Old Bill

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

Thanks for the recommendation, Ed. It is always nice to hear of personal experience. Cheers! Steve :-)

Hi Phil. Thanks for the tip. I have no experience of 'Technoweld'. Is it a welding process or some sort of special solder? How have you used it? It would certainly be another useful process to have in the tool kit. Cheers! Steve

Hi Jack. I am most interested in your suggestion that the colour in the Middle East would be 'yellow/brown'. Do you have any evidence for that? It is the most logical colour and the sort of thing we have in mind for our Peerless when we get around to it but we have never seen a mention of any colour except Khaki-green. We would love to see some sort of reference, even if only a written description. Cheers! Steve

Crank End Float Thanks for that Tom. I will eye up the job the next time I go down and see how easy it might be to do. Thanks also for the supplier suggestion. I had not seen their name before but they look like just the right sort of people to help us out. This forum is wonderful for all the help so freely given! Cheers! Steve :-D

Thanks Matt and Lofty. An instant explanation of how to do it! I shall check the timing the next time I go down to Devon and see what we have. I think you are right, the numbers must refer to matching sets of gears. The gears are keyed to the camshafts so there is no adjustment. I guess they just selected sets in the factory. This might explain why the big ends are numbered 17, 18, 21 and 22. Cheers! Steve

Thanks Lofty. You are absolutely right. Please may I have some guidance as to how to do it? There are no marks on the flywheel at all and the manual offers no comment. As the gears are a matched set, the two camshafts will be correct to each other but may, as you point out, be wrong to the crank. At the moment, we can set the crank to TDC using a square against the top of the case and I can put a follower and push rod in place so that we can see when that begins to lift an exhaust valve. The question really is when should it lift? One old motor vehicle manual we have suggests 49° before BDC. Does that sound about right to you? The Thorny manual really is no use at all for setting up the engine but the Dennis one gives a timing chart. This suggests 45° before BDC. I think that I might put a datum on the crank case, then line the flywheel up to TDC and mark it with a felt pen. If I measure the diameter of the flywheel, I can work out the circumference and divide it into 45° positions using a tape measure. Then, if I put a DTI on the top of the push rod and slowly turn the flywheel, I will be able to see where it begins to open. A nice interesting challenge although I am not quite sure what I will do if it proves to be half a tooth out! Incidentally, another question arises. Why are the timing marks on the gears marked '3' and '4' rather than 'I' and 'E' or '1' and '2'? Might the factory have been assembling matched sets? Cheers! Steve :-)

Hi John and Barry. RE: End Float Many thanks for your comments regarding the end float. 0.030" does seem a bit much. Unfortunately, there is no way of adjusting it except by replacing all of the white metal shells and line boring again. I really don't want to do that and feel inclined to leave it alone. I don't think that float was what stopped them using the engine although, I guess that it might make setting up the clutch brake a bit tricky. The timing gear end load will tend to bias the crank in the same direction as the clutch so there will be little end movement when I hit the pedal. I think we will leave it alone and see what happens. Cheers! Steve

Hi Ed. You are one step ahead of us! Yes, we will need new pistons because we have lost 3/16" on the bore diameter due to the liners and the original pistons do not have enough meat on them to skim them down. My intention is to make up a pattern and have them cast in grey iron at our local foundry. Then I can machine them to suit the rings that we have bought. The biggest challenge will be the gudgeon pin hole as it is 2 1/2" below the crown but the clearance over the saddle on the lathe is only 2 1/16" so between centres boring is out. My mill does not have enough vertical stroke to go right through either so we may well be knocking on doors. Come to think of it, one of our friends has just retired and as a retirement present, has bought himself a large vertical mill. Time to invest in a few beers! Do you know of a company that makes iron pistons as specials? It would be most interesting to find out what they could do for us. Thanks for the tip-off! Steve

Hi Barry. I think that the bearing caps were machined at the same time as the crank case so they are non-interchangeable and non-reversible. The shells are white metal die-castings about 3/16" thick and would be a real pain to replace so I have simply put the originals back. I measured up the crank, which comes from the other engine, and found that the journals are only 0.001" smaller than those originally fitted so I have simply set the shims so that the crank is gripped when the caps are tightened down. I then blued and scraped the white metal back until i achieved a good contact and the crank turned freely at which point I did them up 'tight' and then gave them a bit more until the split pin holes lined up. Not very scientific but I have confidence that we will be OK! The end float is set by the centre bearing shell and is non-adjustable. The float appears to be about 0.030" which feels OK but I don't know how much it should be. How much would you expect? The reason for leaving the flywheel on was that we couldn't get it off! Cheers! Steve

Hi Terry. What a splendid machine! I had never heard of Lombard but I might recognise one now! That engine is quite something and I can certainly see how big a project you have taken on. I have had a very quick look at your thread and the work you are doing is most impressive. I shall read it through in detail shortly. Your attitude to it is great: When something new comes along, just read up and have a go. Everything is possible if you really want to do it and you are proving that. The family resemblence between your engine and our model 'A' is striking and I know exactly what you are doing. Good luck with it all, thank you for sharing it with us and I shall look forward to watching future progress. All the very best, Steve

Thanks! I'll have to keep them in mind. Cheers! Steve

Beautiful job, Tom! How did you extend the valves to go all the way through the rims? On our Autocar, they barely poke through the timber. Cheers! Steve

The bottom of the liners were not quite flush by a couple of thou in some places so I think the bolting flanges for the blocks are slightly distorted. I didn't want to risk distorting the flanges further and possibly cracking the iron although I think that risk would have been very low. There is no gas seal at this end and the contact only need prevent the liners from dropping out should they come loose. The flanges on the end of the liners are 1/8" bigger in diameter than the hole in the top of the crank case so they could not fall out in any case. The liners are not as tight as our motor mechanic friend would have liked but I just wasn't brave enough to specify a solid interference fit. These have all gone in with a good push which is exactly what I had hoped for. I am, however, very glad that the job is done! Regarding gaskets, I intend to use a paper type one that is a cross between thick brown wrapping paper and very thin card. I haven't come across shellac coated paper. What effect does that have? You have intrigued me with your big Wisconsin engine! What sort is it and what is its history? Cheers! Steve :-)

Hi Barry! We haven't been completely idle! We have cleaned up the magneto drive shaft and yesterday, we fitted the cylinder liners (successfully!). However, Tim posts all the pictures but he has limited access to a computer at the moment. Hopefully he will be able to put them up today. We have guests today but tomorrow, we plan to fit the timing gear to the crankshaft and then fit that into the crank case. At last we will be putting things back together! All the best, Steve

Welcome Mike! Please may I pick your brains? This is a bit of a long shot but have you ever come across paint colours used in Mesopotamia in the First War? We would like to paint our Peerless lorry for that campaign but have seen evidence for nothing but the usual khaki-brown-green colour used on the Western Front. They may well have been shipped that colour but we would be very interested to hear whether they ever became any other shade. Enjoy the forum! Best wishes, Steve

From that link to Graces Guide, you can see that Eagle Engineering was part of the Hestair group. Hestair also owned Dennis of Guildford and there was good business for Eagle fitting bodies, mainly refuse collection, onto Dennis chassis. When Trinity Holdings bought Dennis from Hestair they also bought Eagle and later, moved the lorry chassis business up to the Eagle site in Warwick where complete vehicles were then built. The business in Warwick, now trading as Dennis Eagle, was sold off immediately after the disasterous takeover of Trinity by Mayflower in around 2000. The dustcart business was eventually bought by a Spanish Company, Ros Roca, who continue to run it today, supplying more than half of the UK's refuse collection vehicles. You can still see a stylised eagle badge on the front of Dennis dust carts. Sadly, there was a big clear out a few years ago and a mountain of old records were disposed of but I will go and have a rummage after Christmas and see if anything has survived. Good luck with the trailer! Steve :-)

Nice job as always. How did you generate the balls? Cheers! Steve

Just look at that reduction gear on the starting handle! It would take a big man to start that monster! Steve:D

It is my opinion that the governor is simply there as a 'rev limiter' to prevent inexperienced drivers from breaking things. None of the ones I have seen has a fine adjustment for setting vehicle speed precisely. The Dennis is fitted with one and it all functions to the point where you can see the lever on the side of the crank case moving when the throttle is opened. It should operate a butterfly above the carburettor but our inlet manifold has never been machined to take one so we run without. I would like the Thornycroft one to function but I would leave the butterfly out of the manifold so that it has no effect on my driving. I have never driven with a governor but I am told that it is not very pleasant so I don't want to try! As far as I can make out, the Thorny one works by having two bob weights held together with a pair of springs and this assembly rotates with the camshaft. At speed, they begin to move apart under the control of the springs. They are attached to bell cranks which slide a slotted collar along the camshaft behind the timing gear. A bronze yoke engages in a second slot in the collar. As the collar moves, the yoke is brought forward with it rotating a crank which protrudes from the side of the crank case. I think that the weights and cranks are zinc die-castings which is why we managed to break them when knocking out the camshaft. I would like to have a working mechanism and am thinking of replacing them with brazed steel fabrications but I need to have a closer look at the bits before we start on that. Something to do on Christmas morning! One of our friends who has a Hallford lorry fitted with a Dorman engine decided to set up his governor by mounting it in the lathe so he could control the speed and set the springs to match. Unfortunately, he forgot that the camshaft runs at half crank speed so his lorry is now governed to 30mph! Steve

Regular readers may recall that on page 161, Tim recounted my efforts to repair the oil level float. Well, we had a play with the lorry over the weekend only to find that it has sunk again! I shall have to spin up a replacement. On page 162, I postulated the question as to who invented the dipstick? I still don't know but have just read in the 'Octagon Car Club Bulletin' that just prior to WW1, William Morris had been over to the US to see how they built cars and to find an engine for the new four seater Morris Cowley. He bought the type 'U' Continental Red Seal engine and this is what 'The Autocar' said about it in early 1916: 'The standard oil gauge (oil level in the sump) on light cars takes the form of an overflow tap, which is necessarily so low down on the crank case that it is difficult to see and awkward to clean out. A downward slanting tube is sunk into the side of the Morris Cowley crankcase, in which a knob-ended rod is a close fit, the lower tip of this rod is scribed with cross lines and when the rod is pulled out the green oil stain shows where the oil level is' Well, the dip-stick seems to have been invented by the Americans. Unless you know better! With thanks to Neil Cairns for bringing this to my attention. Steve :cheesy:

Truly a man after my own heart! Thanks Hedd. I have been in Devon again to take the Dennis out for some friends. I think it has done 86 miles now. I took the opportunity to see what Father has been up to, keeping the ball rolling whilst I have been doing other things. With the valve caps finished, the cam followers coming on, cleaning and painting is nicely under control and various bits on order or in stock, we have set ourselves the target of getting the crank and camshafts fitted over Christmas. Something to shake that lunch down! Steve

I'm down in Devon again with a chance to see what Father has been up to! I have had a look at the valve seat and I suspect that you are right and it is a crack. it is very fine so my current plan is to lap the valve in and leave it alone. What risks will we be running if we just ignore it? This lorry, like our others, will see very little use and I don't really want to risk major surgery to our fragile and irreplaceable block if we don't have to. Steve