Old Bill

Thanks Andy. I may be in touch! Dad decided that it was time we sorted out the silencer so he dug the remaining bits out of the pile for inspection. The case had long gone but the somewhat fragile brackets remained along with the cast end plates and enough of the studs to determine the length. One bracket will fight again, for a while at least but the other one had insufficient metal left so I cut out a new one. Done the old fashioned way by chain drilling and sawing wire! The castings cleaned up OK but we couldn't make out the text on them. Interestingly, they are 1/4" different in diameter so perhaps they are not a matched pair. Also, this internal flange looks as if it should carry an internal tube but the other end has no way of supporting it. There was no sign of any internals left. Dad had a tube rolled up. And made up some new tie bars. He also bought in some spacer tubes to mount on them and then presented me with a silencer kit! I marked out and fitted a row of rivets to seal the tube. My Cleco sheet metal clamps came in handy once again. Then a length of 4" x 1/2" steel bar held in the vice was used to support the rivets whilst they were set. Looking promising! In the end I decided that the easiest internals to make up would be three baffles, mounted on the tie rods. I cut the tube into lengths to space them out. Assembling it all was a bit of a juggle though, especially with a line of rivet heads to dodge! All ready for the paint shop! Steve 🙂

Tim is amazing at turning up photos. I haven't seen those before but they are certainly our lorry! As you saw above, I found an original ball joint on the magneto base casting and copied it. However, the broken casting has been bugging me so I have made up a pattern for it ready for Father's next trip to the foundry. it mounts on the side of the engine. Until we managed to remove it, I thought the crank case flange was bent as well but fortunately, that is OK. The casting, however, was very sick. I looked at it for quite a while as, despite appearances, it is not a simple one with an obvious split line. It will have to be cast as an 'odd-side' where the moulder hand cuts a split line to follow the shape of the pattern. After pondering how to make it, I opted to carve it from the solid so the first job was to glue up a block. Using my lovely new mill with digital read-out, I carved out the top-side before reversing it and cutting underneath. Lots of hand-finishing ensued with some extra bits glued on and some filler applied. Once I had dressed back the filler, I filleted the inner radii using wax fillets. Two coats of Bondaprime and it is ready to go. I am sure that the moulder will curse it but fortunately, there is only one to do! Steve 🙂

We have been doing some more but I don't have any complete stories at the moment! Give me a few more days. In the mean time, Dad now has the wheels in green. They need one more coat but that can wait until the tyres are on so that any damage can be tidied up at the same time. Now we need to plan how to get the things loaded and shipped to the press! Steve 🙂 PS Our wheelwright was made MBE as part of the Jubilee honours list! Well deserved!

Progress has slowed a bit but we are still moving on. I have finished the steering wheel with four coats of varnish and it is currently hardening off. Unfortunately, the green will now want touching up! Dad is still pushing on with the wheel and has reached the undercoat stage: Slow but sure! Steve 🙂

Thank you for your thoughts Adrian. You are absolutely right about discussing ways of doing things. You have to know so much to do a restoration that it is impossible to know it all! All of our friends on this forum have been tremendously helpful over the years and we really appreciate all of it, even if I don't take the advice! I must admit that Osmo oil is a new one on me so thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will try it. Cheers! Steve 🙂

Dad is pushing on as well. He has painted the drop arm and drag link ready for fitting. He is also getting on with painting the second wheel. The next target is a steerable rolling chassis and it is coming into view! Steve 🙂

Gosh, that has caused some comment! Many thanks for all of your thoughts. My logic is that the wheel will be out in the weather and needs some waterproofing. Not sure about oiling it as my experience of oiled timber is that it remains sticky for months. Perhaps I am not doing it right. Anyway, I have opted to varnish the rim and it has now had three coats. It will need a few more but isn't looking bad. Having to go back to work has slowed things down again. However, i am very keen to get all of the steering gear completed so that we can fit it and put another tick in the box. After the wheel, the last pieces are the throttle and advance actuating levers from the bottom. These came off OK but were pretty ropy. One has a keyway and the other a spline so I want to use them again if I can. As you can see from this picture in the manual, each should have a ball joint on the end. I wasn't sure how this should look until I remembered that we have a magneto advance lever which has just one still attached. With some heat and persuasion, it all came to bits and I could measure the ball. I am going to have to make some more of these joints too but that will be a job for another day. I filed a scarf on the column advance lever. And turned up a replacement ball. This was bent hot and a matching scarf filed onto it before silver soldering it to the arm. One down! I did the same thing for the throttle arm. Job done! Whilst I was in the mood I thought it the right time to do the magneto lever as well. Once the wheel has had its last few coats, the whole lot will be ready for reassembly. Steve 🙂

I really want to get the steering column mounted on the chassis so we can tick that job off. Next move is to complete the steering wheel. Dad has had the ring welded into place and painted it so I set about fitting the timber. Roy has already cut the groove in the back so I just had to cut the rebate for the spokes. The razor saw set the end positions. Then some straightforward chisel work. Slow but effective. Roy suggested using 'Gripfil' to hold the steel to the wood and Titebond II between the timbers. Both are new to me but seem to work OK. This morning I set to with the glass paper, a task made more difficult by my not aligning the rings properly. Not irrecoverable but seven hours of sanding got a bit tedious! Some yacht varnish tomorrow. Steve 🙂

Thanks chaps for all of your thoughts. This one is absolutely perfect but I suspect that as a manufacturer in China, they will want to sell me a ton rather than a foot! Tufnol rod is period and will do the job so I have ordered some up. Thanks for the reminder Andy. Steve 🙂

Just received an exciting parcel from G&S containing the new valves and some spares. Nothing to stop us putting the engine back together now! I have fitted the mounting bracket onto the steering box and pinned Father's new studs so that is nearly ready to fit onto the chassis. Just need to get the wheel itself finally assembled and we can do it. The inlet manifold has a number of brackets mounted on it to guide the HT leads. These are fitted with red fibre bushes. Unfortunately, one of them is broken and they are all in the way for cleaning up the manifold so we elected to remove them. Fortunately for us bolts rusted into aluminium respond well to heat and they all came out without any drama. The red fibre bushings want replacing but I am not sure what to use. Nylon would do the job but it wouldn't look right. Any thoughts please? Tim has been catching up with the painting by priming the footstep brackets and the steering drop arm. We have made some good progress this week and are looking forward to getting the engine in the chassis. Watch this space! Steve🙂

Whilst Dad is busy scraping the wheel ready for painting, I have been pushing on with the steering column as this will be the next item to bolt to the chassis. Dad has already made up the two missing studs. The two cups over the ball joint only had surface rust and cleaned up quite well. However, one had corroded where the greaser is screwed in and almost 3/4" had disappeared. Due to galvanic action I guess. I faced it off and then turned up an extension. I silver soldered it on and sorted out a greaser for it. Next came the pivot block from the end of the drag link. The bronze bush moved so a clean up and some Loctite sorted it. The other bush was steel and heavily corroded so I pushed it out and turned up a replacement. Isn't it nice when you find a piece of bronze on the shelf, just the right size and waiting for the day to arrive! After pressing it in, I ran a 1" reamer through it and another part ticked off. The pivot pin cleaned up OK but the feather was sheared off so I made and fitted a new one. Finally, I reached the drop arm from which I removed the pin last week. Dad had a piece of steel in stock, just the right size so I soon roughed it out on Dad's Colchester. It is so nice to use a bigger lathe occasionally! The thread is 7/8" x 9 tpi for which, quite amazingly, Dad had a die in stock. I screw-cut it part way to make sure the thread stayed straight and then ran the die over it to finish it off. Also amazingly, Dad had a new nut and washer in stock as well. Some times the cards fall right! Pressed into the drop arm. I drilled through the taper pin hole and then ran the reamer through it a bit further to take out a little misalignment. Pin driven in and ready for painting. It remains only to fit the steering wheel rim to the spokes and it can all go back on the chassis. That will be another pile of bits out of the way! Steve 🙂

As Tim said, first job this morning was to get the wheel out of the car. This was an engine crane job as it is a significant lump! Then there were two. We took a closer look at the sprocket and, although the shape isn't too bad, there is a lot of wear. The spare sprocket we rescued last time is very visably better so I opted to swap them over. The worn one unbolted quite qell although all of the bolts had been hammered so they were stif for the whole thread. I took the better ring and then lined it up with four longer bolts. The bolts which secure it are fitted so they are a close fit in the hole to prevent the sprocket from fretting. I expected them to have been reamed in position in which case they wouldn't line up . However, with a bit of messing, they all went in. UNS bolts again but they saved OK. I leaned on the as hard as I could to make sure they stay. Now Dad is back to cleaning up the old timber ready for painting. That will be a long old job. Once painted, we will see about fitting the tyres. In the mean time, I am pushing on with the steering gear so we can get that on a functioning. I have a few days off so I hope to make some progress this week. Steve 🙂

With one wheel ready and the other on the way, our thoughts turned to the tyres. We are in the very fortunate position of having a complete set of NOS Dunlops in stock. However some of them had been rather carelessly stored before we found them! This wasn't settlement with age but I suspect that they had been leaning against a wall when something heavy had been put on them. Anyway, they won't press on like that so I had a go at jacking them out. This can be an exciting exercise when the wood and jack combination becoems unstable and fires out sideways. A friend of ours brained himself whilst working inside a steam roller firebox like that so one must take care. On this occasion, all went well. I couldn't get the tyre to yield to a circular condition so we cut a piece of wood to prop it until we can get it started on the wheel. The wheel with the wheelwright had a very worn drive sprocket which Father has removed, We took a rummage through the stores and found this one which looks quite nice. Interestingly, the brake drum on which it is mounted suits a pneumatically tyred wheel of which we have none so goodness knows where it came from. It was a straightforward unbolting job and it just knocked off. Dad will get it cleaned up now ready to fit. Father decided to go and see the wheelwright today to see how he is getting on. He was pleasantly surprised to find some good progress. It seems that he has had to replace a couple of spokes as well as the rim but it is all looking nice. With a bit of luck, we should get it back next week and Dad can start painting again! Steve 🙂

Yes but not on this job! Steve 😁

Quite right! A Pozidrive just doesn't cut it! Dad has been busy doing other things. The wheel now has two top coats and will only get the final one after the tyres have been fitted. He is going to chase the wheelwright along shortly as we are ready for the other one. He has painted the chain hooks ready to go back, too. He has been investigating the drive shaft between clutch and gearbox. We have two but the the first one rescued was short of bits so we stripped the second one down as well to copy. These bronze castings carry a felt seal and one pair are beyond salvage. The drive pin had been protected at one end and proved salvageable. However, the other was distinctly ropy so Dad turned up a new one. The spring clip which holds the felt seal. The poorly bronze seal carrier. A nice piece of En8 was found in the drawer. The challenge,however, was to cut the spiral grease grooves. This came my way! My initial thought was to roughly draw a spiral around it and then cut it freehand with the Dremel. This would have been satisfactory but somehow, I thought that I could do better. My Myford lathe has a gear train to drive the leadscrew for cutting threads. Now 1 tpi, the pitch of the spiral, is just too much for it but I wondered whether I could set the gears up and drive it by manually turning the leadscrew? I decided to have a go. I had a look in the gear case and took this pic. I hadn't realised how much it needed a good clean! Anyway, it worked and with the Dremel in the toolpost and me turning the leadscrew, I had found a solution. Much better than freehand! Back in the little press. A coat of paint and two more bits in stock! We will have to do the other bits once the gearbox is in. Steve 🙂

Progress on the column continues and it is coming on well. You may recall that the drop-arm on the box we stripped down was broken off. We were extremely fortunate in that, in the spares pile, we had another half a box with a complete drop arm fitted. Dad set about removing it. I was very pessimistic about how easy it would be to remove but in the end it was quite straightforward. Just a load of heat and a thump! It all looks pretty good apart from the pin at the end which is deeply corroded. That needs a bit of thinking about. In the mean time, some persistence and penetrating oil saw the removal of the split pin from the broken arm. Then it was back to the blowlamp and a cold chisel. Eventually, it let go and we were away. The wheel came out and the bearings were good. No signs of wear at all. Two studs in the case had suffered from the weather and my attempts to remove them but Dad got there in the end. A good wire brushing sorted out the casing. We avoid sand blasting bits of mechanism as far as we can because we can never get all of it out again. First coat of Bondaprime: The bearings and worm showed no signs of wear so we set about greasing them all up and starting the reassembly process. It all went surprisingly well. We had somehow managed to bend one of the dowel pins and that took a bit of identifying but all was well in the end. Dad had very thoughtfully got in a stock of new UNF bolts. The originals were UNS but some were shot and we didn't want a mixed set on it so we have settled for UNF. The text was machined off the heads before they were cut down to fit and the result was very pleasing. Tim then gave the whole assembly another coat and it all turns smoothly. I took the opportunity to cut the steering wheel spokes back to fit the laser cut ring. Dad saw one of our welder friends yesterday who TIG welded it together. It is all looking very nice so the next visit should see the wood cut to fit the spokes and be glued up. Steve 🙂

The hand controls are an interesting exercise. They are concentric with the column but do not turn with it. This is arranged by having a 1" dia tube clamped into the steering box below the worm and running the throttle and advance controls inside it. The throttle quadrant casting is mounted on the top but as you can see, was a bit poorly. As well as the rust, I had managed to break its mounting spigot off whilst trying to dismount it so plenty to have a go at. I started off by giving it a quick wire brushing and then pickled it in citric acid. Two weeks later, something had definitely happened but I had to take it out to see what! The rust had gone but I had overdone the acid crystals and they had settled out on the iron. I boiled it up in water to remove the acid crystals and then gave it a good scrub. It came out rather well but was so clean that it soon started to go ginger. It should have a lid on it and close inspection revealed that a piece of it was still present. A bit of heat and some encouragement and the screw started to undo which was a great relief. A new lid with oil hole was soon made up. Next step was the mounting spigot which is cast iron. I bored out the centre and turned up a replacement from an exceptionally tough bit of bronze that I found in the drawer. The centre tube had the same bend as the main column so resolving that was the first step. I drilled a couple of blocks of wood and cut them in half to use in the press. These prevented me from crushing the tube and I should have done the same for the main column. A bit of persistence and it came out quite well. The quadrant could then be fitted. Looking quite good. On to the levers. One was missing and the other bent. They were rusted together and the detent plungers very stuck. Some heat and gentle persuasion sorted them outeventually without breaking anything else. one side of the plunger tube was corroded right through. I cut it off and silver soldered a new one. What should the missing lever look like? Well, we are fortunate that Tim had found a manual and it has this picture in it. A pencil sketch soon had it looking right and I transferred the shape to a piece of 1/4" plate. This was hacked out using centre punch dots to highlight the shape. Before it was attahced to four feet of tube, I took the opportunity to rough out the form. Then my favourite silver solder was used to attach it to the remains of the original article. A considerable amount of filing and finishing later and I quite pleased with the result. The column can now go back to Devon ready for when we finish the other bits and the steering wheel. Steve 🙂

Thanks Bill. We really couldn't do this without our friends. Dad has been pressing on with the wheel and now has it in undercoat. In the mean time, Roy has inspired us to get on with the steering box. Tim and John have been up to help straighten out the steering column. We dragged the press out and then had a trial fit to see how we were going to handle it. As it is a 2" tube, we decided to try to bend it hot so out with the propane. I didn't want to press directly on it and cause a flat and so tried using a piece of softwood to cushion it. Unfortunately, it crushed before the tube bent so I had to resort to a piece of hardwood. This worked and we persisted until it was all but there. Unfortunately, I did squash the tube a bit and had to give it another squeeze to round it up again. This moved it of course so we had a lot of small pushes to get it just right. We rested the bearings in the vee blocks and rotated it looking for any wobble at the end before giving it another push. This was pretty painstaking but we got there in the end and John was pleased! It certainly looks a lot better now. A good wire brushing and a coat of primer and it is ready to return to Devon. Throttle and advance levers next! Steve 🙂

In between times, progress is being made on the steering column. Dad has had a new ring cut for the rim of the steering wheel and that now awaits welding on. Unfortunately, the spokes aren't flat and will need some attention. It is, however, looking promising although I might have to get it hot to bend them. We shall see! Our good friend Roy has taken up wood turning in his retirement and very kindly offered his services to make up a new wheel rim for us. This is outside our skills and equipment so we accepted with alacrity! This is the machine for the job. First job was to glue up some softwood and have a trial run using a plywood faceplate. That went OK so he reversed it to cut the groove in the underside for the steel rim. "How big is the wheel?" "18 5/8" diameter " say I. " 18 1/2" is as big as I can do!" "18 1/2" it is!" Success here too. Worries about the glued joints failing proved groundless. Roy and dad then had an afternoon out and went and bought some Sapele. No doubt a hostelry was found on the way but I haven't heard the full story yet..... This was cut and glued up. And the process was repeated. Roy has just brought the two halves over and Father couldn't resist resting them on the spokes. It is now up to me to sort the spokes out and then cut grooves in the timber to clear them before gluing the whole lot to the steel. I will have to pluck up my courage before cutting into Roy's beautiful work. Thank you Roy. A wonderful job! Steve 🙂

Dad has been pushing on with the miserable job of cleaning the wheel up and is now very pleased to say that he is on the home straight! After a lot of scraping, he invested in an electric heat gun and that made all the difference. Then some heavy wire brushing to shift most of the rust. We didn't want to pull this wheel to bits as the ironwork is generally sound. It has come up pretty well all round. Hopefully, the Bondaprime will cope with the grease which has soaked into the wood with age. No doubt we will find out! Now we need the other one back from the wheelwright so it too can be painted up and we can get the tyres fitted. Then they can go on the chassis. Exciting times! Steve🙂

Thanks for your thoughts chaps. The jury is still out at the moment but it does depend on Roy, our wood turner pal, and what he can do for us. Roy is getting very keen to have a go at this one so last weekend, I took advantage of the good weather to pull the steering column apart. As the column wouldn't turn, we started by clamping it to something solid so we could get some purchase. Unfortunately, it wouldn't move so we started to strip it. You can probably see in the pic that the column is bent so that did make it trickier. The objective was to get the wheel centre off and this was secured with a nut beneath the hand controls so these would have to come off first. On closer inspection, it could be seen that these were secured at the other end of the column. A good trick for removing very rusted nuts is to use a cold chisel, just off centre so that a torque is imposed on the nut. The nut will often split but otherwise just unscrew. Remarkably this is a trick we have only picked up in recent years but it does work well. The two throttle levers had pinch bolts which were released in the same manner. This is the throttle lever which is keyed on. The ball end has corroded off but we can soon sort that. The advance lever sits on a spline. The entire lever end has gone from this one but I must try to save it to re-use the spline which is sound. The steering column end float is adjusted by a screw-in ring from underneath. This is nipped up and then secured by a grub-screw through a notch in the outside edge. Remarkably, it just unscrewed. We couldn't move the adjuster ring so we set about parting the box to take the pressure off the thread. Some of the nuts moved with a socket but others required the cold chisel treatment. It was at this point that I severely miss-hit the cold chisel and did a good job of flattening my thumb instead. It is getting better but has gone a very funny colour! With the pressure relieved, the ring unscrewed. That will fight another day. Nice grease inside although nothing would move. The adjuster ring bears against the slotted steel disc to push up the thrust race. The slotted disc also has slots and a tapered thread lower down to trap the throttle quadrant tube. This one took a bit of heat but also let go. The throttle quadrant tube, advance tube and throttle control rod could all be driven out then. Well, almost. The Throttle quadrant was fitted to the end of the tube with a white metal bush which I broke. The tube was hard to get out due to the bend in the main column but it did come eventually. Now, the steering wheel nut. Of course, I didn't have a socket that size but my 1 1/2" BSW spanner with a piece of shim did the job once I had put some heat on it. I lashed up my hydraulic puller from the wheel pulling exercise and started winding. It didn't fit very well and I fully expected a mighty bang as it fell off. Well, I got my mighty bang and bits everywhere but it was as the steering wheel let go so success was achieved! Very satisfying. Both plain bushes were seized and the bent column meant that they could not come off even if I could get them to move. Well, fortunately, there was a plain section of column between them. I made up a C-spanner to locate in a grease hole and then heated the first one. Once the grease started to run, I could get it moving and managed to wangle it along to the cleaned-up centre area. That allowed me to polish its running surface which proved to have little wear although it is a bit pitted. Same again for the upper bearing with success. The next challenge for the column is to straighten it so the bushes can be taken off. This week, when not working on the wheel, Father has cleaned up the wheel centre and ordered up a laser cut ring to be welded to the spoke ends. Once we have the ring Dad will be talking to one of our welder friends to repair the wheel centre. After that, it is over to Roy! Steve 🙂

Certainly looks like a lorry chassis. Those seven-spoke wheels should be distinctive. Steve 🙂

Your level of detail for such a small scale is very impressive. Nice job! Steve 👍

Now the wheel is progressing we have been thinking about other things. One of our local friends is a wood turner and has offered to make us a steering wheel. As luck would have it, we have two wheel centres but they are of different patterns. The puzzle for us is how were they put together? This is the first. There appear to be some bits of steel soldered to the ends of the spokes so the question is how was the wood attached? Would the rim be made up in segments or be a bent laminate? The second one is of a different pattern. I suspect that the steel ring used to be a complete circle and we can replace that. It looks like the top half was screwed to the bottom half through the end of the spoke. However, was the steel ring the outside diameter or was it hidden in a central groove in the timber? Either way, it is going to be an interesting turning job! The challenge now is to get the wheel centre off the top of the column so it can be repaired and the wood fitted. Some pondering needed! In the mean time, Dad is getting on with the wheel and attacking the paint. He says it is very good stuff and certainly takes some shifting. It's probably pretty poisonoud though! Will have to have a go at the steering wheel on the next visit. Steve 🙂

Just for a change, I have been doing some more to the Thorny, ticking off another job in the shape of the doors. These have been in stock since Jim Clarke did the rest of the canvas for us. They are simple panels attached to the scuttle at the front and with a steel rod through the back edge secured with a bonnet catch. First job was to make up the pins. They have a mushroom head on the top to stop them falling through the canvas. The bottom of the pins are secured to the bottom of the seat box by inserting their ends into a piece of plate screwed to the underside of the seat. The front edge is secured to a piece of timber bolted to the scuttle. This is a tricky exercise as the hood bracket gets in the way and I puzzled over how to do it for some time. In the end, the timber is in two pieces with a thin piece to make up the thickness of the bracket and a thicker piece behind to which the canvas is secured. I drilled and fitted them roughly first before taking them home to finish them off and paint them. The canvas is staple gunned to the timber and a bonnet catch was pushed through the canvas around the pin. It was then bolted up sandwiching the canvas between the strips. The stowage strap was fed through a slot in the timber and trapped by the bolts. In spite of my best intentions, it still ended up in line with the pressure gauge! Success and another job ticked off. Not many left now! Steve 🙂