Old Bill

Well, that's a bit different. I think, perhaps, that you missed your calling! Thanks for sharing it with us. Steve

Now there's an interesting question! I think it should qualify as although it has no individual provenance, it will be made of mostly 100 year old parts and it will be as if the ASC had just out-shopped it after a heavy general overhaul. This particular set of parts did not come out of Basingstoke all together as part of the same machine but they are the right parts for it. This is very similar to the B-type bus, 'Old Bill', owned by the IWM. It was built by the London General Omnibus Co. for its own use. They had so many of them that they set up a maintenance depot to look after them. When buses arrived, they were stripped right down and the parts sent to various shops for overhaul. At the end of the line, buses were reassembled using overhauled parts as they arrived. B-type buses arrived and B-type buses left the works but the chances of a chassis leaving with the body, engine and gearbox it had arrived with were slight. Is Old Bill original? Certainly. Is it the vehicle which was assembled in 1912? Certainly not! Admittedly, this vehicle has now been assembled for 80 years which the Thorny has not. Mr Larkin will undoubtably have something to say on this subject! Cheers! Steve

That's a good one! We do not have enough bits of any single lorry to give it a provenance so, like the Dennis, it will be a Thornycroft J type lorry assembled from original Thornycroft bits or new parts made as close to the original specification as possible. Hopefully, it will drive and perform like a freshly overhauled lorry. It won't be a replica but, strictly speaking, it won't be a restoration either. Perhaps 'further original' might be a better description! Steve

Hi Barry. Yes, you are quite right, the boss is welded on. The silver solder holds only the washers at the bottom end and the pinch bolt boss. We use silver solder because with a bit of care, it gives a first-rate joint and we can do it. Neither Tim nor Father welds and mine is absolutely awful so it is always a last resort. I have been taking lessons recently but my trainer and I have reached the conclusion that my vision is the problem. I hadn't realised that most welders can see some of the job when they are doing it whereas I can see only a bright dot and have to guess where the joint should be. Marginally better than doing it with my eyes shut but not much! I have had a failure, as predicted by Gordon, and I will get Tim to post some photos later. Cheers! Steve

A bit of a story there and you were right! I'll sort some more photos out tomorrow. Steve

Thank you, Gentlemen, for all of your kind thoughts and suggestions. Dad found the crack after we went our separate ways last weekend so I have only seen the same photographs that you have! I am sure there is a fix in there but I feel inclined to have a closer look at the second clutch before deciding on which one to use. I did start pulling the second one to bits but broke the spring clip off in the hole and so decided to continue with the first instead. As a result of the clip still being in the hole, I think we will have to cut the nut off which is a great pity as it is better than the first. Oh well. At least we can make a new one if necessary. The other plus side of using the second clutch is that we might be able to get away with the original lining again. Cheers! Steve

Thanks Terry. I think you must get better pine than we do! It is wonderful to see how you do it with removable pieces and so on. I have learned so much from seeing your step by step pictures of the process as well. Thank you very much indeed for sharing them with us. All the best, Steve:-D:

Hi Tharper! I have been admiring your exquisite patterns again. They really are beautiful. What sort of timber do you use? Also, how did you put the blank together for the elbows? Can I see three layers put together in small segments? I use MDF as it is easy to work and good enough for the few castings I want. Not nearly as pretty as yours though! All the best, Steve

Might have known Tim would pip me at the post! (Pun intended!). Steve

Hi Keith. Back left corner, a Commer (I think). Bottom right where you can see the radiator is an early Leyland (pre-war) and the one to the left of it is a Hallford (A & E Hall of Dartford). Bottom left is very tricky but might be a Peerless. Can't really tell but those are my thoughts. No doubt Tim and Runflat will come back with their thoughts very shortly! Cheers! Steve

That is a beautiful plate. The letters are all so crisp too. Wonderful work! I think we are going to have to have a go at this backyard foundry stuff. Something else to ponder....... Don't worry about hijacking the thread. I think of this as a bunch of friends sitting in a pub having a good old natter and whilst we have common interests, the topics can ramble into all sorts of interesting corners! Steve:-D

Ah, so that is how you do it! You make the core in two pieces and glue it together afterwards. The light is blinding! Easy when you know how! Your turning of the elbows is impressive too as the circular section relies on your skill rather than the rotation of the part. Because they are turned at the same time, the two halves of the elbow match exactly for width and section. Sooner or later, I am going to have to treat myself to a larger woodworking lathe as with only a 3 1/2" centre height to play with, I don't have the capacity to do what you have done but at least I know how, now! Many thanks, Steve :-D

Thanks David. I don't quite understand but will have a look at Google and see if I can find some pics. Cheers! Steve

Hi Alix. Thanks for that suggestion. Yes I have heard good things about K-Seal and I think it might well be the final solution. At the moment, one of the leaks is quite severe and it will be simple enough to have another go with the welder. However, the small ones are not worth getting it all hot again so the plan is to suck the air out and paint it with Loctite to try to draw it into the holes. If it still leaks here when we run it, we will add the K-Seal to the radiator as there will undoubtably be leaks elsewhere in the system as well. One thing we have learned about these old lorries is that if they stop leaking, it is because they are empty! Steve:cheesy:

Thanks for that but your core boxes put mine to shame! They are a work of art in their own right. I hadn't thought about casting in plaster but that might just be the way out for the onion shaped fan support casting that we will have to make shortly. The core for that one is still causing me to scratch my head. From the photo, it looks that you made the male in two pieces and mounted each half on a board. How did you maintain the alignments so that the core didn't have a witness line along its length? Come to think of it, how did you make the male parts at all? I can turn a straight cylinder but a long bent one I would find quite a challenge! Please would you post a step-by step explanation of the process you used for this one as whilst it looks a simple shape, it certainly isn't and I would love to know! Cheers! Steve :cheesy:

Hi Barry. Initially, I was concerned about the core floating off or simply moving. In hindsight, I think I would have got away without the dovetail but I am still not very confident about pattern making and make it up as I go along. Fortunately I have had some guidance from chaps on the Dennis thread and with my background reading have had some reasonable success. As you can see, though, my castings tend to be a bit thicker than the originals which is probably why the Dennis water pump weighs 31lbs! Milling out the passage would have been possible but a lot of work. My mill is only a glorified drilling machine and doesn't have enough stroke on the quill to reach the end. Also, my lathe isn't big enough to have bored out the circular hole. Cutting the MDF proved a lot easier! Of course there was quite a lot of work in the pattern and I can't see it ever being used again unless we have a disaster. Still, it has served its purpose. Steve

If you get the opportunity to take a few more detailed pictures we should love to see them please! Steve

I have just been digging through the early pictures for this project, from before the digital age, and have found this one taken whilst we were opening the crate. As you can see, it appears simply to be a resiliant mount for the handle. I find this a bit odd as it is massive overkill for the purpose. However, I am wondering whether it was originally intended as the front mount for the engine itself? The M4 engine doesn't show any signs of mounting holes in the front to accept it but we have always been a bit puzzled by the sub frame as it looks nothing like anything else we have ever seen. I am questioning whether the engine was a replacement mounted on the frame at a later date and therefore inherited the starting arrangement. We shall probably never know but I am now intrigued! Steve

I'm sorry, I can't add any more about your markings. Shrewsbury and Challoner were a known wheel manufacturer and Ransomes Simms and Jefferies were traction engine makers so they would have the requisite equipment to do the job. Both, however, are guesswork on my part. Steve

Gosh, thank you David. I had forgotten that they did that sort of thing and didn't give it a thought! I will check. Thank you for your kind comments as well. We are always a bit concerned about going into mind numbing detail. However, we do hope that our friends might occasionally find a good tip. Better still is when someone says 'don't do it like that, do it like this. Much easier'! Steve

That wouldn't be unlikely as the bearing and tyre sizes were defined by the Subsidy scheme. They were also manufactured by outside contractors. Our fronts are stamped 'S & C' and 'RS & J' which we take to be 'Shrewsbury and Challoner' and 'Ransomes Sims and Jefferies'. I understand that Thornycroft wheels were made by Taskers of Andover but I have never seen one on a lorry of another make. Steve

Hi Matt. There is no governor adjustment at all so I think it must just have been to protect the engine from inexperienced drivers. There is a story of a convoy of FWDs moving up from the port and the last one taking six hours more to arrive than the rest. This was due to the driver not realising that he had more than one gear and doing the whole trip in first! With that level of competence, I can imagine him opening the throttle wide in order to try to keep up. I'm making a new governor throttle actuating arm today. More pictures later. Cheers! Steve

Hi Barry. Yes, I could have worked it out from first principles but there is quite a lot of friction in there so I thought it better to go from a known baseline. That does assume that it worked properly in the first place! I am surprised that there is no adjustment in there so the speed setting must be quite variable between vehicles. If it is just to prevent engine overspeed then I guess they could live with that. The lorry governed to 30mph (!) is a Hallford and was rebuilt a good twenty years ago. Again, the governor is buried inside the timing case so you can't see it operating and the owner didn't take pictures like we do. You can see the lever arm on the Dennis move as the engine is accelerated but the engine has no butterfly or provision for one so there is no actual effect. I have ordered the springs now so we shall have to wait and see. Cheers! Steve :-)

Hi Chris. Yes, I did think of that one. I measured up the survivng springs and calculated their spring rate. I multiplied by 1.1 to allow for the relative densities of zinc and steel (7140kg/m³ and 7850kg/m³) and came up with a rate of 0.44N/mm. The original springs have a free length of 3 3/16" and an unknown pre-tension. I have been able to find an off-the-shelf spring with a rate of 0.45N/mm and an initial tension of 6.23N but a free length of 3 1/2". I am hoping to be able to reduce the free length by bending the eyes a little tighter as this free length has more effect than the spring rate. Now that Father has made up the weights, he can measure the closed and open lengths of the spring eyes and I can check what the forces will be. Of course, this is all a bit academic as we don't intend to fit a butterfly in the manifold! It would be nice to see it work though. Steve :-)

Thanks Jack. As soon as we know for certain, we will spread the word! Cheers! Steve