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WW1 Dennis truck find


Great War truck

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The subsidy model had the smaller Benton and Stone (Enots) filter. This used the same head, but a smaller filter and bowl.

 

Ben

 

"Benton & Stone, Bracebridge Street (ENOTS), by 1926 also at Aston Brook Street, art metal workers and makers of gas fittings, garden syringes and sprays and motor accessories. Trade Mark 'ENOTS'. "

 

 

Bracebridge Street, Birmingham is better known for the home of Norton works motor cycle racing team. Certainly an address to have.

 

Barry.

Edited by Asciidv
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Wonderful!

 

Really helpful pictures - and as soon as Steve has the measurements, then I am sure he will be fired up again!

 

I phoned the Foundry again this morning - they are pouring today and I hope to pick up thise final castings on Friday. They are still dismayed about the previous failure and tell me that they are trying a different kind of sand this time.

 

Tony

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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

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Tony went to the foundry today and collected the recast water pumps parts and the last few bits that needed doing. The foundry were a bit embarassed about what happened last time and have done a cracking job on this lot. It will be interesting to see how they look after they have been machined.

 

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A bit more progress:

 

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As always, we are trying to think ahead and have been planning the great reassembly of the drive shaft between clutch and gearbox including the clutch release mechanism. Tony caused us some amusement by saying don't we need a new one of these?

 

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'Yes' we said 'and you have already made it!'. There, in the back of the cupboard was the shaft finished, painted and ready to fit. When it arrived, it looked like this

 

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Both bearings and the levers were on it but heavily corroded. Tony stripped it down and made new clevises as we deemed the others to be beyond repair.

 

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The drop arms were built up with weld and then Steve dressed them back, bored them out and bushed them.

 

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Fortunately for us, one of the release links had survived, albeit corroded and bent

 

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Steve straightened this by heating it and hitting it in the vice after which he bored it out and bushed it. He then had to make another.

 

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This was slowly carved out in the mill and lathe and then the edges were radiused with a file

 

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Finally, he brazed a web in and dressed it off to match the other.

 

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Finally, there remained only the pivot bearings. These are plain bearing mounted in small cast housings. The difficult was that they are spherical bearings which are assembled by pushing them into the housing sideways and then secured by rotating them through 90° to trap them. They were well corroded in and took a lot of heat and perseverance to free them up and get them out.

 

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The housings proved salvageable but the ball parts needed replacing. Steve used his spherical turning technique to make up replacements and these are all now in stock and ready to fit.

 

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All of this was done over a year ago but it is very nice to know they are there ready and waiting.

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Plenty of Coffee must have been drunk over the course of your restorations :coffee:

 

Has this restoration gathered pace now that the engine start is nearing?

 

Second Abn Deuce's comment on the fine machining.

 

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.

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Thanks for your kind comments, Norman. We do suddenly seem to see some significant progress but I think that it is more of a case that at last, things are coming together. We have all been beavering away doing things - making or repairing parts or patterns - and it all takes time. With the three of us living in different parts of the country does not help! It is rare for all of us to be at "base" together to work on the lorry.

 

But it is a great fun exercise and really, we cannot wait to hear that engine start! Already our minds are working ahead and trying to decide what we will do next. Peerless or Thornycroft J? I think that really we would like to do the Thorny but we are still short of the "Diff" for that one. The Dennis "Diff" eventually turned up out of the blue and we are hoping that one for the Thorny will come the same way. The best hunting ground now seems to be down under as that is where the Thorny engine came from. Another story!

 

As far as the Peerless is concerned, then we already have all the main parts - again a lot of repair and replacement will be necessary. So as we do have everything for it, then that may be the way to go. That one is chain-drive - so that would be something different as well!

 

Tony

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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

Dennis Gearchange.JPG

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Tony has got on with Pump Mounting - all quite straight forward this time and the casting is good. He had previously turned the small end true - but over-size so that he could hold that in the chuck whilst working on the other end. Was able to support it with the revolving centre by counter-sinking the casting inside.

 

With this set-up was able to machine both inside and outside faces at the end and also machine the "boss" to final dimensions.

 

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Here we have the completed "big" end of the casting

 

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The next job was to drill the three holes in the flange which will eventually be used to secure it to the Pump Body. They will eventually be opened up for 3/8" bolts. These were marked out by scribing a 4" diametric circle whilst the casting was still in the lathe - the three holes are 120 degrees apart and their positions were simply marked out with a divider. These are to be used initially to hold the casting in a jig for the other end of it to be worked on.

 

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It is essential that the casting be held truly in the lathe for the smaller end to be worked on - otherwise the holes for the shaft and mounting will not line up. Just holding it in the chuck would not be good enough as it would be difficult to get it turn totally accurately.

 

So he found an old 3/8" thick steel disc in the Scrap Box - it already had a big hole in the middle and gripped this firmly in the 3-jaw chuck. The first job was to face it off to ensure that the face was square with the lathe. The hole in the centre of it was then opened up to 3" diameter to exactly match the newly turned boss on the big end of the casting. The casting was then pushed into this - the three holes from the casting were marked off on the jig - the casting was removed and the three holes were then drilled in the jig - whilst the jig was still in the chuck.

 

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The casting was then firmly secured to the jig with 1/4" nuts and bolts.

 

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It will be possible to support the end to be worked on with a centre in the tail stock whilst being initially worked on for outside diameter and whilst the face of the small bolting flange is taken down to final dimensions.

 

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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

 

 

If you hadn't already realised, this is exceptionally clever! Steve is using old manual machining techniques which are disappearing from most machine shops. CNC machines remove this kind of thinking necessary to produce such geometry.

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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

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Once the hole through has been drilled big enough to take the boring bar, then the hole is bored out to the finished diameter to take the Drive Shaft.

 

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The second picture shows the drive shaft in the hole - it turns beautifully in the bronze with no shake.

 

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The final picture shows the finished job with the circumferential lines scribed on the casting marking out the position of the securing bolts.

 

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One final job to de done on this setting before the casting can be taken from the lathe and that is to cut the internal Oil Groove.

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Tony has had a busy day again. Cut the Oil Groove inside first of all - this is mainly 1/8" deep but there is a slight taper on the depth. To avoid chatter marks, he turned the lathe by hand taking no more than one thou cuts on each revolution. A long job!

 

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Before taking the casting out of the jig, he tried the casting with jig still attached to it in the hole in the engine for the drive. It was a very snug fit and he put the whole assembly back in the lathe and took off another thou with a bit of emery cloth. Result - perfect fit

 

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Then a case of finally marking out and drilling the holes for the fixings to the engine. (Fingers crossed at this stage that he has got them right............)

 

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