Great War truck

Barry has very kindly arranged the wire cutting of the spline and the square in the two Couplers and has sent us these photos of them. They will be with us very shortly and we look forward to good session of assembling all of the bits that are now ready for the Dennis over the Easter break when all the team will be back in Devon.

OK. All of the photos should be back now. I have upgraded my account so i can upload an unlimited amount of photos each Month. Enjoy!

Because i have posted so many photos I have now exceeded my Monthly photobucket bandwidth. As a result most of the photos have been disabled. They should be back by the end of the Month (or so they tell me). Sorry, but there we go. Tim

Gordon in the driving seat and Hayes standing alongside. A well travelled FWD. Photo courtesy of Hayes.

Yes, it is one of the two Furrer FWD's. One went to hayes, the other to Gordon Clare who eventually sold it to Hayes. I have a photo of them (Gordon and Hayes) together with that FWD somewhere. Tim

That looks like Hayes Otoupalik's old FWD. Montana plates too!

An excellent film. There is also a Hallford visible in the background.

Well that is easy on the eye. What sort of gas generator is that on the repair truck? Solar?

Then, the pump cover was offered up to the pump body and tightened down. The front elbow was then bolted to the cover. The top elbow was then placed into position on top of the pump but this has not yet been drilled to take its fixing studs from the top flange of the pump - and neither has this yet had its studs fitted. It may be necessary to machine a slope on the bolting face of the angle to ensure that it properly lines up with the corresponding pipe fitting on top of the engine as there is a copper pipe joing the two and not a rubber pipe - so it will be essential that they come into line. The whole unit weighs in at about 30lbs. The impeller is turning freely and smoothly within the pump! Job done! Next job - to fit it to the engine.

The trial assembly of the Water Pump now successfully completed and this sequence of photographs will show the procedure. Firstly, the impeller was be fitted to the shaft. Keyways have been machined but no key fitted at this preliminary trial. A bronze or copper washer needs to be made up to go under the nut. The impeller and shaft then dropped into the pump body. Next, the gland and gland nut were placed over the shaft and tightened. Then the mounting was placed over the shaft, gland and gland nut and the mounting was bolted to the pump body.

Excellent. Another one. Anybody got any more? Tim

Hi Bob Very excited to hear about your WW1 trucks. Have you got any photos that you could post as i would love to see them. Thanks Tim

Drilled and tapped the holes 1/4" BSF in the Pump Body today to hold the cover - using the previously drilled pilot holes in the cover as guides. The pilot holes were finally opened up to clearance size for the bolts. With all the main parts now made up, we are ready for a trial assembly of the whole unit.

Productive day today. Tony drilled and tapped the Pump Body 1/4"BSP for the Drainage Tap. Straight forward and no problem. Had to hold the Pump Body on the cross slide of the lathe again to drill it because of insufficient clearance in the Milling Machine and Drill. Time now to attach the Pump Body to the Pump mount - the parts were first of all offered up to the lorry so that he locate the Body on the Mount so that the top pipe flange would be horizontal - or parallel with the line of the engine.. Also an opportunity to see how the pipe to the bottom of the radiator and to the inlet manifold would line up. Holes now drilled into the pump body to hold to the mounting - lined up from the previously drilled pilot holes in the mounting - then opened up and tapped 3/8"BSF - using previously made stainless steel bolts to fix the two together. Pilot holes in the mounting then opened up for clearance of the 3/8" bolts The job is now mainly done - perhaps tomorrow before the Rugby starts, he will locate the cover where we want it and drill through from pilot holes already placed in that to fix the cover to the body. As you can imagine, the whole unit is quite a weight - hope the engine is man enough to hold it!

A little bit more done little today - Tony finished off the flange to take the Inlet Manifold water pipe. The pictures of the method didn't come out very well but the four attached should be self explanatory. The two bits of brass were silver soldered together and a 15mm hole drilled in the assembly afterwards to take standard 15mm copper pipe.

Another productive day. Tony marked out and drilled the three fixing holes in the Elbow first of all and then used those to locate the corresponding holes on the cover. Drilled out the holes in the cover and tapped them 3/8"BSF. Opened up the holes in the Elbow for clearance for the Stainless Steel Bolts made earlier and married the Elbow and the cover together. He then put the three holes in the small bolting face of the Elbow for the smaller copper pipe to the Inlet Manifold - the throat on the Milling Machine and on the Pillar Drill are not big enough to take the Elbow in a vertical position - so he set it up on the Cross-slide of the lathe and drilled the three holes that way - the two smaller holes to be tapped out to 1/4"BSF and the larger hole to 1/2" for the water passage. There were obviously more problems around that area of the flange with porosity and also possibly inclusions as the noise the drill was making and the vibrations coming from it during the operation were significant, but he seems to have drilled all of those out and fortunately was left with clean surfaces. The little flange to take the copper pipe is still to be finished - it has to have a 7/8" boss on it into which the copper pipe is soldered and that will be tomorrow's job. Getting near the end of this Pump construction and final assembly of all the components now very shortly..

An FWD indeed. A great picture. One of these FWD ballon winchs survived in the hands of the Imperial war Museum, but it was sadly lost in a fire. A great shame. Tim

Tony made up the embryo flange which will hold the smaller water pipe to the elbow - just so that he could see where the holes are going to come on the elbow - bearing in mind the porosity that we have found. No problem then apparent that could not be overcome. Drilled out the porosity in the small flange - diameter 1/2" - turned a plug from cast gun metal and silver soldered it into the hole. Cleaned up the dirtiness on the elbow after the brazing - then reset the elbow in the milling machine and machined the surface back again. The elbow now ready for further work to complete it. We hope that the bulk of the porosity has now been taken out and it will be interesting to see if any more appears when the three holes are drilled into that small flange!

Tony set this up in the Milling Machine so that he could fly-cut the big bolting face. This all straight forward with no problems. Then bolted the casting down to two "parallels" so that he could then machine the smaller bolting face which will take the hot water pipe to the Inlet Manifold Jacket. Then the "jinx" on this casting returns following Steve's headaches with the pattern - and porosity has reappeared in this face when it was being machined. It is as deep as 3/8". However, I do not think that this is terminal in that this "hole" can be filled - it does not go right through - and we think that it can be avoided when the "bolt-down" studs are fitted. Nevertheless, disappointing again!

Great picture. it is a WW1 Peerless TC4 with a 3" AA gun on the back. Kept in stock after the war and deployed again in Britain to defend against German bombers in WW2. Do you know what year it was taken? Tim

My copy of the book came today. There were different pictures of the White correctly described elsewhere, so i wonder why he got that one wrong.

Quite agree with that. Anyway, i look forward to reading his book, if nothing else but to look at the photos. Tim

He does some very nice models. The owner has posted on HMVF before which is how he made contact with me for plans and photos of the Dennis.

Very interesting photos. I have seen one Crossley photo with the antenna like that before, but i cant remember where i saw it. Possibly the Beaulie photo library. Tim

Many thanks. Excellent advice on the fan belt. I had not thought of that. Tim