Old Bill

Spring washers were placed under the nuts and the whole lot were tightened down. The cover on the end had been loosely fitted to give us somewhere to sling so this was removed and a gasket made and fitted. Father has now started the grotty job of cleaning it up ready for painting. Doing it here puts the rest of the chassis at risk but does have the advantage of holding the differential securely upright and keeps the muck out of the works. Well, that is another step forward and all of the big lumps are in. We just have to connect them now! The radiator will be the next exciting component and we hope to get the soldered core back in the next couple of weeks so that we can press on with finishing it. Steve

Something we keep tripping over is the differential, so kindly sent by Mike from New Zealand. We took it out of the casing a while back and Dad and Tim had a good go at cleaning it. Since then it has been sitting on the floor under a cover while we decided what to do with it. We decided that it is in such good order with little wear and no swarf visible that we would simply put it into the axle casing we have fitted to the chassis and that was our project this weekend. Firstly, Dad gave it another clean and dusting whilst I cut out a gasket. Dad made the studs for it this weeke but was nearly caught out when he noticed that the New Zealand axle casing is tapped BSF and the one we have fitted, Whitworth! Fortunately, he noticed in time and all was well. The studs were fitted and some blue goo placed underneath the gasket and the casing was ready. The differential is a heavy old lump and it took us a while to work out how to do it. Tim turned it over before we slung it from the engine crane to put it on a trolley. We wheeled it beneath the chassis and then picked it up again with the crane. That crane has proved to be a very good investment indeed! More blue goo and the differential was gently lowered in, onto the studs. Some gentle encouragement from a mallet and then the nuts were evenly tightened to wind it down to the final position.

Hi Barry. I cut in alternate directions, first down a step and then across as step, 0.015" each time following the axis of the casting. Coming down increases the radius and moving across reduces it. Unfortunately, I overcooked it a bit coming down too far with the result that the edge has a band about 1/8" wide slightly oversize. You can see it in the picture. I should have gone across first and then down to bring the socket up to size, not down. At least I understood that better when I did the cover! The 45° angle was purely arbitrary but gave me a place to start. To try to avoid the pip, I set the tool at the radius which ran through that point on the axis when at the finished size. I still ended up with a pip, though, which I ground out with the Dremel grinder. The final result is not as good as a commercial ground component but it is quite acceptable for my purposes and we have salvaged another part. The cap does look a bit ropy but there is still enough metal there. Now I have to psyche myself up to braze it all together. Many thanks for the input, everyone! Cheers! Steve.

Well, that is absolutely amazing. It certainly puts us in the shade as at least we have some chance of finding bits! Thank you very much for posting it and I shall look forward to progress with great interest. Now you have quite a few more pairs of eyes out looking too! Good luck! Steve

That's interesting and certainly makes sense. How would they have done it? Would they have filled the joint with flux first and how might they have applied the brass? SIlver solder has always been my material of choice and this is a new process to me! Many thanks! Steve

I had to do a trial fit of course! The final job is to braze it all together. This was originally done with brass brazing rods which is right on the limit of my heat source (propane). Can anyone offer any suggestions as to how to go about it as I have never done it before! I plan to make a couple of test samples up and see how it goes, to get a feel for it. These are big lumps and are going to take some heating so I would appreciate some comments. Any thoughts on what sort of flux to use, how to hold the assembly and how to feed it? All comments would be greatly appreciated! Steve

Regular readers may recall that the track rod and drag links were in a very poor state with the drag link corroded so far that there was little steel left and the brass brazing material could be seen! The track rod was repaired and fitted but the drag link was deemed to be too far gone and needed complete replacement. Page 195 shows the new components manufactured by Father in 2015. However, he didn't quite complete the little end and left the spherical boring to me! I have been puzzling over how to do this for some time but in the end realised that if the cup were rotated at an angle of 45° beneath a boring tool held in the mill then a spherical surface would be generated. This worked quite well and left a very pleasing finish. I already had the ball so I was able to try it in the socket with some 'blue' to see where it touched and adjust my cut to suit. The I bored the side clearance for the ball. And drilled and tapped the hole for the greaser. Next thing to look at was the cup. This was very poorly again and I started by facing it off before trying my lap and grinding past in the actual socket. As you can see, the surface was just too far gone so I set it up to bore it out in the same way as the first part. Very pretty! A quick measurement showed that a shim would be needed between the two components so this was fretted out using that wonderful invention, the sawing wire. Then it was simply a case of aligning the parts and drilling and boring the bolt holes through. Rather satisfying!

At last we are operational again! Father brought up the pump impeller and I have reassembled it. First job was to ease the impeller on the shaft slightly. This was done with an expanding reamer. Then the keyway was cut using my trusty slotting attachment for the Myford. Once this had been fitted, I reassembled the pump. To resolve the collar slipping problem, I have simply dimpled the shaft underneath the grub screws. Hopefully, this will sort it but we will have to keep an eye on it. New gaskets were cut and the whole ensemble was refitted to the engine. All that remains is a test run! Now, back to the Thornycroft, at long last! Steve

Thanks for the tip-off! Steve

This is an interesting discussion point! I have always taken the view that I want the vehicle to look used but maintained with factory parts, even if we made them. Certainly, in some cases we make crisper parts than they would have been originally by carving them out of the solid. If a vehicle has been run for an extended period, then some of the bits will be newer than others and will look it. Our vehicles are just extreme examples. As part of my living, I have in the past drawn up fabrications to replace castings for old vehicles for our spares department. The vehicle needing them was only twenty years old but the patterns had gone adrift somewhere and we needed to support it so there is precedent, even in the commercial world. Whilst we were at Statfold with the Dennis a few weeks back, a chap came up to me and said 'That's no good. It's all new!' Well, the body is so I couldn't argue. As long as you are honest about it then I see no problem. Without new parts, there wouldn't be a lorry at all! Of course, there is a certain degree of pride in it as well as we always want to do the best job we can and we can get carried away! Steve

Oh yes, certain of it. I have been looking for the photos that I took on that day but they seem to have gone adrift in the last thirty years! Steve

To be honest, I don't know! I will take some photos if I get the opportunity but I am going to leave the bits with them to do for us. This is too high a value component for me to risk just trying to work out how to do it the hard way! Many thanks for the encouragement. We have had a very slow patch due to trying to build my motor house for the Dennis. Fortunately, Dad has been able to keep things going and I only need to apply one more coat of paint to the doors now before I can get back onto lorries. The end is in sight! Steve

Yes! I have taken quite a fancy to this Latil but we have enough to keep us going until I drop! I saw it on the Brighton run when I was at college. It was departing from Battersea Park in a raging rainstorm and the crew were in oilskins! After that it disappeared so it is nice to see it out again. Steve

The wheels you have depend upon who made them. They were bought in as required from different manufacturers. One of ours is stamped 'S & C' and the other 'RS & J' which we take to be 'Shrewsbury and Challoner' and 'Ransomes Sims and Jefferies'. We also have a set of round spoke wheels in stock although ours have eight spokes and you have ten on the rear. That is another whole area of research! Steve

A taper pin would be my first choice. However there is an oil way up the centre of the shaft which feeds the shaft bearing so a pin would block it. In fact this oil feed is probably the cause of our problems as at up to 40psi pressing on the end of the shaft, it generates an end load of up to 20lbs! I hadn't thought of that when I originally assembled it. Dimples for the grub screws look promising but I will think further before committing. Thanks for the suggestion! Steve

A nice find. Dennis for sure! Ours is 12005 which we reckon is July 1918. I would therefore suggest that yours dates from the first quarter of 1918. Thanks for sharing! Steve

Anodising would certainly stop the corrosion. It was how torpedo hulls were treated when I made them for a living! I must admit that I don't understand the process though. How would it take to a cast surface and how would I do it? Interesting suggestion! Steve

After our super day out on Saturday, I gave the lorry a bit of attention, part of which was draining down the cooling system. I emptied the water, which looked like milky coffee, down the drain only to find a lot of bronze glitter left in the bottom of the bucket. This was of distinct concern! The only part of the system with any bronze content is the water pump so I took the cover off to have a look and this is what I found: This is what it should have looked like! The top surface of the impeller and half of the blades had disappeared! Fortunately, the cover has not suffered much, which is a surprise when the impeller has lost so much material. The question now is what has happened? On inspection, I could see that the spindle has moved outwards about 1/2" almost disengaging from the spline, but what pushes it that way? Well, there must be a low-pressure area where it is drawing the water in and that will give it a bias. Also, the bearing is pressure fed from the oil pump at the end which also pushes it in that direction. To resist those forces, I fitted a collar onto the shaft at the inner end (although I had completely forgotten about that until I got the drawing out!). However, I didn't pin it as a pin would have blocked the oil way up the centre of the shaft. Instead, I simply grub-screwed it. It appears that this must have let go and allowed the movement but I am not certain yet. I must strip it further this weekend and have a proper look. This is the impeller that we originally copied and it seems to have suffered similarly at some time. I must dig the pattern out so Dad can get a new casting made. Not the end of the world but severely irksome and we are going to be off the road for a couple of months. What a nuisance. Steve

If you look on page three (!) you will see what we did with the radiator in the first place. Even then, the tanks were perforated and extremely wasted. Dad lined them with Devcon titanium epoxy putty and then plated over the top before finishing with an epoxy water-proof paint designed to seal boats. He put a lot of hours into the job but was told that he was wasting his time. We have got four years of running out of it but it now needs a final solution. Making a thin internal tank has been considered (thanks mtskull) but there is still quite a lot of work involved. I couldn't weld it so it would be soft solder and rivets to do it. The aluminium Vulcan tank fabrication is an eye-opener too and a reflection on what real skill can achieve! Sadly I just haven't got it. However I can just knock up a pattern and make a direct replacement so that is the route we will take. I plan to do that next winter all things being equal. Poor old Thorny is going to suffer again! Steve

It has corroded from the inside out. We don't put anti-freeze in as the coolant doesn't stay there long enough! Normally, we drain it down because it stays idle for such long periods. This radiator has suffered because it was on a fire pump so it spent long periods inactive but full. Of course there is also the dissimilar metals problem causing a battery effect. Brass and aluminium in electrical contact in a solution with a surface open to the atmosphere very close. The system isn't air-tight so the oxygen doesn't get used up. In fact it is a recipe for disaster and these radiators only last about seventy years! Steve

Whilst I have been continuing the fit-out of the new motor house, it has become painfully obvious that the Dennis radiator is not happy. In fact, it has had it completely! On chipping out the filler that had been applied as a stop-gap and giving it a wire brushing I could see that the tank has gone into holes all the way along just above the brass tube plate. Bearing in mind that the tank was about 1/4" thick at this point originally that is some serious corrosion! The only proper course of action is to make up some patterns and make up new tanks. However, I really don't want to do that at the moment as there is so much else to be going on with so I need a solution that will last just one more season. After some pondering, I decided to patch the tank with aluminium strips and seal them in with silicone sealant. First job was to cut a patch. This worked well so I did the other side too. The back of the tank was worse but I gave it the same treatment. I filled it this evening and the top tank has remained tight although I have a few drips from the bottom. Hopefully this will keep us going for the rest of the season. Once you have more than one vehicle, you have a maintenance problem! Oh well! Steve

We couldn't do this without the kindness of our friends and this is amazing. Thank you, Barry, for speeding us on our way! I ordered the tubes and gills last week and they should turn up within a month. Then we will have the fun of threading them on before sending them and the plates off for soldering. Once we have the radiator, the lorry will have a face. Progress is being made! Steve

Anything like this? 'Timken Detroit Axle Co'. A proprietary part manufacturer used on lots of American lorries. What is the story of yours? Cheers! Steve

We were fortunate to have an original bonnet for the Dennis subsidy lorry but it was a bit battered with some broken hinges. To get it apart, I simply knocked the hinge pin through as it is a piece of brass tube pushed in. It is trapped when the bonnet is in place. I did mess the end up though and had to make an extension before it was put back! I must admit that I haven't seen this arrangement before. You learn something new every day! Steve

Friends around the world helping out. Isn't this a wonderful hobby! Steve