Old Bill

Do you have the engine? Steve

Tim has just presented me with this 'for Christmas and Birthday' and significantly out of phase with both! It matters not. Quite amazingly, he has found another Radmill gas generator, complete and WD marked! It is just right for the Peerless and will need only a little mechanical attention from me before returning for a paint job. I understand that this was a phone call out of the blue and pure luck. Nevertheless, I am very pleased indeed! Steve 😁

After picking up the lorry again, Dad is making progress with the brake bands. We had positioned the hold-off spring so it has now been drilled through and countersunk on the underside. Iron rivets have been used and knocked down into the countersink before dressing off. Once they were cleaned up, the lining could be fitted. It was temporarily blted on to hold it whilst the holes were counterbored and standard copper brake lining rivets used to attach it. We were fortunate to be given a brake rivet punch which gives the fancy star shape when knocking them over. A complete band ready for fitting. Just need to do the other one now! Steve

Well, the time has come and I have been to see the lorry for the first time in ten months! (And parents!). I had rather lost track of where we are with it but started off by fitting the other king pin greaser. One more piece off the bench! Dad has finished painting the track rod so we fitted that finally. Another piece off the bench and the lorry can sit on its wheels. Dad has made replacement brake bands but had been unable to position the hold-off springs so we did a temporary assembly to mark them out. Now they can be drilled and riveted and the linings fitted and completed. Good progress so far. The brake shoe return springs need to be fitted so I got out my new spring compressor and had a go. First one was OK but the second broke the tool so back to Leicester for repairs. The job which defeated us last time was getting the wheel off. This is the best wooden wheel we have and we want to replace it with an iron one on our second chassis so that we can use it on the current project one. This time, I have borrowed a hydraulic puller of significant proportions. First job was to shift the 'stuff' from under the chassis. Then drag it out. The object of our attention. Dad had made a steel ring to screw onto the hub-cap threads in order to give us something to pull against. Assemble the puller And off we go. I wound it to the limit of my strength but with no effect. We took it off, heated the hub and had another go but still no effect, even after leaving it for an hour. We gave up and put it away. Disappointing as we so desperately want to get it on its wheels. Further thought required. On my way back home, we picked up the pistons which have had the gudgeon holes bored through. Now they can be mounted for machining so another task for father. We also visited the wheelwright to see what he can do for us in repairing the wheels we have and we visited the foundry to deliver the Dennis radiator patterns. Some good progress and some disappointment but we are up and running again! Steve

Greetings S & F! The direction is set to suit the vehicle at hand. Ours are all clockwise except the Dennis which is anti-clockwise. The magneto can be reversed by moving the cam in the contact breaker and the correct holes should already be there. When you get it rebuilt, ask the man to reverse the rotation for you. Even if your mag works, I would highly recommend getting it looked at as a poor mag can spoil your day in no short order, especially first time you try to start your rebuilt engine! Good luck! Steve 🙂

Hi Andy. Yes, I have really enjoyed reading it. Thank you for taking the trouble. Once at a show, nobody knows the efforts you have made to save original bits and get it all 'just right' and it is great that you have documented it. I am now looking forward to seeing it out and about! Steve 😀🙂

I am anticipating that we will have to make the new core ourselves. The tubes were cut and the gills for the Thornycroft stamped out for us by Vintage Wings and Radiators in Oldham for a very fair price. However, they have since sold out that side of the business and the current owners have hiked the price by a factor of three which I find difficult to swallow. I think I will have to have a chat with Ben and see if we can come to an arrangement about making tooling and punching them out ourselves. Watch this space! Steve

Hi Toby. Very pleased to see you here and making good progress. We seem to have a bit of a Thornycroft corner going! Steve

Thanks for sharing all of this Andy. It is so nice to see the whole story. Not doing anything of our own is driving me mad! Steve 👍

Thanks for your comments Chaps. Slow progress! Al, the man to follow for pattern making is Terry Harper (Tharper on here). His work is stunning and a joy to look at. Everything he does is just beautiful whereas the best that can be said for mine is 'functional'! Steve

Well, it has been a while since I posted anything. This lock-down is a bit of a nuisance but we carry on. I have continued with the radiator bottom tank pattern. Next task was to partially drill a hole through the water outlet flanges. This will give a boss in the sand on which the main central core can sit and leave a hole in the tank. A bit of tidying up with some filler. Time to glue it up! More filler and wax fillets. On to the core boxes. The first was quite simple and produces a cylinder of sand to hollow out the bosses at the ends. I started off by dowelling two pieces of beech together and then drilling through. I used a boring bar to bring them to size. The main core is a rectangular lump with radiused ends. I couldn't put any draft in this one so I made the sides removable to get it out. The bottom section has the corner radii to follow the line of the tank. This time, I made a special tool to help install the leather fillet material and it worked quite well. A bit of filler in the corners where I didn't do a very good job with the leather. Now the tricky ones. I agonised over these corners for months but eventually came up with this solution. The square section drops into the core print on the end of the main plug. To get the tricky return flange, there are two pieces glued in and a removable sliding piece to pull out. I do hope the moulder can sort it out! Filler again for the fillets. Left and right hand of course. Painting at last! The usual two coats of Bondaprime, polished with wire wool to get a good surface. Finished at last! I am glad to see the back of these. They have gone on too long and I would much rather be cutting metal! Thinking ahead, these castings are just too big for my dinky mill, no matter how I look at it so I have bought a Bridgeport type turret mill. The trouble is that it needs to reside in the space behind the lorry. However, the lorry is immobilised due to a lack of radiator! To get it out of the way, I lashed up a bucket and a couple of bits of hose just to let me start it and run for a few minutes. It worked OK but boiled up pretty quickly! Success! Mill installed and awaiting arrival of the castings. A trip to the foundry beckons when we are let out again. I'll keep you posted how I get on! Steve

Dad is struggling and he lives next to it. I haven't seen the thing for seven months! Oh well. This forum keeps the interest going. Many thanks to all of our friends! In the mean time, there is just a little more progress. On top of the front springs is a bump-stop spring. Unfortunately, we are one short and need a replacement. It is a cussing awkward thing with a spiral coil at the top and a square one at the bottom, all bent from 7/16" wire. Beyond my capabilities so I contected the Tested Spring Company and they have made up the replacement. I sent them a drawing and the original and they turned this around in ten days. I am very impressed with their service and would heartily recommend them! Another small step. Steve 🙂

So pleased to see the photos, Andy. It is this level of detail that nobody realises or understands at shows and recording it here is fantastic. I do love to see it! Steve 🙂

Another piece of the jigsaw! Thanks for that Neil. Steve 👍

Thanks Ruxy. Thanks Andy. Steve PS Happy New Year everyone!

Thanks for the link Barry. It is all out there if you know where to look and they look very promising. We haven't decided what we are going to do with our radiator for the time being but this has been a great opportunity to pick everyones brains! Steve 😁

What a brilliant video clip, Richard! If you have the kit, making tubes like that is far faster than threading loose gills onto tubes. I guess there must be a lead-screw on the far side of the machine to set the pitch. More food for thought there! Steve 😀

Thanks for the pics Ruxy. Not quite sure what I am looking at though? Steve.

Aha! You may get an order! I will have to go and source a press..... Steve 😉

Whilst we are on the subject of radiators, I have another challenge for you Andy! Our Los Angeles Peerless radiator has another gill variant in that they are wrapped around the tube in a continuous spiral without being crinkled to bend them around. How was that done? The original core that we acquired has been 'repaired' by cutting out faulty tubes and then filling the gap with a bolt and washer. How do you repair individual tubes? I cannot see how to remove them without destroying the whole core. This core appears to have gills of the pattern you have made Andy but this time, they are round. This is much more sensible as they don't have to be aligned when assembling them. I may have to treat myself to a fly-press and punch out 20000 of them so I shall be very interested to follow your progress, Ben. More challenges! Steve

Nice job Andy. Is that one action or two? Steve

Go on Ben, you make them! That is a very common size so there is a potential market there. I would suggest doing them in a single action would be worth the tooling effort for so many of them. The ones we had done for the Thornycroft didn't have the points turned over though. Good luck with that. I know you like a challenge! Steve

Hi Bill. What fun! What do you wish to do with it? Do you just need a nut or a stud or what? It is a nice size to screw cut and I would be surprised if you wanted more than one! Steve

The radiator pattern making continues with the bottom tank. As you can see, this is extremely poorly as well. When you say that something is patched up, this one really is! I decided that the split line should be through the centre line of the bosses and so cut the main blocks and flange and also some prints for the water flanges. As the end bosses are also split, I screwed two blocks of wood together before turning them in the trusty Myford. I have a very nice wood turning lathe but I am not very good at it so for accuracy, I use the Myford! This is how the assembly should look. There are webs beneath the bosses so I have attached them to one side only and rebated beneath. The moulder will have to brush the sand out of the rebate when he does the second half. Gusset cut to profile. To create the inside requires a big core so I glued up some timber for the print. All laid in place and looking promising. However, I still have this feature and it has been perplexing me for weeks. Whoever drew it certainly didn't think of the poor guy who had to make it! I could leave it off and still have a functioning radiator but it wouldn't be right. The trouble is that I can't read the casting to see how it was done. Normally, I can but this one is a puzzle. Well, it is going to have to be done with a core so I have made up some blocks as prints. I am working on the core box now and will let you know how I get on. I shall be glad to see the back of this one! Steve 🙂

Generally speaking, they should be the colour of a good, fresh cow-pat.....