Old Bill

Welcome to the forum. You do seem to have a nice wide range of interests!

Liberties seem to be pretty common so I am sure that you will have no trouble in finding one. Will let you know the next time we come across one. I guess that your biggest problem will be getting it home when you do find it due to the distances involved. Let's hope that one turns up close to home!

Steve

What a super project. What is its story and how did you find it? At first glance, it looks to be in very nice order but no dout you will find some horrors on the way!

Good luck with it all. I shall look forward to seeing the progress.

Steve :-)

I hate that sort of job. Good luck with it!

Steve :wave:

This is absolutely stunning.

 

:wow:

Thanks Chris. We have been very fortunate in finding such superb craftsmen to help us. I did try signwriting some numberplates once but they looked as if they had been done by a four-year-old. I like to try my hand at most things but sometimes getting an expert really pays.

Steve :-)

Ours is 75" wide with a seat height of 23". Any wider than that and it is too big for a lorry. My money is on its being a pew but it is interesting to see what there is about.

Steve

Hi there!

We can certainly help with subsidy info. What are you doing and what do you need?

Cheers!

Steve

Sounds like poetry to me

Ah yes, but your tender is poetry in motion......

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

Steve

What a wonderful thread! The dedication and skill is incredible..

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

Steve

So, will the Dennis appear at Beltring?

I'd love to see it in the flesh.

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

 

Steve/Tim, are your rear rubbers new? they look newly manufactured. We have found that if you re-rubber old bands previously tight on the wheel, they 'grow' and come loose.

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

Could i ask where is possible to get the whitworth coach bolts with square nuts? I will need them for my Austin K30 GS body.

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 :-)

What sort of speed are you expecting it being able to do?

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

Just a quick question, where there a dash with instruments in the dennis?

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

Which one is this Steve?

 

 

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