Old Bill

A million hits? Good heavens! Thanks Chaps! Steve

Hi Ben. I was going to ask what flux you used. Is that ordinary EasyFlo flux? As Smiffy says a Tenacity Flux is better for higher temperatures. I use Johnson Matthey Tenacity 4a or HT5 from CuP Alloys. I must say that your piece of steel looks very hot to me. I would suggest that it should only just be starting to glow for a 455 grade silver solder but that may, of course, just be the camera. I am going to have to put our propshaft together in two weeks time the same way. Despite my love of silver solder, I am not looking forward to it! Good luck! Steve

So that is what it is called! No wonder I couldn't find it. That is not something I would have guessed! Thanks! Steve

Hi Mark. That's wonderful! Thankyou very much indeed. I have been keeping an eye open for the stuff for ages but have not seen it. It is getting these little details right that is so satisfying in a project like this. Newark would have been great but I am still in Devon at the moment. I'll drop you a line shortly if you don't come to an arrangement with David. Sausages we can do! Thanks again, Steve.

Well, I started the day by finishing off the footstep and brackets. The brackets were identical last night but that didn't make the step horizontal or parallel to the chassis rails! There was quite a lot of fiddling and messing to do before the assembly was just right. This is what we are aiming to reproduce. As you can see, there are two very distinctive strips of tread plate with square pimples. I have been unable to find any of this. Does anyone know where I could obtain two 23" lengths of this material please? Dad carried on with painting the inside of the body, a job which is very hard on the knees and back! Then we started on the rear wing brackets.These are awkward as I have no drawings and am puzzling them out as we go along. I had had some plasma cut profiles of the mounting flanges cut and spent a lot of time cleaning them up and breaking the corners to make them look right. Then we carried on by propping a rear wing into position. Then Father has cut some steel strips which I curved using the press. Tomorrow I shall weld them up and we will cut the arms themselves. We have had a variety of distractions today but hopefully, will be able to get stuck in tomorrow and get them all done. My last day on the job before returning to reality! Steve

That is part of the brake adjustment. The rod has left and right hand threads and can be rotated to take up wear. The weight just stops it rotating in use and gives the driver something to grip to tighten the brakes. I have not seen the idea anywhere else. Steve

Glad you are enjoying it. I only wish I knew how the book was going to end as it could still go either way! Another interesting day. It started off with great excitement as the differential spider arrived. Barry very kindly arranged for the spline to be cut by wire erosion and then sent it on. I had to go underneath and see if it would fit and it is perfect. I shall take it back to Leicester and drill the bolt holes ready for my next visit when we plan to fit it and make up the prop shaft. Thanks Barry. We filled the gearbox. Then I noticed the oil level gauge. The aluminium tube which sits on top of the float was right at the top when it was only 3/4 yesterday. This was distinctly concerning so we drained the oil and removed about a gallon of water in the process. Now we are puzzling as to where it has come from. There is no head gasket and we leak tested the blocks before fitting them. The only thing I can think of is that the persistent drip from the top water castings is falling onto the flat top surface of the crank case and then running in underneath the cam followers which are only clamped to the top surface. Hopefully, when we cure the water hose leaks, the problem will go away. Fingers are crossed but it has cost us a sump full of oil at least. On a happier note, I moved onto the footbrake mechanism. I found a spring to use as the pedal return and also cut and threaded the pull rods. The return springs on the shoes are not quite right so I have ordered up some new ones. Once they arrive, I can set it up completely and tick that job off. Finally, we made a start on the footstep. This consists simply of a board bolted to two heavy bent steel brackets. The main puzzle was how to bend them but the trusty press soon made short work of them. I have since trimmed them to length and drilled for bolts. We will put it together tomorrow morning and then Dad can clean up and paint them. After that, we are onto the wing brackets. These are going to be hard as they are bent and welded to look like forgings. Lots of hours there and I only have two days left. We are getting very close to the wire! Steve

Thanks Doug. They do look very similar to what I have got so I feel inclined to leave it alone for the time being. It is nice to have confirmation. Steve

Hi John. Yes, there is a governor but although the linkage is all there and connected, I did not make a butterfly for it. At least that is one variable we can eliminate! Steve

Started the day by making up the pivot pin for the foot brake. Only managed one decent photo though. All the linkage is a pain and the main pedal rod goes through the seat box so will do some more of that tomorrow. This afternoon, we had a visitor and took the opportunity to run the engine again. Using the choke board, it is very easy to start so that is one blessing! It idled nicely but again, just didn't want to accelerate. We had a couple of good bangs and flashes back through the carburettor in the process. As it warmed up, it stiffened and after one of my throttle opening tests, it died. It wasn't so stiff this time although we could hear something tight, so I managed to swing it again for another go. It ran again but eventually died whilst I was messing. Whilst we thought about it some more, David, our guest, had a look at the mag and asked me to advance it. This I did but he saw no movement as we found that one of my joints in the linkage had failed and although I was pushing the lever, nothing was happening. I started it up again and advanced the magneto manually. What a difference! We could now open the throttle and rev the engine. Not sure that we are completely there but it is all looking much more promising. Also, after ten minutes, we switched it off and I tried to turn it again. It was stiff but nothing like as bad as the first time and I could have started it again so that looks promising too. I have just come in after fixing the advance linkage and will concentrate on the brakes and footstep tomorrow. I have also found an oil leak which needs attention. Always something! Steve

Thank you very much for that gentlemen. What I have really doesn't look very different from these charts. As you mentioned, Cel, my initial thought was that the inlet was too late but it seems very similar to these. I feel inclined to leave it alone for the moment and have another run first as it has still only started once. After it stiffened up, I couldn't swing it properly again! The stiffening up is a bit odd. I set the ring gaps very carefully according to the instructions on the packet and during the first run, it didn't really get very hot so I would be surprised if it was them. We shall see. Thanks for your help. I'll keep you posted! Steve

Many thanks for all of your thoughts. I am pretty sure that I don't need the hot air inlet as modern fuels are so much more volatile. However, I will keep that one up my sleeve for the time being. I have been doing other things today whilst I mull it over but I have investigated the timing and this is what I have found. Taking 'valve opening' or 'closing' as the point at which the tappets contact or part then, at the moment: Inlet opens at TDC Inlet closes 34° after BDC Exhaust opens 32° before BDC Exhaust closes 5° after TDC I don't have a Thornycroft timing chart and my Dennis one is in Leicester. However, these figures don't look right to me at all. The adjustment I have is to move the camshafts by numbers of teeth. The crank pinion has 29 teeth so each tooth represents just over 12°. I should value your advice please. In the meantime, I have connected the throttle pedal to the linkage. This was another puzzle as, although a copy of an original, my pedal seems to be 1 1/2" too long. I have drilled a new hole for the ball joint, a bit closer to the pivot and it all works well. We also assembled the tailboard. The planks are aligned with tongues in the grooves and held together by the bolts in the hinge straps. Dad painted the underside of the hinges and put a single top coat on the planks earlier in the week so that we won't get a line of primer as the planks move with time. Dad then finished up by top-coating the inside whilst I drilled and fitted the foot brake pivot casting. I shall continue with the footbrake mechanism until we have worked out what to do with the camshafts! Steve

Hi Chaps. Many thanks for all of your comments and encouragement. I think I have some serious checking of timing and set -up to do. We did swap the crank gear from one crank to the other as it was in much better condition and it could easily be a tooth round. I did work out where I wanted the valves to open and then found that the marks lined up which pleased me at the time. I could be wrong though as it is all a bit difficult to check! I do hope I haven't got to pull the camshafts again but we shall see. Cranking the thing is certainly a feat of strength for which my desk-jockeying is not good training. An impulse starter is in the plan but I just haven't had a chance to do it yet. Oxygen sounds like a good idea. At the moment, I settle for having only a very light breakfast as I don't want to see it twice! The engine stiffening up is curious as it doesn't do that on the other lorries. Barry Weatherhead has reported the same issue with his Hallford lorry. The Thorny has had new pistons, rings and liners which is more than we have done on the others so that may be the issue. I hope it doesn't seize completely on a long run. Lots of food for thought. Now back into the fray! Steve

It has been quite an exciting day really.. Tim and I pulled the camshaft out and rotated it through 180° yesterday. Unfortunately, he then had to go home but this morning, we were able to put the engine back together ready for another go. Moving the camshaft had messed up the ignition timing so I adjusted that, primed the cylinders and had a swing. There was a definite 'chuff' but it sounded as if it had blown straight through the exhaust. I checked the timing again and realised that was set to the wrong cylinder so adjusted again and had another go. This time, it fired twice and rotated the engine but did not pick up and run. Now, this lorry has no choke and the instruction in the manual is to hold the float down until it floods and then start. This didn't seem very satisfactory to me so I quickly made up a choke for Father to hold against the inlet. I instructed him to keep the hole in line with the inlet! I had another swing and away it went. Unfortunately, our guest photographer missed the actual start! The film starts a couple of seconds later. We ran for several minutes until it was all beginning to warm up and the exhaust paint cooked itself on. It idled very nicely but as soon as I tried to open the throttle started to die until I released it. I tried this several times until, in the end, it stopped. Now that it was warm, it was too stiff for me to swing so we left it at that for the day and called it a success. I have since stripped the carburettor down to see if there was any dirt in the main jet passages but there was nothing obvious. The jets are the sizes published in the manual so I am puzzled and open to suggestions please. It is a 35mm Solex. Many thanks for all of your kind comments. We are a bit closer to our objectives but not there yet! We will have another go tomorrow when my arm has recovered! Steve

Well, it works! We have had some fun and games this morning but eventually, it went and I have some film files to post once I have worked out how to do them.. Idles nicely but dies when I try to open the throttle so I will need some advice about Solex carbs. More later! Steve

We are very pleased that you have got something out of it. We only do it for fun after all! Gosh, I ache this morning. Just going out to put it back together and have another go. The question now is will I be able to swing it now that it has the proper compression? I had better go and find out. More later! Steve

Very many thanks for all of your good wishes. We have had an interesting if not wholly successful day but are all going to sleep very well tonight! First job was to time the magneto. The coupling is interesting in that there is a thread cut around the shaft so that as you turn the pinch bolt, it revolves around it giving infinite adjustment. I set the contacts to open on top dead centre when fully retarded. Then it was time to make up the leads. Feeding them through was an interesting exercise. I had some terminals in stock but cannot decide how they should really be attached. I soldered them in the end using the propane torch. Once wangled through, I connected them up using my meter to identify which is which. They should be colour coded in a specific order but that will be a job for another day, when I remember to bring my coloured tape down. Last job was to fit a return spring on the throttle. Interestingly, I have not seen sign of any return spring on any official photographs and every preserved vehicle is different in layout. Tim got on the hose and filled the cooling system for the first time. This showed a few leaks, particularly under the hose clips and through the studs on the exhaust manifold. The hose clips were tightened or duplicated and more or less solved themselves. The leaking studs we have left to their own devices as I suspect that they will seal themselves up in time. Then it was the moment of truth. Two gallons in the tank and we swung and swung to no effect. The only time it fired was when Ari here put his finger over the priming cock to check compression and it fired giving him a quite noticeable burn! We messed around for ages, priming the pots and checking the timing but to no avail. In the end, we put a rod through the priming cock to check the valve timing against the piston positions and came to the conclusion that I had fitted the exhaust camshaft 180° out of position. We checked this several times always reaching the same conclusion so there was only one thing to do and that was to pull the camshaft. Fortunately, the shaft only had to move forwards enough to disengage the gear so we stripped the front end down and had a look. The marks on the two gears tied up but one whole crankshaft revolution out of position. How annoying! We have moved the shaft up, rotated it through 180° and put it back at which point we packed it in for the day. At least we have found the problem and are well on the way to resolving it. Tomorrow, I shall put the covers back and reassemble the front of the engine and we can have another go. We have had a lot of visitors today, providing extra labour to swing the thing and Tim has been able to be here as well. He has gone back now so I am hoping that it will start tomorrow without too much effort as desk driving is not the best training for this game! Will keep you posted. Steve

Thanks Tomo. I'll remember that! We have had a nice day., all bright and still and not cold. I have been pressing on with the hand controls and linkage. First part was to cut the throttle shaft and advance tube to length. Once the tube was to length, I soft soldered the advance lever to one end and the operating lever to the other. The throttle shaft runs up the inside but the tube rattled far too much so I turned up a couple of brass bushes and pressed them in. Trial installation with the levers at the bottom. The actuating collar at the bottom was pinned on and a suitable spring placed between the two collars to keep the actuating levers in contact with the quadrant. Then the hand throttle linkage was made up along with the advance linkage. I still need to connect the pedal and add a return spring. It was all surprisingly time consuming. In the mean time, Father has put two more coats of paint on the wings and Tim has been filling stauffers, a very messy job. Foot throttle, wiring and timing tomorrow and then it is the moment of truth! Steve.

As Dad has mentioned, we are having a bit of a blitz this week with the first priority to get the engine running. First thing we have done is to evict the poor old Autocar from the shed and sheet it over in the drive to give Dad somewhere to work. There is only so much clambering over stuff one can do so we are trying to make it easier to meet the deadline. Once the decks had been cleared, I fitted the oil filler, if only to get it safely out of the way. Once in position, we had to try it out of course. About a gallon and a half later and the float began to indicate, much to our surprise as we expected that it would need engine vibration to move it. I wanted to prime the oil system before we run it so I took the plugs out, disconnected the oil pressure line and swung the handle until I ran out of breath. Well, it is six and a half litres even without the plugs! On the second go, we saw some oil come out of the pipe so I reconnected it. The next swing saw the gauge registering. It is coming to life at last! The next task was to mount the magneto. During my last week off, I made the magneto coupling so all that was needed was the flexi-disc. This is a piece of leather with four holes in it. Our museum friend, Mark who does our leatherwork, found a complete hide of pump leather in a skip some years ago. He rescued it but didn't know what to do with it. This was very fortuitous for us as most of it has found its way into our lorries! Mark used it to make the propshaft couplings and has also given me a piece for general use. As it is over 1/4" thick, it was ideal for the flexi disc. I marked it out with scriber and dividers and cut it with the Stanley knife. The centre hole was taken out with a wad-punch but I don't have a 5/16" wad punch here and wondered what to do about the stud holes. In the end, I used a wood bit run quite fast and that worked out OK> The coupling was assembled and the magneto bolted up from underneath. All was well so I moved onto the advance levers. I had made the levers during my week off so I just needed to cut a shaft to length and pin them on. I have put taper pins through the shaft but looking at the pictures now, what I should have done is put a much larger pin through the block but offset to catch the shaft at the edge of the hole. Oh well. I expect that this will be OK and I shall know for next time. The other end was pinned in the same way. And then final assembly with the location tube pinned between the arms of the casting to stop it moving axially. Throttle linkage and HT leads tomorrow! Steve

I don't know what material the roof sheets are. They are extruded as two layers with ribs between and are about 3/4" thick overall. They are a recent installation but the originals did about 30 years before becoming brittle. You couldn't walk on them but they resist our size of hailstones satisfactorily. Dad can tell you more about them. Steve

Mark has turned up with some mahogany bars for the longitudinal roof strips and a beautiful piece of ash for the footstep. Dad has continued with the painting and has finished the rope hooks, seen here in undercoat, and has also put the first undercoat on the wings. As always, space is a bit tight! Sadly, I have been at work but I have just sketched out the footstep and wing brackets so I know what we are going to do there when the opportunity arises. Getting a bit close now! Steve

Yes, spinning needs lots of practice and I just haven't done enough. I can get the result I want, eventually, but it would be nice if it was easy! Something else we have been doing for a while is the transmission brake lever. Now these come in different versions and we have opted for one with a transverse pull like that on the Portsmouth bus. The Carlton Colville lorry has a vertical pull so you can see that the lever has a bend in it to accommodate this. You can also see the ball joints which I have just made. We started off with another SG iron casting. As the lever rocks, the hole through which the tie bar passes needs to be oval so after drilling, I ran an end mill through it at two angles to generate a slot on one side. Hopefully, this will be enough. The tie bar is secured and adjusted by a wing nut. To stop it rotating and allow for the movement of the lever, the nut has a curved underside with a matching curve in the casting face. I simply created these features with a half-round file. Only the pivot casting remains now to have the bolt holes drilled and then it can all be put together. Something else for Easter! Steve

Dad started the day by tapping the pivot pin hole in the brake pivot casting. Rather sensibly, he used the mill to align the tap and keep it upright. Slightly off-line tapped holes can be intensely annoying! There just remain the four holes in the rear face to attach it to the chassis rail. I went back to the throttle linkage. After puzzling over the picture above, I realised that there is a floating link on the hand throttle shaft. This has three holes and is free to rotate on the shaft. The centre hole is pushed by a ball joint from the throttle pedal whilst the outer hole is connected to the carburettor. The link is pushed around by the hand throttle by a peg attached to the shaft. The last photo should make it all clear. In the mean time, I made the floating link in the usual manner. The peg drops from a boss which is pinned to the throttle shaft. It started out as a turning but was then cut and dressed back with a hack saw and files. The peg comes around and pushes it. I hope I have made it thick enough! I have started on the sidelamp bracket too but that's the end of my holiday. Back to reality tomorrow! Steve

After doing some more painting, Father started on the footbrake bell-crank mount casting. There isn't actually too much work involved which is the point of a casting. However, the thing is big and very awkward to hold. After a good cleaning up all over, he machined the top face and then drilled it through ready for tapping 5/8" BSW. Next part will be the mounting holes inthe rear face. Meanwhile, I have been working on the hand throttle lever. All my usual approach with a steel profile, silver solderd fabrication and lots of filing. This one has the added interest of a brass knob on the end. The ball turner came into its own again and soon made short work of the job. A bit of Autosol brought it up nicely. Secured with a screw from underneath. I am now part way through the throttle lever at the bottom of the column. Only one day left before reality strikes again! Steve

April 2nd if all goes well! Steve