RUMCars Forum
General Category => Invalid Carriages & other related conveyances => Topic started by: Stuart Cyphus on October 14, 2017, 08:12:23 PM
-
Over the past many years, many visitors to Jean's Open Day may recall the somewhat grotty old invalid carriage that sometimes used to get pulled out of the back of the barn & parked right next to the shiniest visiting car on the lawn. This was one of Edwin's many follies, a hulk of unknown parentage (if at all!) bought as a rusty pile of dismembered parts in 1986, and remaining ever dismembered and getting ever rustier as the decades passed. Surely only the Gordon was worse within the cannon of the Hammond Collection...
Indeed, for a decade even the make of this mound of parts was unknown until a certain self descended on the Farm in July of 2005 for the second Open Day. That Sunday morning, in the presence of Tony Marshall, he & I were to assemble this pile, albeit loosely (in the extreme!) into the hulk that revealed itself to be a 1961 Harding De Luxe Model B. Nuts. Bolts. Fiddly bits. All were either missing or mangled, but oh well, yet another project for the future. (oh goody! some were heard to whisper)
Slowly the years passed, most Open Days out it would trot, & then return to the depths of the barn for another twelvemonth. Most observers merely sneered at it. "Only an invalid carriage" they said, "not worth doing. What's the point?" as some plotted only to squirrel the Black Box electrical system away one day. And so it went on, until July 2017 when yours truly bought the hulk for a bundle of folding stuff and transported it to darkest Oxfordshire in the back of a Luton van hidden amidst 95 sets of ex council traffic lights. (and therein is another story). At last, the Hammond Harding was to get its turn...
-
Once home, the first objective was to go though the hulk and re-familiarise myself with what part went where and what exactly was missing from it, and also to gauge the precise condition of what was there, for it had been some six years since even I had last seen it. Fortunately the rust hadn't bitten as deep as I had feared it may have, thanks in the main to liberal coatings of a sort of earthen dust all over everything despite there being almost no paint at all left on any metal parts. It was rusty yes, but 30+ years in an earthen floored barn had as good as sealed the rust at an early stage.
As mentioned, virtually every nut & bolt was missing. Items such as the mudguards had been wrenched off way back in antiquity. The headstock top yoke was bent, presumably where someone had wrenched the bearings apart to separate the forks from the frame, and to cap it all, the Villiers Mk 31C engine had the remains of a squirrl's nest within the crankcase. Still, nothing a solid fortnight with a Black & Decker rotary wire attachment, two tins of Satin Black Hammerite, and a 5lb hammer couldn't cure...
-
:)
-
With most of August being taken up with painting of components, September saw attention being turned to the chassis, and in particular the brakes, which had been seized for several decades. Being mechanical rod activated, the entire system was a riot of clevis's, welded levers and cross shafts. All in metal-to-metal contact with each other, and all having not seen hide nor hair of oil in my lifetime. Needless to say, the whole lot was a solid mass of orange metal. Day one, oil everything. Day two, oil everything again. Day three oil everything again, tap lightly with small hammer. Day four, five & six, repeat earlier sentence. Days seven, eight & nine, repeat sentence again and tap slightly harder with slightly bigger hammer & detect slight movement in all parts. Repeat for a further four days until all parts are finally moving freely again. Someone remind me what the phrase; "patience & perseverance" mean again please?
Then, having sorted the brakes, at long last the whole chassis could be made presentable again following yet further hours with the Black & Decker and the black paint...
-
:)
-
With the chassis tidy, it was now time for some reassembly for the first time since at least 1986, and also to look at how to place the engine, of which more anon. For the panel-work, which mainly consists of the rear wings and rear light/number plate panel, all are attached by pretty hefty nuts & bolts and even heftier metal tube clamps, which by the looks of them, have their roots in Victorian times. In being removed all those years ago, instead of being slid lengthwise off the chassis tubes are they were meant to be, they had simply been prised apart by Geoff Capes on his afternoon off in order to pass them over the chassis tubes! Clearly nobody had ever given a thought to ever trying to reattach them. Ever-larger pliers, mole grips, ever bulging biceps. Nothing it seemed was going to shift these clamps back into position! Hmmm, problem. How to do this? Then my gaze fell upon the No 6 vice upon our bench. Hmmmm, now if that could be unbolted.... And so at last said clamps finally yielded back into shape under under half a ton of best Draper accessory, held vertically upon one's knee. It might ruin one's creases, but it gets the job done!
-
Then of course we come to the engine. As mentioned earlier, originally this Harding was powered by a 148cc Villiers Mk 31C engine, complete with Black Box electrical system. Not your normal fitment to an invalid carriage of this particular type certainly. It is my belief that this particular Harding may well have been a cancelled order for a Harding Consort, the rather rare full-bodied & full luxury flagship of the Harding Range, which, instead of being built up as a Consort, was simply outshopped as a rather special hot-rod standard De Luxe. A "Sleeper", if you like...
Be that as it may though, I decided long ago that it would be pointlessly expensive to have this 31C engine restored as I already had a complete & rather more functioning 147cc Villiers Mk 26C lump stored in the depths of the shed. This model of engine, in fan cooled form, was fitted to countless carriages between 1947 & 1961, and indeed my particular engine had seen service in a c.1954 Tippen Coventry until being removed when the carriage was cut up for scrap in the '70s. Upon lining up the 26C lump into approximate position within the chassis earlier today, it was very satisfying to find that the front engine mounts lined up perfectly with just a tiny bit of filing needed for clearance.
And so that is how the Hammond Harding stands as of 14th October 2017. All is painted, the rear end is all attached and the engine is half-in. Future jobs are to reattach the front forks & steering. Fabricate rear engine mounts from scratch & install Albion 3-speed gearbox (again currently sat on the bench). Then it's woodwork time as the footbox and seat are again fabricated from scratch.
Watch this space as the Hammond Harding slowly comes back to life...
-
Well done Stuart. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing and trying it when I get my disability scooter next month. It's going to be a long ride from Sussex to Oxfordshire though.
-
Great work Stuart. I'm guessing you may have cornered the market in ex-council traffic lights!
-
Nice Inter photo Stuart. I remember us setting up that shot. Keep it up mate.
-
You certainly have earned a medal of honor from me for your patience and perseverance!
But with that behind you now, would you suppose that either an acid dip or bead blasting might have been worth your time?
I am not familiar with Hammerite.
How does it stack up to powder coating, other than the presumption that it is significantly less costly?
Why were the collar clamps removed?
Did the tubes that they held together ever get taken apart and put back together by yourself?
I would not envy that labor, but similarly applaud you for yours.
Good thing that they worked with thick metal back then, or you could have wire brushed the dimpled surfaces into a ventilated configuration.
Looking forward to your next post.
-
https://www.hammerite.co.uk/about-us/
-
Rob,
Sorry to say that link gives no clue as to a y properties of Hammerite that might distinguish it from any other black metal paint, other than a typically expected "ours is the best" boast..
I've had pretty good luck with a one part epoxy that is a bit difficult to work with, but strong except when continually exposed to gasoline vapors called POR (Paint On Rust) 15.
-
I think Hammerite is much the same a POR15 Steve. POR 15 has been pedalled over here for years by restoration catalogues like Eastwood featuring many American products. Hammerite is our home grown product and actually very good. You just brush off excess rust and paint it on , it stablized the rust. You have taught me something though, I had no idea that POR stood for paint on rust!
-
I read recently that the formula of Hammerite was changed considerably when the original company changed hands not so long ago.
It suggested that it was not much good at all anymore - perhaps this was just the smooth version? Smoothrite.
-
And so after a somewhat longer break than expected, it's back to the resurrection of the Hammond Harding, with today seeing the start of reassembling all the braking system, from shoes to rod linkages. The handbrake rod is completely kaputted after years of being dragged on the ground, but nothing a rummage in the box of threaded rod off-cuts can't cure. Tomorrows job is the reassembly of the main brake cross-shaft after some paint has dried & so by this time tomorrow it should have fully working brakes for the first time since at least 1986.
The big news of today though, is that it is back on three wheels at last, with the front forks finally going back on. For thirty-two years the steering bearing balls had all been missing, but now, after empting the local cycle shop of just about every packet of ball bearings in every size going, it now sits firmly on all three. Slowly, life is returning, along with the all-seeing eye....
-
Great news Stuart can we have some pictures please? Jean
-
Sooo, two years on & where are we? The floor is in, and a suitable tempory seat was installed, care of the legendary Alan Hitchcock, complete with free complementary dalmation hairs....
And then work slowed. For something like 18 months whilst a rather more derilict Harding Model IV discovered in Guildford commanded my attention sooner rather than later so that it could continiue to remain in existance, such was the sorry state of said Guildford Harding.
Then in August 2020, attention turned back to Hammond Harding. As has been recounted, 163 CLD was orginally powered by a Villers Mk 31C unit construction engine. As this engine was utterly four-letter-worded, complete with a squirrel nest inside it, I then half fitted a Villers Mk 26c engine from a 1954 Tippen Coventry invalid carriage scrapped in the '70s. Now, after a ponderance on my limitations on being able to rebuild knackered old engines and the costs of doing same, plus the fact that the seperate Albion gearbox is steadfastly refusing to fit in the remaining space where orginaly 163 CLD had the said unit-construction engine, it was a toss-up between 163 CLD standing idle for yet more years with an old engine of unknown condition, or up & working within days with something else...
Thus, after a tour round varius modern engines I happened upon this 'ere brand new 98cc "Villers" G152... It may "only" be a chinese clone of a Honda G100 engine, but it's still playing the game as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, said engine arrived brand-new-in-the-box ready for the August bank holiday weekend & the weekend was spent working out to bodge it into place using the original unmolested engine mounts. I've said it before & I'll say it again, in the doing up of old crap; "Dexion & Dulux Works Wonders".
Of course life is never easy and it was then discovered that the axle sprocket and 5/8" centrifugal clutch (neatly doing away with the need to mess about with a gearbox that was never up to much even when new)'s sprocket did not match. No real question of changing the clutch sprocket as said clutch can only be sourced to fit 420 chain whereas the axle sprocket seems to use some sort of chain pitch no longer known to man nor beast. So change the rear sprocket I hear everyone yell. Again, not so simple, for Harding built their machines with sprocket welded directly to the axle & then both chassis rails wilded direct to the axle tube, trapping said sprocket for all time.
So, how to get round this? Many hours browsing 420 sprockets brought me to split-sprockests as used in some go-karts, split in the fact that they come in two halves, to be bolted onto a kind of cradle to keep the halves alined. Ah, perfect! So such a sprocket duely wings it way to here as I tap away on these keys. In the springtime, when the weather lets me reaquaint myself with the feeling in my fingers, it's out with the Black & Decker to dril said new sprocket mounting holes in the old fixed sprocket and shift the whole engine over by the said half-inch.
By hook or by crock Hammond Harding will be running by St Leonard's Day, come what may.... (answers on a postcard as to which 1983 BBC sitcom I referance with that somewhat fractured quiote...)
Meanwhile, a proper seat also slowly takes form...
-
:)
-
:)
-
Those look lovely
-
And so with spring sprunging all over, its back to inserting the cheapo chinese Honda-Villers clone engine properly, and finally sorting out that back sprocket. A weekend spent hacking away with hacksaw & drilling with Black & Decker, two six inch bolts and emptying the shed of all 17mm nuts and the engine is in firm & solid with reliable 420 chain slung between. For those pondering what sprocket & what chain fitted, the sprocket is from a 2001 Derbi scooter & the chain from a Yamaha FS1E no less.
With Hamond Harding featuring 19-inch rear wheels (21-inches overall if tyre height is also included), an engine running at 3,600rpm flat out, driving a 10-tooth centrifugal cluch and a 52-tooth rear sprocket, an hour spent browsing through varius speed/gearing caculations would seem to suggest Hammond Harding may well be capible of pulling some 50mph top speed with a good run-up! Tis going to be interesting when I fire that engine up for the first time in a few days time methinks... But certainly the target 25-30mph normal use cruising speed looks eminantly sustainable.
Meanwhile, a throttle cable takes shape right here right now, using a suitably converted 9ft long heavy duty tandem bicycle brake cable no less. Well, it was there in the shed & if it can stop a fully-loaded tandem it can take care of a dinky little throttle arm...
Stay tuned folks for the next exciting instalment of the resurection of Hammond Harding as its only a matter of days now til it goes broom broom again for the first time in at least three & half decades...
-
:)