Old Bill

My goodness, that's fast! We'll wave as you zip past! Steve

Glad to hear that you are enjoying it. We only do it for fun after all! Steve

Not this year! The plan is just to do the 'Brighton' and also take it to Honiton Hill Rally which is our local. (August Bank Holiday weekend). We are not ruling it out for the future but haulage is such an expensive exercise and our spend rate has been a bit high recently. We need a bit of a breather! Incidentally, I hear via the grapevine, that there will also be Pierce Arrow and Locomobile 3 tonners appearing on the Brighton as well as Tom's Crossley and us. We could have a convoy! Steve

Hello Oier. Welcome! I hope you get as much fun out of the forum as I have! Steve:D

The last user certainly got his money's worth out of those tyres! We have pressed an old band off of a wheel that had come from Australia and which had been fitted using timber as shown here. We thought that it would be straightforward to remove but it was a nightmare and took well over 100 tons to shift. Steel on steel was much easier. I am very interested to see the Ransomes name on the back of the wheel. I always thought that Thornycrofts bought their wheels from Taskers of Andover, just up the road but you live and learn. Interestingly, the Dennis front wheels were stamped, one 'S & C' and the other 'R S & J'. I take these to be 'Shrewsbury and Challoner' and ' Ransomes Sims and Jefferies'. It looks like Ransomes spent the war making components for other prime contractors. I wonder who made all of those great traction engine style wheels for the big guns. Does anybody know? Steve

Yes, the tyres are new in that we have had a polyurethane fork-truck tyre mix applied to the original bands that we removed. The bands were not that tight when we removed them and, unfortunately, the sandblaster got a bit carried away and blasted the treads of the wheels as well as the spokes. This removed all of the old rust, of course, giving even more clearance. In hindsight, perhaps we should have shortened the bands before re-rubbering but it would have been very difficult to know how much metal to remove. We did the same thing with the Autocar tipper but that worked very well. Of course, with that one, the wheels are wooden so they were not blasted and the bands were tighter to start with. We are gaining experience the hard way! Steve

When we fitted these tyre originally, we were concerned about the fit and put a couple of layers of canvas underneath them. Unfortunately, they are still not tight enough.It has been suggested that we tack weld them around the edges but I think that they will 'work' on the rim and the welds will crack eventually so we have opted to fit them over shims. Guessing the thickness needed was pretty hard so I hope that we won't burst them now! Sorry, no solids in stock! They are pretty hard to find these days. Steve

Thanks Davie. We hadn't found that one. Worth further investigation I think. Cheers! Steve

There are two leather straps which join the front edge of the hoop to the rad protector to hold it down. The funny thing is that in the majority of old photos that we have, the hood is folded back. The first time we wanted a pair of these (for the FWD), I tried Googling 'leather straps' and got much more of an education than I was expecting! Another dear friend made them up for us in the end. Steve

Wonderful find! Any plans for it's future yet? Steve

That is wonderful! What a superb moment. I hope you are smiling and have no doubt that you will finish the job. I am looking forward to seeing it! Steve :-D:clap::clap::clap::beer:

We had a pleasant day today at the Militaria Fair at Stoneleigh. No spectacular finds but we had a nice chat with Martin of 'Allied Forces'. He did the most beautiful job on the canvas for our FWD a few years ago so we have now asked him to do the same for the Dennis. He is busy with jobs ready for the Summer but has promised to 'see what he can do' for us. The driver's hood bows are now the key factor. We should get the third one on Wednesday whereupon Father will prime them. I plan a working weekend next week to put them together leaving Father to paint them during the week after ready for transport to Martin the following weekend. This project planning is getting hard! Steve :-)

Hi Rippo. No, the die isn't hardened. It is just a piece of mild steel with a hole to clear the points of the square and a 90° countersink bored in it. I just took standard bolts, heated them bright red and thumped them in! I put them in the lathe afterwards and took a skim off the face but they worked out fine. Surprisingly, I don't have a pic of the finished job. I was in too much of a hurry to fit them! Steve

Hi Radek. I'm afraid it is a matter of luck and talking to friends. In our case, several friends have given us handfuls of bolts which have been left over in their sheds for years. A lot are second hand that have been salvaged from other places. For our first lorry, we used metric coach bolts and I turned up all of the nuts from square bar which was very boring. Since then, we have found that they still use square nuts in the USA. These are UNC thread form of course but look fine once the letters have been filed off the bolt heads. Father has ordered the latest batch on line and they are on their way at the moment. The carriage is the main problem as it doubles the total cost but we must get the lorry to look right. Good luck! Steve :-)

We hope to cruise at 15-16 mph with a maximum of about 18mph. It should have a governor to limit it to 14mph but I am not planning to make that although all of the linkage and mechanism is there. With only two wheel brakes, this is quite fast enough! Steve

Hi Niels. As Tim says, instrumentation is limited. This is the back of the scuttle/dash panel complete with oil pressure gauge and timing indicator arrow. There is nothing else except a magneto off switch! The basic rule is that if you can hear your passenger talking, you are going too slowly and if your eyes are watering, it is too fast! Steve

Hi Hedd. Glad you found us! You will find that this is a nice friendly forum with discussions about all sorts of things related to vehicles or military history or both. I enjoy it immensely. I also blame your father for selling me the thing in the first place! Steve :-D

That is Steve Pettifer's Thorny which he restored in Shaftsbury. I wondered where it had gone. As you can see, it is on it's original tyres. Steve found that after being parked for so long, they had developed flats so he jacked the back end up and then mounted the cross-slide from his lathe on a railway sleeper across the wheel. With the engine idling in reverse, he took a cut across the tread and turned them round again. Amazing! Steve

Hi Doug. Yes, certainly it is not an accurate representation of the actual fern leaf. However, it is based on the best information that we have available as to the logo used on the lorry which is this cigarette card of all things. So far, we have not found any official representation to copy. It is just unfortunate that neither our photo above or 'Runflat's' document is crisp enough to blow up and use. If you do find an official diagram of the roundel or, better still, a clear photograph of one on a lorry, then we will be very pleased indeed as we have, today, decided that these are the markings we will use. One less decision left to make! Steve

Oh dear! Bad luck! Steve

Whilst we have not yet decided what markings it will carry, it would be nice to recognise our colonial cousins. There does not seem to be any cross-reference information available between vehicle identification numbers and their allocation, (Unless you know better, Roy?) and this photo and one other are the only ones we have seen with the NZ marking. Is there an officially recognised version of the fern leaf or do you think this signwriter just had a good stab at one? Our Autocar has a 'made-up' livery using our best judgement. We believe that those used in France were the water tank variants and that the truck bodied versions went to East Africa. Very few photos of Autocars have come to light and no truck-bodied ones with any markings. We have seen pictures of those of the Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade with a triangle containing three 'C's and the water tankers with a crescent containing three stars. We are certain that ours operated as a tanker within the British Army although the Australian War Graves Commission had some after the war. With our limited knowledge, we painted it the standard khaki colour and added a number which we found stamped on the front left dumb-iron. (The chassis number is on the rear cross-member on an Autocar and different from this one). If anyone can show us a picture with markings on, we should be very pleased indeed. Steve :confused::confused:

Yes. Well I could make the stencil for them but I think we will be better off, timewise, if we leave it for the signwriter along with the numbers on the bonnet and licence plate and any symbol on the seat box. Tim will choose a number and a symbol. We have several pictures of the lorries with a fern and 'NZ' on the seat ends which I take to signify New Zealand. We could also have a shell (ammunition) or a clover leaf (fodder). At the moment we are cock-a-hoop at just being able to use original stencils and thank Barry very much for his great kindness in lending such precious items to us. What amazing survivors. Steve :-D

You are right about the learning in this game, Richard. I hadn't spotted the reversed front door but it is obvious now! Mind you, there is no slot in the base to accept it so perhaps it came from a different lamp altogether. I will have to look more closely at another one although that might be a job for another day. I think we have our work cut out getting the Dennis ready for the time being! Steve

We picked up this Lucas 742 at Beaulieu a few years ago. It has the electric conversion socket screwed in the back and also WD stamped in it. It is intended that it will find a home on the Thornycroft eventually. Steve

Hi Mike. Very many thanks for your kind offer. It is always very reassuring to have another string to the bow! I'll send a PM once we have been accepted and look forward to sharing a cuppa! All the best, Steve :-)