Old Bill

A true professional at last! Pattern makers are a rare breed these days and difficult to find to ask advice. I am just making this up as I go along but I do have a puzzle I would like to ask about shortly please! My rule says 1:70 for brass which is the scale I have been using. I plan to get the pump cast in gunmetal which I suspect shrinks a little less, as you have stated. Just for interest, here is a pic of the front face of my rule. The upper scale is true and the lower for steel castings. Brass is on the back. One must really concentrate when using one of these! Steve

Hello Barry. Welcome to the forum! Yes, I do use a contraction rule but I must admit that as most of my patterns are really quite small, the contraction is very close to my woodworking tolerances! Under about 3" it makes little difference. I have been pressing on with my pattern making recently and hope to post some more pics (or Tim will) by the end of the week. There really is an awful lot of work for just one set of castings! Steve

Sorry, had to remove my last post for possible copyright reasons. However, I can report that I have now seen the original oil seal drawing and it specifies 'Oak tanned leather' as the material to use. Thanks for your advice Tony. Steve

Thornycroft J-Type do you think? The wheels are a bit of a give-away but it is just not quite clear enough to be sure. Cracking bit of film though! Steve

I don't have a weight but I am estimating at least £50- per casting so the whole set will be of the order of £300-. Then we have to machine them! Never mind. Fortunately, one advantage of taking so long on a project like this is that the spend rate is liveable! Whale oil, Marcel. Now there is an interesting thought. Where would one get it these days? 'Nikwak' is a new one on me too. Where might one get that? Do you think it would prevent the mineral oil from damaging the leather? What a wonderful source of information you chaps are! Steve

I soaked them in water overnight to be able to shape them and planned to soak them in engine oil before fitting. You reckon oil isn't good for them? They are oil seals and will run in a bath so I wonder how they will last. Will have to wait and see I guess. Certainly, the originals were pretty hard after 90 years! Steve

I am watching this thread with great interest as our Peerless is to be painted to represent Mesopotamian use and we have yet to determine the colour as well! Tim has asked questions of quite a few forums but nobody seems to know. It really is most frustrating. I have a patch of original western front khaki on one of our chassis so we are pretty sure of that. Our FWD was painted that colour but that may be wrong as the Americans had their own ideas and it may well have been different. Not that anybody has told us we are wrong yet! Of course Britsh lorries on the Western Front in 1914 were painted grey with black lettering and this can be seen in a few early pics. The bottom line at the moment is we don't know but look forward to finding out! Cheers! Steve

Those pistons look a bit taller than the originals which would upset the compression ratio. Is that right or am I seeing things? It all looks very nice though! Cheers! Steve

Yes, it's coming on well. It is a great morale booster to get it back on its wheels, too! Steve

Oh good! I will let you know how we get on in a week or two. Steve

This is the half-shaft seal before we removed it from the axle. It is a simple leather lip-seal held in place with a washer and clamp screws, suitably wire-locked as one coming loose and going through the gears is not to be countenanced! This half-shaft was left in one of the recovered chassis. The chassis had obviously not moved for a very long time as the shaft is deeply pitted all along one side. The seal runs on the surface so I repaired that with titanium loaded Devcon filler which sets very hard indeed. I dressed it back and polished it and the surface is pretty good now so I think we will get away with it. We now need another half-shaft which would be simple enough to make but is just a bit big for my equipment. I might have a go but we shall see. Of course, we need to make new seals as well. I don't know much about leather but I understand that if one soaks it in water for a number of hours and then just works it into shape over a mandrel then it can be left to dry and will retain that shape. One fully dried, I will dress it with oil and install it. That is the plan, anyway! Steve

The cause of the pitting is rather guesswork on our part. It could be corrosion due to suphur compounds in the oil. EP oils have these and they eat bronze so it could be that although I don't know when EP oils came in. The lorry probably went out of service before they were invented! Dad hasn't mentioned whether the pitting is on all the teeth or just a few. If just a few, they could be the ones left in the oil after the lorry was laid up and they corroded then. The other possible reason could be lumps dropping out of the surface due to fatigue in the same way that rolling bearings spall after extended use. This wheel is in a high surface pressure application and although the number of loading cycles on each tooth is nothing like that seen in a bearing, the bronze is a lot softer than the alloy bearing steels. I'm sorry, I'm guessing! Is there a tame tribologist out there please? We won't do anything about the pitting of the casing as it is ninety years old and we don't mind if it looks it. However, the front bolting flange locates the torque tube so we will have it skimmed just enough to give a solid mounting. Our target restoration standard is to put the vehicle into good working order, looking its age but also looking as if it has been loved and maintained with factory parts. Cheers! Steve

Hi Ben. Great to see you here! I am fortunate to have heard a little more of this recovery operation and the word 'epic' springs to mind. Please may we have a few more pics of the recovery process? It is awesome! Our chassis' were just delivered on a lorry! Cheers! Steve

What a lovely wagon. Is that the one which has been taking part in the transcontinental run recently? Steve

Ball versus roller bearings. Well, I don't know! I have had a chat with my colleagues about this one and we have not reached a firm conclusion although this is the way our thoughts are going at the moment. With a worm drive axle, the axial loads on the worm are very significant and in both directions as the transmission braking force is through the worm as well. We therefore think that the loads are probably a bit big for taper rollers hence the thrust race and separate radial bearings. Now the radial loads are probably relatively modest, in comparison, but the speed is fairly high, approaching 2000rpm, for which ball races are better suited so that might be the reason they were selected. The other point made was that it might be easier to automatically mass-produce ball bearings rather than rollers so they were just easier to get at the time. I have the draughtsman's name but he will be long dead so I guess we will never know for certain. I should be pleased to hear any other theories! Steve

The original tipper lorry came from a scrapmans private collection in Taunton and was sold along with a number of other vehicles and steam rollers in the early 1990s. Also in the sale was a spare engine for which we were outbid by Hampshire County Museums Service. The tipper was professionally stripped and rebuilt as a charabanc at Midhurst in Sussex and the cab was passed on the The HCMS. They already had a chassis with differential which had come from under a house and they wished to build it into a full lorry. Using this chassis, the engine from Taunton and the cab, they built up their Southern Counties Agricultural Trading Society pantechnicon. (It is known as the SCATS lorry and I think that is what it stands for!). I believe their gearbox was a spare left over from the IWM gun lorry restoration. Back to the original question, I am not sure what became of the tipper body. HCMS may have the mechanism tucked away but the body was rotten. Incidentally, Mr Tucker, the scrapman, had two J-Types and the second is still in his yard. These stories get more convoluted by the minute! Steve

In this country, I believe the survivors to be: IWM Gun Lorry WD GS Wagon at Milestones 1919 pantechnicon at Milestones WD GS Wagon in red for Lowestoft Corporation at Carlton Colville Museum WD wagon rebuilt with low-level radiator and now being civilianised. Originally from Warrington. 1919 Wethereds dray. Engine recently wrecked and the owner plans to install a Perkins diesel...... Flat bed wagon in civilian livery. Signwritten 'Pettifer' and last seen in Shaftesbury. Portsmouth Corporation bus at Milestones. Charabanc at Museum of Country Life at Sandy Bay Kit of parts. Gosling collection, Axminster. Kit of parts near Nottingham Complete lorry in scrapyard in Taunton. These are the ones we know of in the UK. I have been fortunate to see them all and have driven the Milestones GS wagon. It's quite an animal and I am looking forward to getting stuck into ours! Steve

We are actually very fortunate in that the rest of the diff was in the casing so we hope to recover it all. Our problem is that we have no diff for the next project, a Thornycroft 'J- Type' which is not in nearly such good condition as the Dennis. If any of our friends out there, particularly in Oz or New Zealand, should come across a Thornycroft J-Type back axle with differential, we would be extremely pleased to hear about it! This forum reaches the parts other forums cannot reach! (At least I hope so!). Cheers! Steve

Thanks for all that. I am beginning to put two and two together now and getting closer to four! The two levers on the transfer case move dog clutches to lock the centre differential. No high or low ratio on this wagon. Just three speeds! Steve

Now that's interesting. It has an over-length starting handle. Whilst I am certain that ours is the same as supplied by the factory, I also hold the very firm opinion that it is too short. Someone else has obviously reached the same conclusion! Is this the same wagon that you posted on 10th June? Please can you tell us a bit about it and how it ended up in the museum? It's great to see another survivor! Steve Steve

What a super wagon! What is it's story? Is the churn plumbed into the water system somehow? I have seen pictures of them mounted on the running board in the mexican desert but couldn't quite work out how they are used. Cheers! Steve

Welcome to the forum, Brent. I'm glad you enjoyed the Dennis. Makes it all worth while! Steve.

Oh, I see. Sorry. Steve