With the engine and gearbox now firmly located within the chassis, we decided that we would like to give the lorry a “face” in the form of attaching a Radiator! We do not have a Radiator and are faced with making one.
The construction of a Radiator has been in our planning over the years and when talking to our friends at the Hampshire County Museum Service and at Carlton Colville some time ago we found that they also wanted new Radiators for their “J’s” – as in the case of Carlton Colville, the original one on their “Thorny” had become badly corroded and was leaking – really beyond repair. So the three of us jointly commissioned patterns to be made for the four cast aluminium, parts of the Radiator – top and bottom tanks and the two side supports, sharing the costs. The three sets were all cast at the same time. Machining the bolting faces of these four castings was beyond the capabilities of our modestly sized machinery and they were faced off for us at the same time as the other castings were done. So we have those four castings in stock – ready to go!
We shall make the core ourselves – but this will be an expensive job. We shall need about 20,000 Gills to be thread on the tubes – these are available commercially and cost about £30 per thousand – you work out the cost of those! On top of those, there will be brass for the top and bottom of the core and also the copper tubes. So the total cost of the core is certainly going to be in excess of a thousand pounds!
Anyhow, to start the ball rolling, Steve has completed sketches of the Radiator Filler Neck and the Screw Top for the Axminster Division to get cracking on. The dimensions and shapes of these were taken from original Thorny J fittings some time ago.
We have always kept our eyes open for Bronze Bar Ends at Autojumbles or Traction Engine Rally Sales Stalls and fortuitously find now that we have enough of these in the right size in stock to make these bits without having to buy more!
The bolting flange was parted off from a piece of 3” diameter, hollow bronze bar and then faced off and bored out in the Myford Lathe. It has purposely been left over thick, as part of the final machining will take it down to its final thickness of just 3/16 of an inch.