Great War truck

A good friend observed that Steves driving style on the FWD was quite different to driving the Dennis. On the FWD he is hanging on for grim death fighting the steering, while on the Dennis it is a much more relaxed approach. Here is another film clip (this time of the FWD) followed by a still. Perhaps you can see a difference? Coming back to the rally field on the Tuesday the poor Dennis was entirely on its own. It looked incredibly lonely.

That was taken a few years ago. here is how it looks now: Now, the questions is, do you have any photos of the other vehicles that were in that auction?

Hopefully this will work OK. I have posted video clips to photobucket. By clicking on the photos you should get to see the film. I arrived first at the rallyfield and having negotiated the muddy entrance got into place to tow the vehicles out when they got stuck. Steve drove the Dennis at a good pace through the mud and it slid and bounced through with out any problems at all. In fact it was rather exciting and i was very disappointed that i hadnt filmed it. The two Autocars then drove through with no problem at all which i did film. The rally field is on a hill and with the rain was quite slippery as you will see here. Luckily we drove along the hill for a bit and then tried again on some fresh grass: On the Tuesday we collected the lorry and having a now empty field found our way through the mud with no problem at all: Then back on the road the Dennis was soon off again at a good pace.

After a further search, the Impeller casting was found on a back shelf, where it had been safely tucked away several years ago. As and when time permits, it can be machined up ready to fit. The photographs show it along side the cracked original.

Had half an hour to spare so quickly made up the six, 5/16" BSW replacement studs for the water pump - just to keep the momentum going!

It is the two days Honiton Hill Rally next Sunday and Monday and we plan to drive all four trucks there on Sunday morning. Both Steve and Tim joined Tony, this weekend to get some of the preparatory work for the Rally completed before hand - the main job was to get the Dennis out of the shed and re-erect the canvas - a bit of a job. The longitudinal beams to take the canvas over the back were only held in place with temporary bolts for the "Brighton" - we ran out of time to make the proper brackets to hold them - but Steve has mainly completed these now and we were able to fit most of them today. There are still six remaining to fit to the inside of the curved sections of the bows but there is still the curve to bend in the these bracket to follow the curve in the bow. For the moment, they are held in place with temporary bolts but we hope and plan to remedy this next Saturday before we set off on Sunday. If any of our HMVF friends are at the Rally, then please make yourselves known to us!

Looking great! if you cant get the pictures up e-mail them to me and i will put them up for you. Tim

The Dennis still isn't quite finished and Steve is carrying on with odds and ends. They tend to be things which need doing to the lorry and only limited items can be done remotely so progress is a bit slow. Nearly there now. Steve has made up a nice bronze plug to replace the radiator drain tap. It will do until we can make up a new tank with the correct thread. He has also made up some new rods for the advance linkage to improve the angles of operation. Hopefully, this will reduce the lost motion and allow the timing to be fully advanced next time we take it out. Regular readers may recall that on the way to Brighton, the half-shaft started to work its way out and punched the badge out of the hub cap. Diane Carney made up some replacement badges for us and Steve has fitted one. To prevent the problem from recurring, he has also made up a collar to sit behind the wheel and pick up in the splines thus stopping the axial movement of the shaft. We are having a get-together in Devon next weekend to get ready for Honiton Hill Rally on the bank holiday. Hopefully, we can do some more to the hood frames as these are also not quite complete. Once they are up, though, the lorry will have to live outside again.

Yertiz!

Tony has had another look for the Water Pump Impeller - but still no luck! However, he did find the two Thorny fans that we acquired some years ago for this restoration - one original but slightly damaged complete with the Thornycroft Part No. cast in it (came from Mike Jones, found at an Autojumble. Mike is always keeping his eyes open for us) and the replica from Ron Turner who restored two J's some years ago. Both have the fixing holes already drilled in them and they both fit snugly to the drive plate from the water pump!

Tony took the two iron castings for sand blasting - and got the sound one primed.

The water pump is finally apart! If the shaft was originally salvageable - despite its heavy rusting, it no longer is as the threaded end has taken a bit of a beating in getting it apart. That is not a problem as it will be a simple turning and threading exercise with a couple of keyways to cut to make a new one but we do like to keep original parts where we can. The third and fourth photos in this series show the broken main casting - I wonder if it was broken previously when someone was trying to get the pump apart? This series of three pictures show the broken shroud. The bit of 1/4" bar protruding into this is now clearly visible - it is solid and not a pipe but I still cannot work out what it is for. Perhaps Richard P can throw some light on this? Both broken castings now need to go to the Pattern Making Department in Leicester so that patterns can be made from them for new castings! The first two pictures show the Impeller - Tony had a quick look for the spare that we have in stock but cannot readily find it. That can wait until the whole team is here at the end of the month when all the trucks will be out and when we can get to the shelves at the back of the shed! The last picture shows the inside of the main casting which bolts on to the engine - the casting is sound but will want a little attention to clean it up!

Tony is back from holiday and couldnt resist picking up the Water Pump again to see if he could finish taking it apart. The body of the pump consists of two iron castings with one faced up to the other. They are held together by long 5/16" Whit studs screwed into the back casting which is the part of the pump that actually bolts to the engine. There are clearance holes in the in the other (front) casting so that this casting can go down over the studs. The aluminium shroud also goes onto these studs and nuts then go on the studs to hold the three parts together. He tried earlier to get the pulley loosened on the shaft as this must slide down the shaft to come off with the shroud but it is stuck tight and not easy to get at to free it. So he decided to tackle the job from the other side by removing the studs so that the body can be taken apart in the hope then that the pulley can be removed on its shaft from that approach. The studs were well rusted in but persistence with the blow torch and Plus Gas eventually did the trick. Two of the studs are stubborn and he left them to soak in Plus Gas - and if needs be, will put the blow torch on them again. Separation of the two iron castings did not allow the shaft and pulley to be pulled through from the rear, as the pulley is larger in diameter after all than the centre hole in the casting. So the next job is to get the impeller off so that the shaft can be pulled forward to come off the front casting. That will need a good wire brushing as I cannot see how it is fixed to the shaft. There is a cross hole in the pulley "boss" which looks as it was meant for a Taper Pin but there is not one there. Interesting that the threads on the Thorny are "Wit" whilst the Dennis was all "BSF".

Fantastic. Tell us more. Red for petrol, black for the others? Tim

The Cantigny one is the same as the 1st Division museum. It is also one that was pulled out of the woods a few years ago, possibly from Wyoming. It has a Pierce Arrow rad on it which makes it stick out. |I cant find a decent image of it. However if you follow this link and click on the Liberty a poor picture of the Cantigny Liberty pops up. http://www.firstdivisionmuseum.org/museum/exhibits/vehicles/libertytruck.aspx

Le May car museum Liberty. Nice and shiny. Wyman, Wyoming http://www.craigdailypress.com/news/2009/jun/20/liberty_parttime_job/ This is the Oregon NG museum one and restored by Steve Mcgeorge This is the one recently advertised on E Bay. I am sure tehre are many more in the USA that we dont know about.

Ok. Some more Libertys. Heartland military museum in Lexington Oregon http://community.webshots.com/photo/fullsize/2799904430101215344VAGxzD Jo Bohannon does not own a Liberty. This photo with his name on it is the Hays Liberty (assuming they have not sold it). Jo says we can use the photo for non profit making purposes, so here it is: This is the Iowa NG Liberty. Fort Eustis of course: The Air Force museum one:

Thats a great help. I think we should stick with Libertys for the time being and try and identify the ones on this link. Here is the one at the USMC museum (Quantico?). Didnt know they had a second one which looks very sad, but is in fact very restorable - although the lack of wheels might be an issue. I am sure these both came from Hayes.

Saw yesterday a UAZ (i think) in Oxford. Looking very nice with Russian Airborne markings. Strange, as it would have been something i would have walked past without much thought at W&P, but in the slow lane as i crawled past it became very interesting indeed.

Some of those ones may have already been listed. The ex Furrer ones have been sold and scattered, so may feature in amongst the others. we just have to work out which ones. As they were all totally original it might not be too hard, just time consuming. Tim

A couple of weeks ago, Steve went down to Devon and managed to tidy up a few odds and ends as we have seen. However, his main reason for the visit was to have a look at the ignition and see if we could resolve the starting difficulties. At the end of our one and only run so far, we thought that the lorry felt a little underpowered and wondered whether the ignition was a bit retarded. Steve therefore started off by carefully turning the engine slowly past TDC and checking when the points opened using a 'Rizla' cigarette paper caught between them. The manual states that the points should open exactly on TDC when the magneto is fully retarded and this proved to be the case. However, closer inspection of the advance linkage showed that the geometry is not ideal and that the bell crank is almost a straight line with the actuating rod at full advance. You can see this in the bottom RH corner of the photo This gives quite a lot of backlash preventing full advance from being reached. He will have a look at this the next time he visits as those last few degrees might make a noticeable difference. In the mean time, we have been investigating the use of impulse starters. Steve has been very kindly loaned a Simms magneto which is set up for an impulse start and a Simms impulse starter. The mechanism is installed within the shroud and is operated by the catch that you can see inside. The casing of the mechanism is connected to the trigger plate by a clock type spring. In operation, the vernier coupling with all of the teeth is rotated by the engine turning the magneto until one of the trigger arms reaches the top and falls onto the catch where it is held, stopping the drive. The casing continues to rotate, winding the spring, until the flat on its side reaches the trigger arm, tipping it and releasing the mechanism. The spring then unwinds giving the magneto a sharp flick producing a good spark in spite of the low engine speed. This is an ideal solution but unfortunately, when Steve took a closer look at our magneto, he found that there is no provision to mount the device. This is a bit of a blow so we can't do anything for the time being. However, our spare mag does have the requisite screw holes so once that is back from the magneto specialist, we will be able to take another look and see about fitting something. The difficulty now is that we don't have a Simms impulse starter of our own so Steve will have to make one up. The bulk of it doesn't faze him but he is unsure how to make the spring. The main wind is no problem but there are eyes rolled in the ends only 1/8" diameter. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to how to do that? It may be a professional job or even wait until one turns up but we do hate to be beaten!

OK. Thats a good start with the Liberty's. The reason why so many survive in the US is probably down to a Furrer who bought a films prop collection which included 9 Liberty's. Here are some of them after the mseum closed and as they were bought by Gordon Clare and Hayes Otoupalik. The one at Cantigny had a Pierce Arrow rad and is currently being restored. It might be the same one that was offered for sale in Wyoming some years ago. There are two more on an old airbase in Texas. They have been saved for restoration. I wont publish the photos yet until i have the say so from Jon who took them. he posts here occasionally. This is the one in Canada which was recently offered for sale: This is Adrian Wingets one in Virginia: There are many in France. I would think at least 30. I have pictures of a few of these, but the photographer did not want them published. Interestingly in the letters pages of the French magazine Charge Utile an undisovered Liberty turns up nearly every issue. Here is one of Oliviers. I think he has three now.

I picked this up from Nigel at W&P yesterday: The tail lamps are a bit less common. The one on the Dennis is just post war, while this one appears to be a wartime one. I will tidy this one up for the Thornycroft i think - but we dont need it in a hurry. Good to meet you at last Nigel. I also bought at W&P a couple of plain 2 gallon petrol tins which are very similar to the correct WW1 pattern that we need for the Thorny. Although looking a little shabby, both are shiny on the inside and no sign of rot, so ideal really.

Did W&P as a day trip yesterday and had a very good day out with plenty of warm sunny weather. I felt there were not many new and unusual vehicles this year (unless they are only going down today), although I thought the Austin portee was fabulous as was Tobin’s Staghound which looked (and sounded) wonderful. Cabriolet version? Not seen a bolster for a long time. There used to be lots around. I liked this one very much Met up with several HMVF’s and had a long chat with Nigel. Sadly, I was in such a rush to get around I couldn’t spend as long as I would have liked with everyone. A good day out all the same.