WW1 Dennis truck find

[Tony B]

Suppose they'd hold the grease in place! Don't tell me you haven't at some time got home on a gasket made from a thick brown envelope. Eggs or poridge in the radiator? :-D

[Richard Farrant]

Yet I can't recall ever seeing in a manual instructions to grease the leaves.

 

Tony,

 

I somehow don't think you read the manuals thoroughly, Bedford's wartime workshop manual states "before finally bolting the spring together the leaves should be lubricated by lighlty smearing them with graphite grease".

 

Then another quote, from the official book, Manual of Driving and Maintenance for Mechanical Vehicles (Wheeled), "open leaves with screwdriver occasionally and see that oil goes well in between the leaves; if gaiter fitted, keep this filled with grease"

 

:-D

[Stefano]

Have I missed something here? (the answer is probably yes I suppose) It doesn't seem to me as if the Dennis is over endowed with shock absorbers, so the chances are that I would think the more friction there is between leaves the better it will drive...

[Richard Farrant]

Have I missed something here? (the answer is probably yes I suppose) It doesn't seem to me as if the Dennis is over endowed with shock absorbers, so the chances are that I would think the more friction there is between leaves the better it will drive...

 

 

I agree, Stefano, that a lorry without shock absorbers or dampers would not want lubricated spring leaves...........but, it was TonyB, the Threadjacker, who managed to get the subject off course........yet again :embarrassed:. Apologies to Tim and his crew :-)

[Degsy]

Suppose they'd hold the grease in place! Don't tell me you haven't at some time got home on a gasket made from a thick brown envelope. Eggs or poridge in the radiator? :-D

 

 

 

No, having always maintained my vehicles properly I have never needed to resort to that sort of bodge up

[Asciidv]

I agree, Stefano, that a lorry without shock absorbers or dampers would not want lubricated spring leaves...........but, it was TonyB, the Threadjacker, who managed to get the subject off course........yet again :embarrassed:. Apologies to Tim and his crew :-)

 

Sorry, but I tend to disagree! It all depends on how well damped the leaf spring is naturally. I run a 1920 Dennis Fire Engine (weight 5 tons) on solid tyres with well greased leaf springs. It handles just fine. Most early Rolls Royces were fitted with leather spring gaiters which were meant to be packed with grease.

[Great War truck]

The matter of spring lubrication appears to have attracted some disagreement. I can find no reference to the need to do it in the FWD manual, drivers orders or the very comprehensive ASC tome that i have. I will keep looking through the paperwork that i have but i really dont think it was done on these early military trucks.

 

Light blue touch paper and retire..........................

 

Tim

[Roy Larkin]

I'm with you Tim, I've never seen mention of the need to grease leaf springs. Thinking about the conditions in France/Flanders/Middle East, if it wasn't wet and muddy it was dry and dusty, so I'm not sure any lubrication to hold the dust would be a good idea. I'm also wondering how a vehicle would handle with 3 springs with leaves separated with dust encrusted grease and one newly fitted virgin greased spring. Changing the subject, I've just found something in the War Office specifications for compliance to the Subsidy Scheme in 1912, which will be a great 'wind-up' for those who crave 1000% authenticity. I'd wager there's not a single lorry on the rally field that complies. I'm not convinced any in military use atthe time complied either, but hey, might be fun to quote official documents to the right folk now and again.

[Minesweeper]

Changing the subject, I've just found something in the War Office specifications for compliance to the Subsidy Scheme in 1912, which will be a great 'wind-up' for those who crave 1000% authenticity. I'd wager there's not a single lorry on the rally field that complies. I'm not convinced any in military use atthe time complied either, but hey, might be fun to quote official documents to the right folk now and again.

 

Come on Roy - tell us more!

 

Tony

[Great War truck]

Come on Roy, we need to know!

 

Anyway, the exhaust is now all together:

 

 

 

 

 

[Roy Larkin]

OK, here we go then:

 

From 'War Department Subsidy Scheme 1912 - Technical Appendix A - Specification for Petrol Lorries'

 

'General Conditions Governing the Grant of Subsidy to Vehicles Suitable for War Department Purposes'

 

9 - Ignition

'Leads to the different cylinders should be of different colours to facilitate correct connections being made and to be coloured as follows: Cylinder nearest the radiator, red, next green, next yellow, cylinder nearest the dashboard, blue.'

 

Oh what fun could be had by an evil minded person with the pot-hunters when armed with such a document! 'Could you lift the bonnet please? Oh dear, Oh dear, just look at those ignition leads, not at all right!'

[Roy Larkin]

Tim, Tony and Steve,

 

Don't for one second I was having a pop at the wonderful work you are doing with the Dennis and have done in the past. It was intended as tongue-in-cheek about the War Office specs - though come to think of it, an awful thing with a strange box body does come to mind! In fact it is so awful, I can't even remember the make of it.

[Great War truck]

Thats interesting and no offence taken. I love these little snippets of information.

 

Do you think the same regulations would have applied for lorries built to the subsidy scheme specifications but directly for the WD as opposed to the owner operators?

 

For those repaired at the MT parks at Rouen (or wherever) i can not imagine that they would have been too worried about colours, but to just get the lorry back into action.

 

I will look through my photos now to see if i can identify a discernable difference in colours.

 

Tim

[Roy Larkin]

Tim,

 

The War Office, particularly the MTC were well aware that maintaining anything in the field rather than workshops was a totally different situation. They were also well aware that if war broke out that many mechanics and drivers would be unskilled, so steps were taken to make mistakes by unskilled men less likely, hence the colour coding and the largely standardisation of lorries regarding pedal layout, position handbrakes, gear levers and controls on steering columns. There was much more thought given to the detail of design/specification than is often credited. My gut feeling is that even if the colour coding was ever enforced or applied then it probably didn't last very long. I imagine the manufacturers wouldn't have been happy with needing 4 different colour leads, and the War Office did need to keep the manufacturers on board. Different coloured leads is great in theory, but if nobody makes leads of different colours, it's probably easier to not bother.

[Great War truck]

Just what i thought.

 

Now that the drive shaft is complete and painted, Steve decided to try fitting up the clutch linkage. First challenge was to find all the bits as they had been done so long ago. Father has already tried to make a second shaft as he had forgotten that he made a replacement some years ago! The parts were loosely assembled and, as expected, the levers were out of line. The pinch bolts were slackened off and the levers were knocked along. After some judicious filing everything fitted and the same was done for the pedal link. Finally, the spring was cut and the whole lot put together. After a couple of good kicks, the clutch let go and it all functions. The pedal is, however, extremely heavy with a very short stroke which doesn't bode well for ease of driving. Time will tell.

 

The last job of the day was to connect the transmission brake rod (top of last pic) so we now have two functioning pedals.

 

 

 

 

 

[Stormin]

... The pedal is, however, extremely heavy with a very short stroke which doesn't bode well for ease of driving. Time will tell.

 

Isn't there some scope to slacken those lock nuts and reduce the tension on the clutch springs thereby easing the pedal load and increasing the pedal travel.

 

I appreciate you have probably adjusted the tension so the springs are to a set length as per the manual. However I assume you are unlikely to be driving the truck fully laden so the risk of clutch slip from less tension shouldn't be a problem.

[Old Bill]

Hi Norman.

 

You are quite right. Slackening the springs will reduce the pedal force needed. I will certainly back them off before trying to drive it! There is not actually a lot of room on the studs so I may well have to fit half-nuts. At the moment, I have just nipped them all up equally to see what happens as there is no guidance provided in the manual as to how tight they should be. Of course, it might all be a bit easier when there is a seat to push against.

 

Roy. You will be pleased to hear that I did go looking for the colour coded HT leads. However, I couldn't find leads with different colours but of the same type of wire so we decided to settle for black all round. If you look on our FWD, though, you will see correctly coloured tape around the end of each lead as the leads disappear into a tube and are tricky to trace when fault finding. I think we will do the same again on the Dennis as the leads run through a cardboard tube along the top of the engine and we will have the same problem. Repairing the cardboard tube is my current project. Another new skill required!

 

Steve

[Roy Larkin]

Excellent, Steve, coloured ends would likely make more sense than having to find rolls of lead in the correct colour, whether today or in the 1910s.

[79x100]

A different era I realise but the wiring diagrams for WD Nortons which had rubber sheathed cables according to a 1937 specification refer to 'cable colours' when in fact this was a small coloured rubber identifying band at each end. The harness itself was black rubber.

[Old Bill]

That's interesting. I might be following general practice, quite by accident! I can certainly believe that coloured leads would have been abandoned quite early due to the spares issue. I have only ever seen them mentioned in the subvention scheme specifications. Tim, is there any other mention in your various books?

 

Steve

[abn deuce]

While a good idea in general but I m thinking of the poor mechanic or driver trying to fix things that happens to be Color Blind he would still have to trace each wire regardless . No short cuts with the bands.

[Tony B]

It shows one thing, even nintey odd years ago Civil Servants were creting complication to justify their existance.:-D

[andreadavide]

ISTR that the color coded spark plugs leads have been always the norm with the Ford model T, only in that case they were low tension leads from the distributor to the four buzzing coils...

 

Andrea

[Great War truck]

That's interesting. I might be following general practice, quite by accident! I can certainly believe that coloured leads would have been abandoned quite early due to the spares issue. I have only ever seen them mentioned in the subvention scheme specifications. Tim, is there any other mention in your various books?

 

Steve

 

I cant find any reference to it outside the original subsidy scheme specifications that Roy mentioned. Seems like a good idea but i cant see it lasting long on active service. If a so called judge brought this up at a show I would have to introduce him to the lump hammer of negotiation. You know me, i always like a lively discussion.

 

Anyway, look what came in the post today:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the correct one! Bargian price too!

[Stormin]

Interesting! That looks like a sliding plate throttle rather than the common butterfly arrangement. A system that seems to have been reverted to on high performance and race engines.

 

Similarly when someone mentioned the Model T being on low tension leads to each cylinder it sounds similar to modern engines with a coil pack for each cylinder rather than high tension leads.

 

Seems that new motors are reverting to older designs!