Old Bill

Don't be sick! Enjoy what you can do. I am certain that you could do it as well if you wanted to enough. Let's face it, we didn't know how to do anything until we tried and then asked our friends here and around the country for help and guidance. A job like this is like eating an elephant. You do it one mouthful at a time!

As long as you get pleasure out of it then nothing else matters.

Enjoy!

Steve

It wasn't noticeably worse in this area. I suspect that the huge amount of copper and brass in the rest of the rad will have most galvanic effect and that this pipe is pretty insignificant. All of the tanks I have seen are generally pitted but extremely wasted just above the tube plate.

Steve.

That has to be the most complete great war vehicle I have ever seen. What a find! The governor, the choke knob, the silencer bypass pedal are all there. Truly amazing!

It is interesting that the side panels are missing. FWDs all seem to overheat and the panels are missing in a very high proportion of the photos. I guess your was the same! What is its history?

You know where to come for information anyway. Good luck with it and we will look forward to seeing your progress.

Steve

Thanks Chris. I will have a go at it when I get back home.

In the mean time, I have found this picture of the inside of the top tank of a Thorny owned by the Hampshire County Council Museums Service.

As you can see, there is a short overflow pipe running from the outlet fitting up to the filler cap. As our plan is to assemble and fit the radiator the next time we are all together, this part needed making so I set to this afternoon to do it. Step one was to get out my home-made 1/2" tube bender.

That worked well so step two was to swage out the tube end.

I turned up a brass nut and we were away.

One more piece ticked off.

Steve

Another manufacturing challenge! If I make up a guide tool to keep the punch and die aligned, I could use the hydraulic press to push the punch through. Hardened silver steel would be the way I should go. (Thanks for the suggestion). A bit more pondering time needed, I think.

Steve

The plan was to anneal it so I could shear it, drill it and bend it. What I propose doing now is to cut the leaves out with a disc cutter and then experiment with the off cuts to see if I can bend them without fracture. Not sure how I will drill them now though!

Steve

I have had a nice day in the workshop today. First job was to make up another pattern for Father to take to the foundry. This one is for the front cover for the differential and was a simple turning job from a blank laid up form MDF slices. Not difficult but my dust extractor failed on me so that got a clean and service as well.

That one has now had a coat of Bondaprime and will get rubbed down and finished tomorrow.

The next task was to progress the gear change mechanism. Reverse is through 1st gear so there is a catch and trigger on the lever to prevent it from being accidentally engaged. This had had a hard life, was bent and well rusted. Some persistence with the blowtorch and a punch managed to extract the split pin.

Wire and nylon brushes cleaned the bits up and I took the opportunity to take out the wear in the pivot pin holes by enlarging them with a 13/32" drill.

A wire brush in the pistol drill soon sorted the handle.

I turned up some new pivot pins so only the centring springs remain. These are interesting in that they are leaf springs, mounted either side and made from 22swg spring steel. This is proving very hard to get and the best price we have had is £67- plus £15- postage for 0.3m x 1m. However, one of my work colleagues had a brainwave and has suggested that I use a panel saw! Screwfix is next door to work so I have picked up a £2-99 saw with the intention of cutting it up. It is just the right thickness so I will have a go at that shortly. I shall find out how well it anneals!

Pattern painting tomorrow and then the centring springs.

Steve

I have only ever seen them in bronze on this side of the world. so ours will be too. You can see in Hedd's photos of the recovery that the gearlever quadrant was missing, as were the brasses from the pump itself. I think the bronze thieves had got there beforehand!

Steve

It might be possible to weld the sump but this old aluminium is very variable in properties. The chap who has it is very enterprising so I am sure he will find a way.

This is the lorry from which it came. I took this photo over twenty years ago in the Thornycroft factory yard. It is a completely original vehicle of 1919 and was still with the original owners at the time. It was later sold, about twelve years ago I think, and the new owner suffered the disaster the first time he tried to start it. Since then, it has been laid up in a shed until purchased earlier this year.

What are all of the small pipes all over the engine?

I am confident that it will now be repaired and run again although the owner rather has his hands full with other projects for the time being. We shall see in due course. The factory, by the way, has been demolished and turned into a supermarket. Shame!

Steve

This weekend, I was fortunate to attend the Bedfordshire Steam Rally at Old Warden where I found this Thornycroft M4 Engine.

It is a lovely engine but that con rod looks suspicious.

It had, unfortunately, been started without a return spring on the throttle and had raced away until it went bang.

This is the number four piston.

Although this is not a pretty sight, he actually got away with it quite lightly and needs only a new crankshaft, piston, two con-rods and a sump to sort it. Any spares out there?

Steve

The last pattern of my week was the mounting for the hand brake quadrant, the black casting in this picture of the Carlton Colville lorry.

As before, I laminated Mark's flexible plywood and glued on the flanges.

I turned up some bosses from a handy bit of ash and then just dressed the profile to shape.

Leather fillets finished it off.

I have painted it this evening along with all the others and will deliver them to Father for his next trip to the foundry in a fortnight's time. Incidentally, the actual ratchet teeth I am having laser cut. The next job is the clutch pedal and the brake and gear levers.

Steve

I also said that to Mike when I bought the bits off him in 1989.

27 years and counting!

Steve

I looked along the tube and propped the other end up until they looked in line! The ends are within 1/8" and are uncritical as any difference can be accommodated by adjusting the brake rod length.

Steve :-D

You had just one day off? Makes my week off look pretty unproductive!

Keep up the good work!

Steve :-D

Now back to the original plan. We have no gear change quadrant. As you can see from the Carlton Colville lorry, it is a big bronze casting so it is not surprising really. A pattern is therefore required.

I have been introduced to some exceptionally flexible plywood by our joiner pal, Mark, and wondered whether it could be laminated and remain curved.

Well, that worked OK so it was a case of trimming it to size and then cutting the slots.

This pattern is a bit delicate so working out how to cut the slots was a puzzler. In the end, I reversed the blade in my coping saw and supported the whole lot on a piece of wood in the vice.

Add a leather fillet to the back and job done!

Well, almost. I then remembered the reverse gear catches on the top. I placed them this evening and will taper and radius them tomorrow

The handbrake lever also has a quadrant casting with teeth for the ratchet bolted on. A job for tomorrow.

Steve

Well, I want to get some pattern making done but I also want to get some unfinished jobs off the bench! One of these is brazing the brake arms to the cross tube. The original tube ahad been bent so Father scrapped it and bored the arms out to suit a new one. Originally, they had been brazed onto the tube. I have little experience of this process but much more with silver solder. I looked into the relative strengths of the two processes and found them to be very similar. The only downside of silver solder is the expense which I decided to live with so here goes.

Flued up and ready for some heat.

Well, that worked OK.

As I was using my biggest burner and my workshop is wooden with a 74" headroom, I decided that for the second, I would do it outside!

Drill through and tap for the stauffers and the lob was done.

We are without a gear change knob as the original had rotted off of the lever altogether leaving only the special securing nut. According to the parts book, it is described as 'Ebony Change Knob'. I don't have any ebony that big so I opted for a piece of oak instead. I wonder whether they were actually using ebony at this stage of the war?

Special nut cleaned up.

A nice piece of oak from the stores and away we go.

A ball shape turned by eye. Don't put the micrometer on it!

I decided to simply wax it as a finish so I held the block against it whilst it rotated and then polished with a piece of paper. I don't use rag anywhere near the chuck as I value my fingers too highly!

Another job ticked off and I am pleased with the result. Just need to do the lever so it can be fitted!

This week, I have the great good fortune to have a few days off so these are being devoted to the lorry. There are a lot of small patterns needed so I thought I would concentrate mainly on them. Firstly, the silencer brackets. These photos show one on the Carlton Colville lorry which we inspected and measured up earlier in the year:

I started roughing it out and sticking a few bits of MDF together to see how it would look.

I used a flap wheel in the mill to get the main curve and then the Dremel with a sanding drum in it to generate the profile.

A bit of filler and some more Dremel work and it is ready for the paint shop.

We had previously rescued the hand brake catch from another Thornycroft brake lever so, for a bit of light relief, I cleaned it up with a nylon brush in the pistol drill.

New pins needed and then it is ready to fit.

As we are concentrating on the controls at the moment, the next pattern was the pedal shaft pivot. There are two of these castings bolted to the subframe to carry the pedals. The lower boss carries a peg to limit the brake pedal travel. This shows it roughed out.

After some work with some filler and the Dremel again to to give it some shape and tidy the fillets.

Gear shift quadrant tomorrow!

Steve

Steve, Good to meet you at Dorset,

Tomo

It was great to meet you too. The great joy of this forum is in having so many friends I have not yet met!

Steve :-D

And heat of course.

A pin punch to knock out the bolts.

And then a straightening exercise. This gear lever is very corroded but is the right pattern for the lorry.

Next, the brake lever. This, again, is very corroded but is the right one for the vehicle. Theshaft had been sawn off behind the lever long ago and needed to be removed. Once again, heat and the trusty press came to the rescue.

Then, remover the broken handle.

And straighten the handle out. It has corroded very heavily in the area of the quadrant so this will be built up with weld. I shall ask an expert to do that.....

Finally, Dad has continued to paint the radiator. It will be assembled and fitted the next time I am in Devon.

Well, we are making progress once again but we have a long way to go. 'Watch this space' as they say!

Steve

The pivot pin came out but will need replacing. That will be a nice turning job.

We had to have a trial fit. Fortunately, all was well!

Then on to the other change lever. A stiff wire brushing left it ready to paint.

Next job was to rescue the correct but bent gear lever. The usual heat and hammers were applied.

Then it was time to try to remove the reverse latch mechanism. First, cut the split pins off with the Dremel pencil grinder.

As Tim has mentioned, we had the good fortune to be able to attend the Great Dorset Steam Fair again this year. There really was a good turn out of Great War era vehicles and we had a super time. Earlier in the year, we had reached the conclusion that we were not going to get the Thorny done in time for the 2018 centenary as there is just too much to do. However, the show has inspired us and Dad has laid down the gauntlet to get it done so we will have a go. It is going to be a tough one but we spent the rest of the weekend getting stuck in with these results.

We unloaded the radiator core and then I took the top tank and chamfered the inner edge in order to clear the solder fillet. Of course, we had to try fitting it!

That was inspiring so Dad pressed on with painting all of the radiator castings.

Then, we have been tripping over the gear lever and handbrake support casting for years so it was time that was fitted.

The we hunted down all of the gear and brake levers we have acquired over the years and laid them out to assess the job.

We also found a set of pedals although one has been very crudly repaired and will need some serious attention. We can't do much with them for the time being as the brake shaft pivot castings are missing so they will be my next pattern making job.

On to the gear lever and change levers. We are fortunate to have two although one is exceedingly corroded and the other has the wrong sort of handle. First job was to pull them apart using the usual persuaders or heat and a hammer and punch to knock out the pins.

The centring springs are interesting although they will need replacement. These are the best bits we have.

The holes in the shaft were a bit of a puzzle until I realised that there was the remains of a stauffer in the end of the shaft which had been peened over until it was invisible. Once drilled out, the grease ways could be cleared and a new stauffer will be fitted on final assembly.

Dad has painted up the footsteps so it only remained to fit them.

They look nice and that is one more 'finishing off job' ticked off the list!

Steve :-)

I put the tank on my surface plate, machined face down, and scribed a line across each boss at a height I estimated to be the mean of both boss centres. I then repeated the exercise with the front face of the tank on the plate. Next, I centre popped the crosses and put a centre in each using a slocumb drill in my pistol drill while the tank was clamped to the bench. To machine them, I should have supported it between centres and used a driving dog at the chuck end but I was lazy and just held one end in the chuck. I didn't think the resulting wobble would be significant over that length and they are rubber mounted anyway.

My main challenge was to find a lathe big enough to do it!

I have finished polishing the castings and am now cutting gaskets. We are getting close to fitting it now!

Steve :-)

Well, the next step was to turn up the spigots on the end of the bottom tank to fit the support trunnions and where better to do it than at my railway club where there is a big lathe.

Then it was a case of polishing up with a flap wheel and scrapers and fitting the studs previously made by Father.

All ready for some paint!

And on that front, my good friend Adrian, has very kindly sprayed the core with a matt zinc chromate. It looks very nice and is firing me up to get on with it!

Next task is to clean up the side castings and prime them. Then we can think about green paint, assembling and fitting. Another month should see it on the lorry.

Steve :-)

Well, we haven't stopped completely although progress is still slow. Too many other commitments! However, Dad has painted the differential and that is looking nice. Waiting for the coupling which is another pattern making job.

Vintage Wings and Radiators rang to say that the core was ready for collection so a trip to Manchester ensued. It was raining! It was ready on the day they promised and a super job less than a third the price of my other quote. Can't ask more than that.

I understand that they hang the gilled tubes on a wire and dip the lot, one end first as it is incluned to spit a slug of molten solder from the end if they are not careful! Once that is done, the tube plates are tinned and then the tubes inserted into one of them. The solder is run using a gas torch. Once that is done, the other tube plate is fitted and again, the solder is run around them with the torch. I didn't manage to get out of him how he aligns all of the tubes with the holes in the plate. I'm sure that is the most difficult bit! As you can see, they were very generous with the solder.

As each row of tubes was fitted, they were tied together with a copper rod to stop them from vibrating and fatiguing the joints. You can just see the end sticking out.

Then I spent a week of evenings scraping the solder from the joint face so that the gasket will sit flat.

A trila fit of the bottom tank and all looks well!

Next job is to finish off the tank.

Steve