Scrunt & Farthing

3 minutes ago, lynx42 Rick Cove said:

I was recently at the Australian National Vehicle Museum in Birdwood SA to study the ultra rare Summit car on display and noticed the good way to stop sticky fingers from removing the radiator caps and mascot from the cars.  A fine stainless steel wire crimped around the cap/mascot and affixed under the bonnet.  I thought it was a great idea. 

 

Now that is a neat trick.  I had noodled on how to protect the cap, not only from the light fingered but also it winding itself off.  An old family friend, Colin Durham, who some may know as the owner of the ex-Jersey MT Guy Arab, always removed the radiator cap and he had sat on his fireplace for years.  I spent many evenings as a lad in his front room admiring that.

Thanks for the idea.

I do Doug.  The vendor sent me a lovely email via ebay, after my purchase, telling me it was a from a Leyland in Ashbourne in Derbyshire.  His late grandfather-in-law drove the lorry and kept this as a memento.  It has been in the family ever since.  I am enormously pleased to buy it, know the history and eventually fit it to my lorry.   I did not think i would ever find one.  I know I shall have to make a lot of the lorry, copying parts etc.  But this is so rare I had pretty much concluded that I would make a simple screw cap.

Regular readers of this thread will recall my grandmother’s indifference to her relative being knocked over and fatally injured by an omnibus.  My Grandmother had a great many indifferences, notably my grandfather, foreigners, her neighbours, and anyone who sought to help her.  And most particularly cocky children.  I was categorised such.  

On our infrequent visits to my grandmother, we would listen patiently to a list of new enemies, new injustices and petty prejudices.    I would while away my time studying her collection of ornaments and wondering how a woman filled with so much bile and malcontent for the world around her could find pleasure in a figurine of a kitten that looked so unlike its prototype that I wondered if the sculptor had ever actually seen a kitten.  And so my grandmother’s collection of ornamental tat was curated.  The tackier and gaudier the better.  

And then this popped up on ebay.  A radiator cap so magnificent (except the price) that suddenly I could see the attraction of shiny ornaments.  I only now need to screw a lorry to it and I will be done. 

In the meantime I shall place it on my mantelpiece.   I might have been a cocky child but I have every right to be having secured such a rare and hard to find lorry part. Hurrah for ornaments.  Hurrah for ebay!

1 hour ago, Citroman said:

I worked with an overhead crane once to take the contraweight from an big toyota forklift. The bl.... thing almost dropped from the ceiling, maybe the lumb of cast iron was a bit to much 😀

And this was in an locomotive shed from the local coalmine.

If I recall correctly Chatham Dockyard had a travelling crane jump and skew itself across its rails (in yaw) when a sling gave way.  The recoil on the sudden loss of load caused the traveller to jump!  Foden7536 on here, may recall the circumstances better than I have relayed.  Chatham Dockyard crane drivers were not known for their speed, but it is said you could see the drivers trousers glowing with the speed with which he came down the ladder!

Deleted, as obviously of no interest to OP.

It is interesting, Tomo, that your J Type has a throttle pedal as diminutive as my SQ.  On mine, the Clutch and Brake pedals are huge.  And yet the throttle (or accelerating pedal in Leyland vernacular) is no larger than 2 1/2 by 1 1/4.   I don't know, but I guess at the time, the hand throttle was used more.  Perhaps more ofay pre WW2 lorry chaps can enlighten us.

I don't believe there was, Mammoth (having just checked Graces Guide).    I have had other TT catalogues over the years and I don't recall the imagery on the covers.  My later catalogues are plain type (albeit with the same stock!).

A distant family member, whose precise relationship to me I don't recall, was fatally injured in the 1930s by being struck by a Motor Omnibus.  It was of no great consequence, as he was, as my Grandmother ruefully described him, "a reader of cheap fiction".   Such affectations were of great consequence in those days.

There is one thing I am certain about though.  I would like to think that the fatal Omnibus carried fittings made or sold by Thomas Tingley, Coach and Motor Body Builders, of Walworth, London.  

This Thomas Tingley catalogue popped up on ebay last week for four quid.  I present it here (in PDF form), for other pre-WWII bus and lorry botherers to mull over and wish they could still buy components at these prices.  Thos. Tingley were well known for infrequent catalogue updates.  I estimate they seemed to think every fifty years or so was more than enough, and so much of the contents dates from a period before its 1935 cover date.

I think even with my Grandmother's distaste for cheap books she would acknowledge that four pounds was a bargain, and a nice way to remember ancient Omnibuses, if not distant, dead relatives.

I also include a couple, of what the trashier-press call "teaser pictures".   It was simpler times when a Gentleman had separate brushes for Mudguard and Hub!

Tingley Catalogue.pdf

Looks very smart.  David must be very pleased with it.  

Dave

Hi Tomo,  I have read your post a couple of times.  What I think I read is that you need pre-war Whit nuts.  If that is right HSS stock them, here:

https://www.heritagesteamsupplies.co.uk/pipe-fittings-studs-nuts-bolts/pre-post-war-whitworth-nuts.html

If I got it wrong, apologies and I wish you a merry Christmas.

S&F (Dave)

del

On 11/30/2020 at 7:07 AM, Rootes75 said:

That really does look a good source of spares. Even the smallest items are invaluable to a restoration project.

How did the tractor dealer come about it?

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Looks good, Andy.  It is encouraging to see you putting these parts back, and shiny and free moving too.  I spent the day stripping almost identical rusted parts with the oxy-propane torch and dreaming of the day it will be in paint.  Inspiration indeed.

Dave

Nice crank.  Has it had some work done?

Now that looks good, Andy.  I have been contemplating such roof type things myself recently, having been invaded by squirrels and similar roof  munchers.   I was interested by your comments on the real condensation problem caused by plain tin sheets.  I keep wondering how bad the problem is, but I think your experience answers my question.   Plus, you had a rare opportunity to give the crane traveller a  bit of a service  by the look of it.  I note there is no emoji for crane envy, so this must suffice 😍

Dave,  I understand from the Authorities at the scrap bus works, that Matalan are having a winter sale of trousers and untergarments.  Having pressed your crank to 60tons psig I would imagine that their offerings would be timely.  I shall send you the details and highly recommend the plaid riding breeches.

That is an interesting strap.  It is worthy of examination.  how much was it expected to be tensioned?

3 hours ago, Citroman said:

put the holed lid of a plastic bucket on the opening to prevent dirt getting in...

I think that is a smart idea,  little bits of dirt/or grit can do a lot damage.   

.  

I would be rightfully, "proper chuffed" with that.   You have put some hours into it and it looks superb.  I need to up my game from: "hoping one pops up on ebay" to something more constructive.

That is very clever.  Well done.

51 minutes ago, Zero-Five-Two said:

I still do the numbers in my head though

It is funny the mnemonics one remembers.  I still have "brakes-legs-leads and clip" firmly planted in my brain for uncoupling a trailer and that was over twenty years ago I had that drummed into me to repeat like a parrot.

7 minutes ago, Richard Farrant said:

Hi Anton,

I suspect you are not slowing down enough before changing down. A common mistake if you are used to synchro boxes. It is a case of matching the speed of the gears and timing, takes practice but very satisfying when you master it. Keep at it but no need to force the gears in. Might be worth finding someone who is used to crash boxes to try your vehicle himself then teach you.

regards

Richard

I would agree with this.  I remember with embarrassment buying an ERF tractor unit, with a Fuller Eaton gearbox.  I drove away from the sellers' yard, and could not find one gear.   I spent the whole 50 mile journey in about two gears, using the range change switch in ways the designers never imagined.

Convinced I had bought a lemon I asked my mate Dodger (experienced in matters of crash gear boxes) to drive it and give a second opinion to my death sentence on the box.  He drove it faultlessly up and down the box.  Yikes.

It took some getting used to it, but I reckoned that a gear change was best effected very slowly.  Perhaps fitting in a few pages of a good book between changes.

Now they are in nice condition, well done.