David said, things this past year have been very "interesting" as a result truck progress has been minimal, but to all your delight I have some progress to update.

 

So with much ecitment I am happy to show and tell you all about it.

 

The truck has been away the past few weeks, at a friends place having the cab and woodwork done, I decided to delegate some of the tasks to help push the project forward, I have also been machining parts for the engine, and chassis.

 

Also with many many many thanks, I finally have a gearbox, this is from an Albion A10 and will do perfectly till I make the original, time and money being a massive factor

 

And finally, after one of our friends being a draftsman in his working carer, he drew up the steering gears and they are now being produced, so I am really looking forward to getting this fitted up and see if everything works out how I planed.

 

 

I am now pulling out all the stops and have a dead line to finish my truck, latest is first week in may 2k18, this is a tall order considering some obstacles at this end, but will do my very best to meet this.

 

Now time for the wall of photos, ENJOY :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and finally, the gearbox, this is/ was the largest missing part of my truck, everything else is now small stuff, well smaller.

 

Whwere does one get drawings of vintage vehicles? Have searched a lot of magazines and books of that era but found relatively little.

 

Bosun Al

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends on what you want, Al. The Dennis drawings survive in the Surrey Records Office in Woking. Some of the Thornycroft drawings are with the Hampshire County Council Museums Service and some with the British Commercial Vehicle Museum. For FWD drawings, I would start with the FWD Company in Clintonville. Lots of us have odd drawings of things we have collected so this forum is a pretty good place to start too!

 

The stuff is often out there. You just have to be persistent in looking for it!

 

Steve :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The stuff is often out there. You just have to be persistent in looking for it!

 

And if you can find an original, 3D scanning is not that expensive now.

 

You can scan a whole person for £199 and have a model made:

https://www.imakr.com/en/home/675-mini-you-the-ultimate-selfie.html#/size-8_inches

 

Scanning inanimate objects is a bit cheaper:

https://www.imakr.com/en/content/37-3d-scanning-sevice

 

For a few thousand you can buy your own scanner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It depends on what you want, Al. The Dennis drawings survive in the Surrey Records Office in Woking. Some of the Thornycroft drawings are with the Hampshire County Council Museums Service and some with the British Commercial Vehicle Museum. For FWD drawings, I would start with the FWD Company in Clintonville. Lots of us have odd drawings of things we have collected so this forum is a pretty good place to start too!

 

The stuff is often out there. You just have to be persistent in looking for it!

 

Steve :)

 

Some years ago I inquired to Milestones as to the range of archive material on Thornycroft and was told only of the production registers. Your comment here suggests you have located more. Can you tell me how extensive the drawings are and for what models.

Doug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know they have collected a load from the Commercial Vehicle Museum but I don't know precisly what. We had a visitor who had some for his T4 engine of 1912. We now have enough information from other sources so I have not been back to investigate.

 

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Hello all, so been starting to look more into engine and started to make parts to replace original parts and missing bits, plus also so other details for engine.

 

Have also started to strip down , inspect and clean gearbox.

 

One of my next jobs is to make a frame to hold the engine to allow me fit parts above and below.

 

I am hoping to fit the crank and cylinders so I can make a wood con rod, to check tolerances and final details before I make the pattern.

 

I have also machined the replacement water jacket covers for the cylinder tops and made up the bolts to hold it, so next pattern then is the water pipe to the header tank and side fittings to water pump.

 

Also, over the weekend I managed to borrow a masdive milling machine to skim the sump casting as it was twisted from having a crack welded up, so that is nearlly finished.

 

 

Also after a long time, the steering box is finished and fitted, everything works when the wheel is turned, so now a few small jobs to finish on that system.

 

I am hoping to have engine somewhere near running for end of January latest, whilst working on other parts to keep progress going else where.

 

Updates coming soon, peace and love (\,,/)

20170901_221044.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...