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FLOW REPAIRS FOR AN AR, S MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT

26th March 1943, Page 26
26th March 1943
Page 26
Page 27
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Page 26, 26th March 1943 — FLOW REPAIRS FOR AN AR, S MECHANICAL EQUIPMENT
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DURING the war years 1914 IS, many of 1.1s worked from time to time with the Canadian Forces in France.The writer's most vivid memory of them is of, seemingly, endless processions , of pack mules coming out of the gates of Y pre s, plodding wearily over the plank roads, carrying shells to the various batteries.One .knew in the dark whether they were' Canadian teams or otherwise • by the pecu_liar flavour of

t h c " blessings " which t h e drivers showered upon the animals.

To-day, anything on four legs is almost a curiosity in the Canadian Army-. Mechanization must be approaching the 100 per cent. mark, and it follows that repair facilities to' match have to be provided. Judging by what we have seen at the Canadian Base Ordnance Workshops in this country, the repair organization must be one of the largest ever planned for reconditioning everything from a watch to a Tank.

It must be remembered that the amount of work involved in completeoverhaul of army mechanical equipment is not merely confined to fair wear and tear. Provision also has to be made for restoration to a good condition after' damage of varying degrees of violence. The organization, therefore.

has to be planned to cope witha far shorter average work. ing life per unit. of equipment than ever would be the case with civilian property.

• Of the mechanical equipment employed, we shall have A24 more to say later. The most important items in any establishment are the men who direct and perform the tasks involved. In this Particular workshop, the whole layout and procedure are a close parallel with those obtaining in large fleet-repair shops on both sides of the Atlantic, so far as the vehicle sections are concerned, but the size is most impressive. Appropriately enough, most ofdhe men now in thky.O.W. are doing the class of work with which they were familiar in Canada iii times of peace. , • ' The services of specially experienced civilians have been widely used, such men having Come from Canada, and a few from this country, to help in the plant installation. etc., and to get things well under way before handing over to the officers • and men of the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps.

Before dealing with the various, shops, it is essential to remember' that these are base ordnance workshops, intended for extensive repair and essential .modificat:on opera:ions. Routine maintenance work is the responsibility of the drivers and of the personnel employed in first, second and third echelon repair units. The various shops each deal, more or less, with one type of equipment. For exaniple, in one building there is the Tank repair shop. Down one side are rows of these machines, over which move traversing cranes that lift out engines, transmission units, or armament details for attention, either in an adjacent bay of the same shop. 1 or in other shops, according to the work required. Unit exchange is common practice in reconditioning these vehicles.

When deakng with the radial, air-coaled engine used in some of the Tanks, the most convenienf method of trial under power, after rebuilding, is by the use of an outdoor test stand usirrg a stub airscrew for power' absorption. . All the essential instruments connected to the engine are in an enclosed cubicle, which gives 'greater comfort for the men and allows them to work uninterruptedly during the black-out. In .addition to the ordinary instruments, there are such special test items as flowmeters, so that fuel-consumption rates can be checked under all running conditions.

In another huge building there is the machine shop, which contains, in some sctions, more machine tools of one kind than there are to be found in some of the large automobile plants in Canada. This applies, for example, to Landis grindersel which are used 'for the -naacliining of crankpins and journals to sub-sfandard sizes, both for

V-type and radial engines. These machines also are

, used for work on axle casings, and other vehicle,parts. One of the most interesting portions of all the workshops, and one of the largest, is that devoted to reconditioning of internal-combustion engines, as used in armoured fighting machines, transport vehicles and military cars.

SQ far as the •Canadian Forces are concerned, the standardization of the Ford V8 (30 hp. type) and Chevrolet six-cylindered in-line engines facilitates this,flow repair process. At one end of the, shop is a large stack of engines

• received from the echelon repair shops„ as requiring complete overhaul.

Under war-time-cbnditions, there Insight be a tendency for repairers in the field to throw on to the base workshop some of their own responsibility, so a quick test is made, on :special beds provided for the purpose, of the engines coming -in Many of the power units can quickly be assigned to . the groups requiring stripping and rebuilding. In some cases, the, test enables one or more faults to be diagnosed, and these can be corrected without the expensive and protracted process of a complete overhaul. In this Way, waste of man-pdwer is avoided.

The first step in reconditioning is dismantling, followed by a doped-steam degreasing process. As the major parts of the engine move dOwn the shop, Various components are removed, tested, gauged for wear, and either passed to

• appropriate stares bins for re-use or to repair sub-sections for attention. This applies to every item of the engine, so that a particular, power unit loses its identity: but turns up again at,the other end of the line as-good as new ; the • tolerances 'worked to are of the same standard as. obtain in connection With new manufacture.

Some of the parts can efficiently be machined to over

size, or under size subsidiary standards. In the :ase of cylinder bores, for' instance, these may be rebored, and boned with V a n Norman equipment. The block casting is punch-marked to indicate the particular over-size, and the men re-assembling the engine know which over-size pistons are needed.

This power-unit section( regularly turns out over 100 engines a week and, when the demand is heavy, not far short of double that figure is reached. After each engine has been assembled, it is put on to a double stand. One of the engines thereon has been partially run-in, and is used to drive the stiffer unit which, in its turn, can, after a time, be started up and" used to drive yet another reconditioned engine. Simple, routine, performance tests are made on a stand including a dynamometer. If the engines pass the test, they are then fit for re-issue ; rejects are dealt with by a special gang of men. The number of temporary failures is less than 5 per cent.

A similar strip, repair and rebuild process is applied to transmission sets, rear axles and radial engines. The last named make use of special stands, jigs and equipment, as, naturally, they do not lend themselves to handling in the fixtures designed for y-type and in-line power 'units.

A further large shop is devoted to sundry repairs on wheel-type vehicles, Covering such items as front and rear axles, bodywork and-general fittings. Here the work cannot be of so standardized a character, and the men have to handle lorries, cars, and any wheeled machine that may. need attention.

Bodywork is dealt with by teams who go to the job,' with the exception of the spray-painting work, which is done in a separate section. Two men here can handle between 30 and, 40 vehicle-camouflage repaints a day.

A special section is devoted to the stripping, repairing and re-erecting of motorcytles. Here there is shown, in the form of jigs and fixtures, a degree of ingenuity which we do not recollect having seen anywhere else-in motorcycle work. The extent of the reconditioning required per complete machine i's probably greater than, on any other mechanical vehicle ; outputs in the section have ranged up to one motorcycle completely finished per working hour.

• In these days, the tyre-maintenance section is one of the most vital. It is equipped for dealing with sonic 40 tyres a day, ranging from motorcycle covers to cross-country types of giant low-pressure cover.

' The plant used is of a type familiar on the other side of the Atlantic ; it is known as the Vitacap. Under this process the worn tread is ground off only suffitiently to give a truly circular " pase," and one of the desired transverse contour. The retreading strip is then vulcanized in Place, forming either a continuous' tread or a bar-type one, according to the class of tyre. This process is particularly useful in dealing with cross-country tyres.

Among the smaller sections, which have to deal with a wide variety of products, not only in connection with vehicles, is the carpentry shop. It makes replacement parts for vehicle coachwork, hospital and office furniture and equipment, with one portion of it set apart for dealing with leather-work and upholstery. , Another shop is that housing the blacksmiths and welders. These men have not only repair work to do, but, from time ,to time, have to make modified parts or new products in limited numbers to meet emergency demanils, until civilianfactory production can be brought to bear on the particular problem. A third section which has to do work of the same general cha?acter is the foundry.

So much for Canadian Army equips:tent items which are

of a mechanical and transport character. Teehnically, one of the most interesting sections; upon which we cannot dwell in any detail, is-a block of buildings devoted to the

repair of instruments and radio. Here craftsmen have to deal with such relatively simple items as watches,' and a few feet away there are men calibrating gun-sights, compasses, testing binoculars, and, almost as 1 comic relief, reconditioning Primus stoves.

From the point of view of complexity, one of the mod awe-inspiring jobs is the complete overhaul of two-way• wireless sets belonging to tanks. Beside this task, the rebuilding of a reconditioned eight-cylindered vehicle engine almost pales into insignificance.


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