Ivan Saxton

If they still have the original engine and the Cotal "electric" transmission, it would be a much more attractive proposition. Surely one of the big straight 8 Chrysler engines of the might perform well and economically; because the Rickardo combustion chamber is superior to the canned fish tin shape which really needed twin ignition. They probably replaced the power unit because it may have been difficult to find someone to work on the Cotal transmission. I gather the electic bit had function with the gear changing. In the mid 1960s one of my father's friends had a D8120SS or similar appellation roadster which would have been about the same year . He offered it to me at a price far beyond what I could afford; but most of the cars that far into the 1930s did not appeal to me. With a semi-automatic gear change they were too modern then for my interest. Another of my father's friends had an earlier D8 with a throw-away Martin and King body; but when I was in a position to offer old Bill real money for it, someone else without mechanical ability and without skills to make a more elegant and suitable body was able to lay more cash in front of him. Someone in France must have a suitable engine and transmission; but you might have to be fluent in the language.

Lots of little 4 cylinder English cars of the 1920s had two main bearing crankshafts. There is an ohv Meadows engine like that here which came out of a Port Phillip Bay fishing boat that specialised in harvesting Barracouta. How many Austin Sevens were built like that? At least two brilliant English automotive design engineers, Alex Issoginis and Colin Chapman, began their careers with 2-bearing Austin 7 engines which had to be driven very fast. You will all remember Chapman's much later Ford V8 engine car, with which Jim Clark won the Indianapolis 500. For bigger stuff, think Duesenberg. From their first pre-WW1 racing cars, (excepting the few, double -side walking beam engine jobs with 4 valves per cylinder and 3 crankshaft mains) all fours to the end of Rochester-Duesenberg production had two main bearings. There were significant counterweights welded on.. Even without reliable lists, it is clear that the total production of all cars with Rochester Duesenberg engines was far greater than the total of As, Js, and SJs. Then the A straight 8 had three main bearings, as did the 300 cubic inch racing engines and the 183s. And Miller's first straight 8s were the same. For the Austin Seven the ultimate cylinder head must have been the two valve/cylinder, twin OHC creation of Murray Jamieson. ( No known relationship with Bernie J). I hope this gives some perspective on engines with few main bearings.

The problem with the wheel cylinder pistons that you photographed is not obvious. Maybe the clearance is too great in the honed cylinder bores. Sleeving the cylinders with stainless steel is a favoured process; which has bee discussed before on these forums. You need to make sure you have enough clearance. Three thou on diameter is about right for new bronze pistons for I inch diameter Lancia brakes. ( I had to sleeve up from 25mm to 1 inch to utilize available rubber -ware. A small bench lathe is a great economy and convenience if you have a mind to do simple restoration work yourself; and you will soon become quite expert, through something like South Bend's little book "How to run a lathe" is very useful instruction and help.

I am fairly sure that Dykes, or Dykes Carburettor Supplement has a fair bit of data on zenith. The first aspect you nned to attend to is verification that the carburettor throat, and the venturi size are within range of size for the engine, and the way you want to drive it. Stromberg also have charts of size for number of cylinders and piston displacement. Zenith give diagnostic tests to show by driving tests on the road how you need to alter what you have. If you cannot find what you need, send me a private message an I will get the stuff scanned so I can email it to you. I apologise that I can only send things by email, because the ability email picture files is illogical to my understanding of logic. One thing you can do is check that the fuel level is just below the top of the jet.

The vacuum connection hole on the top of the Stewart vac-tank should be adequate to prime it. It is worth making sure that nothing has blocked either the supply line from the tank or the vacuum line. In 1961 Ian Smith discovered that you did not have to pay much for a car to get stung. He paid a few pounds for a derelict 20s four cylinder Stutz, and when he loaded it he offended a hive of bees in the fuel tank. They crawled out the end of the fuel line up the front, and attacked him.

What is the era definition, Mark? Roamer and Revere, and probably other cars of the early 1920s, which had the Rochester Duesenberg engines, also used a 4 speed Brown Lipe with an unusual change pattern. Where you would expect 3rd, there was the overdrive top gear of 1 to 1 1/4. It would be very useful for other cars on today's roads in today's traffic; but you need a sample and a good horizontal boring machine to clone it.

There are two different directions that you can look, where it is sometimes possible to find an adaptable crownwheel and pinion with a sensible ratio, with axis of the pinioncoincident with that of the axle shafts; that is, not hypoid. ( Twin Six Packard pre-dates the hypoid bevel gears that Packard introduced on the 4th series Six and 3rd Series Eight in about 1927). Best chance is something like Albion truck. A lot of modern English trucks ( post-war, that is) used hub reduction gears, so the bevel gearing in the drive axles is relatively compact. I helped a friend here adapt Albion bevel gears from a truck wrecker to the Hispano Suiza H6B axle for his HS Special which runs a 12 litre V8 Hispano WW1 aero engine. The other possible source of suitable size and ratio non-hypoid bevel gears is from farm tractors which have final drive hub gears. Original ratios were good for funeral processions and public display of dignitaries in litter parades down Broadway.

If your 1934 Diamond T was built for a top speed of 44 mph, that was quick. My father's timber mill company had a wartime tandem drive Diamond T and Rodgers trailer, that was set up to transport army tanks. He knew what he was doing in the war surplus auctions, and split up the day's cash for purchases between himself and several others. Ben Baxter was the foreman of the engineers' shop at the mill with discretion and responsibility; and this beautiful rig was sold to his final bid of 800 pounds, which was his entire budget for the day. He drove out the gate, and as he started to drive into the partnership's compound straight across the road, someone yelled at him that there was no entry permitted to the army!.... My father was less than pleased, because that was all they could buy with a quarter of the day's budget. Ben pointed out that they did not have another heavy tandem drive truck, and they frequently needed to transport heavy loads. It was a brand new truck, the tyres ware new, it ran on diesel, and it did not really matter that it was left hand drive because the driver could see over anything ahead. Well, they soon parked the Rodgers trailer, and set it up with a lowloader semi. It had a Hercules diesel engine, the same as used in Oliver Cletrac FD and FDE bulldozers. It made a lot of money, and saved a lot of money; And seven years later when it was replaced by something less patient, it sold for 8 or 9 times what was paid for it. The driver was never stopped or bothered by the Transport Regulation Board; and when he did met one of their people socially, the fellow told him they had tailed him for countless miles, at 28 miles per hour maximum. So, you can be pleased that yours is a quick one; and you wont get your feet tangled in your beard, driving it to meets.

I do not know the difference between grades of tungsten carbide, nor what grade code you use for what purpose. I had a friend who made carbide tooling and inserts. His market with the motor manufacturers, and his skilled workforce vanished when there were power restrictions here in Victoria, and Syd was unable to get a big diesel generator to continue independently. So he built his own new business as a butcher, smoking hams and making smallgoods to traditional East European methods. One day he decided that some beef would be nice, and he offered me his stock of tungsten carbide in exchange for a steer on the hoof. He chose his animal, and it went to the abbatoirs. If you had a diamond wheel to cut new tips from the material, I could give you carbide and advise you the silver brazing alloy to use; and you could re-sharpen your re-tipped drills with a diamond wheel...... What you effectively have are like masonry drills with a different grade of tungsten carbide. I have sharpened masonry drills to cut steel; but they do not last as well as those special drills. If you have a diamond sharpening wheel on a bench grinder you can recover usefulness of one of those drills if the tips are not too badly damaged. Several decades ago there was an employee of New Zealand Airways a Christchurch who devised a method of re-profiling the cutting edges of a standard high speed steel drill by what he called zero-angle sharpening. This worked very well, and you could even drill such work-hardening material as titanium. I bought the booklet and chart from Mr Tyson, but I doubt he is still vertical. I would not scan and pass on his instructions unless I knew they were no longer otherwise available. They include instructions for making a sharpening jig, so you do not have to rely on your own manual dexterity. When Harry Johnson from Reno was doing "Restoration Tips" in HCCA Gazette. He bought the kit and found it worked well. You can drill a hole partly overlapping the edge of the metal, and you can drill a broken stud out of a hole without ruining the thread; ..... if you are good enough.

I suggested Tim's name because he probably knows well the numbers that would establish the age of the car you have been considering. I guess the main club-related consideration might be full eligibility for HCCA tours. Apart from this I guess you look at mechanical changes. The change to detacheable head cylinder blocks improved service considerations. The important design factor which came with the 3rd Series was the change from rear "platform" springs to semi-elliptic. Platform springs allow the lateral position of the rear axle to be more elastic than would be considered ideal; and it is not a something I would boast of as a benefical feature of the early Cadillacs I have. As to heat shielding to stop fuel vaporizing, there are a range of things you can do, right up to shielding deflectors treated with such heat barrier ceramic coatings that make jet and rocket engines practically viable. But simplest is often most useful. The other thing Tim can do is indicate which owners you can talk to who use or have used their Twin Six in an appropriate season and climate. ( It is sadly impossible to consult Csar Nickolas, whose 1917 had its rear wheels driving half-tracks, and whose steering was by front wheel-skis.

I should have thought of it before: You should talk to Tim Martin, who keeps the Roster of Twin Six Packards. He is in Vermont. If you cannot find his contact data, ask me by private Message.

You may need a special flaring tool for modern brake line. The first step creates a ball end which is inverted by the second operation. Steel line (Bundy tube) can fail due to rust on the outside. I once lost brakes on an older GM Holden on a freeway in Melbourne. I blocked the connection with a brake rivet, and drove home very carefully without rear brakes. The contracting band brakes have several issues that you can correct or improve. The drums are steel, which is not a good brake material; and if it has lost significant wall thickness due to wear, its capacity for heat will be impaired. Do not let anyone build them up by welding or weld on a steel ring. Steel does not have good friction properties as a brake drum. A wire-feed thermospray coating of Metco Spraysteel LS has similar brake characteristics to the best cast drums. You have to machine it carefully with tungsten carbide. It has about 7% molybdenum content, and it is work-hardening. You use any good modern brake lining with it, and you will have better brakes than Chrysler built for it. You use whatever thickness of lining the space will allow. I will measure the rebuilt drum thickness of the Roamer Duesenberg for you as a guide after breakfast. Now, to expel water, which is a problem with external band brakes, you cut a series of grooves across the lining at about 45 degree angle. You decide whether you prefer to wash the outside of the wheels or the underside of the car. The original cast iron brakes of my 1911 Napier have such water expulsion angle grooves, about two and a half inches apart. Chrysler's high compression Rickardo patent combustion chamber engine in that car had high power output in terms of horsepower per cubic inch piston displacement than any car of 1923 except the A Duesenberg and Lexington's push-rod OHV Anstead six, according to Keith Marvin's book "Cars of 1923". I admired most the early Model B, before the "ribbon radiator". A friend of my father left his touring parked in his garage after he stopped using it. I could have had it for the asking about 1960; but I had no garage for it, and it vanished. Soon after, a young bloke I knew who was a ratbag destroyed a good and complete roadster. He thrashed it round the local rubbish tip, discarding doors, fenders, and rumble seat lid, and running over them and bulldozing saplings. He killed a series of cars on the road, then killed himself in one. Sadly, he killed a young couple travelling in the opposite direction; and only his German Shepherd dog survived the accident. You can find my description of the method of applying that Metco coating in several of my past posts.

You might refer to p236 of Ralph Stein's 1967 book, "The Great Cars". He wrote that he had then driven Henry Austin Clark's Twin Six, and compared its practicality to the current cars then, except the lack of four wheel brakes. I have engine, transmission, instruments, fuel tank, rear hubs and brake drums from what was a good runabout with Rudge Whitworth 100mm wire wheels until a large tree fell across it in the shed where it was stored. The people who found it only saved what was not damaged. I have enough to rebuild it, with a runabout body but a rather sad and rustly chassis frame that is the wrong wheelbase. This will need some careful work to repair as the correct short wheelbase, because the length difference is in the main tapered section of the frame. I am fortunate to have a braked Rudge Whitworth front axle from one of the first straight 8s of the changeover from the Twin Six. ( my engine has a 1922 casting date.) I do not apologise for fitting the 1923 Eight Front stubs and brakes to the Twin Six front axle; because in modern traffic it is more comfortable if a car with good performance stops as well as it goes.

Does that use the 5 litre displacement Lycoming like the largest Auburn of 1928-1930? That one has crankcase and cylinder block which are separate cast iron units, bolted together; whereas the smaller straight 8 Lycoming, and the subsequent straight 8s had block and crankcase cast as a single unit. The duralumin Lynite conrods, like those in the OHC Stutzs, can have issues in re-pouring the whitemetal bearings. You have to scratch- tin the dural with a stainless steel wire brush or a scraper, using enough heat to "wet" the surface with pure tin, to which the bearing metal should bond if the temperatures are just right.

It seems that there is not much understanding of the reason that wheel bearings can cause a fire on big trailer axles. About 30 years ago I had to rebuild all the bearing seats on several sets of semi-trailer axles. I did whatever work customers brought to me, and these were pretty heavy to handle alone; but my big old English Lang lathe was long enough between centres to offset the end I was not working on enough in the 4 jaw independent chuck so the end I was rebuilding and machining ran true by the dial indicator to the original camber bend on the tailstock centre. The bearing seats were significantly worn by fretting because the bearings were loose on them. Obviously I could not grit- blast the ends in the cabinet, so after thorough cleaning I ran a rough threading cut across the worn sections do give the nickel-aluminide bond coat a good grip for the Metco Spraysteel LS repair coating. I finished them carefully to size so the new bearings were a dead size fit. The last set I did were for a very experienced operator, who I used to see occasionally in the supermarket at weekends when he was no driving his shuttle run carting Dulux automotive and industrial Dulux paint from the Melbourne factory 600 miles interstate to Sydney. Eddie had been replacing bearings very frequently; but he never replaced another bearing in 0ver 15 years after when he retired and sold his truck. The hubs were tight to get off and on when he had to replace his brakes; but he used his jack and a chain to pull them off, and he was as happy as a dog with two tails. A bearing relies on good thermal contact with its hub and axle to dissipate the heat it generates. If it cannot get rid of its heat, it may eventually ignite its grease. The old metaphor: "For want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost".

If the aluminium alloy is heat treated, welding may cause softening in a critical area. For cracks , stitching may be a better proposition. As for corrosion damage on the surface, particularly around cooling water circulation holes, there may be an excellent remedy that few would think of.. I used to see one of Metco's field engineers fairly regularly because I had a constant run of work with their flame spray equipment; and the state electricity authority was about 20 miles further on. On one occasion the usual man was accompanied by another who was visiting from interstate, who was older and very experienced. One job that he discussed was a quite badly corroded cylinder head of a 3 litre 6 cylinder Maserati. He used a self-bonding stainless steel machineable powder thermospray coating, with oxygen/acetylene fuel gas. I do not have the data sheet for Metco 444 in the book I have at hand. Metco 447, which is a self-bonding molybdenum/nickel/aluminium powder may be a good choice. It has excellent machining characteristics. It may be worthwhile consulting someone who applies these coatings with plasma spray equipment.

Post script. Thank you for the excellent detail of the radiator of the Lancia. The one I have to make for my 1911 Lancia Delta. Incidentally, does anyone chance to know of a radiator or any other mechanical parts for an SGV about 1911-13? They were built from Lancia drawings, and might help me replace missing parts.

Most definitely Stutz identified by those rear spring hangers. Layden Butler can tell you which year around 1919 Stutz used Rudge Whitworth wheels instead of Houk with the six pins as well as the taper seat. The reason many four cylinder Stutz died was if they accidentally engaged two gears at the same time because the selector interlock was not perfect. Exhaust was on the left side for Stutz 4 cylinder; and on the Right side with the 4 cylinder Rochester Duesenberg engine in the Roamer.

In the 1950s, there was a 1928 LaSalle Fleetwood bodied roadster that was a tow-truck; You know, used for gathering damaged cars to maintain work at a body repair shop. The structure of the crane was mounted through the missing rumble seat lid. A little later I paid twenty quid for a superannuated 1927 Cadillac tow-truck from a distant part of the city of Melbourne, to provide wire wheels and a parts resource for my 314 Cadillac 4pass phaeton. My brother got a 1928 LaSalle phaeton, (without great enthusiasm), and I gathered a quantity of remains from several LaSalles which had been dismantled. The rear of that Fleetwood roadster was among that; and it lay around for a good many years. Eventually I gave it to Guy Menzies, a friend from the Central Coast of NSW, and he built it back into a car. Those V8s were powerful and reliable for work as tow-trucks then.

It is amazing how much oil a worn engine can consume through piston, ring, and bore wear without fouling the plugs or smoking. In late 1969 I restore my 1918 Mercer to run in the 1970 FIVA "Rally" from Sydney to Melbourne. The car had been extensively used in country New South Wales until 1958, and was pretty worn mechanically but ran well though it used a lot of oil; (but not by leakage). Mobil were generous major sponsors, so we had fuel and oil we needed without restriction. Mercer needed a gallon of oil after every day's run, but it never smoked, and it never fouled the plugs. I remembered this when twenty years later I had the job of rebuilding and grinding the worn junk head rings of two sleeve valve Willys Knight cars for a friend. (This stopped the top blow-by which had been pushing oil from the sleeves into the exhaust ports. In the First World War, the German artillery were able to target the first armoured tanks by the massive exhaust smoke from the big Daimler sleeve valve engines.)

I think it was Doc Schaeffer, who may have been a past President of HCCA early on. His A Duesenberg was a Fleetwood Coupe with a rumble seat, built in 1922. (Serial 661, engine 1075.) Duesenberg made one A with Disteel wheels, and the 122 that finished the Indianapolis 500 in second place in 1922 driven by Harry Hartz had Disteel wheels showing quite a pronounced dish. The profile contrasts with that of the Michelin disc wheels such as those on the Tipo8 Isotta Fraschini and the Lancia Kappa that I have.

The photo is definitely early 20s "low radiator" Dodge. There was difference between the engine block and cylinder head of these compared with the later ones. Early had the fan mounting on the front of the engine block, but with the higher radiator the similar fan mounting provision was cast on the front of the cylinder head. A friend, Glen Boxall, who lived in the north of the Mallee district here in Victoria, needed a good engine for the 1922 that had been owned by himself and his father for all but 18 months since it was new. John Ryder form northern NSW gave one for him that had once powered a sawbench, and I delivered it to him. It would have been in beautiful condition if some idiot had not undone head studs and let water in to etch the bores. So I took a new set of sleeves to recondition the cylinders; which was work that I knew Glenn had done in the past on customers engines. When I was a small child I used to go with my father through the family sawmill and engineers' workshop. There were a couple of Dodge 4 engines with gearboxes filling floor space; which had been pulled out with the rest of the equipment from a black coal mine about 15 miles away in the Strzeleckie hills. They were never used again, and when I was 4 or 5 years old I wanted them to give me one as a treasure to turn over with the crank handle, and imagine I could get it running. ( It only lacked petrol). Around town in the early 1940s I saw one or two cars infrequently that did have those disc wheels instead of wood spoked. I can remember expressing the opinion that the steel disc wheels must have been stronger and less likely to be damaged than the usual wood spoked, but no-one bothered to discuss it with me sensibly. During the 1960s there was a FIVA "International Rally" in New Zealand, which was attended by people from here, and also by a number from the Horseless Carriage Club, mainly from the US West Coast. One very elderly gent, though he owned an A model Duesenberg and other expensive and exotic cars, brought his 1916 Dodge 4. First thing one morning, before he remembered that New Zealanders drive on the other side of the road than he was used to, he broke a front wheel in a head-on prang. I was told that he cut a pair of steel discs to bolt on either side of the broken wheel; and he completed the rest of the event without problems.

The comparison of the 1912, 1913, and 1914 Cadillacs is useful in understanding these cars. Nobody can question the manufacturing standards used to build them, but in design concept they were much of a derivation from a stationary engine. In the early 1960s, my friend Henry Formby used his 1923 Cadillac as a normal road car, and I rebuilt my first car, a 1927 Cadillac, under the wattle tree in the backyard for the same purpose. Henry obtained a basic 1912 "copper-pot" Caddy with little bodywork to restore for local Veteran Car Club events, and over time, I gathered enough for a 1913. The 1912 had reasonably good performance with the very heavy cast iron pistons on the hinged rods; but you just could not keep the hinged big ends inside the crankcase. Henry was a pretty good bush mechanic, and he worked out that he could fit Dodge Four conrods without re-metalling the bearings; but he had to get new aluminium alloy pistons made to suit. These were much lighter than the original Caddy pistons, ( though still over-weight and over-dimension in my opinion). The performance and reliability were transformed in my opinion; and it always travelled at 50-60 mph when Henry was driving without urgency. Ken Moss in Sydney used International Black Diamond conrods in his 1912 with different pistons. Henry,s twin grandsons own both those cars now. The 1913 and 1914 cars had engine displacement increased to about 6 litres by increasing the stroke. They had plenty of extra torque, but they would not rev as fast as the 1912s because the internal hexagonal hole of the left-and-right handed threaded piece that draws and holds the cylinder head and barrel together restricted the gas-flow badly. That is why they went to a 2 speed back axle to try to get the top speed back; but this was a flawed concept because the ratio of sprung to unsprung axle mass was so bad. The replacement V8 was a much better idea. You might say that the concept of the copper-pot Cadillacs was the triumph of workmanship over design was even more extreme than in the example of Rolls Royce.

Auburn is likely the big eight, about 300 cubic inch, either 8-88 or 115 model. It is a bit hard to tell the difference except to drive, because the later with the same bore and stroke had higher compression ratio, Rickardo combustion chamber, lighter reciprocating mass with dural conrods, and longer valve overlap. They were pretty competitive in racing with the single overhead cam, twin ignition Stutz.

I can give you a bit of an idea about FIAT numbers. It is 11.20pm, and I just checked the numbers on two 1914 Tipo Zero cars I have, and a 3.4 litre 6cylinder Tipo 510S, which is a short chassis sporting variant of the Tipo 510, which has a short wheelbase and a sharp pointed radiator of Germanic style. The chassis number of all three cars is across the right front dumbiron, just below the first rivet. The engine number is on a brass plate on the right side of the crankcase, towards the rear. The engine # plate on the Tipo Zeros shows the engine type is Tipo 51A. The piston displacement of these little 1.8 litre side valve engines is one fifth that of your 9 litre 4 cylinder Tipo 5. The tipo Zero at the Montagu Museum in UK was said to be capable of 50mph and 25 miles per gallon. According to Michael Sedgwick, the third figure of the engine number, and also the chassis number indicate the year. Engine number is Tipo 110 0120528, and the chassis number is 0320571. It is 1922. numbers of the Tipo Zeros are just 4 digits. It is too late to give you commentary on the mechanicals of your Tipo 5. I'll do so tomorrow.