WW1 Thornycroft restoration

[Great War truck]

The chassis has now been fully primed and under coated. Quite a job – each single coat takes a day and a half! Three coats so far!

 

Phoned the Foundry today – steering wheels will be ready on Friday!

 

[David Herbert]

Does this mean that the Thornycroft is going to be grey? I suppose that photographic evidence might justify sepia .

 

David

[Minesweeper]

No, the undercoat is grey but the finished colour will be the same "green" as the Dennis. That undercoat of grey was recommended by the original paint supplier and exactly the same procedure was used on the Dennis. Seems to work OK !

[Old Bill]

Mind you, military vehicles were grey with black lettering up to about 1915.

 

Steve

[k2lofty]

Gentlemen, You all, more than deserve after all the hard work so far, the short and unexpected moments of real pleasure that getting to this stage of the restoration can bring, its onward and upwards from here, we are loving it and willing you on.

Great team, great thread, great work, great inspiration, JUST BLOODY GREAT ALL OF IT.

 

Regards lofty

Edited December 12, 2013 by k2lofty

[nz2]

Prior to the sand blasting was there any traces of paint on this chassis?

My pre war Thornycroft chassis has bits of grey paint about in joints between riveted sections of the cross members and the chassis rails.Grey paint is also about the wheels. Likewise the later chassis of circa 1924 also has grey paint in similar places, but of a different shade. On both chassis these places are out of direct sunlight and the area is only of a few square centimeters on each. I have cleaned these then carefully scrapped the paint away and kept the sample for future reference.

The wheels show numerous applications of paint over the 100 years, the grey appearing as the base coat.

Doug

[Minesweeper]

Thanks Lofty - that's very kind! It is an added bonus for us that others are enjoying the story and also adding information and advice all the time - and that is very much appreciated.

 

Doug - there have been some old bits of paint and we have looked very carefully to see what colour it originally was - but it is all so tired and faded that we have not been able to say. I do not think that there is any paint left on the wheels at all, now. Not much help!

 

Tony

[Old Bill]

Doug.

 

When we first got the chassis, it had been protected underneath a shepherd's hut and there was one good patch of army green which a friend of mine brought up with Brasso. The third batch of paint that we bought for the Autocar and all subsequent batches have matched it exactly so we are confident about the colour of our British vehicles. We used the same paint on the FWD because we have no better information for a US lorry but suspect that it may have been lighter originally. Leaving the Thorny chassis outside under a sheet for twenty years had, unfortunatley, destroyed that patch of original paint and the sand blasting finally finished it off.

 

Steve

[BSM]

Paint....Tony thank you for your earlier description of the family restoration paint sequence for your WW1 projects. No doubt "colour" or interpretations thereof will be debated long after we move on as they say. The WW2 projects have their own share of paint debate. Will the authentic "Khaki Green No.3." please stand up!!! Variations between flat (if you can get it), semi gloss and gloss notwithstanding!! This topic has been bandied around quite a bit over the years down this way. Congrats to all on the work thus far and may you all have a great festive season with a positive 2014 to follow. Rod

[Roy Larkin]

Mind you, military vehicles were grey with black lettering up to about 1915.

 

Steve

 

It looks like the change of paint colour started around mid/late December 1914, although that may (probably) have been the civilian ones being repainted as I guess they'd have repainted those first.

[Roy Larkin]

I have now found further evidence of colour identification/description that should help a bit. 62 Coy wired for more paint to continue painting their lorries on 14/1/1915 and it is described as 'GS Colour'. I am assuming that GS is General Service. First time I've seen the colour referred to as GS.

[Great War truck]

The painting continues. Now the first coat of green

 

 

[lowfat]

Er thats brown...

[Great War truck]

It looks more greenish in the real sunlight. But GS colour is not really green or brown. Looks more like fresh cow poo.

[Roy Larkin]

Er thats brown...

 

Nah! That's GS - greeny s...

[Great War truck]

Roy

There is a well known photo of LGOC's receiving a lick of paint at grove Park. You can make out on one of the paint tins "Service colour" and some other writing which unfortunately can not be made out.

I have several photos of trucks being painted with the paint having been decanted in to two gallon petrol tins with horizontal stripes along the outside showing what colour the paint is.

[lynx42 Rick Cove]

Here is a bit of proof as to just when the Albion Company changed their vehicles from Grey to Service Green.

 

My Albion A10 is chassis number 361A and was laid down on the 6th December 1915. The attached build sheet shows it should be GREY. (I did not know that when I painted it during restoration).

 

The attached are the build sheet , the top section of the build sheet and the lower part showing the body number and that it was to be GREY.

 

I will post another for chassis no. 368A later in December 1915. next showing Service Green.

[lynx42 Rick Cove]

Here is the card for 368A laid down on 29th December 1915 showing that it was to be Service Green. 361A has body no. 5150 and 368A has body no. 5197, 47 bodies later.

 

These Chassis Cards are to be found in the Albion Archives at Biggar in Scotland and are on Microfisch.

[Roy Larkin]

Here is the card for 368A laid down on 29th December 1915 showing that it was to be Service Green. 361A has body no. 5150 and 368A has body no. 5197, 47 bodies later.

 

These Chassis Cards are to be found in the Albion Archives at Biggar in Scotland and are on Microfisch.

 

Rick, that's the nearest I've seen that gives an idea when the colour changed. Fortunately it ties in with what appears to have happened in France.

 

As regards the shade of colour, I'm coming round to thinking that nobody actually knew what the shade was, so just gave it a name like 'Service Green', 'GS' or anything nondescript so that they couldn't be accused of getting it wrong. Every new batch mixed would have been different anyway.

[Roy Larkin]

Rick, that's the nearest I've seen that gives an idea when the colour changed. Fortunately it ties in with what appears to have happened in France.

 

As regards the shade of colour, I'm coming round to thinking that nobody actually knew what the shade was, so just gave it a name like 'Service Green', 'GS' or anything nondescript so that they couldn't be accused of getting it wrong. Every new batch mixed would have been different anyway.

 

Oops! just noticed that you've got 1915. I reckon that's a year late as I've got colour changes taking place in France in January 1915.

[Great War truck]

That is really interesting information Rick and Roy. It both partially resolves and adds a little more to the mystery. It is of course possible that those which left the factory in grey were used in the UK but then some received a coat of green paint on arrival in France. My view still remains that British vehicles were painted service colour.

[Roy Larkin]

Tim,

 

That was my thought as well, that the Albions were intended for Home Front use. I am assuming that it was the civilian liveried lorries in France that were repainted first, although some military ones might have been if they were in for overhaul. At some point, the decision was made to switch from military grey to GS, or whatever they called it. Certainly by mid-January 1915 repainting was happening among a lot of ASC companies and ambulance companies. My gut feeling is that that decision was made sometime in October or November 1914.

[Great War truck]

First complete coat of green (sorry general service colour). Looking better every day.

 

 

 

Collected the two steering wheel castings from the Foundry today – one for the “Thorny” and the other for the Maudslay in the Coventry Museum.

 

When the Foundry cast the Dennis steering wheels previously, they were able to “pour” through the centre boss, but this caused some difficulty this time, with the first “pour” failing. They have “poured” through four points on the rim on the second attempt – so a little more cleaning up to do this time!

 

The Foundrymen were intrigued with the many finger grips in the pattern and were curious to know how they were made!

[ajmac]

Direct from the foundry, runners and risers cut off....beautiful. So much work still to do!

Edited December 17, 2013 by ajmac

[Old Bill]

The time has come to start putting the engine back together! The first job, of course, was to find the bits which proved to be a bit of a challenge so it will be good when they are all bolted together again. We started by hanging all of the con-rods on the crank and nipping them up to see how they fitted.

 

 

They were not excessively worn but all had a little sideways wobble and a longitudinal clearance could be felt when pushing them up and down. To remedy this, I filed 0.006 - 0.008" from each shim in stages until when we did them up again, they gripped the crank.

 

 

We blued them and rotated them around the crank in turn to find the high spots in the white metal which were then scraped back and the process repeated until they could be rotated around the crank smoothly without wobble.

 

 

One question I would like to ask is how tight should they be? I just keep going until I think they feel 'right' but I have no idea what that should be! I must say, though, that we were subject to official supervision throughout the process.

 

 

Now I am going outside to do some more. Gasket fitting today!

 

Steve :-)