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1914 Dennis Lorry


BenHawkins

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On ‎8‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 10:35 PM, Richard Farrant said:

My guess is that this has been placed there while working on the engine so as not to damage the core. I do the same with corrogated cardboard as it is easy for a spanner to slip.

Yes, the idea was to protect the core. I can't decide if I should paint it black and leave it permanently in place in case anything goes wrong with the fan mounting.

Anyway, the fan is now back in place.

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The selector gate is now painted and in place; all gears can be selected but I still need to fettle one of the floor board blocks and refit it before we can have another go at taking it for a drive. Without that block the main removable floor panel could slide over and interfere with the gear lever.

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We put the bonnet back into position so with the exception of the seat back and windscreen (oh, and the registration number) it looks like the factory photo.

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I cut the leather for the seat back so that it was two inches wider in both dimensions. That meant I could fold one inch over around the perimeter and hold it down for a day or so. It then wanted to hold its shape; getting it wet may have helped with this but I did not bother as around then ends I was not sure if I wanted a permanent crease.

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I then pinned the long edges in place with upholstery nails, using a nylon headed hammer.

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When folding the short edges I cut some of the excess leather away to get a tidier finish.

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I cut some steel strips, drilled, countersunk, blasted and started to paint them. These will screw to the backrest to it can be fixed to the back of the cab.

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I need to follow the same procedure to make the seat cushions. Now I can select all the gears I can make sure the cushions will miss the gear lever.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 8:16 PM, Old Bill said:

A hammer and pliers on the kitchen table? You'll be in the dog house!

Steve ;)

It helped that I was off to Denmark for a week and then we had a two week holiday! Time to forget about such things, but I was chastised for using the "house scissors".

Rust and swarf in the house still seem to be unforgivable.

The holiday did include some work related to this lorry, I gave a presentation on this project to the Dennis Society and also attended the Beaulieu Autojumble. This meant we had to do the jumble on Sunday so obviously there is less stuff there but you have slightly more bargaining power. We negotiated a bargain on this headlamp which appears to be identical to the one in the photo that turned up recently.

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In addition to a few dents and a missing cap it has these cracks around the rim by the catch. I am not sure how to go about fixing these.

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We also collected some more belting in case we need it.

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Although we had some other commitments we were able to play lorries for some of this weekend. The lorry started easily and we could drive it out of the garage and shunt it around the yard using 1st and reverse.

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We had fitted the seat back but still need to finish the base cushions. 

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We made some minor adjustments to the brakes and clutch but after taking it to the end of the drive and reversing back into the yard (the mirrors are just about sufficient for this) the engine came to a stop.

I lifted the needle on the carburettor; it took a while to overflow but I went ahead and started it again. It was happy to idle for about a minute before it stopped again. At this point I decided it was time to remove the filter bowl and discovered a substantial amount of black particulate.

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We cleared it out and started the engine again to give us another few minutes of shunting around the yard before we had no fuel again. This time the flow to the filter was also down to a dribble so I removed the pipe and put a 3.5mm drill bit through the hole in the tap on the bottom of the tank to clear some crud from that and regain a gush of fuel.

The brass tank had looked clean inside before I fitted it but I could only see as far as the baffles so there may have been quite a lot of dirt in the end sections that was not water soluble. I expect several months of exposure to petrol in warm weather loosened it and driving around has worked it all free.

I decided to empty the tank; passing all the fuel through a coffee filter.

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As we were running out of time we put the filtered fuel back in the tank, started it up again, reversed it back into the garage. However, there was once again some particulate matter in the filter so I think it will take a few goes to get a clean supply of fuel. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have purchased a more appropriate petrol filter funnel but we are currently having some building work done so the vehicles have been blocked in by pallets of bricks and a skip so have not been able to attempt another test drive.

There has been little progress as a result but I have done a few tasks towards the seat cushions. After cutting two layers of horse hair I stitched them together and cut some hessian to wrap them.

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Then stitched the hessian around the horse hair.

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Marked out two rectangles to suit the cushion on the leather and cut them out.

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I have folded the hem around the first rectangle and weighted it down. I had to leave enough space to lay out dinner. Hopefully I will pin the leather to the base one evening this week. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

We have been working through the list of tasks, many are not worth photos. The second seat base cushion was made in the same way and looks quite nice in place; I might need to screw a couple of battens in place to prevent them from moving around.

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The windscreen brackets have been in the press another few times to get the shape right. We then bolted them in place and offered up the windscreen.

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I was then able to drill through the pilot holes to mark up the positions for six coach bolts.

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After drilling and filing it all looks like the factory photo.

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We then took it all off again so we could blast and prime the bolts. It has just stopped raining but the light is fading so a test drive will have to wait for another day!

 

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On ‎10‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 9:39 PM, David Herbert said:

Looks great but if it rains, any rain stopped by the windscreen runs down it onto your feet ! I am glad things have moved on !

David

There is far more rain protection than was typical for 1914 but certainly room for improvement.

The fixings for the windscreen and canvas supports were blasted and painted this week so we managed to make some more progress with fitting those.

As the weather was very good this weekend we decided to have another go at driving around. We took it for several trips out on the road with only one unscheduled stop where we had to clear some water and debris from the filter bowl. Overall I think we covered a little over three miles. 

We did a fair bit of tinkering with the Claudel Hobson carburettor; the Aster engine is half the power of the White and Poppe originally fitted to this chassis and it does show out on the road. It is fast when it gets up to speed in 4th (over 25mph) but does take a while to get there.

From a standing start we were unable to climb the 1:6 gradient of the local canal bridge, but on a positive note the handbrake had no trouble holding it on the slope. We tried changing the carburettor jet from 120 to 130 (purchased at Beaulieu) but I thought the performance on the level was worse so I did not attempt the bridge again!

Once we were done for the day we adjusted up the handbrake and but it back in the garage. Today we have drained the fuel out again but jacked one side up to get a bit more out the tank and removed the additional drain plug on the bottom of the tank releasing a little move sludge and water.

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Quite a successful first road run but certainly still improvements to be made.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

We have taken a few more trips and can get further between stops for clearing the fuel filter each time. Next time it is convenient we will attempt the canal bridge again and see if it is any better now the fuel is cleaner.

In case that is not successful I have been considering swapping the Claudel Hobson carb that came with the engine for a Zenith. The Claudel is a simple single jet carb; the one fitted is a 22mm but this size refers to the bore of the throttle barrel; the Zenith size is the bore into which the choke tube is fitted. There is a lot of documentation available for the Zenith carbs; for example this gives the suggested fitment of carburettor, choke tube and jets.

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For the 75mm bore engine the 26mm carb with 16mm choke tube is recommended. However this carburettor is quite a lot smaller than my inlet manifold; mechanically a 36mm would be the correct fit for the flange but a 30 could be fitted with an adaptor.

I have borrowed a box full of Zenith carburettors but none are in a serviceable condition. There is a 30mm carb in the box and I have given it a clean, purchased the suggested jets (I don't make everything) and made the suggested 16mm choke tube. There is another part to make for the slow running device.

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And finally for this week a testimonial.

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  • 1 month later...

Sorry for the lack of updates. This has mainly been due to concentrating on other projects such as clearing some space in the garage and workshop so we can move on to the next projects. I have flushed the same couple of gallons of petrol through the system on numerous occasions and the level of particulates has greatly reduced.

We have bought ourselves a Christmas present (one of the reasons we needed to tidy). It is a 1913 Morris car and said to have been laid up from WWI until 1970 (when restored) and had occasional use since. I can't imagine any were used in WWI so we have little excuse for posting it!

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The Morris is a bit of a distraction but I am trying to maintain some progress on the Dennis. We had another day of driving it around as the weather was good and there was no salt on the roads.

 

After running around for a while we emptied the petrol filter bowl into a jam jar. The one on the left is new clean petrol and on the right shows particulates and a little water. No stoppages today which is a definite improvement but I think I will continue to flush the contaminated fuel through a filter each week and burn all this brown fuel off before putting fresh fuel in.IMG_5012s.thumb.jpg.3db9ca882aea8e9c99657e12c7097672.jpg

 

I have been making the covers for the door pockets. Starting with the leather off cuts from the seat cushions I used a cardboard template to mark out the leather and started to stitch the edges.

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After stitching the whole way around I treated them with some leather balm.IMG_4926s.thumb.jpg.5b533e096edec4cec2c8efe05d820cda.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

We have continued to tinker over the past month despite the cold conditions. Another job off the list was fitting the door pocket covers.

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We had some friends over a couple of weeks ago and they helped us fit a ceiling in the garage. This should reduce the risk of anything from the loft space falling on the vehicles and now I have added some insulation it is also possible to get it several degrees hotter than outside. This was useful when sewing up the gaiter for the rear universal joint as it had to be sewn in-situ. I need to trim the leather at the front and find some more appropriate pipe clips.

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We used up all of the first batch of petrol. Draining it out the tank several times and passing it through a filter collected plenty of sediment but by the time we were down to the last gallon it was quite a brown colour. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/14/2018 at 10:35 PM, Richard Farrant said:

My guess is that this has been placed there while working on the engine so as not to damage the core. I do the same with corrogated cardboard as it is easy for a spanner to slip.

I learnt the hard way after putting a screwdriver through a rebuilt rad on my  bus, had to go cap in hand back to the repair shop and get it soldered up and re pressure tested.

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  • 1 month later...

We decided the London to Brighton run was too optimistic for 2019. Clayton hill has a 13.6% maximum gradient and we were unable to get up the 17% gradient nearest our house.

There have been lots of things to concentrate on so we have been catching up on other projects and making preparations for future projects.

Some progress has been made on the Dennis though, the universal joint gaiter has nicer looking clamps.

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I got fed up with starting handle blisters from the split wooden sleeve so have turned up a new one in brass. Generally both this and the Morris car are starting first time (and I sometimes remember to put on a glove) so I have been blister free for several months.

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And we have added a crude choke return spring. A couple of the previously unexplained stops turn out to have been the choke being sucked closed; once the engine stopped the flap would drop open again so it was difficult to spot the cause until the occasion where we managed to keep the engine going long enough to spot it.

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This weekend we have probably driven another ten miles or so, starting with a simple circuit locally with many of my visiting relatives taking short rides. We still can't manage the 17% incline from a standing start but with the improved reliability we took a drive into the town up an incline of around 11% with no trouble at all.

We still have fine silt coming out in the petrol filter but there is not enough to be a problem now if we clean it out every ten miles. I imagine this service interval will increase as we use it more. The Claudel Hobson has a 1.1mm jet so is fairly immune to fine particulates but the Zenith I have rebuilt has a much smaller orifice in the slow running device and may be more susceptible to blockages so we will persist with the Claudel until the fuel is coming through a little cleaner.

One of the Zenith carbs I found had the float weights retained with small nails; these had rusted solid in into the weights and it was impossible to extract them. I was not is a rush to recover these components so we immersed them in a solution of Aluminium Ammonium Sulphate for around four months; there was no damage to any of the brass and just a small amount of black sediment to remove from the holes. Thought this trick might be useful to other people with ferrous parts rusted into brass as drilling out is rarely satisfactory.  

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