180-971 F1 Crane Truck

[Ravvin]

Thanks for that, that's probably going to be the best method once I lift the tray off. There's just not enough room under there at the moment. Removing the driveshaft will also give me room to lever things around.

I got a bit done over the weekend. I adjusted the brakes on the passenger side rear and was able to refit the 2 wheels I have cleaned, repainted and reassembled with new tubes and some Dunlop PC50 tires. They are a bit rough, but not perished, like the ones that came off, And I think they should pass a roadworthy. I only have 2 that are in really good condition, probably about 90%, so they will go on the front.



It looks pretty good. Much better than it was before.

After that, I removed the handbrake rods and pivots to give them a clean and repaint. The pivot that clamps to the axle cross shaft was seized but cleaned up well.



I have to find or make a few clevis pins. The ones that went through the pivot are really badly pitted. The local place where I get all my bolts and bits didn't have anything, so I may have to make a few. Should be easy enough. I'll get a few bolts with long shanks, cut them to length and drill them for the split pins. Having the hex head should make them a lot easier to get out next time. I could also get a bolt with a smooth shank, screw on a nylock nut and then drill it for a split pin. Doubly safe.
I haven't refitted the handbrake bits yet as I need to clean and repaint the axle cross shaft that it clamps to, as well as the 2 rear axle housings.
I jacked up the back driver's side axle and took the wheel off. I'll clean and repaint the rim and fit another PC50 tire to it.



As you can see, the spring pack is really rusty. The other side was the same. The wheel is down at the house on my de-tyreing stump. If anyone ever wants to know, the wheels weigh 110kg.
During the week, I will get the tyre off and maybe clean and paint the axle and cross shaft. I can't start cleaning the rim until I get new filters for my mask. I noticed that they were clogged last time I used it and it was getting hard to suck air through them. The last rim was really bad though. It was the galvanised one off the MK3 and it had a really thick layer of white corrosion on all the exposed surfaces. I think whatever chemicals that had been carried on the truck and had leaked through the deck had reacted with the galvanising on the rims. Whatever it was, it burnt my skin where it settled and mixed with sweat. Glad I had my mask and glasses on.

Greg.

[Acco 4x4]

Hi Greg, As always we all love your work! Always exciting to see another update and to envy your efforts!Just out of curiosity, does the park brake mechanism brake the front ( of the rear pair) only or is it equalised between both rear axles? Just wondering how good the handbrakes actually are when in good working condition....
Keep up the good work!!

[Ravvin]

The handbrake only works on the rear axle. This axle has the same "puller" type brake units as the MK3 & 4.
The intermediate axle has the same "pusher" type brakes as the front and they work the same as your normal slave cylinders on drum braked vehicles.
The "puller" type work the opposite way. The piston pulls in, towards the centreline of the vehicle. It pulls a wedge-shaped plug that spreads the expanders in the brake unit. The handbrake rods pull on the same wedge, so in theory you should get the same braking effect as putting the brakes on normally.
With the way the rear axle group is permanently connected with a driveshaft and splitter boxes, if both rear axle brakes are correctly adjusted and the handbrake rods are also set to pull evenly, then braking the rear-most set of wheels should also brake the intermediate set.
Saying that though, if either of the rear-most wheels are allowed to turn, then there won't be any effect on the intermediate axle.

Greg.

[john.k]

4x4,normal commercial Inters of that period had tailshaft drum handbrakes.They either grabbed and made the truck buck like a demented billygoat,or more usually,had oil on the linings,and couldnt even pass the parking test on the test hill at the old Dutton Park Inspection station.Only the big US sourced Inters like the Trans stars,and the BCF Loadstars had air brakes,and could actually stop.The whole axle setup on the 4x4 accos was lifted from the British army RL Bedfords.And the handbrake was one million percent better than anything fitted to an Inter of that time.When the pedal went to the floor on an AB180 on a hill,pulling on the handbrake was a waste of time when you needed to be going down thru the gears and looking for an escape route.Fortunately the old Inters were that slow there wernt any cars in front of you.Regards John.

[Richard Farrant]

The whole axle setup on the 4x4 accos was lifted from the British army RL Bedfords.

Hi John,
I am interested to know, how identical these front axles were to a Bedford RL, were they licence built ie exact copy, or just similar? Reason I as is that a friend of mine in Australia with a Bedford 4x4, asked me to get him a pair of swivel seals (the large ones that seal on the spherical axle ends). I was at the Corowa swap meet and picked up a bag of seals with an unfamiliar part number on it, but although I thought they were Bedford, I asked the seller who said International. I was not going to take a chance to buy them in case they were different. Your comment makes me thing they are possibly the same.
I sent some genuine Bedford ones out later after finding some, but if they are identical  it would be useful to know.

cheers
Richard 

[Ravvin]

There are at least 2 different seals for the Inter swivel housings. They both fit, but one was made by Dana Australia. The other was made for the Australian Department of Defence and will probably have TSE (V) 102-10 as a part number.

From what I can tell, they are getting hard to find these days, so don't toss them.

Greg.

[john.k]

I believe the entire outer ends of the front axles of the mk 1,2,3 front axles were made by by AWD Ltd .Who also made outer ends for not only Bedfords,but also the various Leyland  and Albion front drives.The same,who knows?As for the seals being rare,i must have buried a million of them to get rid of them,and still have half a container full left.Its not the seals that are rare,but the bronze back up springs,which are a semicircle of thin bronze with multiple fingers slotted into them.If you let the outer end swing without the tierod,the fingers will get busted.I remember years ago they put up the injection mould for the seals,and got a fortune for it,something like $10,000,because the seals were thought to be run out of stock,then they sold tons of the new made seals.Which made the mould worthless,practically.Unfortunately,other people have memories of the old days,but I have container fulls of the dam stuff to get rid of.On top of which ,some idiot has complained the containers on my industrial land,and now theyve got to go too.Whats the use of industrial land,if you cant have containers on it.I reckon Im just too old.Regards John.

[Richard Farrant]

Hi John,
It may interest you to know that the Bedford 4x4 swivel seal and copper back up springs were used from 1941 on the QL, right through the RL models to the MK/MJ types that carried on after the demise of  Bedford trucks to the AWD and Marshalls built versions. Same part numbers. I am not sure about your comment on Bedford outer ends being made by AWD Ltd. I think Vauxhall Motors Ltd (Bedford) produced these parts themselves.
I worked for many years on QL, RL and MK/MJ and pretty familiar with their inner workings 
Still would like to know if these seals are identical to the Inters.

cheers Richard

[john.k]

I havent owned a Bedford[of any kind]in forty years.The last thing I remember about the RLHC was a friend bought mine to convert to a mobile home.It did in his back ,and his guts have never been the same,or so he says.I do remember replacing roller bearings in the gearbox and transfer with bronze bushes.The funny thing about Bedfords,the only motor that was any good was the 300 petrol,and the only gearbox that was any good was the little four speed.I remember a funny story about Bedfords.A guys wife undid the nut holding the steering wheel on his truck.He crashed ,and spent six months in hospital.When he got home,his wife had bought another Bedford with the insurance.He took it for a test run,and the steering wheel came off in his hands,and he crashed again.Regards John.

[Ravvin]

Ok time for an update.

I have been working on the fuel tank support brackets. You may remember how bad they were.



I removed the 1/8" rusted plate off the back of the 2 worst ones and gave them all a good wire brushing, followed by a dose of Ironise to convert any remaining rust to an inert form.



Once that had finished working, I cleaned the black lacquer off with thinners and coated them with a 2 pack zinc epoxy that is used on bridges and underwater structures and pylons.
I took the 2 that I had removed the back plates from into work and made new plates from 100x5mm steel plate that had been zinc epoxied and primed. I drilled the holes in the tops, put bolts through them to clamp them to the supports and worked them around the curve, clamping it as I went with vice grips and g-clamps. Once wrapped around the curves, I was able to mark and drill the rest of the holes.
The 100mm steel plate was about 10mm narrower than the supports, so this was a perfect size to run a good strong weld bead. I cleaned the paint off the narrow strip and started welding. I found it easiest to clamp a section and weld about an inch to hold it, then move the clamps a bit and weld another inch. By doing this in stages, both sides, I was able to keep it straight, with no twisting, for a really neat job.
I ground the weld down flush, on roughly a 45 degree angle, just for looks. When they originally bent the front part of the support, the metal pulled in in the belly of the curve, and it was only 100mm wide, the same as the new back plate. Along this section, I built the weld up and ground it into a rounded shape.
I cleaned up the areas of paint that were burnt by the welding and touched up the paint. Today I gave them their first topcoat of olive drab. They will get one more coat and get bolted back on.



Seeing them next to the 2 supports that didn't get their backs replaced makes me want to do them too. Maybe next time. The repaired ones weigh a fair bit more, but I bet they are way stronger.

Since the last update, I have cleaned back the driver's side chassis rail and primed and painted it. I have to make a few new U-bolts to hold the tray on as some of them were badly bent and had the threads damaged. I had to split the nuts on a few to get them off.



Still have to clean up the spring pack and suspension. Also need to rebuilt that middle hub. I drained the oil during the week and it was dirty, but had no signs of water in it, unlike the back one.

Should be posting more often, now that I have those brackets done.

Greg.

[dkg001]

Very nice job with those brackets.

[Chazza]

Really nice job and nice to have you posting again! 

Cheers Charlie

[Ravvin]

Hi all.
Ignore all the "new post" messages you received if you have subscribed to this thread. I just went through and edited all of the picture links to change them from Photobucket to Google Photo links. Tired of the advertising pop-ups, lag and constant site outages of the Photobucket site. I still have to do the MK3 thread and go hunt down any other links I have posted in other threads, but that can wait.

Last weekend I cut some 6mm insertion rubber strips to go between the fuel tanks and the support brackets. I glued them down with lots of contact cement. I used strips of 3mm insertion rubber under the hold-down straps.
While bending the new 40x3mm steel strip to wrap around the contour of the tank, I noticed some small bumps in the paint where I had used the Permanent Tank Sealant to fill the rust holes. I gave one a poke and it popped out. There was rust under it. I gave it a hit with the wire wheel on the grinder and every single piece of tank bog had rust under it. Not happy.
I stripped the entire tank back to bare metal and cleaned it down with thinners to remove any primer that was left.

I took it into work and had the 2 guys with welding experience have a look. One said to just Mig it up and grind it back flush. He wouldn't help me do it though. I have very little welding experience and tend to blow holes in thin metal.
The other guy said he though brazing would be better. Less damage to the tinning on the inner and outer surfaces, as well as less distortion of the metal as the Oxy/LPG gear I have isn't as hot as a Mig and should spread the heat over a larger area. I used to be pretty good at brazing, but that was back in High School, and around 30 years ago.
I went down to the engineering supplies place to get some brazing filler rods and the young guys had no idea what I was talking about. One tried selling me Tig rods for stainless and the other kept insisting that Silver Brazing rods were what I wanted as it had "brazing" in the name.
I went to another shop and an older guy served me. He knew what I was talking about and dimly recalled seeing some rods out the back. He eventually found them, covered in dust, then couldn't find them in the system as they had been sitting on a ledge above a door sill out the back and had never been spotted in a stocktake since the shop went to computerised stock tracking. We worked out a price and I found a bottle of the correct flux, now I just need it to stop raining so I can get started.

The tank has no petrol smell at all. It was the rear tank and I don't think they had put fuel in it in ages as it had a pin-hole leak on the bottom, where the strap and felting sat. I still washed it out with a water-based degreaser, then a detergent and water mix, followed by flushing with water until there were no bubbles.
When I braze it up, I'll drop a magnet on a wire down through the fuel level float hole and cover the pin-hole in the bottom. I'll fill it with water to minimise the chance of any vapour flashing off as I work. When I do the bottom, I will refit the fuel level float and the dipstick, then cap the fuel pickup pipe. With the tank upside down, I can fill it up through the drain bung. Should work. While it's unpainted, I'll have a go at getting some of the dents out.
If this works, I think I might do the same to the other tank. I really don't like the way they welded the cover strip over the rust holes. I can just picture rust forming under there. If I do it right now, I won't ever have those doubts in the back of my mind that it might spring a leak at some point. It also has a few deep rust pits in the bottom that I bogged up with the "Permanent Fuel Tank Sealant"

Since my last post, I pulled the driver's side intermediate hub apart and have been giving it a good clean and repaint. With the dry weather we have been having, it's been hectic at work and I haven't had much time to get much done. I only get one day each weekend to do any real work as I try to spend a day up at mum's to cut wood and fix things so she gets through winter comfortably. We have enough stove wood cut now, but need to get a lot of bigger wood cut for the heater. Have also been working on upgrading the solar setup so she has power for lights and stuff and looking at running a mini-hydro setup to help out when there are a lot of overcast days with little power going in. That will be next spring though, I think. I need about 450m of 5" aluminium irrigation pipe.

Good news though: After getting nowhere trying to find someone who was cutting 6"x1" Tas Bluegum to replace the truck deck, I found a place in Launceston that actually imports Spotted Gum, (Corymbia maculata), from the mainland and in the sizes I need. Spotted Gum is actually harder and a lot more durable than our Tas Bluegum, so that's even better. I don't have a price yet, but it's on my list of things to do when I can't work on things more important. Long list.

A while back, I posted about finding a place in the UK that do repro parts for Girling, Lockheed and Lucas brakes/electrics/hydraulics, as I needed new rubber boots for my handbrake linkages on the rear axle. I couldn't post a pic then as Photobucket was being weird, so here's one now.



Will post more if the rain stops and I actually get something done.

Greg.

[john.k]

Ive brazed lots of fuel tanks,just fill with water and position so only the braze area is out of the water.You get little "boomps" but nothing damaging.One point is to test a small spot first,I have struck some fuel tank steel that goes into many fine cracks as the braze cools.The other problem you will find is that braze isnt leakproof due to small bits of flux,and will often develop pinhole leaks months afterwards as the flux powders.You can also get coated brazing rods,I thing Comcoat T is right for steel.Regards John.

[Ravvin]

Thanks for that John.

I got into it early this morning and used a liquid soldering flux to clean out all the pits before wiping them clean with a rag soaked in turps. They came up shiny silver.



Just realised that the pics above were taken just before I cleaned the holes out. Oh well.

I first tried brazing with a size 5 tip but it was too hot and also too strong. It melted the metal of the tank and blew the bronze filler away. I had to go down to a size 3, which was a lot easier to work with.
This is with oxy/LPG, so the tip sizes might be different to what is used with acetylene.
I haven't done any brazing in 30 years and it took a bit to get it flowing properly. Once I got used to fluxing the rod and drawing the bronze to where you wanted it instead of trying to push it with the flame, it all went well. Its a real balancing trick, trying to keep the area and pool of bronze molten while reaching across and dipping the rod into the flux and then back into the pool.
Once I got the hang of it, I went over all of the deep pits and the holes and then gave them a touch up with the grinder and the flappy wheel thing. This removed all of the flux and showed me a few spots that I had missed. I touched them up and then drained the tank and flipped it over and did the ones on the bottom. No actual holes here, just deep pits.
These ones were easier as I had the hang of it now.



The After pics didn't come out as clear as I would have liked. Oh well.
I gave the whole tank a good going over with the wire wheel and wiped it down with thinners before sitting it in the sun to dry while I mixed up some Zinc Epoxy 2 pack primer. When I came back to it I was worried as there was smoke coming out of the hole for the fuel gauge float. After running to turn the hose back on, I realised it was just vapour from the water on the inside heating up in the sun and evaporating.
I coated it in the 2 pack Zinc Epoxy and it's happily curing out in the sun.
Later this afternoon I will get stuck in and get more done on the hub parts. I have all next week off, so hope to get lots done.

Every time I think I'll get a good uninterrupted run at it, something happens. Last time it was my Discovery. First the alternator had to be replaced after a tiny coolant leak dribbled water into the back of it, killing the bearing. Once I replaced that, I could hear another squealing noise. Turns out it was the bearing in the air con belt tensioner. I replaced that and the one in the fixed one below it. Coming out of work last night, while shutting the gate I could hear something else. Sort of an intermittent chatter. Turns out it is the bearing in the auto tensioner on the main serpentine belt. Its just a basic 6203 bearing, but there is only one place in town that has them and will be open tomorrow. Its getting to the stage now where I hesitate to plan any long trips as I wonder what is next.

I'll post up some pics when I get the hub and brakes cleaned up.

Greg.