How Very Thoughtful.

In honour of the day that the first piece of the Hillman Special was assembled, a spectacular jamboree of olympian proportions had been arranged. Happily, it transpired that some very important sporting events were able to piggy-back on the celebrations scheduled for the The Great Day so I was not embarrassed by the generosity of my well-wishers.

Here is the great moment:

As I think I mentioned some time ago, I’m using aircraft quality bolts and Nylock nuts on all the major assemblies. They’re a fit-and-forget mod which I found to be excellent on the Austin Special. So, the front engine mount is in. And that’s as far as I can go for the time being as I first have to make up the bushes for the brake cross-tube that hangs from the middle engine mount. These bushes will be brass and I’ve forgotten to order the stock. But I do have a shelf of nice shiny bits to look at.

At the same time, I need to order a new belt for the lathe I’ve borrowed. It must have the wrong type fitted because as I start the work, whatever I do, I can’t get rid of the chatter and I think it’s because the variable speed drive is not working as it should and is slipping, or the speed is fluctuating very rapidly – or something. The belt in the illustrated manual is different (and not inexpensive) which is why I suspect a modern (and cheap) equivalent has been fitted. It could also be the size of the motor – it’s about 1/3hp and it should be nearer 1hp – thinking about it, this is more likely to be the root cause of the problem as it’s single phase operation.

Hmmm. There are 2 lathes in the workshop, neither of which is cutting the mustard. This is deeply frustrating and I’m beginning to think about replacing them both with something that works. The other day I was offered a really nice American lathe and it all looked splendid until I found out that the feed screw worked in reverse – fine if that’s what you were brought up with but otherwise a disaster waiting to happen.

In the meantime, I can hang the hand-brake cross-shaft from the rearmost cross member and that has brass pulleys on it –  more shiny bits means more progress and more progress is always encouraging. I’ve treated the wooden packing members and the 2 beams which sit inside the forward section of the chassis rail but have to wait 3 days for the jossop to go off before they’re painted.

Learned Counsel very kindly helped me collect the newly painted parts (he has a truck you’ll recall) and, so he didn’t feel left out of The Great Day, I slipped him a half-dozen of the finest Norfolk Sausages.

Fayre’s fair… so to speak.

Short Commons.

Today I’ve sent the wheel centres to the wheel builders. I’ve also done a deal on a pair of Marchal headlamps. Cripes, I hardly dare breath!

On a less knee-weakening note, More Learned Counsel reminded me that the Riley Pathfinder came equipped with a right hand gear-change (for right-hand-drive countries) and he knows a chap whose got one not far from where I sit. It would be interesting to see how the linkage is arranged. I’m still going to do my own setup but it would be nice to see if I’ve got it more or less right and that there’s no obvious gaffe in the whole malarkey.

I’m itching to get the chassis and sundries back but I’ve contented myself with cleaning up the front hubs in readiness for the work on the brakes. There was a good 80-odd years of mud and grease to remove but underneath it was all remarkably well-preserved. It seems that maintenance was kept to a minimum as there’s little evidence of rounded nuts and the like.

You’ll just have to imagine the kingpin vertical…. and the other side, sans actual hub;

All nice and clean. I don’t know if I mentioned but when I was removing the kingpins I had to give them a pretty manly whack or three with the persuader and steel drift – they were quite tight in the brass bushes. D’you know, there’s not a mark on them, not even the merest hint of a scratch or dimple. I don’t know what they’re made of but it’s pukka stuff. There’s no discernible play in the bushes but I won’t be able to properly get to grips with that until the wheel’s are on and I’ve got a bit more leverage.

Anyway, in the first picture the brake rod is quite distinct and the 2 brake shoe pivot bolts just below the end of the rod are where I propose to attach a bracket to mount the hydraulic cylinder. The top cap of the kingpin might prove to be a bit tiresome but as that’s fixed, I’ll have to work around it. I’ve been a bit lazy about the calcs for the brake parts but I’ll get there – it’s the sort of thing I like to do on a wet afternoon in a big comfy chair with a big cup of tea.

And when the teabags run out, it’s water for the foreseeable – following the recent out-goings I’m on short commons.

The Pleasure and Excitement…

… occasioned by a serendipitous discovery is always something to be shared so, imagine my delight when I tripped over a right-hand drive Ford Model ‘B’ column and saw immediatly that this would banish all my steering anxieties at a stroke.

I’d always hankered after an early Ford and from the moment I started to do some remedial work on my Model ‘A’, I began to understand why Henry Ford’s designs had been so successful. Neat, functional and mechanic-friendly – a winning formula. The first thing I had to do was to change the sector in the steering box. I approached the job in trepidation because I anticipated having to dismantle all the fiddly cockpit controls and fight with the wiring harness which lives inside the column. Not a bit of it. Unclip the modular electrical box thingy on the bottom of the column – that’s the electrics sorted out; ping off a couple of ball sockets, that’s the ignition and throttle controls out of the way, then undo a few nuts and bolts, slap in a new sector – job done. Yup, Henry got it dead right.

Anyway, I was still casting about for a solution to the steering for the Hillman. You’ll remember that I was after an Austin 16 column, but that didn’t materialise and I began to think about the ‘A’. Maybe an ‘A’ RHD column would do the job? On my way to the butcher’s I popped into see the Local Ford Chaps and they sent me up into their loft to see what I could find. The ‘A’ column looked like a good idea until I saw that the main tube was not easily detachable – I want to retain the original Hillman throttle and ignition controls and need to use the Hillman outer tube – but what was this little beauty hiding in the corner whose tube was detachable?

It turned out to be a ‘B’. Sold!

I raced back to my workshop in triumph holding the prize aloft for all to see, (well, not exactly aloft). I showed it the spanners and dunked the lot in a bucket of diesel, all the time my mind racing through plans for the mounting and its extension using the old Hillman bits so that the original (and rather nice) steering wheel, as well as the hand controls, could be attached. Interestingly, the outer tube on the ‘B’ is exactly the same diameter and wall thickness as the Hillman tube – that saves a lot of grief. As soon as I’d cleaned and reassembled it, I slipped across the yard to offer it up to the chassis.

Of course the chassis’ not there, it’s gone to be painted.

Dopey!

Keeping Up the Momentum.

Last weekend was spent preparing all the bits to go to the sand blast and powder-coating outfit. I collared Learned Counsel as he was about to sneak off on the pretext of doing some fitness training and got him to fill some of the holes in the chassis with his MIG welder. This fitness malarkey is all very well but we’ve got deadlines to meet; 22 months may seem a long time.

I noticed in passing that he’s been doing stuff to his engine and it looks almost ready to go (he may be dressing it up a bit, knowing that I can see in his workshop if the door’s open).

Anyway, the Hillman Special bits are all gathered and I made a point of photographing everything before it goes away – that way everyone knows what went in to the paint pot and what should come out again.

I’ve blanked off all the bearing surfaces on the axle, pedal and brake parts; powder-coating is very difficult to remove and 10 minutes spent with a selection of old nuts, bolts and washers saves a lot of time at the other end. Not shown in the picture is the chassis itself. The two bits at the bottom left of the picture are mudguard supports. They’re the same as the ones on my ’29 tourer; a bit clunky for my design but I might be able to slim them down to good effect so they’re worth chucking on the pile.

There’s also another chassis going to be cleaned and painted. It’s mounted on 36 inch stilts and belongs to an Austin 7 that I used to build the A7 Special, ‘Sunita’. It’s so much easier to work at a convenient height and to be able to get underneath everything without bits of the car digging holes in your head and I thought it deserved a coat of paint. It’s even got a chassis number.

The project is at a stage where everything is coming at me from all angles. In my mind’s eye I can see the rolling chassis complete with wheels, engine, gearbox, brakes and steering – I know how it’s going to look, but each of those jobs is still sort of half done and they’re all clamouring for attention at once. It’s essential at this stage that I make a list and get a few boxes ticked so I’m pleased that a load of stuff is going off to the paint shop – that’ll be Box No.1.

Then, Box No.2. I haven’t got any further with the hydraulic brake fabrication although I’ve been trawling the net for gen on the brake piston/pedal/master cylinder calcs. I’ve found quite a bit of useful information – there’s an awful lot of clever people out there.

Similarly, Box No.3. I haven’t made any progress with the gear change fandango but I’ve separated the selector mechanism from the main part of the gearbox and popped it into a bucket of diesel for a clean up. Then, with the selector section mounted on the bench, the dog can see the rabbit and we’ll be away.

Excellent – just writing about it lines up the ducks.

Yours distractedly…

Progress on le grande projet has been delayed by a weekend at the Le Mans Classic – a wonderful spectacle and one on the list of things-to-do-and-see.

A proper Le Mans start for the vintage stuff

and the same for the last race but, by then we’d worked out which bit of the track was going to best demonstrate the performance and skill of the cars and drivers and we’d moved away from the grandstand to a point just after the Dunlop Curve where the cars entered the Esses. I imagine that if you’re careering into a 90 degree turn at 80+ on tyres not much wider than those of a bicycle, it rather concentrates the mind; it certainly makes for good spectator sport, especially after a shower’s passed through and the track is not exactly wet, but not quite dry either. The good-natured crowd cheered those who pushed the envelope just a bit too far as much as they did those who, by the skin of their teeth, got away with it.

The upshot of the weekend was that Learned Counsel, an accomplished racing driver in his own right, was appalled at the lack of a Jowett presence (the Jupiter was for three years running a winner in its class at Le Mans) and returned home determined to compete in the 2014 races. We’re all going to help of course, but it looks like 2014 is going to be a busy old time what with the Monaco Dash in May and now Le Mans close on its heels. It’s a good job he’s got a couple of spare engines.

Further distraction has been caused by the announcement of the invention of Bee Ponds (the name is a stroke of marketing genius). Cook has been developing these unique features in her Suffolk garden for the last couple of years and the idea is now mature enough to face the spotlight of public scrutiny.

Bee Ponds are rectangles (or any shape that you care to sculpt) of grass containing clover. You may have noticed the clover in flower over the past few weeks and if, in your garden, you leave a patch or two unmown, the bees home in on these oases, sometimes in quantities enough to give the illusion of a magic carpet running through its pre-flight checks. Of course, Bee Ponds are not to be seen in the manicured garden; the concept has greater acceptance where a more bohemian approach prevails in matters of  horticultural convention.

So, a fascinating entertainment at no cost, a great benefit to our environment and frankly, if you can reduce the amount of time spent cutting the lawn…..

….. there’ll be more time to get on with what I’m meant to be doing – which is not lazing about on the beach in Wells….

I hope to report some concrete progress by the end of the weekend.

La Femme sur Vol.

20-odd years ago our verb conjugation may have been a bit suspect but we had a lot of fun with the old L4…..

…. more fun than I’m having with the brakes.

The adaption of Riley back plates to suit the Hillman front hubs is just not going to happen because it would be a full redesign of the whole set-up and the time and cost involved would far outweigh the perceived benefits. To replace the whole braking system would be the simpler exercise but then I’d be getting too far away from the original concept. After all, most of the pleasure of driving these cars is mastering and managing their inefficiencies and idiosyncracies.  So, I’m thinking about the principle of some sort of servo assistance.

In the system on my ’29 Hillman tourer there’s a Clayton-Dewandre servo and the brakes – fundamentally the same as the 1926 model – are excellent and compare favourably with a lot of  ’60’s cars of my experience. The Hillman 14 saloon belonging to Counsel is also not bad at stopping and that doesn’t have a servo. So, although I’m putting a bigger engine in the car, one which will transform its performance, it’s still down to the driver to understand and accommodate the limitations of 1920’s drum brakes. If I add some servo assistance and use some decent brake shoe material, I think I’m going to have brakes that are at the very least adequate and, at their best, not bad.

There are 2 places in the front brake system that present themselves as options for the incorporation of some sort of hydraulic help. The first and most obvious is the back plate itself though, what would be identified as the back plate is in reality,  just a dust cover and consequently a bit flimsy. However, projecting through this dust cover are the pivot bolts for the lower ends of the brake shoes and they together present an opportunity for mounting a bracket – probably 4 or 6mm thick – onto which a wheel cylinder could be placed. There would have to be a third stud to achieve rigidity but this could be easily arranged.

I’ve sketched the new general arrangement with a conventional wheel cylinder but that would put the brake pipes on the inside of the bracket and make assembly difficult so, I’ve been looking at various types of clutch slave cylinders which, although generally a bit bigger, have the pipe unions on the outside and feature a couple of more handy mounting lugs. Of course, the fact that I now propose to employ a ‘clutch slave cylinder’ as a ‘wheel cylinder’ begs the question of ‘what’s in a name?’

I’ve done a bit of reading and consulted Learned Counsel on the subject of hydraulics and the consensus is that like eggs is eggs, hydraulics is hydraulics whichever way you dress them up and it’s just a question of getting the piston volume, the piston stroke and the master cylinder and pedal travel matched and all should be well.

Simple.

I honestly can’t remember what the 2nd option was. Perhaps in Monaco, as I hurtle past the chequered flag and the sea wall looms large, it’ll come back to me.

Industrial Staff.

Whatever was wrong with my back seems to have corrected itself and I’m doing stuff again, but very carefully.

Since when, my preoccupation has been the conversion of the scheme for the centrally mounted gear lever to the right-hand remote.

Although it’s not annotated as such, the section enlarged on the drawing would incorporate a rose joint. I think the principle is sound and if I can’t use the Hillman remote, this will be what the mechanism will look like, more or less. I still haven’t cleared up exactly how I’m going to mount it all but I think a mock-up on the spare box is the next move. Rigidity and small working tolerances will be key and the only weak link in the scheme I can see at the moment is the rose joint which might encourage a geometric lock; we’ll see.

And, now I’ve had some mackerel for lunch, I’ve realised that the sketches I’ve produced are slightly misleading – the gearchange mod is going to be in front of the selector and shift levers, not behind. A small adjustment to the bellcrank on the right hand side of the box will see that everything continues to work in the required sense.

Incorporating the Hillman remote casting in the set-up will call for some alterations. The extension of the transfer shaft through the side of the casting – luckily there’s a plugged hole there anyway so the integrity of the structure won’t be compromised and, I notice that on the gate at the lever end, reverse is not in the right place so I’ll have to make up a new gate to suit.

The new arrangement has prompted a look at chains and bevel gears,

I really need to start cutting metal and get this put to bed otherwise I’m going to keep going round in circles.

Talking of which, another thing that I’ve spent time on is the 12″ brake drum search. I discover that some of the RM series of Rileys had 12″ hydraulic drums on the front. They would be relatively easy to source – in comparison to a pair of Maserati or Aston Martin drums – but still difficult and there’s still the snag of the compensator. Early post-war Rileys had a hydro-mechanical set up with rods to the back. I dug up some gen on the system and it looks complicated enough to make me consider hydraulics all round.

I need a rest from this so, as an aside….  I don’t know if anyone spotted the senior moment in the engine start-up video? The fuel is turned on at the end of the run…

It’s not the first time I’ve done something like that. I used to fly a 65hp Piper L4 – the military version of the Piper Cub  – from a little farm strip in Norfolk. The idea was that at the end of every flight the fuel would be turned off – a sticking float could easily empty the tank all over the floor when you weren’t looking.

I got to the aircraft one evening, pulled it out of the hangar, did the checks, chocked the wheels and swung the prop. The dear old thing clattered into life as usual. A minute or two later as I was pulling on my flying overalls, the engine stopped. What? Engine failure before take-off? That’s very considerate. I discovered that in doing the pre-flight checks I had correctly incorporated the operation of the fuel tap lever but, because someone had left it on, I had turned it off.

I learned about flying from that.