Old Bill

You are quite right, it was a challenge to assemble! It took us a whole day to install that single drive shaft and was a real juggling exercise with me trying to hold up all of the bits, loosely assembled whilst Dad installed the springs. They had a tendency to ping off or go in sideways and I worked up quite a sweat holding it up, much to Dad's amusement. I guess that once you have done a few it becomes obvious how to attack the job. If I did it again, I would attach one end to the engine before installing the gearbox at all. Must remember that for next time!

Steve

Welcome to the Forum! Trailer sounds interesting. Any chance of a pic? Someone here will know for sure!

Steve

Steve,

 

Were'nt they called Commercial Cars in the early days? QUOTE]

 

Quite right!

 

Steve

I have just had some feedback and this is what he says:

'I would say it is what he says, a Commer engine. If you look closely you can just make out Commer, London on the crankcase, their name would also be cast into the barrels on the side we can't see!'

So there you are! I would say that the style could be from 1910, say, up until the late 1920s but that is just a guess on my part. If I turn up any more pics, I will post them.

Steve

Commer were certainly around in 1909 as there will be one on the Brighton run next weekend. Not quite sure when they started though. Tim (Great War Truck) will tell us I am sure.

In the mean time, I will ask around. It looks to be about 4litres so a bit small for a lorry. Possibly a van? Give me a week and I will see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the link!

Steve

Today is the 93rd birthday of the rh cylinder block on our Autocar. Not sure about the rest of the lorry but it is probably pretty close! That makes it 48 years older than me which is still more than double my age although I am catching up. We had better get a move on with the Dennis so that it is done whilst I am still young enough to swing the handle!

Steve

Hi Bob.

Going back a little bit, I am very impressed with your vehicles. They both look super! May I ask how you decided what colour to paint them? Our own US Army FWD is painted a British khaki-brown colour as we were unable to trace any record of the US colour scheme. We may or may not be right but we have no evidence either way. As a British colour, it is spot on as we have a piece of lorry chassis with original paint but I would love to know what US records survive.

Cheers!

Steve

On all of the other ancient vehicles on which I have worked, the front of the rear springs are pinned directly to the chassis frame so the drive forces and braking forces are transferred from the axle through the springs. On the Dennis, both ends of the springs are mounted on swinging links and these forces are carried into the chassis through the torque tube and the big ball joint in the centre. The position of the axle is controlled by the tube. When we bolted up the tube, it could immediately be seen that the back axle was not quite square to the frame as the ball was off-centre. To correct this, we chocked one wheel and then jacked the other backwards until it came into line and bolted up the ball joint. You can see the sort of forces that the tube resists by the number of bolts securing it to the front of the differential housing.

Unfortunately the drive train won't be completed this Easter as we are still missing the intermediate drive shaft between the back of the gearbox and the ball joint. I have found the part number for this shaft from the parts book and then had a look on the Surrey History Centre website in their drawing list where I found that they have the original drawing still. Ben very kindly went down and copied it for us but the drawing shows two different lengths! I couldn't order one until we had worked out which one we need. Part of yesterdays exercise was to measure the installation to decide which one it should be. I will order up the shaft this week from Charles Leek and Sons in Staffordshire as they made such a nice job of the half-shaft for us. Then we will have all of the bits from starting handle to wheels and we really will be getting close!

Steve

Want to bet you'll find an original now that you have made one?

Yes, that's usually the way! What Tim hasn't mentioned is that I started off with 5.5kg of steel and ended up with a component weighing 825g!

Steve

Well. there is a lot of interest there. Thanks for posting them!

Steve

The steam roller (A Marshall?) and living van in the background are interesting too. Do you know any more about the picture?

Steve

Yes, I am sure you are right. My pattern making skills are only modest and I tend to err on the side of caution so everything is a bit thicker than it need be. I guess that if we were making dozens of them I would gradually rework the patterns to use the minimum amount of metal as the cost would be an issue. For one off, I am satisfied if they simply work!

Incidentally, the early pattern pumps were made of aluminium but there was much comment in the automotive press at the time about the high rate of corrosion that they suffered. They would, however, have been lighter.

The first run of the engine is beginning to come over the horizon. It's all getting rather exciting!

Steve

Yes, well it should be 9/16" (0.5625" dia) but the 15mm (0.591" dia) is in stock and I don't suppose anyone will notice.

Steve

Lovely job as usual mate , I wish I had the skills you have ! It would appear that you can make anything you wish ! :-D

Thanks for your compliments Andy. We are very fortunate in the skills we share but I am absolutely convinced that anyone can do it if they want to enough. Just buy a book and have a go! That's how Dad started it all.

I am currently reading up on blacksmithing. There are several brackets on the bodywork which will require hand forging and rather than pay someone to do it, I want to do it myself. You will undoubtably see the results in due course and be able to have a laugh at my efforts. That's fine. Hopefully, I will get better with practice!

Steve

Thanks Gordon and Barry. You are right, not many people or places make things any more. In fact, I am beginning to wonder who does make all the stuff!

I am always very impressed with Fathers willingness to tackle all of these things and just have a go. When I was very little and he was a bank clerk in the Isles of Scilly, he told Mother that he was going to build a railway engine. He went and bought a lathe, a book on how to use it and built a steam locomotive which I think was really quite enterprising. Later on, when he was a manager, one of his customers came in for a loan. In his hands were some bits of metal. After he had his loan, conversation turned to these components. They were bits of throttle linkage for a Field Marshall tractor which required some work.

'I'll do that for you' said Father. The chap was most impressed. He had visited the bank and got not only his loan but his tractor fixed as well! That's customer service in a Devonshire country bank for you!

Steve

This pump turns at half engine speed as it is on the same shaft as the magneto. The engine probably tops out at around 1400 rpm so the pump is at 700. You can see why it is so big! The post-war version of the engine has the pump axis parallel to the crank and is independently driven from the timing gears. I don't know the ratio but suspect that it runs at crank speed as it is about half the size of this one.

Steve

Thanks for the reminder. I have just read through it again and we did seem to nail it, more or less, except for the fuel vapourisation problem. The lorry runs now but will not hot start. It has to sit and cool for half an hour before it will fire. It has been suggested that I increase the diameter of the low speed jet so I will try it but I should still be pleased to have any more advice on the subject.

Steve

Detuned to 50 hp and under 1500 rpm, the big Wisconsin still has a lot of torque. Can't hardly stall the thing.

I managed it, in the middle of traffic lights in Brighton! Took us half an hour of swinging to get it going again!

On that front, can anyone suggest what alteration I make to the carb to improve hot starting? It really is a pain with this green petrol.

"How do I know when it's overheating?"

He replied, "Oh, it'll start spraying scalding water into your face."

 

Too true! :-D

Steve

No, that is quite right. The water would drain straight out. It was this hole which was reported as being blocked (See Ben's comment above) so that the water could work its way right along the shaft and into the sump. I guess it would be OK whilst it was running but the water would run in overnight when the oil pump wasn't doing anything. The water seal is made by the shaft being sprung from right to left and a flange on the shaft trapping a fibre washer against the face of the pump. I guess it was more a controlled leak than a seal.

I don't think the Subsidy lorries ever had pressurised systems. The gland just has to resist a head of two feet of water. I am hoping very much that the gland will require little attention as it appears to be a pump strip-down job to repack it!

Steve

You will be most welcome to borrow them. We will be only too pleased to see them used again after all that work!

This is the later pattern pump and is a better proposition all round than the early one. In this one, any water leaking from the gland or oil from the bearing end will simply trickle out and run through the drain hole. On the original, there was no proper gland, just a flat face and a fibre washer and the drain hole diverted the water before it reached the bearing surface which was pressure fed from the engine oil pump. If you blocked the drain hole, the water simply ran right through and into the sump! You might be able to see it in the drawing of an early pattern pump below.

Steve

Throughout this project, we have been very fortunate that a lot of the original drawings still survive and, better still, are available to us from the Surrey History Centre in Woking. They have even indexed the surviving drawings and recently put the list on line at:

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/SCCWebsite/sccwspages.nsf/searchresults/3be0c7144e9f620180257670004edfa4?OpenDocument

We are still missing the short prop shaft from the back of the gearbox to the torque tube. I looked for it in the parts book to identify the number and then, to my great pleasure, found it in the History Centre index. Ben, very kindly, went to Woking and copied it for us so I will be placing an order for the replacement quite soon. That has saved me another big chunk of work and will be the last component between the starting handle and the back axle.

It’s getting close now!

Steve

I've seen many a contraption been devised for ball turning on the lathe but never come across the spherical turning method you use on the mill, seems far more elegant and uses reasonably common tooling.

The fun really starts when you try to generate a female spherical surface! This is how I cleaned up the gearchange support bracket using the same principle. It kept me puzzling for quite a while until I realised that the axes of rotation do not have to be at 90° as long as they are in line.

Steve

Thanks Ben. That would be great!

It looks as if the top casting is the same except for the actual bracket so it will give a very good idea of how it is put together. That along with Barry's photos should give us enough info to make a reasonable copy. Thanks chaps!

Steve

OK Barry. If the next time you have one in bits you could do a few sketches and take some more pics I'll make up a batch. Now that really will test my pattern making skills!

Steve

Hello Julio.

Welcome to the forum! I have had a look at your website and your models are beautiful! I am sorry that I have no Spanish.

I have a drawing which was published in Old Motor magazine many years ago. It is of the chassis and engine only although the chassis is destined for a US Army body. I will send it to you as a personal message. If you need any more information, let me know. Here is our FWD!

Steve