mammoth

Jokes aside from being down under, turn it upside down and the '7' is clearly an 'L' and the other figures look like letters as well??

I have recently aquired a J type instruction book. Valve clearance is given as 5 thou hot, no mention of any difference between inlet and exhaust. Ignition timing is "about 32 to 35" degrees before tdc fully advanced, corresponding to 6" to 61/2 " circumference of a 211/2" flywheel. There is no mention of valve timing.

In relation to a much earlier subject the governor is set at 16mph.

The book I have mentions electric starting, with reference to pinion engagement. However, the spare parts section does not cover electric starting.

The question of the rear axle beam being low arises because we are so conditioned to seeing a modern one piece floating axle arrangement. In the early days metallurgy was in it's infancy and even with shaft drive axles the load bearing beam was often seperate to the diff housing and drive shafts. (Republic carried the arrangement into the 1920's) This morphed into a one piece diff & axle housing, but with reinforcing ties underneath. In the case of chain drive there is no reason why the axle beam needs to go straight across and hence other design considerations can take a front seat. In the case of the FIAT the beam is not really load bearing and is acting more in a wheel alignment function, as well as ancillary functions suggested.

You beat me to it Robert! I have just posted this on our local site, and then came here. This takes the thread a tiny bit further...

At first I was wrongly questioning whether Redherring's chassis was a leyland, as conventional hangers appeared in all pictures of the old jiggers, but I have done some scratching around;

In the Leyland Society Journal No14 Mike Sutcliffe writes; "Another survival of the practice was the cast iron dovetailed spring slides. these were quite good and gave a lot less trouble than the early shackles which often broke through 'locking' in the brackets"

It seems that all the Leyland steamers used the sliding spring fixings (fitted under RSJ rails), and that this system carried over to the first production run (class Y, 30 odd built) of petrol trucks between 1905 and 1906. The sliders were at the front only and instead of going under the rails were supported by outriggers fixed to the top of the rails. The next significant class was the X which ran from 1908 to 1912 and this used more conventional hangers fixed to the side of pressed chassis rails.

Now the mystery; The subsequent S class also used conventional hangers but there were some examples which used sliders , and the best picture I have found is in Klappers 'British Lorries 1900-1945' pp 104 with the caption "A 1914 specimen that in 1934 was still running 500 miles a week and with a trailer shifting 10 ton loads". I have not found there to be a correlation between the use of sliders and the joggled frame, as might be expected or bus or lorry use. Maybe Mike Sutcliffe will provide some answers when his history of early Leyland truck gets to the S class.

Regarding yawing the torque tube is fixed rigidly to the diff, making a solid 'T', so would be controlling both rotational torque and yawing. The springs would still play a role in controlling lateral movement.

I scored both trucks. They are a GH2 circa 1926 and a PH 2 1927, just before the ricardo engine came in with detatchable head. The header tanks would have corroded and been repaired with the steel jobs. The 1921 engine is a replacement. The conversions to pneumatics is very well done but uses 24" tyres. I have some solid wheels so hopefully I will be able to convert one back to solid tyres. They were sold through the Sydney agent but otherwise I have no idea of their provenance.

The one in a museum referred to would be "Blue Gem" at Inverell Transport Museum. It is either a QH6 or PH6 with Ricardo engine, so would be 1928 and is a fabulous restoration.

Having spent 20 plus years in blighty I got inoculated with appreciation of old British hardware. Over there it was motorbikes and narrow gauge railways. Being on a farm here I had the space to play with bigger toys. Eventually I started gathering a collection of post war poms which were relatively unique survivors of an earlier age - Thornycroft, Leyland, AEC, Albion. I now have 2 AEC Matadors in the queue for restoration but the one I need some help with is a 1946 Leyland Hippo mkll. I am told that it remained in service until the 1960's when it was auctioned and sent to New Guinea to work on a highway project. apparrently too slow and unloved it was left in the bush but, (maybe 15) years ago it was brought to Queensland with restoration in mind. Unfortunately after some dismantling the project stalled and deterioration continued until I aquired it this year. The chassis is straight and clean but there are many cab parts that are either missing or too rusty to use.

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