Minesweeper

Very pleased to see your first posting John! Lots of members of this Forum can and would like to benefit from your knowledge and experience! Tony

Great stuff, Dan and well done! Don't forget that there is a Steering Box here just waiting for you to pick up! An early wedding present for you! Tony

Thanks for that Barry - Steve will be here with us next weekend - prior to our trip to Brighton on Sunday to watch you come in to reclaim the Dennis Cup - and I hope we can decide then on the way forward with the cylinders! You made me laugh with your comments on the 32" TV! I hoard cardboard as I find it very useful to put down to protect the ground from oil and grease. We must have bought that TV about a year ago - and generally, I only turn the thing on when I want to go to sleep! Tony

Just a different language! What we know as "Paraffin" - you Americans call ""Kerosene"! I wonder why that should be? Just one of those funny things from history, I guess! "Plus Gas" is a penetrating oil and we have found it to be the best one that we have come accross. I guess there must be other brands - but this one seems to work the best for us! Tony

Well, thank you very much for that one - certainly something to explore! I have just been having a word with Steve about it on the phone - he is computerless at the moment so has not seen your suggestion but I do hope that he will have seen it by this time tomorrow! He is the Professional Engineer amongst us and understands these sort of things much better than Tim and I - and his first thoughts were that the deep pitting might be a problem but he will speak to them in due course and all three of us will be most interested in what they have to say! But thank you for the suggestion and we will post the response when we have it! Tony

When Tim started this thread some six or seven years ago, we never ever considered that there would ever be any great interest in the restoration of an old First World War Army Lorry - and we have been amazed and pleased that so many people have followed the story and given so much help and advice with it as it progressed. Today, the number of "hits" on the thread has exceeded A QUARTER OF A MILLION. So thank you everybody for your input, your advice and for your interest in it. There are still one or two things to be done, but we look forward now to really getting cracking with the Thornycroft. Steve, Tim and Tony

That is on an AEC Y-type chassis and is as good a use for it as any unless, of course, you have a complete set of Y-type mechanicals and need a set of wheels! Steve

A wonderful lot of questions, Barry! The first set of questions. To question 1 - they are all blind holes - apart from the four for the studs with the long fancy extended threads on - but those are only threaded to a sufficient depth to accomodate the larger thread, and then left as an unthreaded hole for the extension to pass through. The length of the new studs was copied from the ones taken out - but when compared with the studs still in position in the other crank case, then they are 1/8" too long. They have not been tightened right down - but they may have to be shortened on the bottom part - that will then absorb most of the part of the lower thread which is visable protruding from the crank case. To question 2 - then that will be "Yes". To question 3 - "No"! Should not be necessary. On the second set of questions. 1. Something we have discussed and the answer to that one is "No"! Broken Rings - we have used Clupit Rings in the past and found them excellent. The three rings on the last piston have still not moved and I really would like to get them out without breaking them. I have been dosing them with Plus Gas and I think that there may be some movement there now. We have not touched the inside of the cylinders yet and I guess that there will be a question over the sizes of all the components until they have been properly cleaned out and we can see what we are dealing with. Brighton 2015 - we like targets! Tony

That's interesting Matthew - thank you! Not all of the caps are as bad as the two illustrated - and I wonder if it is a case that the hard casings on those two have worn away - whilst the others are still complete and hence the lack of any significance wear on them? Steve will be here in Devon this weekend and I know that he will be keen to see them before any action is taken! His home computer is down at the moment and I am not sure how up to date he is with all of this! Tony

We think just grind them back as they are if there is enough metal there - we need to have a closer look first of all! The top certainly must be made flat. Tony

We decided then to have a go at the Cam Followers – they were all very dirty – but mainly cleaned up well. They are all free but the threads will want cleaning and they will require new caps as those are badly corroded. The final effort was on the oil pipe – we really had no idea what that was like under all the congealed grease and dirt – but cleaning the muck off revealed a nightmare! It had obviously been badly repaired during its life time – it is cracked and it looks as if it has been sealed with sticky tape. The elbows and other brass fittings will probably live to fight another day but new pipe work is called for!

My last whole day in Devon before I return to Oxford tomorrow - we decided to carry on with the preliminary cleaning of the engine bits so that we could see exactly what we had there and what will need to be done. We picked up the Oil Filter first of all after it had a chance to dry out from yesterday’s efforts on it – it had cleaned up pretty well but there was still some small bits of muck caught up in the mesh and also inside it and an air hose from outside and then from inside sorted that out – and it really is now ready to fit again. It was also a chance re-appraise the other bits that I did yesterday to see how the looked. We picked up the pistons then to have a go at them – just to see what we have there. You will re-call that they had to be jacked out of the cylinders as they were seized – and as we anticipated they were pretty untidy with the piston and scraper rings unsurprisingly mainly stuck. The usual paraffin bath was successful with all the scraper rings and they freed up – work on the piston rings brought mixed results with the three rings in one cylinder totally freed up – but in pistons nos 2 and 3, we freed two rings but broke one in each of those pistons. As far as the fourth piston was concerned, although the scraper ring came clear, all three piston rings are stuck so we have left that one stewing in some Plus Gas for the moment and will try again in a day or two.

A day of slow and steady progress – I have been cleaning all sorts of bits – including the Oil Filter. This is interesting and of quite a different design from the previous ones that we have encountered – it is of a long tubular design and sits in a channel along the bottom of the sump. Tony has been making and fitting more studs. That’s the 5/8” and ½” ones out of the way for the moment - until the next lot come along – and now it is down to many 3/8” ones – all for the Crank Case and will be needed for the engine reassembly. Tim

I know of a WW1 Nash Quad currently up for sale. That of any interest to you?

Long Bank Holiday weekends are usually the time when the whole team gets together in Devon to press on again with restoration work. This Easter, Steve could not come down but I joined Tony so that we were still able to press on with some work that requires more than one pair of hands. Tony cleaned the Crank Case a week or two ago – and also underneath as best that he could without turning it over – he thought it too heavy and difficult to risk doing that on his own – but the two of us did that easily and I was able to get in underneath to do the greasy parts that Tony could not deal with working from the top. A further clean with cellulose thinners – and then another coat of primer. Whilst I was pressing on with that, Tony completed the cylinder studs and when painting was completed, he tried a trial fitting of them in the Crank Case. Just to finish off the day, I started cleaning some of the smaller bits – to get them ready for reassembly. Tim

A proper job - as we Cornish would say! Well done! Tony

It is really amazing the variety of things that crop up and which we discuss on HMVF! Yes - this was EN24T - and anybody who really wants to look at the specification of this material in depth should "google" it! In a nut-shell, it will tell you that this is "through-hardening alloy steel which can be used in components such as gears, shafts, STUDS, and bolts. It can be further surface hardened." For our purpose, it is suitable as it is and will not be hardened further. We have used it before in bigger lumps on the Dennis and then I was concerned about machining it - thinking that really it would be just too much for the modest home workshop. This time, I bit the bullet and found that it machined very easily with a nice finish. Tony

Well, I have come across a girl called "Robin" - but I was hesitant in going down that track......... Tony

Looks like that you are going to have to tell us............... Tony

Only 16 more signatures required now!

Following research that I was doing into the Royal Navy career of my Grandfather during the Great War. Family legend had it that the Minesweeper on which he was serving sank off the Scottish Coast somewhere and that he returned home to Falmouth in Cornwall from Scotland in borrowed clothes - but never really spoke about what had happened. My research found that he served as a CPO on HMT Calliope II which was involved in a collision with the S.S.Dane off the Butt of Lewis - the minesweeper sank and some of the crew drowned. So the family legend had been true! He had inlisted in the R.N. in about 1880 - I do have the exact date somewhere - as a Ganges Boy when the Ganges was moored off Falmouth. He completed his full service before the Great War started in 1914 - but re-joined the Fleet when war broke out and served right through. For anyone interested in the Ganges, there is a very moving Memorial to all the Ganges Boys who were killed in training at Falmouth - situated in Mylor Churchyard. A large number of very young boys - it must have been tough for them as they had enlisted at such a very young age. How different from today. Tony

I like your swage block in the back-ground, I hope nobody else does! Once bitten - twice shy! It gets locked away with every thing else now, after our previous experience! Tony

With much sympathy - a sad and terrible time for you and your family. Tony

There are other members of this Forum much more experienced and qualified than I - but from what we have learned, it is very difficult to do a lot with this very old aluminium. We had a problem with the Dennis Gearbox where the cast-in "prongs" to hold the steel pivot pins for the Transmission Brake had either broken away or corroded away - but that Gearbox by the nature of its shape loaned itself to have that aluminium cut completely away and a steel fabrication - not aluminium - bolted to the Gearbox as a replacement. There were flat surfaces available in the appropriate place on the gearbox for the new steel replacement to be bolted to it. Looking at the shape of yours, it seems almost impossible to see an available surface that you could bolt anything to which would also be strong enough to hold such a fabrication - bearing in mind all the stresses that would be placed on it in use. We found from experience that it is impossible even to repair an old aluminium Radiator - despite all the great trouble that we went to, to seal it on the inside. It still leaks and when we get around to it, we must make patterns to have new top and bottom tanks cast. Again, I must stress that I am not an expert and although I understand that it is possible to weld aluminium, this very old aluminium is not really good for that. I hope that perhaps now, the knowledgable and professional members of the Forum might come in and comment and advise but unless you are fortunate enough to find a better gearbox I reckon that you might have to bite the bullet on this one and do some pattern making so that a new case can be cast - and then machined. Not good news as machining such a thing is not going to be cheap or easy. I do hope that the professionals will come in now and comment as there is a lot to be learned here! Tony

Thanks for all that reassurance - we are pleased and grateful to have it! Steve and Tim have gone to Coventry today (not sent!) to see the WW1 Maudslay 3 tonner that is being restored there - always something to learn! Tony