Old Bill

It is difficult to guess what might happen although we should be able to sort it on the road. With our other lorries we have had a variety of failures, usually involving the magneto, from it moving and uncoupling itself from the drive dog to distributor cap insulation break down and to the centre carbon brush for the grounding switch breaking up allowing the spring to wrap itself around the contact breaker. We have also had the impulse drive mechanism come off allowing the key to fall from the drive and thus losing the timing. We never found the key so I whittled a new one from a piece of mahogany we were using as a chock. It got us home! On the Autocar, we have suffered an exploding tyre (a problem we won't have with the Dennis!), a sunk carburettor float and the flywheel coming loose from the crankshaft. I whittled a new float from a piece of softwood which got us home although it had sunk by the following day. The loose flywheel was a pain as it was a body off and gearbox out job in the rally field to get at it. Had to do it though as it was our only transport home. It did cause a lot of interest at the show and there were as many people watching us as there were around the ring! The only prediction I can make is that the most likely problems will be to do with fuel or ignition. I am hoping that with so many of you to keep your fingers crossed for us, we will be OK! Steve

Quite right. I have spent so much time wandering around in the back with my head down that I am beginning to feel like a cross between John Cleese and Groucho Marx! Steve :-)

I am very fond of silver soldering because it is so easy to get a good neat job. It is as strong as mild steel and runs right through the joint although it won't fill gaps of more than a couple of thou and it is expensive. Of course, I am also better at it than welding! Steve :-D

Many thanks and to you too! Have a happy, safe and vehicular new year! Steve :-D

Well, yes and I am rapidly turning into a dust-cart spotter! I was pleased to find an original general arrangement drawing for our lorry on the wall in the production office. My photo album was good for the job interview too! Steve :-D

Yes, I did work for Pegson for seven years of which the first six and a half were great. With the collapse of the rock-crusher market they closed the factory and I now build dust carts for a living. We may well have met in some hole in the ground somewhere! Steve :-) (PS Glad you are enjoying it!)

Thanks for that. What an excellent video! I hadn't thought of looking there and have learned a lot already. Now I must go and check to see what sort of rods I actually have! Steve :-)

I enjoy them all Ray. Thanks for sharing them! Steve

Hi Quentin. Many thanks for all of that. You are quite right in that my welder is very much a home use type although not the cheapest end of the market. However, I will have a go with the Oxford welder and see how I get on. I normally manage to do these things by having a bit of a read and then just getting stuck in. It doesn't seem to have worked this time and I am very grateful for your expert knowledge. It is really nice to have an explanation of what is going on. I'm so pleased that you are enjoying the story. I has been great to be able to share it and to receive so much help from you and all of our friends here. I will let you know how I get on over the break but I don't think I am quite ready for overhead welding yet! Many thanks for your thoughts. Steve :tup::

It has always disappointed me that I have never mastered stick welding as I can do most of the things that we want. Some proper lessons would probably help, as would a lot more practice. I was using 3mm rods at 120A or thereabouts. The set is rated to 180A and the cables are those which came with it. Would you replace the lot or could I get away with just heavier cables? Steve

Hi Marcel. I don't know the actual force this time as the pressure gauge had been removed for safe keeping and we didn't trouble to put it back. However, it is a 14" ram and the total capacity is around 300 tons. Unusually, the gauge is calibrated in 'hundredweights per square inch' and the pressure is applied by use of a hand pump. It is quite hard work but you can feel exactly what the tyre is doing and when something is going wrong. The press dates from the Great War and was used by a local Dunlop tyre dealership before being rescued by our friend about thirty years ago. I believe that it weighs about 11 tons and half of it is below ground level. Steve

The tractor unit is an American built Knox. I think the tank is a French 'St Chamond' but I need to have a look at my books to be certain! Steve

Hello Wanderer! You have come to the right place and some real experts will, no doubt, be along shortly. For what they are worth here are my first thoughts. The first lorry is an ex British army AEC Y-type lorry. There are not many clues but the bonnet is the right shape as are the very distinctive bonnet handles. Also, the Y-types had a rigid cab split at shoulder height and this one shows the joining holes along the top edge of the seat. The third picture shows three more Y-types in the background behind the motorcycles. The last picture shows a Packard lorry, with its very distinctive radiator, on the extreme right hand end. Did the British find themselves in Estonia at this time? I'm afraid that I know almost nothing about this conflict. Good luck with your researches! Steve:-)

Yes, there certainly has been some coffee (and beer!) gone into the project. We don't record that against the lorry though! What you can see there is the bolt store. It was getting very much out of hand until Dad put up the series of shelves. We have managed to collect a set of vehicles with every sort of fastener standard common at the time which is something of a pain, especially as we only fit the original thread type back on them. The bottom shelf is BSF (Dennis). Next up is UNF (FWD). Above that, they are UNC (Autocar) followed by Whitworth (Thornycroft) and on the top are the coach bolts. We are less fussy with the coach bolts although they must have square nuts. Hex nuts are absolutely wrong for the period. In some places, I have made up square nuts for when we have run out. They are a pain but stick out like a sore thumb if they are wrong. I don't think they are ever quite finished. There are still a couple of little jobs outstanding on all of the ones we have done and, of course, we now have a maintenance problem as well. When we stop working on the Dennis, the Thornycroft will be next. That will be another ten year project so I don't think we will need to worry about being bored for a while! Steve :beer:

Father has taken some more pics and this is the best. You can see the clutch leaf springs running across the flywheel, the thrust bearing carrier in the middle and then the clutch brake ring on the end. The challenge is going to be in extracting the cone from the flywheel as it has been there a long time! Regarding electric transmissions, I thing they were introduced because it was so difficult to change gear which commonly resulted in gear tooth damage. Versions were made by several companies including Tilling Stevens, Dennis Stevens, Hallford and Thornycroft. The Tillings were the most numerous. I have had the great good fortune to ride in a Tilling Stevens bus and it is a most weird sensation. Going up hills, the engine is revving hard but the bus only crawling giving the sensation of a badly slipping clutch! Steve

Entry form came today..... :cool2:

What you are looking at there is the next project! I will ask Dad to post a better picture. That is the Thornycroft M4 engine and what you can see is the clutch brake and clutch springs. The clutch is a large cone like the Dennis but it is pressed into the flywheel by two leaf springs which go across the flywheel, either side of the drive shaft. The ring you can see is the clutch brake. This is attached to the cone and moves backwards when the pedal is depressed. If you push your foot to the floor, it moves far enough back to contact some friction material on a carrier thus slowing the gearbox mainshaft down more quickly and allowing faster up changes. When changing down, one must remember to push the pedal in only slightly so that it doesn't come into contact. Another one of the joys of driving ancient lorries! Steve :cheesy:

I did have the piece of plate leaning against the end of the bench for two years before I worked out how to attack it! Steve

They might have blacked it for a nice shiny fire engine but I suspect that a quick coat of green would have been more likely on an army lorry! Steve :-)

Sounds like a great project. I wish you luck and look forward to seeing the pics in due course! Steve

What sort of modelling do you do, Randy? There is a bit of that here too! Welcome! :-) Steve

Ah! that's where I went wrong. I must admit that machining a round bar square and then promptly turning it round again is a bit of a chore. I haven't found a source of square carbon steel that I can machine so key steel is a good substitute. Thanks! Steve :-)

Thanks Mal. That's more or less what I have in mind but I plan to use silver steel ('drill rod' to our cousins across the pond) so I will have to machine it square first. I have tried key steel before but the piece I used didn't have enough carbon in it to survive more than one washer. The taper is still an issue of course, but as it is only 0.040" over 1 1/2" length and the male surface is so poor, I think I will get away with some careful filing. My next challenge is that my press is not wide enough to accept the wheel so I will have to put a thread on the end of the broach so that I can attach a stud and pull it through. It's a lot of effort for just one hole! Steve

Hi Tony. Good question! I have never seen one used commercially but acquired this one in a box of bits. This one is for cutting keyways in a disc/crank/sprocket or whatever. The previously made plug with slot is put into the hole in the disc and the broach introduced into the slot. It is driven through in a press with each tooth cutting a couple of thou. After the first pass, the shim is placed in the slot and the broach is pushed through again for a second cut. Shims can be added until the slot is the correct depth. The problem that I will have is that to cut a square hole, the broach must have teeth on all four sides and can be passed through the hole only once. This will test my toolmaking skills to the limit and I hope not to disappoint Marcel! Steve

Thanks Adrian. You are very kind. That's an interesting suggestion Matt. The taper would give me a nice datum to work to. I hadn't thought of that one but I could do a nice job with a bit of care. Unfortunately, my lathe is only 3 1/2" centre height and even Dad's Colchester can only turn 14" in the gap so we are stuck for capacity to bore the wheel. I could make a steel bush that way and screw it on the back of the wheel though so that could get around it. A shaper would be nice to have. My garden shed couldn't cope with it though. A lathe, a mill, a bench and me and it is packed! Spark erosion would do the job but I think it would have to be the wire eroding type which Barry so kindly organised for us to cut the splines in our drive couplings. I understand that the CNC wire eroders are now so sophisticated that the wire can be leaned over during the cutting process and would cut the taper for us perfectly so that is a good solution. Dad sent me this picture of the steering column today and the mating surface is pretty poor. Wire erosion is too good for this! I am coming to the conclusion that I shall drill the wheel through at 5/8" diameter and rough out the square with a file. Then I shall make a square broach the size of the small end and pull that through. Finally, I shall gently dress the hole out from the 0.689" to the 0.730" of the large end, a bit at a time using blue to see where to cut and then thump it onto the shaft to get a firm fit. Some patience will be needed here but I think I will manage. Just a bit of care needed although I shall swear if I overdo it! Then it is back to making a bush to go in from the back! Many thanks for all of your suggestions. Steve