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Builds, Repairs, Show Your Machines! => Technical Tips, Builds, and Help => Topic started by: John Besley on July 22, 2019, 03:36:45 pm
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In the last week I've made further progress on the gearbox ...
Modified the gear housing and made up the cab front plate to cover the gears and provide somewhere for the gear shift lever to mount to at a later stage, modified the plywood chassis to allow for clearance of the chain. Finally made up a pattern for the boige to mount on giving this an offset so the franes are clear of the chain drive.
After much thought I (and trial and error) decided on the method to engage drive... found a Meccano Dog Clutch set and using the primary gear bored this out at 7.00 then turned up a spacer shaft including the taper so this mated up with the gear wheel, turned down the shaft by 0.25 of a mil just enough to give a gap where the gear change fork plate will run
Next turned up a holder for the Dog Clutch counter bored this to slide on the spacer shaft so this can bolt through to hold in place. Test fitted and silver soldered this all up as two separate units Drilled and taped a 10BA securing bolt – then tested the completed item.
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very nice shop. I can't use my garage really, as it is home to my '72 Chevy Truck and '69 AH Sprite. They are garage queens ;-)
I've always wanted to build a shop / storage in the back yard (a garden as you chaps say). Though I'd want a lot of space, power, AC, and Heat ... basically a house LOL
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An overhead view of the gearbox as it is at the Mo' showing the chain back to the drive sprocket on the bogie, modifications to the gearbox side plates are next on the agenda to give better clearance for the drive chain
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I wished you where here in Texas and specifically in the Austin area - I'd just camp in your shop and watch things being made!
Seeing as I am in Devon and your in Texas... here is the workshop pictures 1 & 2 are from the diving wall and a turn round by 90' gives the view the other way above the drawing board and desk
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Many thanks for the comments, much of what I am doing is trial and error, which is why the main chassis and body parts are all wood at the moment so I can alter them and resolve issues before I cut metal
Currently making a rear axle hanging support pattern so this can be cast as I need to reduce the width of the chassis so the drive chain from the gear box will clear the front mounts - all will become clear in due course once I've built yet another wooden chassis...
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I wished you where here in Texas and specifically in the Austin area - I'd just camp in your shop and watch things being made!
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Amazing amount of precision work on display here. Serious ingenuity and engineering being applied!
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Carried on with the gearbox, made up a set of bearings and drilled oil holes in these, cleaned off the paintwork on the steal side plates and soldered in the bearings adjusting where required.
Set up and tested – this now runs satisfactory
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Ok well this project is being restarted following a break to build traction engines, paint my house, build my 7/8ths scale Exhill Works layout etc...
Had a massive tidy up and went through all the parts, so a bit of an update...
Having built the Virgo engine and bedded it in once id resolved an issue this is now running on air as sweet as a nut, ive been working on the gearbox / transfer box to get this running correctly (currently on version three) while i sort out bearings and work out the gear shift mech..
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Rear boige showing chassis mounts
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Front axle
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Cut and fabricated a set of forward chassis mount plates along with the first part of the rear spring hangers, did discover a tendency for one side of the chain drive to bind and found this chain was one link shorter, made up a new chain and seems to have cured the problem.
Next of assembled the front axle components - silver soldered up the axle stubs and the main axle spacer bar, then fabricated the front spring. Found that the Foden front axle I had measured is actually shorter than the rear in width, meaning I had to add in an insert to get the right scale 7'-6" width overall - had this been done on the full size machine the same would have to have been done.
Made up a set of track rod fork ends and a track rod with a 10BA thread on it useing a bot of steel rod from a Firework sparkler (never throw away useful items...)
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Great to see progress on the Garrett John!
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Interesting, simple and robust way to link the power to both rear axles without multiple drive lines and differentials.
I like it!
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Machined up axle spacers and the springs to set these all up, turned an M4 thread on the axle ends to put some temporary M4 nuts on, then gave the whole assembly a road test down the uneven garden path.
This worked surprisingly well with the undulations, pleased to see nothing was binding and the roller chain ran as sweet as a nut.
Next off need to finalise the chassis mounts and spring pivot set up, I've built a dummy wooden chassis to bolt parts to so as I can get the set up right.
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Set up the main drive sprocket and assembled two sets of drive chains, built a set of boige spacers and trial assembled the set up, will need to build the dummy springs next to keep everything in place
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This appears to be a fascinating project that needs to be closely followed!
Many thanks, much of this project is being invented as I go along... hoping it works out
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This appears to be a fascinating project that needs to be closely followed!
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Picked up the boige castings this week and bored them out to fit the meccano axles, then built a bench jig to build the boige and set up the chassis on.
Lastly dismantled a pair of chain sprockets to mount the sprocket as a paired set on one boss for the main drive from the gearbox.
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A parcel arrived from Clevedon Steam with one of their twin cylinder oscillating Virgo Paddle engine kits, this will be the engine to drive through a gearbox and chain drive etc. Once I've built the kit, might be a slight lull in construction at the mo as I have a shed load of traction engine parts to prep and ship out next.
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This is a fantastic build.
I just re-read the entire thread.
Really looking forward to seeing more.
You are on a roll. Ride that wave of momentum! 🤠
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Turned up a couple of sets of spacers for the chain sprocket wheels, then machined out a section on the inner face of the outter wheel to clear the nuts on the stud....
Turned up a couple of spacer discs for the trailing pair of wheels to the keep the chain in line
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Patterns part made for the rear boige set up
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Hi, excellent work - and I like your Swiss Lathe - INCA
unfortunately the company got bankrupt in the 1990...
Hope to see more soon
Arnold
I've kicked my self loads of times I never got the milling attachment, I brought mine from Axminster Power Tools in 1996, shortly after Inca was sold to an investment Co that scrapped everything all the spares went in a skip 😥
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Anyone any idea why you can only add 1 picture at a time... when you go to add more it wipes the message out..
There´s a "more attachments" option, that makes it possible to ad several pictures to one post, found right below the initial one John.
(Attachment Link)
...and thanks for taking us through the details of your build, a very interesting project indeed :)
That's what I was doing... but it kicked me out everytime...
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Hi, excellent work - and I like your Swiss Lathe - INCA
unfortunately the company got bankrupt in the 1990...
Hope to see more soon
Arnold
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Anyone any idea why you can only add 1 picture at a time... when you go to add more it wipes the message out..
There´s a "more attachments" option, that makes it possible to ad several pictures to one post, found right below the initial one John.
[attachimg=1]
...and thanks for taking us through the details of your build, a very interesting project indeed :)
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Thanks for keeping the photos coming John.
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The wheels returned to me complete with tyres, having waited 18 months and then started over again I am well pleased... the picture below also shows a Heavy Haulage trailer wheel .... this will form part of this project as well
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Anyone any idea why you can only add 1 picture at a time... when you go to add more it wipes the message out..
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Sprocket drilled for locating bolts
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Rear wheel bored out
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Front hub
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Long story, but after an aborted attempt at getting tyres made finally had the wheel sets returned … then headed off in a different direction, happy to say rubber is being ordered and tyres are on order … meanwhile to restart this project -
Parts for the front axle where dug out and checked over to works out how this will go together. Seeing as I already had a pattern made for a Foden front axle it seemed silly not to use this – this might not be so daft as it seems – Garret’s did approach Foden regarding their axle following a spell of broken stub axles, my back story on this is that the timber contractor replaced the front axle with a Foden one as it was better off road in the forest.
Made up the kingpins from a short piece of 3mm silver steel turned up a M3 thread to mate up with the bush in the bottom of the axle mount and a 6ba thread for the brass nut to cap this off. Thread locked the nut in place and the bush into its seat.
Once the set up is worked out one of the stub axle mounts will nee modifing to allow the steering arm to attach.
Turned up a set of bushes and bored the front wheel through for these made up a threaded brass bush to insert into the ‘Garrett’ hub cap and set up the stub axles from a length of 3/16 steel bar with a M4 thread for the bush – waiting for the return of the second front wheel to complete this work.
Bored out the rear wheels for 8mm bushes and cut off a short section of brass bar to sleeve through a pair of wheels, marked out a chain sprocket and drilled 4 x 8BA holes so this can bolt to the inner rear wheel – I have made the rear wheels as separate parts as the tyre is a twin onto one wide rim.
This will allow me to bolt the whole lot up as a pair and bolt the chain drive sprocket to the inner rim which will in turn bolt onto the axle. – that’s the theory…
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Excellent News John.
Looking forward to following your build.
Charlie
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Looks pretty good to me!
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Glad to see you're making some headway John - ought to be a great project.
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Annoyingly the picture will only load the wrong way round... if it could be rotated correctly that would be nice...
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The boiler has been delivered... just needs additional fittings to move this project forwards
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Look forward to seeing the rest of this project John. Going to be an interesting one to follow.
Jon
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Reading this in the cold light of day realised that I hadn't updated regards the boiler - Following Sandy's help and getting a design approved the boiler is on order with Western Steam, expected delivery around September / October, once I have this to hand along with one or two chassis angle castings a start can be made on the construction
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Can’t wait to see what you do with this one John.
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Looks like a great project John.
I am looking forward to following your build.
Good luck!
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This more or less brings this project up to date, I have now profile milled a section of brass curtain rail for the chassis rails and made the patterns for the cast chassis angles
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July 30th – August 3rd
Cut the wheel blank out with a hacksaw and the lathe slightly oversize so they can be turned faced off to finished width afterwards
Facing off the blank ready to be shaped on the outer side and reduced on the inner face will need to turn up a brass bearing and Loctite this in place before drilling out the axle centre exactly true.
Also made contact with Western Steam Ltd and discussed the process to designing a boiler, will need to get this signed off and approved by a qualified designer, contacted Sandy who helped me with the Wilesco Mamod traction engine rebuild back in 2015/16. Contacted Forest Classics to discuss the production of the road tyres as this had a bearing on the finished width of the wheels.
Around the same time I built a plywood mock up to trial the setup for the boiler and engine
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This is my current project
Garrett Truck Project
History
The original Garrett Suffolk Punch Haulage Tractor was built in 1929 and 1930 (not to be confused with the well-known Suffolk Punch Steam Agricultural Tractors that where built in 1912) the gem of this project went back into the early 1920’s when an idea was mooted at Garret’s to produce a steam tractor for the export market primarily aiming at a growing sector in Africa.
The first idea was to build a three axle tractor running on continuous tracks (caterpillar) with vertical boiler mounted forward of the front axle similar to the already well established under type trucks – design calculations showed this to be front axle heavy so the boiler was moved to behind the driver with water tanks mounted either side of the boiler, a winch was fitted above the front axle and the engine mounted vertically just forward of the driver.
Design work was started in around March 1926 and the first tractor was built in 1929 following an enquiry from the AGE representative (Agricultural and General Engineering) in South Africa this was built as a traditional drive using roller chain to the rear twin bogie, as the thought of tracks had been dropped by now.
Tractor No 35320 was completed in July 1929 and trialled in and around the works yard, and various improvements carried out before she was ready to be used as a works demonstrator – loaned out to R A Dagnall Ltd of Canterbury, before being taken around county shows on the Garrett sales stand
35332 was built in late 1929 and packed up and sent to South Africa 19th February 1930 to the Randfontein Estates Co Ltd along with a large collection of spares, she must have been of use as a request for a replacement boiler was sent in 1950 which was declined.
35412 was built alongside 35332 but despite interest didn’t sell, by 1930 Garrett’s where facing hard times as sales of steam wagons was in decline with diesel trucks taking the market. The receiver sold the two tractors 35320 and 35412 to John Sadd & Sons Ltd timber merchants from Maldon Essex for £525.00 for the pair where they lasted until 1937 when they were both scrapped
The Project
The first I knew of the Tractor was spotting a sales poster at The Long Shop museum in July 2017, for the next year the thought crossed my mind that this might be an interesting machine to build as a reasonably decent size boiler could be housed in the rear section.
Early July 2018 a second visit and emails to the museum curator turned up further information along with a copy of Garrett Wagons Part 2 Undertypes – this was invaluable as by working from a scale drawing of a standard six wheeler and one or two known dimensions it was possible to create a basic working drawing, covering a side elevation and plan view, a drawing was also created for the front wheel (this was produced as a CNC turning by David Firth)
End of July saw a 150mm length of 63mm dia. round bar of aluminium purchased to turn up the rear wheels as a starting point allowing the sub assembly of the rear bogie to be built and trialled first, at the same time the front spring hanger mounts where produced as templates for profile milling along with a side profile for the windscreen hinge pivots.