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BenHawkins

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Everything posted by BenHawkins

  1. It was a bit too cold/wet this afternoon to do any more work outside on the axle beam so I started to strip the back axle. The axle is meant to rotate in journals that bolt to the leaf springs. The bolts were quite stubborn and I ended up shearing one off. The bolts on the flange need to be removed as well to be able to get the journals off. To get the lower flange bolts off I need to get the axle outside and lift it off the trolley. That will have to wait for better weather! I don't know if I should strip the worm and wheel out or just leave it all in place and clean the outside of the axle casing up. Plenty to be getting on with!
  2. I dropped the patterns off at the foundry on Tuesday and picked them up yesterday. These brackets support valances either side of the bonnet. I had enough cast for both my projects. The tappet shell castings to repair the Aster engine Exhaust Flanges And radiator filler caps The machining should keep me busy for a while.
  3. The king pins and bushes are very worn and the thrust races are rusty. One of the king pins has been skimmed down and a bronze bush fitted to replace the original hardened steel one. As part of the conversion into a trailer a hitch had been bolted to the axle beam. The water had obviously collected here resulting in it rusting quite deeply. So I clamped the axle to a piece of channel to reduce the chances of warping and built up the corroded areas with weld. One of the rivets was heavily corroded So I drilled the middle out, chiselled off the remaining head and drove it out with a punch and hammer. I don't have any facilities/contacts for replacing the rivet so I may just fit a 5/8 BSW nut and bolt. It is probably how a village garage would have repaired a loose rivet.
  4. It has been a fairly busy week. It started with collecting the front axle from the HGV garage; it took 40 tons and the help of some heat to shift the king pins. I masked up the stub axles For blasting and painting
  5. There are records at the West Yorkshire Archive Service. I have not yet been there to see what is included.
  6. So this is the Kirkstall Forge Axle on my 1908 Dennis (chassis number 573): Axle Number 100191 Then on the 1914 Dennis (chassis number 3539) the number is in a different location with the reverse K and F stamp Axle Number 013191 I also have the remains of a 1922 Dennis fire engine (chassis number 4439): Axle Number 51920 So I am not quite sure how the numbering system worked.
  7. I didn't need any measuring equipment to see this brake drum was past its wear limit! So I decided to remove the brake drums. They are secured with 8 bolts. The nuts were too rusted away to fit any Whitworth spanners or sockets but I was able to hammer on a 19mm impact socket so remove most of them and the remaining ones came off with a cold chisel. I can't decide if it is easier to make a completely new pattern or just build up one of the old drums with thin ply. The half shaft has a square end that runs through a "driving star" secured with a castellated nut. This transmits drive to the wheel and holds the wheel on. We removed this along with the wheel bearing and cleaned out the grease so it does not all run out when the wheel is put in an autoclave as part of the rubber curing process. After making up more timber masks and fitting them the rear wheels are also ready to book in with the rubber company.
  8. The big job for this weekend was to get the wheels ready for new rubber. When I took the front wheels off the stub axles the bearings stayed in the wheels. When I tried to remove them it turned out they were stuck in the hubs. The bearings are simple bronze fully flowing bushes so should be free to move in the wheel. In an ideal situation they would rotate at approximately half the speed of the wheel. After some initial tapping with a hammer I realised they were both very stuck. I turned up an aluminium plug to work with my hydraulic puller. However after winding it up as far as I dared (concerned about the strength of the flange) it still would not move. Eventually I decided hit the plug with a hammer and that made them move. When they eventually came out it turned out to be a pair of short bearings rather than the single long bearing I was expecting. I think the thrust bearings wore at some point and the hub nut has been tightened not realising they were squashing this bush (the hub nuts were very tight when I took them off). It looks as if the bearings will be perfectly serviceable if I just relieve the ends a little where they have spread. Then it was just a case of making some timber plugs to protect the bearing surfaces when the rest of the wheel is blasted.
  9. I have also been working on a few patterns, in addition to the tappet guide already mentioned there is an extended starting handle boss. Starting with a stack of discs cut with a hole saw and trued up on the lathe. Then slots cut on the milling machine and triangle inserted. Then some paint and filler. Hopefully I can get the patterns finished and to the foundry this week.
  10. I will take photos as I clean the axle up. A little more done this week, I started with the exhaust manifold. The flange was broken when I got the engine; luckily this just screws into the main casting but with 105 years of rust and nothing to hold on to it did not want to move. So I decided to plunge with a slot drill in the milling machine moving it over a little each time until I could just see the rust at the bottom of the threads. Next was to chisel out the some more of the cast iron and then put the flange into the vice and squeeze it until the casting collapsed. No damage done to the female thread at all so I proceeded to mask, blast and give a coat of paint. Pretty much as good as new.
  11. All the early Dennis commercials seem to be fitted with Butler Patent front axles produced by Kirkstall Forge of Leeds. I don't know who made the thrust bearings but the unusual setup probably means they are unique to Kirstall Forge. Once we have it apart I can then try to assess the best way to resolve the wear.
  12. Sarah banishes me to the garage so I can't make a mess of the house! The workshop facilities at the new house make all the difference. Home is about 15 minutes from work and then pretty much everything is at hand to get on with it.
  13. Steve, I am looking forward to you spinning the covers. I need to make a pair and would like to learn! Only tried metal spinning once and made nothing but scrap. Ben
  14. A very small amount of progress. I had the steering column bracket blanks laser cut earlier in the year and bent the with a combination of my hydraulic press and an oxy-acetylene torch. They have now had an undercoat and await painting.
  15. And finally I decided to check the gearbox would fit. It is in quite poor condition and I need to come up with the transmission brake but it is better than starting with nothing. Steve, Tony and Tim let me have the prop shaft/universal joints that came with their Dennis engine as they are correct for this project. I think the clutch/flywheel I have are too big for this chassis/engine so I need to come up with a solution for that as well.
  16. So I turned my attention to the steering box. I used the lathe and a dial gauge to find out how bent the shaft was (around 0.120"). After repeated pressing operations I got it down to 0.012" and decided that was probably good enough. The end float adjuster bolt and lock nut had been damaged by the use of a chisel in service so I cleaned them up so the correct spanner would fit in future. Then I put the whole lot back together again.
  17. Then we decided to give removing the king pins a go. One of the retaining bolts sheared off so I drilled down the middle (but not all the way through) and used a parallel punch to drive it out. If I try to drill out the full size of the original hole I find I tend to run off and make the hole oval. Then I tried to press out the king pin using a bit of heat from a propane torch and my 10 ton press. Looks like I need to find an HGV garage or similar this week to get them out.
  18. The big job for this weekend was to strip the front axle down. It took a selection of tools to remove the hub caps as the bolts were no longer hexagonal. There was plenty of lubricant in the hubs so they were well protected from water. I had to use a big socket to get the king pin nuts off. Unusually I realised it was a good idea to do this before removing the wheels!
  19. As this engine was originally fitted to a generating set the starting handle does not come out past the radiator. I started by stripping down the assembly. I glued some bits of MDF together for a pattern for the longer housing. It still needs the ribs fitting before it goes to the foundry along with the tappet pattern.
  20. I made a very simple puller for the tappets from some scrap I found under the bench. Then used it to extract the tappets from the crankcase. A roller runs in the slot, but in most cases they are broken off above the slot. One had been replaced with a bronze one but most are cast iron. I stuck some bits of MDF together and turned them in the lathe to make a pattern. Then painted it up. I decided it would be easier to machine them with the hole filled in so have not made a core box. It is only a 20mm bore so there will not be much wastage and they would probably cost more with the hole in. I will machine some of the flange away to make them into the left or right hand version.
  21. We are very impressed with the lamps. Metal spinning is on my list of things to try again!
  22. The commercial motor archive is pretty good. When I am in America I am always amazed by how much is available on google books. However I think the UK copyright laws prevent it from being accessed here.
  23. Richard, Thank you for the information you have sent to me in the past. The more we know the better our work on these vehicles can be! Ben
  24. I am always looking in the local hedges and skips; surprising what you can find. Thanks for the advert Richard. I really love the adverts in Commercial motor, there are a few pre WWI loose magazines I have managed to purchase but the bound editions are out of my price range. The archive online is great for the articles but they have not included the adverts. Hopefully a bit more progress this weekend. I would like to get the front wheels off so I am in a position to get new rubber on all the wheels in by the summer.
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