BenHawkins

As you all know, I have been searching for proof of the original registration number for this van. At the start of the week I was sent a photo it whilst in operation with Ernest Shentall who purchased it at the start of 1914. It clearly shows the registration number R.42; unfortunately I have not been able to get permission from the copyright holder to reproduce it here (I am still working on it). It is also unfortunate that the registration number is currently on a 2008 Bentley so I would not be able to claim it anyway. Back in 1977 it was on a Volvo. Hopefully I should get an age related number soon but it is still great to have filled in another bit of the history. My friend Richard visited and we had a practice at silver soldering a large washer to a bit of 2.5" diameter steel. It did not go quite to plan; the washer got much too hot before we managed to heat the bulk of the bar and I think this destroyed the easyflo flux. A perfect mix of propane and air should give a flame temperature of 1980 Celsius and a thermocouple confirmed the all the propane nozzle I have exceed 1100 Celsius (the maximum temperature my k type thermocouple is meant to be exposed to) But, because I burnt the flux the steel was not protected and I could only manage to melt a lump of solder onto the surface rather than capillary it into the joint. When it comes to the propshaft I will obviously have to put it across the hearth so it is possible to have more control of what is heated and at least the joints have a thermal mass closer to that of the tube. More practice; time to look in the metal skip for some more scrap!

I made a new (thicker) strike plate for the passenger door. I have shaped the piece of ash to go around the gear selector gate and cut the two pieces of mahogany that will support the pedal boards. And of course some more painting has been done.

The weather was fairly good on Friday morning so we decided to solder the zinc sheet together for the roof. As mentioned previously it would ideally be 1220mm wide but all the zinc mills seem to be limited to 1100mm (I have been to see one in Duisburg and can confirm their limit is 1100mm). The Thornycroft was used as a temporary workbench to cut two lengths from the roll of zinc. We scrubbed the zinc clean with an abrasive pad, applied flux and overlapped the two sheets by 5/8". Some fireboard (left over from building the house) was used under the zinc sheet to prevent burning the OSB sheet. The two sheets were clamped down and the soldering was carried out with a 500W iron of Chinese supply; I doubt this means any European regulations but was sensibly priced and was certainly up to the job. Another scrub with some thinners to remove the flux and it looks reasonably respectable; hopefully it will not be too difficult to fit to the shape of the roof!

I have cut these two pieces of ash to support the floor just inside the door. I have fitted the mortice locks to both doors along with the escutcheon plate on the passenger door (there is no handle on the drivers side as it is basically impossible to get out from that side). I had to pack out the strike plate on the passenger door so I have ordered some more brass so I can make a thicker one. The weather was good today so it was mostly spent flatting back paintwork and applying more paint. I did however sand back the sides and back of the cab to be level with the roof boards so I could give the roof another coat of paint. Hopefully we will soon be able to fit the zinc sheet.

I took the propshaft to work so I could use the Bridgeport milling machine as it is a more sensible size for cross drilling for the 3/8" pins. I started by scribing a line along the complete length, then lined the chuck axis up with the vice jaw before moving over by half the diameter of the tube and locked that axis off. I rotated the tube in the vice until a pointer in the chuck was coincident with the scribed line. My level was then used to align the ball. I drilled and reamed the first hole so I could drive the pin into it to prevent further movement of the ball. The procedure was repeated for the second drive pin and the same thing done at the other end to secure the jaw. The next step will be to silver solder both joints into the tube. The whole assembly is around 18kg; I have never silver soldered anything this massive so I am trying to make sure all my heating equipment is fully functional. I blasted and painted the tailpipe for the exhaust and have bolted it to the silencer. No news from the DVLA yet but I am looking forward to having a number to paint on that plate!

I have bent some copper pipe to link the petrol filter to the carburettor and silver soldered the nipples in place that I made previously. I found this handle in an autojumble several years ago; I have given it a clean and made a small brass ring to support it where it passes through the door.

One door does not get provided with a handle on the outside. The windscreen is still on the to-do list. It has been another week of painting and completing small jobs. One of these was to trim the boards to line the tool compartment under the seat. Another was refitting the carburettor. The cab side was screwed in place and the beading was finished on the drivers door.

I try to be quite selective about which projects I take on; they tend to be as early and rare as possible and usually everyone else has turned them down. This will mainly be a collecting project for the foreseeable future; if the correct engine or gearbox turns up then it progresses to a viable project. With the Dennis projects we have been very lucky with parts and many of the drawings are available at the Surrey History Centre. I have not visited the Thornycroft archives yet. Lots more research to do.

It has spent several decades in museum stores but with nobody particularly interested in it. Before that it appears to have been a farm trailer. oldclassiccar.co.uk have given me permission to reproduce these photos here: I believe this is chassis number 1629, a BT originally purchased by Chas Wells and another one impressed by the War Office. The photo showing the detail of the controls is a great resource as well.

I then scrubbed the aluminium and gave it a coat of etch primer. And some undercoat before hanging the door. It even closes properly but I need to put a little more thought into the latch as I am not sure that what I have will work to my satisfaction. So I proceeded to fit a leather strap to prevent the door from hitting the mudguard if allowed to swing in the wind. I don't know if the door pocket is a bit too posh for a lorry but I thought it would have been useful for the drivers to keep their paperwork (or sandwiches/sat nav) safe. We then fitted the second door but the cab side is not quite ready to fit and there is still quite a lot of work to do on the beading.

The registration application has been slightly delayed but should hopefully sort itself out without too many problems. I have had it insured for driving under the chassis number for several months but I can see how the insurance companies would struggle to insure without a chassis number. It has been a week of completing small jobs from the list such as tightening the engine bolts and fitting split pins; non of which are photogenic. I have painted the Tufnol tube and threaded through some spark plug leads. I will fit it properly one evening. Most of the weekend has been spent on the doors; the first job was chiselling out the doors and door posts to take the hinges. There was plenty of scribing, sawing, filing and drilling required to fit the beading.

Thanks for your kind words, Short production run, very incomplete vehicles seem to have become my speciality; I must learn to choose more carefully.

The Thornycroft register have kindly given me permission to reproduce this body builders drawing of the pre-WWI BT. It shows how narrow the vehicle is and matches the dimensions of my chassis exactly with the exception of the wheels. This shows 35" overall diameter but mine is fitted with 90mm for 686mm (27") press on band tyres; quite a strange size and even as new I don't believe there would have been enough rubber on them to reach 35" diameter. The drawing clearly shows how the trunnion mounts are outboard of the chassis rails. The front hubcaps are more like those fitted to the chain drive R & S types fitted with the M2 engine.

Tony, it is good to know a bit more about the radiator it seems we all find parts for each other. In fact one of the best things about the veteran lorry hobby is how helpful everybody is; I am sure Team Gosling are a driving force behind that! I have taken a few more photos of the chassis. There is a variety of paint on the chassis; some red some greyish. The dumb irons appear to have been cast by JAC but I don't know which foundry this was. There is a pattern number as well but that is not legible. The rear spring front hangers have no markings. And I have not spotted any on the brake drums either. The worm drive back axle is interesting, made up in three layers rather than the pot-type that seemed to become standard on later vehicles. When dismantling, cleaning and blasting commences I am sure some more numbers will appear that are currently obscured by a century of abuse.

Thanks for the information. That document is 14 pages long; certainly not a full census of Kempton park. I will see if I can get permission to pass it on and find out where it came from originally.

If anyone can find it, you can! The T4 engine is a small four cylinder monoblock, 3-1/2" bore 5-1/2" stroke. This is the only photo I have found so far. The gearbox is a smaller version of that used in the X-Type but with only three gears. The chassis is 3' wide so the gearbox should be about the same.

So, every so often I have been having a little look at further materials to see if I can find any more information. "Diary of a nursing sister on the western front 1914-1915" states "They have a Carter- Paterson motor- van for the Military mail-cart at the M.P.O., and two Tommies sit by a packing-case with a slit in the lid for the letter-box.". I guess many of these fairly lightweight vans would have been used for this sort of purpose. I also found an Automobile Association engineers report of war office disposals inspected on 11th Feb 1919. This was sent to me some years ago by my good friend Mick. It is certainly not a comprehensive list of all disposals so I was surprised to see how many were small Thornycroft vehicles. 1603, 1605, 1611, 1620, 1622, 1623, 1659, 1673 and 1676 were all CP&Co T4 engine chassis. They are marked up as type AT here but type BT in the Hampshire transcript of the Thornycroft production register. I was interested to see that a reasonable number made it to the end of the war with civilian registrations but they may have been used on the home front. Would the registration numbers give any information on what they were used for during the war?

I think the 40 hours of driving might be a loony sized adventure even if the likely ETA for a registration number (and therefore first test drive) wasn't a week before!

I was not completely happy with the Rolls Royce water pump so I have purchased this "new old stock" belt drive coolant pump. The angle iron arch has been painted and refitted. And finally for this week I have cut the inner door skins. I decided to include a door pocket. We have withdrawn our Brighton run application; I was struggling to find anyone who wanted to transport it down to London on a bank holiday weekend and I seem to be adding jobs to the list as quickly as I am crossing them off. New target is 4th June.

The second cover for the magneto was snapped into two pieces so I glued it together and had the foundry cast another one from it. Then it was just a case of machining, polishing and fitting it. The high tension cables were carried across the top of the engine in a red vulcanised fibre tube. The original has one end broken off, is bent and quite fragile. I could not find anyone still manufacturing such tube so I resorted to the nearest match; Tufnol Kite (a thermoset resin composite). This is quite easy to machine so I replicated the 3/8" holes and slot. I will give it a coat of red oxide primer so it is closer to the original colour.

I blasted the exhaust pipe. And then gave it a coat of high temperature paint. And then we could bolt it into position.

The first nipple was then silver soldered to the end of the pipe. And I remembered to fit both nuts the correct way around before silver soldering the nipple on the other end of the pipe! The pipe was then given a clean. Before the pipe was fitted to the filter.

I drilled the new false frame to fit the Enots petrol filter-tap. And then bent some 5/16 copper pipe to link the tank to the filter. Before cleaning the ends and assembling them with silver solder flux.

I am making an effort to fit things to the lorry so I no longer fall over them! As the weather was OK and I could roll it out of the garage I decided to try a first fitting of the angle arch on the back of the cab. I had left the vertical steel straps too long so I marked where they needed cutting, levered them away from the paintwork and trimmed them with the angle grinder. I then marked out the holes, drilled the angle arch and fitted it centred on the cab. And then marked where I needed to cut the ends off before removing it for trimming and further painting.

I have started making the doors; the first stage was to cut some lengths of 1-3/4" ash to length and cut half lap joints at each end. They were screwed together and fixed to a piece of plywood. After scribing the angle I needed for the back edge of the door I planed it fairly close to that line. And took it back to the line with a belt sander. I don't know if the doors were originally skinned with ply but as it is in the Pheil, Stedall and Son coachbuilders ironmongery catalogue of ca. 1905 I thought it would be the easy solution. The alternative would have been 1/4" or 5/16" mahogany.