BenHawkins

Chassis 3033, Engine 4726, Body 3259 is again 120x130 Haes and Eggers but dated 21/3/1911. Most work production order cards survive for fire engines but I will need to visit the archive to dig this one out (I have only photographed a small proportion of the early ones) Engine number 15049 is quite a bit later so appears in the surviving White and Poppe engine book. It is a 90x130, ordered on 13/10/1922 at a cost of £100. It was supplied with a Simms magneto but without carburettor. The end customer is marked as Davies Fehon and recorded as fitted to chassis number 139. This is a strange range of early chassis numbers issued by Dennis for the 25/30cwt. Only chassis numbers 50-150 were used and then there is another series of 25/30cwt (50000 to 50026) before the much more popular 30cwt (50030 on).

Although the rectangular brackets for the ignition timing transverse shaft were functional, they offended me every time I opened the bonnet so I removed them and shaped them using the milling machine and file. Finally I drilled oiling holes with a centre drill. One of the parts I still need to make is a wind screen with a wire edge. I have never done this before so decided to give it a practice. I started by folding up an edge around a piece of steel plate using a hammer. And then continued to form it around the wire with a hammer. I will be using 1/8" diameter rod and 0.9mm steel so I have ordered a 5mm ball end slot drill to make up some forming tools. That's it for this week. Hopefully we will go for a little drive over the next week.

The rear joint needs a leather gaiter to keep the grease in. The front universal joint was bolted up and split pinned.

I reamed the hole out in the other universal joint until I could drive in the pin. Then put the bronze blocks in place and measured the overall length. It worked out a few thousands of an inch too long to fit into the socket so I lapped the blocks down on some silicon carbide paper. Then I was able to wrestle the fairly heavy prop shaft into place.

I decided to buy a new tool to help me reduce the length of the universal joint hub; an expanding mandrel. Using the lathe and chucking on the male tapered portion I drove the sleeve into the hub until the hub was tightly gripped and supported the other end of the mandrel with a revolving centre and faced the hub off to length. And could then try the hub in the jaw to check the fit.

Thanks for all the positive comments about the award. The Transport Trust award scheme has really helped out so I would recommend it to people for next year. I have taken this photo to better illustrate the pulley arrangement. The bronze bearing extends from the timing case quite a long way (to around 1mm from my pulley hub); without knowing this it looks like there is a massive length of unsupported shaft. The pump pulley is still quite a way from the pulley hub (a little over 2"). I have not run the engine since connecting this drive up.

It was nice to see the lorry out even if we did tow it! The Transport Trust awards were a nice day out, John Dennis brought his 1902 Dennis car along so there was something available if Prince Michael wanted a ride. Thanks John! The award came with a financial contribution which paid for all the consumables I purchased earlier in the year which is an additional bonus for which I am very grateful. Mick Giles who had collected together all the major parts for this project was able to attend and it was great to share the recognition with him and both our glamorous assistants! The trip did show up a couple of things that are too tight as the chassis does twist a fair amount; the bonnet becomes quite difficult to open on uneven ground as does the door! Another deadline missed but there will always be another one!

You may remember that I struggled to machine the eyes in one of the universal joints perfectly in line and had left the holes 0.010" undersize to allow for that and any distortion from the silver soldering process. To give me the best chance of getting the two eyes sharing the same axis I had purchased an expanding reamer with pilot from an online auction site. This made the job relatively painless, alternating from one side to the other whilst holding the pilot bush in place. Some sockets and M10 rod was used to pull the bushes into the bores. At this point I realised that I had only rough machined the hub to length and it was 0.1" longer than the gap between the bushes. The other end should have just been a simple job of passing a 1-1/8" reamer through the eye. I had a machine reamer in stock but as it was completely parallel I would have been unable to guide it accurately (especially as by this point everything is much too big for setting up in my milling machine). There was about 10 hours to go until the low loader was arriving so we had to stop and get the lorry presentable (and make a route out of the garage) rather than mess it all up for the sake of not having the right tools in stock. Once the lorry was on route I had plenty of time to give the propshaft a clean and a coat of primer!

We drove the a drive pin in a short way at each end to keep the joints aligned. Obviously they ended up soldered in so I drilled them out. The holes were then cleaned up again with a 3/8 reamer (I was running short of time so used a battery drill on the hand reamer) With the help of the glamorous assistant we riveted the ends of the pins over to keep them in place.

I put some primer on the steel pulley hub and that is what can be seen, the larger fan belt is positioned over the 16mm shaft so is minimising the bending moment on the shaft. The smaller pump belt (and presumably the lower power of the two loads) is positioned beyond the end of the shaft. We will need to monitor the pulley and see how we get on.

Steve very kindly came over on Saturday to show me how to solder the propshaft! We cleaned up the surfaces and applied plenty of Tanacity No 5 flux. We filed small flats along the outside diameters of the universal joints to make sure there was a route for the solder to flow. The relatively short propshaft meant we could carry out the soldering at a sensible working height. Fire bricks were arranged to keep the heat in whilst still giving goo access to the joint. The slight lip on this end was considered to be a suitable lip to accept the silver solder. These fire bricks were given to me when a furnace was dismantled. They are light weight alumina fire bricks and seems fine for this application. Steve heated and soldered the first end; the heating was more gentle than in my trials. We used Steve's silver solder (CuP 455 I believe) as they were 2.5mm and I only had 1mm & 1.6mm. I was surprised how much difference the rod diameter made for these bigger joints and I will certainly be investing in a pack! It all went well (the only injury was to the top of the workmate) so I had to take on the other end! Following Steve's advice I filed two notches so there were ledges to accept the solder.

I drilled the pulley and hub, and tapped to suit 1/4 BSF bolts. The keyway was cut by using a 3mm wide piece of high speed steel in the lathe after carefully adjusting it to the centre height. After I purchased incorrect belts online the glamorous assistant managed to get some v-belts of the correct size from the local spares emporium. There should be sufficient Whittle belt in the garage but it probably needs a weekend of work to get it into a serviceable condition and I will probably always want to carry these modern belts in the tool kit just in case.

It has been another very busy (slightly long) week but we are now having a little rest today without any truck work (apart from unloading the lorry and putting it back in the garage early this morning). The big machining job for this week was to complete the fan pulley. I mounted a large lump of aluminium in the lathe and bored the end out to suit the hub I machined the week before. Using a pipe centre to help hold it in place I machined the larger pulley and roughed out the outside diameter. After parting it off and turning it around I finished the front face.

Hi Steven, I am so pleased you have taken this on; it was on Gumtree several years ago and I would have purchased it if I had been able to get it home. 3035 is listed as "Haes & Eggers" who I believe were an exporting agent. The original engine was a 120x130 White and Poppe (number 4729) the same as in my 1908 lorry. The body was built by Dennis (number 3262) and the production date is recorded as 12-11-1911. I need to look through the works production orders as there might be further information in those. Despite the earlier chassis number it looks like it was finished slighter later than the preserved London Fire Brigade pump. The engine and gearbox look like they would have been a pair and look like they belong to a 1912 30cwt. Engine number 4725 was fitted to a vehicle (Chassis Number 2207) purchased by C Walker Esq, the engine is a 90x110mm White and Poppe (nominally 18hp). Chassis 2207 was not fitted with a body by Dennis so was probably bodied locally. What a fantastic collection of bits, I look forward to more photos and information! Ben

I have made a brass mount of a similar style to that on the brass mirror and the glamorous assistant has given everything a polish. I have screwed a piece of timber to the cab to support the triangular floor board on the drivers side. The footbrake linkage was binding very slightly so the return springs would not return it; the glamorous assistant has pushed it down several hundred times until it freed off. Numerous other jobs have been completed this week including filling the back axle with oil, packing the gearbox glands and topping up the gearbox oil. The list of jobs is getting quite short and we get an extra day to play tomorrow.

The Aster engine has a tapered shaft protruding from the front of the timing case. The Aster engine, although made in Wembley was produced under license to the French designs. It has a 1:10 taper, a cut out for a 3mm x 5mm Woodruff key and an M10 thread to secure it. I roughed out a hub and carefully set the compound slide on the lathe to cut the taper. I then checked it against the engine taper with some engineers blue. I then put it back in the lathe to finish the machining. The flange lines up with the flange of the fan. I should just be able to machine an aluminium pulley to match the profile on the fan and a smaller one to match the water pump.

I then dismantled it all again so I could cross drill the shaft, ream and fit taper pins. I could then reassemble and test it all worked correctly. I looked on the Lee Springs website and found a spring identical to those I had but with two fewer turns (and therefore 1/2" shorter) were available so I decided to buy those as I think they are a better fit. That just leaves a problem with the clutch brake; the one I have will hit the return springs if bolted to the vertical face of the rail. The solution may just be an additional bracket to mount it from the top of the rail.

Once the propshaft was in place I marked up for the brackets that carry the transverse shaft and drilled new holes in the replacement mounting rails. After checking that the lever I roughed out previously looked plausible I drilled the hole for the shoulder screw and shaped the eye on the milling machine. I made a new threaded rod to suit this pair of original Dennis clevises and fitted some replacement shoulder screws I had made in preparation. It was then possible to assemble it all and tighten the pinch bolt on the new lever. Without the clutch springs fitted everything seemed to work correctly.

Thankfully the front propshaft and clutch release came from the Gosling fire pump, but the return spring arrangement was from the rusty remains of another engine. The fire pump had a hand lever for operating the clutch so there was still more work to do. The first part of the job was to try fitting the propshaft. The gearbox is a few years later and has a longer square on the input shaft. In the last batch of laser cutting I had a spacer cut so the square will not protrude into the universal joint. I didn't have sufficient hands to manipulate the propshaft into place and take a photo, so here is a photo of it once wrestled into position. Theses are the correct type of universal joints (according to the parts book) and although a little crude they do allow the travel required for the clutch. On two sides of the knuckles these phosphor bronze slippers are fitted; these were cleaned up a little more before fitting.

We put another gallon of fuel in the tank. The glamorous assistant choked the carb whilst I turned the engine over for a few revolutions. After turning the magneto on it started on the third flick of the handle. It seems like we nearly have the starting process sorted; I will have to refit the choke to the carb to give me the option of starting it on my own. MVI_4368.MOV

So, I only had some of today to work on the lorry. The first job was using a 1/2" bolt to draw the guide bushes into the clutch. Then fit the studs to the clutch centre and fit it to the threaded clutch hub bush. A centre punch was used to produce a small indentation at the perimeter of the retaining screw (to hopefully prevent it from coming undone). Then the clutch was put in place. I am not sure if the studs should come out far enough that the nuts can be fitted with the springs at their free length. I have used cable ties to compress the springs but need to replace the single nuts with a pair of half nuts. I will have to see how it feels when it is all together, it is a mix of Dennis parts from different vehicles so I may not have it quite right.

Thanks for the comments, it was annoying that I had to fly to Denmark on Monday morning so could not have another go with the engine. At least it gave me plenty of time to rest my starting arm. I got back on Friday evening and we drove straight down to Southampton ready for Beaulieu autojumble. The in service photo of the lorry shows a large brass mirror on the drivers side; I managed to negotiate this one for a sensible price. I also picked up the Claudel Hobson carburettor jets in case I decide I need to try another size.

We then decided to try running the engine. It runs for about 30 seconds at a time, which at the moment I have put down to fuel starvation as I only started out with two gallons in the tank. I hope the video works (despite the poor quality). MVI_4364.MOV

The throttle was more complicated, needing the pedal and hand control connecting. Also nothing really lines up so it required cranked rods. This is achieved with an intermediate lever. It took most of the weekend to sort all these linkages out so I was pleased to have it all finished.

After marking up the shaft I cross drilled the shaft (using the milling machine) and reamed out for taper pins. Then connected it all up. At some point I will take the transverse shaft mounts off and finish machining them to shape.