BenHawkins

I picked up the castings for the water jacket tops on Tuesday. There was just enough time to roughly skim the faces parallel on one of them. Also I welded some of the laser cut profiles together to make a bracket for the steering box. This will need a little more tidying up before I blast and paint it.

The piece of brass then fitted into the second tool. Then pressed again. So fairly successful. I didn't achieve a 90 degree bend in the P so the legs do not quite line up, the simple solution to this would be to cut the brass blanks slightly shorter or trim them to line up after pressing. I will probably make three more like this to see how the clearances on the hinge pin feel.

After trimming the rod to length I could the press the brass sheet through the slot. To give this shape in the piece of brass.

Thanks for the comments on the hinge tool. I had visitors today but did manage to give it a try. The first tool is has the slot offset to hopefully put the bend in the correct position. I had already used a file to radius the edges to make sure the brass would bend rather than cut. The tool would then also work as a gauge to make sure I had cut the brass to the correct size. I welded some rod to the other part of the first tool to achieve the radius on the leading edge.

I had some issues with pressing the bonnet side. You may remember that the laser cutters had pierced within the body of the panel to cut the slots on the last pair I had made. When we pressed in the louvres this very narrow slot opened up. I asked them to avoid this on the new pair. However this then meant the panel split at the ends of the louvres. Some modification to the tool (increasing the radius) and lengthening the slots by about 1mm with a hacksaw blade resolved this. During the week I drilled for the bonnet catches and today I have been able to rivet the various parts on. The vertical bits of brass trim are just in place with screws until I get the hinges sorted out. The hinges are made of a number of brass sheet formed into a P shape. I am not sure how well they will work but I had some tooling made for the hinge pieces made in the batch of laser cutting. My plan is to start with rectangles of brass sheet and fit them in the slot in this: Then after putting a radius on the front of the T shaped piece I should be able to press the brass rectangle through the rectangular hole to make it U shaped with unequal legs. If that works then the next part of the plan is to put the U in this jig. With a piece of 3/8 steel rod through the hole I hope to be able to press this T shaped tool down onto the brass and close the U up into a P. Hopefully I can then remove the steel rod and extract the brass P. If I get it right first time I will be amazed!

Thanks Steve, Work and a trip to London have got in the way of progress slightly this week but I was able to borrow the press again in London. At the start of the week I picked up another "minimum order" of laser cutting; another pair of bonnet sides at these bits. Some parts are for the 1908 and just included for making up the numbers. And my steel order was ready at the end of the week. This includes material for the rear universal joint, propshaft, gearbox selector rods, radiator tie rod and front wing brackets. The first job was to fit a peg to one of the laser cut profiles so I could remove the stubborn gearbox selector rod glands.

There was enough time to look at the front bracket as well. My profiles were not quite the right shape so I had to grind them back a bit to get it all to fit. It took a length of channel and many clamps to get it all to line up properly so I could tack it together. Then removed it to weld the other side (using one of the other profiles and a clamp to keep the sides the correct distance apart. This photo shows how much is missing from the gearbox. On the left I can probably get a couple of holes into the remains of the flange you can see. On the right I will have to drill into the box but I have not worked out exactly where yet.

In the gaps between the rain on Saturday I welded up the gearbox support. Then on the side that mates with the gearbox I ground them off flush. Before tidying up the radius on the edges.

Andy Pugh dropped off his rivet squeezer before Christmas. As my rivets have arrived I had to give it a go. It certainly should be better than setting several hundred rivets with a ball-pein hammer! It then seemed like a good idea to fit the central bonnet rest.

I think the best radiators are the ones with cast gunmetal top and bottom tanks. The sheet brass ones suffer from leaks from the many feet of soldered joints. The aluminium ones corrode everywhere they are in contact with the core. The issue of gearbox corrosion at the interface between box and the new steel brackets is certainly a concern. I may investigate blasting the steel brackets and metal spraying them with aluminium. Whatever happens when I fit them it would seem sensible to seal the seams so that water does not get into the crevices. It has been a week of mainly finishing off small jobs. The first was to cut a section out of the steering column clamps and weld them back together so they would then fit properly. I made most of the shackle pin greasers many months ago, so I have finally finished the job by making the last four. The steering wheel had a couple of coats of thinned varnish and then a further coat. When it hardens off I will rub it back and give it at least one more coat.

I have been working through the stock of parts today and trying to work out what materials I need to get in to keep me busy for the next couple of months. The plan for the steering box brackets is to use more laser cut parts. The alignment of the steering wheel is dimensioned on the general arrangement drawings so we packed the box up to the right height and took the required dimensions. There is a bracket that hold the top of the steering column to the bulkhead. The Goslings had given me most of this bracket (thanks!) but it didn't come with the clamp that goes around the column. I had parts laser cut before but they needed bending. One blank and one bent. Unfortunately I got the geometry slightly wrong and it needs a piece of cardboard to make it clamp up. It will get modified this week to make it clamp the column properly!

You have made great progress over Christmas. Now go back to work for a rest! Ben

I am making this up as I go along but for the rear brace I plan to drill through the vertical faces of the casting and bolt through to the braces this way. The front pair will be much more of a challenge. There is a reasonable amount of the nearside mount remaining but the offside one is completely missing. This will probably involve fabricating a copy of the missing mounting, then trying to weld it to the existing casing. For this brace I think I will resort to bolts through the case to the inside of the gearbox as well (making sure I position them to miss the gears).

After grinding a v I fully welded the other side. Then tacked all the other parts in place. Rain then stopped play but it all seems to fit quite well. Hopefully I will not distort it too much when finishing the welding. Obviously I need to cut out the strips over the tapped bosses before final fitting. The front pair of mountings will be more of a challenge.

Happy New Year! I decided it would be a good idea to make some progress on repairing the gearbox. Starting with the better pair of engine mountings I lined up the laser cut profiles to check they would fit. Using the angle grinder I put a radius on the edge so they would fit snugly against the casting. Then tacked in plates with holes for the mountings.

We retrieved the radiator core from the back of the garage. It has been many decades since this was last on a vehicle. The accumulation of dust and spiders webs meant it was impossible to see through the core and it certainly looked like no air would pass through. We scrubbed it with warm soapy water, washed it through with water then blew it through with compressed air. It cleared a massive amount of gunk out. We then fitted the rest of the radiator to it with a few bolts. The safest place for it seemed to be the front of the chassis. The top and bottom tank with need to come off for further repair/impregnation or replacement. The core needs a fair bit of attention in the form of straightening bent gills. I will then need to find a source of radiator blacking paint.

I decided to refit the valves this morning. It is just a case of compressing the spring so the retaining clip can be fed through the slot in the valve stem. All eight valves installed. With the last batch of laser cutting I had a couple of hexagon blanks cut for steering wheel hub nuts. The first stage was to put a chamfer on. Then drill and tap the centre.

We were babysitting in Manchester today so no real Dennis work done. I unwrapped the steering wheel on my return. It feels much more sturdy now. There are a couple of pieces of timber missing from the back face. I am undecided about whether I will glue new pieces in. Once all the glue is fully dry I will give the wood a coat of varnish.

The rods I used were purchased from ebay so I don't know too much about them. They were covered with a soft white flux. I started by cleaning back to clean aluminium. Then welded up one of the holes. You have to use positive polarity on the electrode; around 2/3 of the heat generated by the arc is at the positive electrode so you melt the stick away quite quickly and don't put that much heat into the substrate. The weld is left with a covering of hard white flux. The rod end also has a hard white covering of flux so you have to chip that off before you can start another weld. With the flux chipped off it leaves you some aluminium. I later filed this back; the finished results are in the earlier post. I don't think I got fantastic penetration and was thinking that if I went down this route I would get the porosity in the weld and the rest of the casting impregnated as is often done on castings such as cylinder heads. Although I have filled the big holes I don't think it is a structural repair, possibly more like a big lump of filler with a similar thermal expansion coefficient.

After removing the bronze hub for cleaning the wood rim had further wood screws that I was unable to remove. I spread the joints and liberally applied wood glue to all the joints. Then refitted the hub. To close up all the gaps I wrapped it all in electrical tape, squeezing the gaps closed with my hand and pulling the tape tight. Hopefully it will be OK when I come to take the tape off.

I had a go at welding up the holes in the bottom tank of the radiator. I didn't think I could make it any worse than the big holes that were in it. It was reasonably successful but I only had a few rods. We put the steering column in position. This should allow me to get the bends right in the pedals and measure up for the mounting brackets. This made me think about the steering wheel. It needs some work before it is usable.

After placing the cylinder blocks on for a photo I decided I should fit them properly. The first stage was to cut out new gaskets. Then fit to the crankcase with gasket sealant. Followed by fitting the pistons to the connecting rods. And finally lower the cylinder blocks on using an engine crane whilst jiggling the piston rings into the bores.

I cut out another blank for a bonnet handle; sometimes it is nice to do this rather than my usual laser cutting. The other issue is the laser cutters always charge a fortune for brass; I assume this is something to do with the zinc fumes but have never asked. The next stage was to bend the ends with a simple folding tool. From a piece of old roofing batten I shaped a basic press tool. Then did the final shaping by hand around a bar end in the vice. Unfortunately I don't seem to have any 1/8" brass rivets so fitting them will have to wait until another day.

I should probably have described them as leather gaskets as they fit between the hub cap and the wheel flange to prevent (or at least slow down) the passage of oil. I have looked in the parts book for this chassis and they are not listed for the front wheels but are for the back (they are also included in the drawing for the rear wheels). There were leather gaskets on the front hub caps when I took it apart but I damaged them levering the caps off. It appears that a paper gasket would be too thin as the stub axle end would rub on the hub cap. I could have used rubber or cork (and it would certainly be a better solution from an engineering point of view) but thought leather was probably used originally. We took our guests to the Black Country Museum today so a little less progress. I did spend a couple of hours drilling bolts and fitting split pins so the front axle is now properly fitted. I was then bored and wanted to make something so took a hacksaw and file to a piece of brass sheet and made the first of the moustache style handles for the bonnet.

We fitted the final wheel this morning and then decided to push it out of the garage. Quite pleased with the progress for one years worth of evenings and weekends. Then it was just a case of making some new leather washers to fit the hub caps.