Build Me Up Buttercup

So having tracked down the spare gaskets the cylinder head was removed to be cleaned. The head and valves were pretty coked up, largely through it never really having had a good run over the years! Lots of short, stationary start-ups with the choke out have built up over the years meaning that the valves weren't sealing properly any more.

After some cleaning and re-doing the valves and valve seats the result looks much better!

Kings of Coke

After another seemingly long hiatus there has actually been progress in the background in terms of getting the Q4 back on the road!

For a while and despite having the carburetor professionally refurbished, adding quality electronic ignition, refurbishing the electrics etc, it still wouldn't run without either it popping and banging or without it needing petrol pouring straight into the carb. Clearly something wasn't right! The hunt for the guilty parts or parts began...

First we discovered that the choke disc in the carb had been put on the wrong way round. Just shows that even pros can make mistakes sometimes! Apparently they had only ever seen these carbs with the choke cable coming in from the top (rather then horizontally) so assumed..... 

That done it still didn't work and just to add insult to injury it backfired so much that it blew the silencer apart. Okay, it was thin and knackered but..... So another job to do, luckily with some fiddling a Bedford RL silencer fits!

Still no luck and after some beard / head scratching the possible reason emerged... A pressure test of the cylinders showed that they were all around 75 psi (when you'd expect well over 100 psi normally). Now with an engine that's only done 1,700 miles it's unlikely to be wear in the cylinders. So it suggests that the valves aren't sealing. With the manifolds off it opened up the horror of masses of black coke on the insides. So, the culprit is found but that will now involve whizzing the head off too to clean it all out. Why? We suspect that over the years it's been started regularly but not for long, so primarily on the choke, so the carbon has built up but without a good run to burn it all off.

Finding new gaskets could have been an issue but thanks to a steer or two through the Commer Q4 owners page of Facebook and the Historic Military Vehicles Forum, Speedy Spares in East Sussex turned up most of the gaskets needed with the help of some 60 year old parts lists. So, a sweet-running Commer isn't far off.......

Rebuild, Recreate...

So, after a long hiatus in terms of work I thought it was about time to perhaps head down to Suffolkshire to do some fettling.... In reality, not a lot needed doing just a whole host of small things!

First job was to get the fuel tank back on - it went back on very easily and once filled with Esso's finest supreme unleaded, no leaks were found. Then it was on with the electronic ignition and then getting the distributor fitter and wired in - all good so far. Then it was time to turn the key - well turn the switch and full the starter, as it has no key!! Despite turning over well, it just wouldn't start. The odd stutter but essentially dead despite a good spark and what seemed like lots of fuel. In the end pouring some fuel into the carb worked and hey presto - off it went. Another 5-10 mins saw the distributor and carb adjusted to get it idling and accelerating nicely so we left it to get warm, which it did pretty quickly - much faster than Bedford trucks of the same era!

Then some sorting of electrics was done - despite this apparently being sorted a year and a half ago, being sat around in the damp and unused does cause some problems, but in the end, all the lights work once again, although the fuse boxes badly need replacing as they are fiddly and at the end of their life.

I also removed some of the brightwork from the bonnet to clean up before the summer - in line with the American styling of Rootes cars in the 1950s, the Q4 has similar design ques and the badge and bonnet edge should be nice and shiny chrome rather than dull green paint! Removing these also exposed the rust underneath - nothing bad but something that needs sorting. Looking at the colour, I'm not sure these have ever been removed before meaning that the Commer badge has always beed skewed to one side rather than being in the middle!

Then on the last day of work, disaster struck! Unbeknownst to us, one of the starter motor bolts  - at the bottom out of sight - was missing. So after it stalled a simple restart saw the casting on the motor finally give way, shattering the edge of the motor and firing the motor partially out of the engine. Once removed, the damage was plain to see so it's now gone for repair - the motors are no longer made of this design being heavy duty size though similar ones are made for lighter cars. So, finding the bits and welding them back on is apparently the answer! Fingers crossed....

Tanks for the memories...

Towards the end of the summer I spent a few more days down in Suffolk, slowly but surely the Commer is making its way back towards the road!

The idea was to get it running again having had the new carb fitted, so with the new electronic ignition fitted we held out breath..... It ran briefly but then refused to start once more. It had recently been converted from negative to positive earth - could that be a problem? A few more checks, all seemed okay..... Still nothing. After I had gone, a subsequent check by an electrician found that the feed cables into the voltage regulator were the wrong way around, which explained why the ignition light wasn't coming on properly! So, maybe it will start next time....

With the tank back and freshly painted, I set to painting the tank holders. With a wire brush, a couple of cans of spray black Hammerite saw the job done with a decent finish. Now, just to investigate re-sealing the inside of the tank!

We also took the AC tank sender unit apart to see why it was sticking. The answer? The resistor wire wrapped around inside the mounting unit had failed, meaning that it is knackered! Now to find another one.......

Electrical Storm...

Well, with the Easter hols here I thought it had been some time since I'd been down to Suffolk to see the Commer so, worrying that it was feeling neglected, I tootled down there for a few days.

Some work has been done on it in my absence, notably fitting the the refurbished carburettor:

The first bit of work was to remove the fuel tank - it's in pretty good condition but I think for longevity it needs protecting so now it's been cleaned, it's off for sand blasting and repainting:

Then the serious work started - setting the timing up and getting it running. This involved much scrabbling around following the workshop manual, as this process involves removing the bell housing cover underneath (harder than it looks as it's hard to get at, sits just above a chassis cross-member and doesn't have captive nuts) then inserting a peg into the front of the flywheel before turning the engine on the starting handle until it locks into position. A quick check to see that this is the right point with cylinder 1 valves closed- yes - then to advance it by 4 degrees, using a screwdriver.

 

With that done, we gave it a spin and it ran reasonably well for a bit then conked out. Despite great effort it wouldn't re-start so we left that for another time. However, we took the decision there and then to a) convert it to negative earth from positive and b) then to fit electronic ignition with a new coil. Hopefully that might help!

Day two saw mainly a day of electrics. First in line was fitting a new front nearside indicator. With that done, none worked but on removing the switch we found out why - the contacts were all furred up! So off with that, then it was taken apart and cleaned before being refitted and hey presto - they all worked!

The isolator switch was also finished off:

Then I replaced some of the EFS era dash switches which had seized up - we discovered later that these were for the fog lights and reverse lights, fitted in the early 1980s by the Home Office.

At this stage a little wiggling got the windscreen wipers working again after many years (decades?!) of slumber! Also a little tidying of the cab and under seat storage areas was in order, as well as clearing out the junk. The headlights were also made to work although this required new junctions at the front for both lights as well as rebuilding the switch to make the contacts work properly.

Our attention then turned to the roof, both inside and out - the interior light and the flashing amber lights on the roof. This needed the cab head lining to be removed, no easy task as they are tight fitting and quite brittle! This of course exposed the original cab primer colour, hidden for 60 years:

With that removed, the new correct pattern interior light I obtained from a fellow Q4 enthusiast in Scotland was fitted:

With the headlining out, we discovered the end of the wires for the old 1950s emergency flashing amber beacons on the roof. These must have been isolated at around the same time the Home Office rewire took place but whilst the lights were left, the wire was just cut above the lining. With new wires in place, where was the switch? No idea but with a blanking plate over a hole in the dashboard below the panel lights, that seemed the obvious place for a new switch!

With that all wired in - did the flashing ambers work after well over 30 years of not being used? You bet....

So, back on with the headlining after wiring the interior light back in. Did that work too? Yup....

And that was pretty much it really! Nice to have most of the electrics working again, more progress. Now just to get it running!

Toy Story...

Another update that I forgot in the summer was another chance purchase of a piece of kit that whilst it wasn't carried by the hose layer, it was intrinsic to how it operated in conjunction with the 'green goddess' pumps, laying the hose for the pumps to plug in to.

Whilst at the Newark Emergency Services Heritage Show in July, a fellow owner had a real rarity - a genuine AFS 'relay pump indicator'. These are sensitive altimeters which are used to determine how close the emergency pumps are placed when relay pumping. If you go up hill, to compensate for the increased altitude and the effect of gravity, the indicator shows that the pumps need to be closer together. As you go down hill, it's the opposite - the indicator shows the pumps need to be further apart. The indicator dial reads in hose lengths - the 6 inch hose lengths of 75 feet that I purchased earlier this year. The standard distance between pumps on flat ground was 35 lengths.

A tip-off from another fellow owner led me to a military surplus dealer in East Yorkshire who duly posted this rarity to me. It's not much use these days but it is a fascinating piece of kit!

Hose It Down...

One thing I forgot to add over the summer was that after chancing upon some canvas 6 inch hose last year, I finally plucked up the courage to buy a few lengths of the later - and more usable - plastic 6 inch hose. It's not something you can get hold of that easily these days but there are some sources, not least L Jackson and Company up near Doncaster. They still have some - apparently reasonably popular with farmers for irrigation - but they do know how much it is worth! No discounts for cash! Luckily I don't need half a mile so when I popped up there in August, three 75 foot lengths was more than enough for demonstration purposes and also to use in displays at shows should the need ever arise. Just what a hose layer needs - more hose!