Great War truck

Do you have a death wish? I saw a great photo a while ago of a bathroom being fitted. The wife wrote on the wall "Fit toilet here". When she got home she found he had actually screwed the toilet to the wall exactly there, three feet off the ground.

The roller looks like fun. Anybody know what type it is?

I bet that creates all sorts of strange flying challenges in the chinook. As a totally irrelevant observation, the lake is looking very low.

We are just returning our attention to the Water Pump so that we can get that finished – the attached photos of an “onion” is in fact a shroud designed to cover the drive pulley and drive belt for the pump – and it also contains a bearing to support the end of the water pump drive shaft. It was cast in aluminium and is very much showing signs of wear and age with a great deal of its flange broken or rotted away. We had hoped that it might be possible to remove the remainder of the broken flange – make a new flange and weld that to the main part of the “onion” – but a test weld on a part of the flange that would be removed in any case reveals that the original aluminium is very contaminated – and probably was not very pure when the item was made some 95 years ago - so it will not weld. A disappointment as it now means more pattern making so that a completely new “onion” can be cast.

The next job would have been to re-fit both the cam shafts – but only one is ready to be fitted at the moment – you will re-call that we have to make a new Governor assembly and that has to be fitted to the Inlet cam shaft gear wheel before that one can go in. The two bearings on the cam shaft have to be precisely located in the engine as they are locked in position in their housings by special bolts inserted through the top of the crank case. There are socket-type holes in the bearings to take them. The pinion on the back of the crank shaft and the gear wheel on the crank shaft are both clearly marked with a “4” to make alignment easy for the fitter as these must coincide for correct timing. This really completes our objectives for the Christmas Break and now we must turn our attentions to making a new Governor, completing the Water Pump and making a pattern for the new pistons. And of course, painting! 7412 7421

So today, it was back to fitting the Crank Shaft Bearings – picking up where we left off yesterday. A bit of a tiresome job where they have to be “blued” – replaced, tested, taken out again and scraped if necessary and then repeated yet again and again until we are satisfied that they are “right” and that the shaft will revolve in them without any tightness or sloppiness. With the Crank Shaft successfully back in, the next job was to turn the engine around – right way up from its upside down position and this was just a repeat of the process that we used earlier to invert it.

To replace the crank shaft, the crank case had to be inverted – this was lifted off its stand using the chain pulley – dropped onto the ground – rolled over and lifted back on to the engine stand – but with cross timbers put in place to protect the studs. The crank shaft was then dropped onto a half of the shell bearings in the crank case which had been “blued” and then checked for an initial fit. This all went well – but the crank was in and out several times before we were satisfied with it! Little more was done this day and we plan to complete the installation tomorrow – together with one cam shaft – the second cam shaft requires a Governor to be fitted to it before that can be put in and of course, that is yet to be made!

Terry What a fascinating thread. Amazed to see those railway engines sitting in the woods! Anyway, we have reached the stage of re-assembling the engine – and the Crank Shaft must now go back in. We have two of these – one that came with the whole engine from New Zealand and the other from the “half” engine that we acquired some years ago. One Crank Shaft is in noticeably better condition than the other – but the timing pinion on that one has a broken tooth – so again it is a case of mix and match. These photos show the removal of the timing pinion from the rough Crank Shaft which will go on the sound shaft but at this stage, we were very concerned that the two holes for the taper pins in the two shafts and the slots for the two keys would not match up – which would have given us another problem. Interestingly, the taper pin knocked out of the rough shaft appears to be a home made job – with residual file marks from its manufacture still visible on it! However, there was nothing to worry about as the sound pinion came off cleanly – and the Taper Pin holes and the slots for the keys matched up beautifully. We did just put a taper pin reamer through the replacement pinion and the hole in the sound shaft to clean it up and take out any residual debris. As far as we can make out, there was at least a two years gap in the dates of the manufacture of the two engines and it is really quite amazing to see the fine precision in the machining of these items so that they are interchangeable. We were also able to us the other original taper pin again which was cross drilled at the thin end for a split pin! The nuts and bolts securing the fly wheel to the crank shaft also needed to be replaced at this stage.

And then it was just a case of pushing it right in, though we did use Loctite on this one – as although it was a good snug fit, it was not quite as tight as the first one. The liners in their final position stood a thou or two proud of the bottom of the block but would be dressed off later. And then the same process repeated with the first of the two cylinders in the second block. Loctited again. Dressing off with a file was straight forward and all the work on the blocks is just about completed. The next job this week will be turned to the Crank case and the fitting of the crank.

Today, we decided to fit the Cylinder Liners – it was a job that had been “earmarked” for the Christmas break! The first task was to clean off any sharp edges on the cylinder blocks so that the insertion of the liners would be unimpaired and to ensure that they would not catch on anything. The first liner was offered “upside down” to the block first of all for a trial fit of just the flange or lip, just to ensure that it would fit into the recess cut into the block for it when it was finally offered up in the final correct position – as it would have be very unpleasant if the flange did not fit into the recess in the block. The liner and the block had to be thoroughly cleaned and de-greased before final fitting. The first liner slid into the block fairly easily but it started to tighten up towards the end of its final positioning. It needed a good push to get it fully in and whilst it had been our intention to Loctite it in, we felt it unnecessary with this one as it was such a tight fit – and of course it would be held in position against the crank case in any case! And then it was the same process with the second one

When he got home, Steve made short work of getting the stubborn bearing off – an easy job using the Press So Steve brought the Shaft back with him to Devon on Christmas Eve – we have the replacement bearings in stock now – but the shaft will have to go back to Leicester so that the new bearings can be pressed on. The magneto coupling is mounted on the end of the shaft, using a pinch bolt. An interesting feature of the shaft is that the thread has been cut around the shaft in which the pinch bolt can engage – thus giving it a positive location but allowing the angle of the coupling to be adjusted to set the timing of the magneto. The thread on the shaft was a little corroded and was firstly cleaned with a wire brush and then a matching tap was used to clean it up using the coupling as a guide for it.

Please excuse my slow reponse in keeping you updated over the Christmas rebuild period. I have been having computer issues and am now using a borrowed machine and have lots of photos to upload which i will do in small chunks. Anyway, without further delay this is what has been going on. We wanted to do do just one job on Christmas Eve which should not have taken too much time and picked up the Magneto Drive Shaft from where we left off at the end of November. The two Bearings on it were “finished” – one was seized and the other was rattling so they had to be replaced. We only have one Press and that is in Leicester – but we managed to get one Bearing and its collar off here in Devon, just using the vice – but the other would not move – despite some heat treatment – so Steve took the shaft back to Leicester with him when he returned home so that it could be placed under his Press.

Breakdown! Seeing that there is a missing engine that is a severe breakdown.

It could be original. The USMC usually put their yellow markings on the side. If you google USMC jeep you will see some images of similar makings.

It seems likely that it was just a round detonating in the breech. Not too much damage to the chassis but probably didnt do the gun crew any good.

We knew that the Governor in the “whole” engine was in very poor condition – but took it out today to have a look at what was there. The original body castings had just about crumbled away but both came out very easily. The springs are “finished” but good enough to obtain measurements from them for replacements.

Thanks Rod Thats very interesting and a bit of a suprise. Is it possible that they were despatched for the use of companies which were involved in "urgent war work"? On the subject of Thornys i have copied across this picture which appeared on the Landships site taken from Wikimedia Commons who took it from Library of Congress. I have spent quite a lot of time searching on Library of Congress site and keep being suprised by what else turns up. described as a blown up German armoured car it is of course a Thorny AA truck. Lots of useful bits there:

I dont believe he has done anything apart from make up a few words to fit the message. If it is code how can you partially decode a message. I dont think we will ever know what was written.

Guess the film. Then watch the clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkEH9gfbBao Mind you, if you have got anything even slightly better to do then go and do that instead.

Do you have a front axle and wheels?

Tony has stripped out the broken bits of the Governor mechanism today – probably broken or severely cracked before we started to dismantle the engine! These five pictures show the first of the two. This is the other one – enough information on measurements here for a fabrication to be made up as a replacement.

The first of these three pictures again shows the front of the Governor assembly on the whole engine with the other two showing the rear of the assembly. The first two pictures here show the back of the cleaner of the two clearly and where the metal failures are. The third picture shows some of the “loose” bits after cleaning. Not quite sure at moment where the Bronze stirrup shape part fits in – it was floating around loose! It will be a fairly straight forward exercise to fabricate the broken aluminium castings in bronze instead of aluminium – assuming that there are no weight issues with this assembly. There are enough of the broken parts available to obtain correct dimensions for the replacements.

One of the next jobs coming up is going to be work on the Governor – the one on the complete engine is very heavily corroded and the castings are broken and it will need some significant attention to bring it back to life! The “Swivels” were cast in aluminium and they certainly have not stood the test of time. These three pictures show the remains of the Governor on the “half engine” – the engine that we obtained many years ago with the cylinder blocks missing. The Governor bits are significantly cleaner but the springs are missing and the “Swivels” were wired together. These castings although not nearly so heavily corroded are cracked or broken. These four pictures show the rear of the Governor assembly from the cleaner “half engine”. We were quite surprised to find that these little Swivel castings were made in aluminium which have not stood the test of time – but we guess that they were never designed to last for nearly 100 years in any case.

it is interesting to see that the Burma spitfires have now been "found" and that one of them will be shortly going on display in Birmingham. I thought they just think they know where they are buried and have seen a big blob on an underground radar. getting a little ahead of themselves arent they?

It might be a bit of a squeeze fitting them all in, but i am sure that is a risk you are willing to take.