HINTS ON MAINTENANCE.
Page 60
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Improving the Crossley Lubrication. Removing Slackness in a Leyland Steering. Facilitating Oil-level Inspection on a Halley. Starting Dogs for the Peerless.
An Alteration to the Crossley Oil Pump.
IN the Crossley engine, such as that employed in the R.A.F. tender, the oil pump is fitted in front of the timing case; and is well above the level of the-oil; consequently, trouble sometimes occur through loss of suction.
To avoid this, one user removed the pump from its
original position, had a steel cover made complete with two bosses, one large enough to enable the fitting of a stuffing box with gland and nut to take the driving shaft, the other boss to form a bush for the spindle on the second pinion. After this cover had been 'fitted to the pump, the casing was secured to the bottom front end of the engine sump in such a way that the bosses pointed upwards.
For taking the drive from the original position it was essential to employ right-angle gears. These could have taken the form of small bevel wheels, but, actually, in the example to which we refer; use was made of an old gearbox from a Napier ignition syStem, the gears in this case being of the skew type. The back of thia box was drilled and bushed to take the spindle of one of the skew gears, which was first slotted to fit into the end of the camshaft, which constituted the original drive to the pump. To the second skew gear was fitted a driving shaft having a small universal joint in the centre, the bottom of the shaft being slotted to fit the corresponding slot on the oil pump... Alterations, of course, had to be Made in the positions of the oil pipes, but these were not a difficult matter.
As the oil pm:0 is now always full of oil no difficulty. is experienced with the suction; in fact, oil pressure shows even if the engine be turned by hand.
• Curing Play in the Leyland Steering. IN a considerable number of. cases of Leyland vehicles
having play or slackness in the steering it has been found that the play was due to the drop arm being loose on the splined cross-shaft of the steering box. The drop •arm Is slipped on to the cross-shaft splines and secured by a split boss and a nipping bolt.
The first point to note is that when the nipping bolt is tight the faces of the split are not touching.; if found to be butting together take off the arm, place it in the vice in such a manner that the split is closed by the vice pressure, then put three blades together into the hack-saw frame and saw through the split. This will allow an extra pull on the nipping bolt. Now try fitting the arm into position, again making sure that the nut is not bottoming on the thread of the nipping bolt. It will be found in some cases that the arm will not he thoroughly tight even now, owing to the wear in the
E42 splines, and the nip is not on all the splines but only on the two with least wear. if this be the case, take off the arm and chip out the spline in the arm Dearest to the split. This will give a perfect fit immediately whether very badly worn or not. The weakening through the loss of one spline is practically negligible, and the process has been carried out on some 30 Leyland vehicles during the past year and in not a single instance has this part had to receive further attention.
In the case of bad wear in the bail joints of the track rod, etc., remove the bolts holding the half sockets and examine for shims, which can be removed to allow closing the socket farther on to the ball. Where shims have previously been removed a little may be ground off the face of each half socket, but remember that grinding will only eliminate end play.
.Checking the Oil Level on the Q.S.X.-type Halley.
IN order to ascertain the level of the oil in the sump of a Q.S.X.atype Halley there is provided a plug with a handle. This plug is screwed directly into the aluminium sump, and must be removed every time the oil level is checked. The result is that examination of the level is apt to be neglected, as the plug is sometimes somewhat difficult to unscrew.
One of our readers, to facilitate the operation, obtained an adapter, threaded 3-in. gas outside and Fin. gas inside, fitting this into the sump in place of the plug. He then procured a proper oil-level tap and screwed this into theaadapter. This not only proves much easier, as it is only necessary to turn the handle of the tap to ascertain if the oil be sufficiently high, but it also saves theloss of oil which sometimes occurred previously if the level happened to be above that of the plug.
Improved Starting Dogs for the Peerless. ØNE of the weak points On the Peerless chassis lies
jin the starting dogs, which wear somewhat rapidly and cause slipping, and it is easy for a peason starting the engine to bruise or strain himself severely if the handle suddenly slips when under load.
One of our readers has devised what he claims to be an improved form of dog which is non-slipping and can easily be fitted. The measurements given in the sketches of the device are practically the same as those for the standard type, except for the front portion of the dog, and the material is mild steel casehardened. The centre of the dog is drilled and tapped a-in. Whitworth to enable the part to be withdrawn at any time, as required, by screwing into it a fin. bolt. The two teeth can be quickly engaged and are rapidly disengaged on account of their shape.