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WW1 Peerless lorry restoration


Great War truck

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Hi Chaps!

Many thanks for that. I knew I just had to ask! Interestingly, my spare plug which lives in the toolbox is a D16 so I think we are on the right lines. I will start with them.

My goodness, Andy. That Lion is an animal! You are a brave man indeed for taking such a thing on. What is its story?

Whilst looking at this area of the engine, I have picked up the valve plugs. Unfortunately, they are a sorry looking bunch and have all been seriously mistreated with a hammer and punch, probably due to the lack of an appropriate spanner.

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Well, I am fortunate to have in stock a Dennis cap spanner.

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The teeth are rounded off and bigger than the original slots in the Peerlees plugs but it does give us a chance of being able to tighten them properly.

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First task was to tidy the teeth up. Fortunately, it is not too hard.

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Onto the caps. I started off by putting them all in the lathe to tidy up the front faces and outside diameter. One of them was very far gone and, I decided, needed more than just a bit of tickling.

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I faced this one right off with the intention of silver soldering a replacement ring.

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I needed a 3" diameter disc for that job and quite amazingly, found a bar end of 3 1/2" brass under the bench which I duly parted off. It is very surprising how little I buy these days. I seem to have been doing this for so long that there is always something useful hidden in a corner somewhere, assuming I can find it!

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It floated off-centre on the solder but I had left enough meat on it to dress off so all was well.

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Then into the mill to have the slots cut. All quite straightforward.

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I tidied the slots in the other caps as well. I suspect that they were originally 1/4" wide but five caps are now 3/8" which suits the spanner. The other three are a whisker wider in order to adequately clean the faces.

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All done!

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I have ordered some new crush washers for them from Dobson Gaskets in Keighly following Tomo's recommendation. They have promised fourteen days delivery so we shall see how they do. Thanks Tomo.

I will order the plugs next! Thanks for your help!

Steve   🙂

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Good evening Steve and everybody for your kind words on the Lion engine,

 

The engine came from a Vickers Virginia, it spent about 70 years in total in museum's, then went on to a Lion engine collector, I bought and then rebuilt the engine and fired it up about 11 years ago.

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I also have another type 5A Lion that came from Blackburn Velos G-AAAW.

 

I am sure I can say that we are all always looking forward to the next instalment of the Peerless restoration, well done yet again.

 

Andy

 

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Hi Andy.

Thanks for the pic and the story. You are a brave man to take it on and I shall look forward to seeing it sooner or later.

Pleased to hear that you enjoy the ongoing story. I am always concerned that we are going into mind-numbing levels of detail but people do seem to keep coming back! It is wonderful for me to be able to ask questions of such a knowledgeable bunch of friends. You certainly can't do this sort of thing on your own!

Steve  🙂

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43 minutes ago, Bill Coates said:

Don't stop!! You'll certainly not bore my grandson & me with the detail.  We're rebuilding our prewar cars and it puts our minor problems into perspective ...Bill

Absolutely - your thread is fascinating and I follow it with great interest.  In fact, I think it is the only thread I have ever shared with my wife as she too has been amazed at the skills and dedication you and your team have shown.  Wonderful stuff.

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On 11/11/2022 at 6:54 PM, 7VHU said:

Modern motor cars and commercial vehicles, Arthur Judge, 1927…

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Would there be any chance of seeing the next page ? I've been intrigued for some time by why many inter-war motorcycle engines were specified short reach plugs and yet with a longer reach thread available. It looks as if the answer is a turn of the page away.

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2 hours ago, 7VHU said:

Sure…there are a few more pages…E20DBAED-1DC4-43FB-994D-AF166409413F.thumb.jpeg.1916c8c71dede580cafed917e7147802.jpeg

That's great, thank you...I can win a few arguments with this ! 🙂

Going back to the correct plug for a Peerless, all the inter-war sources that I have seem to indicate, as original a 7/8 ALAM thread which is very close to 22mm.

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I too would like some, little chance of it though.

That price was huge. My Dad started on 2 pounds per week in 1948 (New Zealand money - which wasn't

that different from UK pounds). So call it 1/2 week's gross pay per spark plug.

I have no idea what inflation was like between when that ad was printed and 1948.

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What was a British Pound worth in 1930?
Value of £1 from 1930 to 2017
 
£1 in 1930 is equivalent in purchasing power to about £62.13 in 2017, an increase of £61.13 over 87 years. The pound had an average inflation rate of 4.86% per year between 1930 and 2017, producing a cumulative price increase of 6,113.29%.
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Interesting to see but I don't think I shall try to replicate them. Too much like hard work!

I have been amusing myself with fittings for the oil and water systems. The mechanical oil pump feeds the two crank cases seperately through two banjo fittings. These are the fittings I have.

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I suspect that the steel one was a repair job at some point in its life and, rather inconveniently, sports an M10 thread. Fortunately, I spotted it as I am very suspicious of all screw threads on this vehicle! Anyway, I thought that I would rather they looked the same and so turned one up to match but with the M10. Unfortunately, we don't have the banjos themselves so they will be another imminent task.

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For some light relief, I turned up some water connections with nuts and nipples to match. 1/8"NPT to 1/2"x 24 UNS. More new taps and dies!

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As well as the banjos on the oil system, we are missing the actual sight feed unit which looks like this.

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I have spent the day on the board turning photographs and a manual illustration into enough information to make one up

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I just need to find a source of 5/8" OD glass tube and learn how to cut it! 15mm test tubes may be the answer or possibly to drill and turn some acrylic rod into tube. More food for thought.

Steve     🙂

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