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WW1 Thornycroft restoration


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I guess it keeps the edge more homogenous, and so cracks and wrinkles are less sure where to start.

 

The spinning videos all seem to do a lot of edge trimming with a tool for the job, so it shouldn't be too hard to trim to perfect circles when mounted and "set on" the former.

my hands are doing OK thank you very much....

 

 

got some of that O`keefes stuff....seems to be helping...

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We are still pressing on with the front end as we really want to get the wheels on. As Steve has bored out the wheels, we need new bearings to suit. These are plain bronze bushes so Father started off by cutting two lumps from a £195- piece of bronze.

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He then put them up in the Colchester to bore them through including a chamfer to clear the radius on the stub axle.

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As the Myford has a better chuck, he mounted them with the jaws inside and a plug in the end supported by a centre before turning the outside.

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A quick check in the wheels, just to make sure and the two were passed to Steve to add the grease hole.

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The original bushes have a number of holes to trap and transfer the grease.

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Although their position is not critical, the holes could more easily be located with the use of a dividing head. Steve is very fortunate to possess such an item and soon set them up and drilled them through.

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That’s another job ticked off!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thinking a bit more about the track rod, the ball joints would benefit from hardening. The originals were not very hard but that might have been because the surface had corroded away. Anyway, I decided to case harden the new ball joints. First step is to heat them to a bright red using the propane torch.

 

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Sorry, you can't see the glow but I ran out of hands at that point! Once red, they were stood in a tin of case hardening compound, known as 'Kasenit'. This is a grey powder, very high in carbon. The carbon soaks into the surface of the steel locally converting it to a 'high carbon' steel which can be hardened. The balls were then re-heated to bright red before quenching in cold water.

 

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They look quite rough at this stage but a stiff wire brushing soon cleans them up

 

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Track rod next.

 

Steve (Trying to keep up with that Human Dynamo, Ben!)

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A little while back, Dad pulled out the track rods and the drag links for assessment. He had them sand blasted so that we could see what we had and they proved to be not very good.

 

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The drag links are very poor and are corroded to such an extent that the stell has gone in places leaving only the brazing material! We decided that the drag links cannot be saved and new ones are to be made.

 

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The un-bent track rod, we think will fight another day. However, the corrosion around the clamp is rather significant and needs attention.

 

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First job here was to drill out the pinch bolt and this was simply done in the milling vice using a slocumb drill to centre it.

 

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Then heat was applied before unscrewing the adjustable ball joint using a stillson wrench and a big mallet. It did not want to move!

 

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Examination of the spherical surfaces was not encouraging due to corrosion. However, we felt that we might just get them good enough by polishing them with a lap and then facing the castings to tighten them onto the ball ends.

 

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I have to say that I’m completely hooked on this thread and eagerly await every development as the restoration continues. I read every page of the Dennis Truck restoration and found it spellbinding. Your skills and attention to detail are amazing. Thank you for having the patience to maintain this thread and to show so much detail of the work that you’re doing as you do it.

 

Many congratulations to all involved.

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The female parts of the ball joints were all a bit poorly. However, I felt that we could probably get away with simply polishing them up and then tightening them to reduce the clearance. To that end, I turned up a simple lap out of a piece of ash with a spigot to go in the pistol drill.

 

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This was loaded with coarse valve grinding paste and run at low speed in the cavity taking care to keep the drill moving in random directions to prevent grooves from being cut.

 

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This worked reasonably well and gave enough surface for the balls to work against.

 

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This one was very bad but I think we might just get away with it. If not, we shall make some new ones!

 

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Then a joint was nipped up over a ball in the vice with a clock gauge set up against the end. It was shaken back and forth to estimate the clearance around the ball.

 

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This worked out to be about 0.015" so the cover was set up in the four-jaw and 0,012" removed leaving a little bit of movement but not too much.

 

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More help from our frends! Barry very kindly offerred to build up the clamp ring with weld, an offer gratefully accepted bearing in mind the quality of my welding!

 

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This took all morning which was much longer than I had anticipated. However, on dressing back, there were no inclusions and only a couple of places which needed a little filling.

 

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All ready for some paint! We will have the front wheels on very soon which will be a major step forward.

 

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One of the minor jobs that we have picked up from time to time, in between the more immediately important and major jobs was the recovery of the two “Brake Levers on the Compensating Sleeve”. The Hand Brake linkage was still in place on the chassis under the Shepherds Hut but was extremely rusty and mainly beyond recovery. We were optimistic that the Brake Levers were good enough to be used again if they could be recovered.

 

The compensating shaft consists of a length of 1 1/4” diameter steel tube through which is inserted a length of 1” diameter steel bar which runs across the chassis – the 1” bar is held in a casting at each end and the tube must turn on the bar when the brakes are applied or released. The tube and its inner shaft were both bent and rusty and there was no way of getting the inner shaft out of the tube – so it had to be cut.

 

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The levers and the remains of the tube which were still brazed together were sand blasted, just to clean them up and to make them nicer to handle. They were then placed in the Milling Machine and the remains of the tube were bored out.

 

We now have the two levers, original parts – although quite wasted but are deemed strong enough to be used again.

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