WW1 Dennis truck find

[Minesweeper]

The "Run" is just one way - London to Brighton - and that's it! The vehicles line up on the sea front after they arrive in Brighton on display - and then they disperse after the prize giving at about 5p.m.

 

Tony

[Jack]

Quote from Tim on the 2/11/2005

Thanks for your kind comments. I will be happy to keep the forum updated with our progress, but it is a slow old job, so do expect it go on for a bit.

 

:D

[Tony B]

Tim, do you want a disc of the pictures and a couple of vid clips I took? If so PM and I'll dump them on a disc. A real joy to se ethe Old Girl and have the pleasure of 'laying hands' to help her off the lorry. Those leather straps, the best stuff to use on them is good old fashioned Ko*Cho*Line a red paste, it will also preserve the buckles. Was probably the issue stuff at the time as well.

Edited May 3, 2011 by Tony B

[Richard Peskett]

Ref. reply 1468. Golden rule , never tow or tow start a vehicle with worm drive axle ( unless you have a large bank account). We have seen the results of this in my workshop several times, in this field the Thornycroft 'J' type of the IWM had ben towed before they acquired it and the worm wheel carrier had broken up, another example is the Tillings-Stevens petrol electric of London's Transport museum which was towed when in storage at Wroughton with disasterous consequences. A worm always drives the worm wheel. The Fordson owners mentioned are quite correct. For general towing the half shafts should be taken out. Pioneer user, dealer and subsequent collector of historic commercial vehicles Jack Sparshatt gave me a lecture on this in the early 1960s. Fuel - we always put a couple of caps full of two stroke oil in the tank when filling the veterans we look after, it certain helps with the valves , in particular the atmospheric inlets. When we restored the IWM Thornycroft 'J' made the mistake of putting back on the engine all the original hot air pipes to the carb. it certainly did not like this after about 20 minutes of running, fuel was vapourising, disconnected them and it ran perfect.

Richard Peskett.

[Old Bill]

Could you rig up an external starter motor?

 

Hi Chaps.

 

We could fit a starter but that rather goes against my ethos. There are few things more satisfying than starting a recalcitrant petrol engine by hand! Of course, the fact that we all drive desks most of the time means that none of us are really strong enough to do it!

 

When we resorted to the tow, we were well aware of the risk to the differential and won't do it again. It got us out of trouble but we will get caught out sooner or later if we keep doing it. This engine drove a fire pump originally and had been set up with dual ignition, a distributor and a trembler coil for easy starting. We could go back to that but it wouldn't be right for an army lorry. The alternative, which I favour at the moment, is to fit an impulse starter. This is a device which fits onto the magneto drive and winds a spring as the crank is turned. At the correct point, the spring lets go and turns the mag very quickly giving a good spark in spite of the low crank speed. All I need to do now is to find one but unfortunately, they are rather like hens teeth. Failing that, I hope to borrow one to measure up so that I can make one. Do any of you chaps have a spare please?

 

Steve

[Old Bill]

What's it like to drive compared with its contemporaries ?

 

It is rather nice. The steering is so much lighter than the FWD and the lock is very tight. Interestingly, the engine is light on bottom end torque and I found that I had to rev it a lot harder than I expected. Hitting a hill flat out in top meant that I didn't have to change down whereas going at it a bit half-hearted left me soon dropping a cog. The throttle pedal is very high so I will be fitting a heel block to take the pressure off of my ankle. I also plan to fit a floor on that side so that the draught no longer goes up my trousers! The gear change is nice but the clutch brake needs a bit of adjustment to function properly.

 

All in all, it is a pleasure to drive and I hope to persuade Tim to have a go this summer.

 

Steve

[Charawacky]

Hello Steve,

 

Try Albert Smith I am pretty sure he will have an impulse starter as I had asked him about one in the past.

 

Tom

[Great War truck]

Quote from Tim on the 2/11/2005

Thanks for your kind comments. I will be happy to keep the forum updated with our progress, but it is a slow old job, so do expect it go on for a bit.

 

:D

 

Yes Jack. When i wrote that we had already been working on it for five years.

[8_10 Brass Cleaner]

Yes Jack. When i wrote that we had already been working on it for five years.

 

Steve, impulse mags are common on farm tractors, from the great war in age to just pre war.

 

Could you make the impulse gubbins out of a tractor fit your mag? I suppose you could always fit a later mag.

 

Tom, is that the same Albert Smith who has a rather nice Mann steam cart?

[BenHawkins]

. All I need to do now is to find one but unfortunately, they are rather like hens teeth. Failing that, I hope to borrow one to measure up so that I can make one. Do any of you chaps have a spare please?

 

 

I picked up TWO when I came down to Honiton steam rally. As I do not expect to be starting my engine in the near future you can borrow one and see how you get on!

 

Ben

[Old Bill]

Thanks Tom and Ben!

 

Steve

[Great War truck]

With the "Brighton" now behind us and after a week of not thinking too much about "Dennis", it is time to start thinking now of the finishing touches and all of the things that we could just not do before the Run in the time that was available then. On top of that, we did learn one or two things from the experience and we must turn our attention to those.

 

The ridge bars for the back canvas should be held in place with brackets - eight of them - and for the short term, they were just bolted to the Bows to hold them in their correct positions. Steve is now making up these brackets in Leicester and they will be fitted in due course, hopefully before the Honiton Hill Rally which is our next planned expedition towards the end of August.

 

Starting the lorry especially, was not as easy as we earlier anticipated - it just seemed impossible to turn the starting handle fast enough to get a good spark. We have an Impulse Starter on the FWD and the obvious immediate solution is to try one of those on the Dennis. They are not easy to come by but we have found one and just hope that it is suitable for our set-up - if not, I am quite sure that it can be adapted or changed as needs be.

 

 

[Great War truck]

A few years ago, we were fortunate to find the correct Acetylene Generator at Beaulieu - this is to provide gas for the headlamps. It was put away until required - but now is the time! It has been painted a "strange" green at sometime or other - but inside the lid, there are the remnants of the old "WD" green where it has not been re-painted.

 

The makers plates are still on it and under the smaller plate, you can see that "WD" was stamped on it.

 

The generator will be located on the floor of the cab, just in front of the driver's mate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first three pictures here show the insides of the generator - on the face of it, it looks to be in good condition but some of the finer steel work has rusted through and that must be replaced if we wish to use it in anger!

 

The last photo shows where it will be located on the lorry.

 

 

 

 

[Tony B]

I seem to remember a raaather sniffy 'He's got an electric starter!' Remark at Crystal Palace.

[mattinker]

Hi,

 

I really enjoyed seeing you and "Dennis" at Brighton! I'm glad you made it home OK.

 

I was thinking, didn't the engine have a decompresser? Would have been of the period!

 

Regards, Matthew

[lynx42 Rick Cove]

Hi,

 

I really enjoyed seeing you and "Dennis" at Brighton! I'm glad you made it home OK.

 

I was thinking, didn't the engine have a decompresser? Would have been of the period!

 

Regards, Matthew

 

Tim and crew, you should have restored an Albion A10 instead. The Albion has a decompressor which is activated by pulling a T handle whick protrudes from the left of the bottom of the radiator. You pull it out and turn it 90%. This moves the whole camshaft back a knotch and engages a seperate set of camshaft lobes. These hold the exhaust valves open for a longer period. Upon firing, you just reach down and with a quite flick, the T handle and camshaft resume their running position. Simple Hey!

 

Congratulations on a successful first outing. Well Done.

[N.O.S.]

In the early '50s my dad made up a starter rope for use with one of their old asthmatic Chaseside rope loading shovels (P6 Fordson Major base unit).

 

It was a metal ring on the handle with a length of rope each side. That way with one person on the handle and persons two and three each side they could keep the engine turning over long enough for it to reluctantly cough ino life.

 

Oh - I forgot the fourth person in the driver's seat holding the elctric starter button down :D

 

Those were the days.......

[ajmac]

Sorry not to have looked sooner, I didn't realise the Dennis was out and about! If I hadn't read this thread two years ago I wouldn't have thought it practical to start my Loyd carrier, so thanks for kicking me into action on a project that I have always wanted to begin ever since I built air fix models as child.

I have great respect for all that the team have achieved and look forward to catching a look at her one day.

[Stormin]

Congratulation on completing the London Brighton run without incident. It would've been a great injustice given the work and dedication that has gone into the vehicle if it didn't perform impeccably.

 

I too am surprise that the engine doesn't have a decompression mechanism to aid starting. Is it possible that in the application as a pump engine there was a different starting arrangement fitted, one that was maybe geared or arranged to enable several sets of hands to easily rotate the engine?

Another thought arises that your re-working of the engine, tighter tolerances etc, may have increased the compression ratio beyond the original specification and making starting more difficult.

I know there's still a few jobs to finish on the Dennis but I'm sure I'm not alone in looking forward to a similarly detailed and high standard restoration and documentation on the next project. Keep up the great work.

[Asciidv]

As Tony has explained before, the engine was originally a fire pump engine and was fitted with a trembler coil for easy starting. In lorry guise the engine only had a magneto, hence the desire to fit an impulse magneto to make starting easy.

 

There is a short video here;

 

 

which describes the starting of a Dennis using science!

 

Barry.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Asciidv

[Old Bill]

I wouldn't have thought it practical to start my Loyd carrier, so thanks for kicking me into action on a project that I have always wanted to begin ever since I built air fix models as child.

 

Hi Alastair.

 

I am so pleased that you have started your project. Getting started can be hard but if you really want to do it you will succeed!

 

Good luck with it!

 

Steve

[Old Bill]

'the starting of a Dennis using science!'

 

Hi Barry.

 

I could make up a coil and battery in a box to clip on to the plugs when we want to start. However, two questions occur to me. The first is if I clip to the same plug as is being driven by the mag, will the HT given by the coil and battery upset the magneto? The second is how do you disconnect it once the engine is running wthout giving yourself a belt?!

 

(The second, I can resolve, one way or another!)

 

Steve

[Asciidv]

Steve,

 

The secret is to have a 5 cylinder engine or at least 5 sparking plugs!

 

 

 

I don't think back feeding HT into the magneto would do it any good and the impedance of the magneto would probably be low enough to reduce the voltage so you couldn't have a spark anyway. All of my valve caps have provision for two plugs. (See above picture).

 

This isn't really a serious suggestion as I am sure the impulse magneto will do the trick. It was just with this particular machine of mine, it doesn't have a trembler or an impulse magneto, just like your lorry. Starting it without help at the farm is impossible, hence the intervention of science.

 

As an emergency 'Get you by fix' until you have your magneto sorted out, a battery and coil in a little box would make life easier.:yay:

 

Barry.

Edited May 15, 2011 by Asciidv

[Minesweeper]

Some years ago when we first "kicked off" with this restoration, we bought sufficient paint for it at that time, in one litre tins, to see the project right through. I cannot remember off the top of my head if it was 12 or 15 litres - but there was sufficient undercoat which was grey in colour to go with it - so the total cost was quite significant. We had previously used Masons Paint on the other lorries and were very well pleased with that so had no hesitation in going back to them. The paint was ordered as "dull" or "matt" which would be correct for an army lorry.

 

It was some time later that we opened the first tin and found that the paint was far glossier than we wanted - but by this time, Masons had ceased trading so that there was no recourse to them.

 

We used the paint on the chassis and on the wheels - and on some other parts that would not stand out as "being wrong". But we could not continue with it and be content with the finish.

 

I painted a piece of steel with the Masons gloss paint and presented it to another manufacturer and asked them if they could colour match it - but with a dull finish. This they did beautifully and supplied another large quantity of paint - and assured me that it could be used with the Masons undercoat that we already had so that we had no need to replace that.

 

We have been well satisfied with the finish but are disappointed that the new paint seems to chip off easily, revealing the grey undercoat which seems to be quite impervious to any knocks and does not come off. Where the canvas has been rubbing on the top coat, it has just come off.

 

Now we still have a large quantity of the original Masons gloss paint and I understand that it is possible to add a matting agent to it to turn it into the matt finish that we require. Has anybody had any experence of this particular exercise? What is the matting agent that you use - and what sort of ratio is required?

 

I will be very pleased and grateful to have some advice on this one!

 

Tony

[lynx42 Rick Cove]

Tony,

 

I know that there are matting agents comercially available, but a quick and cheap way is to add talcun powder to the gloss paint. How much? Well that depends on what level of matt you need. It does talk a lot of powder to matt it down.

 

i have used this method on many of my paint jobs. It sprays well as well.

 

Try it by using a small tin of paint first.

regards Rick.