WW1 Dennis truck find

[Great War truck]

Steve and I travelled down to Devon for a working weekend - the objective was to get the framework for the bodywork drilled and bolted together and mounted on the chassis. Tony had painted these Ash parts since the team were all last together as they are far easier to paint before they are assembled.

 

We are quite limited for space and the only satisfactory way for us to drill the planks in the room available was to take the Bench Drill from the workshop to the Garage floor where we had sufficient space to accommodate the planks for that purpose, That all worked quite satisfactorily.

 

Whilst me and Tony were drilling the Ash parts, Steve was keen to try out his newly home made Forge and practice with it by making a Poker! He reckons on using it for more serious purposes later on with Dennis body parts!

 

 

 

 

 

We were again very fortunate to have the original drawing and specification for the bodywork - we were surprised to find that originally, oak was specified for the longitudinals, ash for the cross members and maple for the side planks.

 

The frame consists of two main longitudinals, but a strip 7/8" thick but the same width to sit under them against the chassis which has clearance holes drilled in them to avoid protruding rivet heads and some bolt heads. These are made of ash. After these strips were drilled with the avoiding holes, they were finally screwed to the underside of the longitudinals.

 

The six ash cross members and the longitudinals were all drilled for bolts to hold them together but were deeply countersunk to accommodate bolt heads on one and nuts on the other.

 

 

 

 

 

[Great War truck]

The next day - back to it. Final assembly of all the frame bits after making sure that everything fitted and it was all square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday after noon, friend Mark arrived with the soft wood for the floor and sides - all nicely finished and ready for painting and assembly. We laid out the floor planks on the chassis first of all to find that they were perfectly dimensioned, then removed them and laid some polythene dust sheets on the chassis before replacing the floor planks on it, but up side down so that they could be painted that way.

 

The usual problems over lack of space - we have had to store some of the soft wood for the sides on the back of the FWD!

 

Looking ahead to the next urgent job then that will be the folding canvas cab roof. This will be a little out of our hands as we shall have to rely on the Professionals to fit the canvas roof to the frame - but we shall have to provide the frame. This will be made of ash - cut very thin and laminated around a former. Mark again will kindly cut the ash into strips for us. As the fitting of the canvas is out of our hands, we deem it important to get the frame completed and handed over as soon as possible if we want to ensure that it will be ready for the "Brighton" in May.

 

 

 

 

[Great War truck]

Tony has mainly been spending his "Dennis time" painting the underside of the floor boards - so far, two coats of aluminium primer, two coats of undercoat and one topcoat of matt green - with just one more topcoat to go on those. In between, he has made up the "Drivers Hood Park Brackets". I mentioned before that we had to give the Drivers Hood some priority so that the Canvas Suppliers could have it early enough to complete it before the "Brighton" in May.

 

The Brackets were just a fabrication job with some old bits of steel taken from stock or from the scrap pile. Two wings nuts are required and these were again in stock - bought at an Autojumble at some time or other as they "might come in handy one day".

 

The plate parts of the job were just cut, drilled and filed to shape - the two "pins" were made from 1" bar, but back to back so that there was enough material to hold them by when the threads were cut. The 1/2" BSF threads were mainly screw-cut in the lathe but finished with a die. (the picture 62 shows one thread completed whilst the other thread still has to have the die run over it to complete it).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two pins were separated, machined to length and a 3/8" BSF thread cut on the end which goes into the backplate. They were then screwed into the backplates but also silver soldered to ensure that they would not come out.

[Great War truck]

Steve has been pressing on with the tailboard hinges ready for the Christmas bodybuilding blitz. The steel was cut off using Fathers bandsaw and then Steve welded the eyes onto the end of some flat bar.

 

 

 

 

 

After building up the space between the eye and the strip with weld, Steve says that his welding is getting a lot better. It still looks like pigeon poo however!

 

 

The weld was ground back, the holes drilled and the ends were radiused.

 

 

 

 

After some filler and rubbing back, they have now been primed ready for installation.

 

 

 

He has also made the fixed part of the hinges which were probably castings originally.

 

 

 

We must now make the various uprights for the body but as Father has the steel, these will have to wait until Boxing Day. Let's hope it isn't snowing!

[marmon]

I can't help but comment on the welding... Given the spectacularly high standard of all the other work and looking at the wimpy little ground lead on the welder I would suggest you need a better welding set, even a pigeon could get a better result with a decent set just by pecking it in the general direction

[Old Bill]

I can't help but comment on the welding... Given the spectacularly high standard of all the other work and looking at the wimpy little ground lead on the welder I would suggest you need a better welding set, even a pigeon could get a better result with a decent set just by pecking it in the general direction

 

It has always disappointed me that I have never mastered stick welding as I can do most of the things that we want. Some proper lessons would probably help, as would a lot more practice. I was using 3mm rods at 120A or thereabouts. The set is rated to 180A and the cables are those which came with it. Would you replace the lot or could I get away with just heavier cables?

 

Steve

[Asciidv]

It has always disappointed me that I have never mastered stick welding as I can do most of the things that we want. Some proper lessons would probably help, as would a lot more practice. I was using 3mm rods at 120A or thereabouts. The set is rated to 180A and the cables are those which came with it. Would you replace the lot or could I get away with just heavier cables?

 

Steve

 

Trish just remarked that it was maybe better that Steve gave up welding and took up gardening, the latter seeming to need some attention too! However if you were going to consider a new welding set, then you would have to look at the DC/AC TIG inverter sets that you can now buy. You can still stick weld with them, but the TIG mode can turn you into an artist. For our hobby they cannot be beaten.

 

Barry.

[Minesweeper]

Trish just remarked that it was maybe better that Steve gave up welding and took up gardening, the latter seeming to need some attention too! However if you were going to consider a new welding set, then you would have to look at the DC/AC TIG inverter sets that you can now buy. You can still stick weld with them, but the TIG mode can turn you into an artist. For our hobby they cannot be beaten.

 

Barry.

 

Wonderful how ladies' minds seem to be on the same wavelength - Steve's mother said exactly the same thing as Trish!

 

Tony

[marmon]

Hi Steve,

 

It looks like you are using a Buzz box- sort of Hobbyist type welder quite high on its rated output or the power supply to the welder is not steady enough, what tends to happen is to begin with as you try and strike the arc the amps just drop which makes it difficult to strike up then as you run your weld the amps are up and down depending on how precise you keep your rod distance and tend to drop as the coil heats up, which all in all makes it far more difficult than it should be, you sort of chase your own tail if you get my drift.

 

My suggestion if you mostly weld is heavy mild steel get on to ebay and find yourself a big heavy old arc welder, Oxford or similar, they use to make a 230V oil filled version that was just brilliant, I doubt it will cost much as TIG is in vogue at the moment but there really is nothing better for the job you were doing.

 

Like I said it just should not be possible to be that good with all your other engineering & fabrication skills and that dodgy with the welding sometimes good workmen can blame the tools.

 

I'll bet that the first time you use it your weld will be just about perfect, then you can practice your overhead welding...

 

All the best and thanks for putting the restoration on here I've spent hours going through it from start to finish. What an amazing job you are all doing.

 

Q

[Minesweeper]

Many thanks for that super and helpful reply, Q! Steve will not have picked it up yet as he will be at work - or still trying to get there! No doubt he will come back to you later in the day.

 

You may have picked up from previous postings that we both do a bit of Model Engineering as well - and in our Club Shed, there is a very heavy, oil-filled Oxford Welder that is unused - the guys who do weld are a bit put off by it because of its weight in moving it around. We shall undoubtedly need to weld over the Christmas/New Year break and I will bring the thing home to see how we get on with it - and will of course, let you know!

 

So many thanks once again!

 

Tony

[Old Bill]

Hi Quentin.

 

Many thanks for all of that. You are quite right in that my welder is very much a home use type although not the cheapest end of the market. However, I will have a go with the Oxford welder and see how I get on. I normally manage to do these things by having a bit of a read and then just getting stuck in. It doesn't seem to have worked this time and I am very grateful for your expert knowledge. It is really nice to have an explanation of what is going on.

 

I'm so pleased that you are enjoying the story. I has been great to be able to share it and to receive so much help from you and all of our friends here. I will let you know how I get on over the break but I don't think I am quite ready for overhead welding yet!

 

Many thanks for your thoughts.

 

Steve :tup::

[marmon]

Hi Steve,

 

Glad to be of a little help, make sure you plug the Oxford into a good power supply and I'm sure you will have a slap yourself on the forehead moment when you see how perfect your first weld will be! Just watch your backs getting the Oxford into the van...

[Great War truck]

You may recall that we had two steering wheels cast from the pattern - one for ourselves and one for Barry. The castings were good, but naturally carried the imprint of the sand on them from the casting process. This has to be cleaned off and the steering wheels had to be finished highly polished.

 

Barry got right on with his and used a Black and Decker Power file to do the job which made a quick and very satisfactory indent into the process which can be quite time consuming - and also a bit dirty! His initial results are shown in two of these pictures. This was a tool that we were not familiar with but seeing Barry's excellent results, we bought one.

 

 

 

 

 

The first job was to put a 16mm hole through the centre of it, ready to take the Broach that Steve is making up to for the final square hole to be made for it to fit the steering column. Fortunately the Colchester Student will take 18" in the gap and we have an 18" Face Plate to which the Steering Wheel was fixed. Straight forward operation to put the 16mm hole in it and to turn the back of the boss to finished dimensions. The dishing of the wheel that way was in our favour.

 

On our equipment, it was not possible to turn the steering wheel around on the faceplate to face off the other side - as because of the dishing, it would foul the bed - so the only way to face that off was to hold it in the Milling Machine - and do it that way.

 

But another problem there as the depth of the throat on the Milling Machine is only 9", so we could only machine (by fly-cutting) half of the boss at a time. The Steering wheel then had to be turned through 180 degrees in the milling machine, set up again so that the other part could be machined to match.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2010 by Great War truck

[Great War truck]

These three pictures just show the fly-cutting process.

 

 

 

 

So after that machining process, it was time to get to work with the Black and Decker Power File to clean it up - good initial inroads were made into cleaning off the rough surface around the outside - when with an almighty bang and a flash, the Power File gave up! An initial examination of it could not reveal any fault - the fuse was changed without any success, so it needs a more serious examination to find out what has happened!

 

The finish shown on the wheel in these three photos was mainly completed by hand using waterproof abrasive paper. There is a long way to go!

 

 

 

[holte999]

Amazing. Keep up the good work, I cant believe how much time, effort and money is put into restoring these vehicles. Well done.

[wrward]

I have to say, Fantastic work. I have worked on railway restorations in the past but this is one of the best "chicken coop" rescues I have ever seen.:thanx:

 

I have also had abysmal luck with Black and Decker Power tools over the past couple of decades. They seem to let the magic blue smoke out all too easily.

 

Dynabrade makes an industrial duty air powered as well as an electric version of that sander.

Edited December 4, 2010 by wrward

[Minesweeper]

Dynabrade makes an industrial duty air powered as well as an electric version of that sander.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

Tony

Edited December 5, 2010 by Marmite!!
quote tags added

[Asciidv]

"when with an almighty bang and a flash, the Power File gave up!"

 

I feel rather guilty for recommending the B and D Power File to Tony now. However I have only had 2 in twenty years with my last one now being 5 years old. Just unlucky perhaps.

 

I am sure the Dynabrade Power File will be more robust but it is around 8 times the cost at anywhere between £250 and £350 on ebay!

 

Barry.

[Minesweeper]

Quote - I feel rather guilty for recommending the B and D Power File to Tony now. However I have only had 2 in twenty years with my last one now being 5 years old. Just unlucky perhaps.

 

Oh, don't feel guilty, Barry - just my bad luck! Am always glad to have help and advice!

 

Tony

 

 

I

[Alex van de Wetering]

Excellent work again guys...both on the woodwork and the steering wheel.

 

The powerfile is a handy tool...I use it a lot to clean up welds (yes...pigeon poo) and or to grind in hard to reach area's. Haven't had any terminal disasters with the Powerfile yet, but did have to change the belt numurous times after working to hard on grinding sharp edges....with the belt splitting and slapping all over the place as a result.

 

Alex

[Great War truck]

Whilst Steve has been concentrating on drawing up the various body components recently, he has found time to have a go at repairing the throttle pedal. We don't have a complete set of throttle linkage but a variety of bits and pieces that we can use, modify or copy.

 

 

The best throttle pedal that we have has unfortunately worn right through so Steve set about fixing it.

 

 

The first job was to file the area around the hole flat.

 

 

He then cut a piece of steel and silver soldered it on using a propane torch.

 

 

 

Finally, this was dressed off with a file and the the whole pedal wire brushed to shift the rust.

 

 

It is rather pitted but will be serviceable and is, of course, another original part.

[marmon]

Hello Steve,

 

This might be of interest, ref welding.

 

[Old Bill]

Hello Steve,

 

This might be of interest, ref welding.

 

 

Thanks for that. What an excellent video! I hadn't thought of looking there and have learned a lot already. Now I must go and check to see what sort of rods I actually have!

 

Steve :-)

[Great War truck]

Steve has been toolmaking this weekend and has made the broach to cut the square hole in the steering wheel. After centring a piece of silver steel, he set it up in the mill to machine it square. As usual he was stretching the mill to the limit and had to remove the power feed to give enough clearance for the dividing head.

 

 

He then put it back in the lathe and machined it round again! This time it had a taper of 0.008" per inch running from 16mm dia at one end to 17mm square at the other.

 

 

Then he cut 48 teeth along its length.

 

 

Next, it was hardened using a propane torch and bucket of water after which it was tempered back yellow.

 

 

Unfortunately for us, our press is not big enough to accommodate the wheel so the broach cannot be pushed through the centre hole but must, instead, be pulled. Steve has machined it with a 10mm thread on the end so that a piece of studding can be attached. He has prepared a piece of tube (formerly a piece of the steering column!) with a thrust race so that a nut can be used to draw it through. Once Father has finished polishing the wheel, we will have a go.

 

[Cel]

Looks great, another masterpiece finished! It is incredible how much work is needed for a 'simple' square hole.

Thanks, Marcel