1964 Alvis Stalwart
Discussion
LewG said:
Thanks all! Indeed it can be a bit of a busman's holiday but fundamentally I enjoy working on the thing and the time just flies by. Work has taught me some pretty valuable skills in working on big seized crap and borrowing their equipment on occasion is an additional plus 
Annoyingly I passed my test in 2010 so the 7.5 tonne 'grandfather rights' are a no go for me. It is mostly the width issue to my knowledge, although with suspension adjustment I believe the measurement across the hubs can be reduced. We shall see, I'll have a go at registering and keep my fingers crossed.
Wasn't there an issue on Stolly's about single circuit brakes which got VOSA/DVLA excited? That's what my brother told me anyway.Annoyingly I passed my test in 2010 so the 7.5 tonne 'grandfather rights' are a no go for me. It is mostly the width issue to my knowledge, although with suspension adjustment I believe the measurement across the hubs can be reduced. We shall see, I'll have a go at registering and keep my fingers crossed.
tr7v8 said:
LewG said:
Thanks all! Indeed it can be a bit of a busman's holiday but fundamentally I enjoy working on the thing and the time just flies by. Work has taught me some pretty valuable skills in working on big seized crap and borrowing their equipment on occasion is an additional plus
Annoyingly I passed my test in 2010 so the 7.5 tonne 'grandfather rights' are a no go for me. It is mostly the width issue to my knowledge, although with suspension adjustment I believe the measurement across the hubs can be reduced. We shall see, I'll have a go at registering and keep my fingers crossed.
Wasn't there an issue on Stolly's about single circuit brakes which got VOSA/DVLA excited? That's what my brother told me anyway.Annoyingly I passed my test in 2010 so the 7.5 tonne 'grandfather rights' are a no go for me. It is mostly the width issue to my knowledge, although with suspension adjustment I believe the measurement across the hubs can be reduced. We shall see, I'll have a go at registering and keep my fingers crossed.
I'm not sure about that, I believe on Mk2s they have 2 'Airpaks' doing 3 wheels a piece, this being Mk1 it is effectively single circuit with only the one Airpak. Yellowjack is right about the FV432, they use steering brakes as main brake and handbrake, and with Bulldog it was indeed upgraded to have separate main brakes I assume from a safety perspective. When we had our CVRT on the road that was fine as no width issue, and built with 2 sets of discs and callipers, main brakes on the footbrake and steering tillers on their own set of discs and pads.
It makes me wonder whether it's a HGV thing as my Series Landy only has single circuit brakes and no issue there, it was always adds a degree of background excitement when flying down a mountain pass in Wales that's for sure.
Big congrats to you too Niall, think it's about time we both got a move on! This wasn't in the plan for this year and definitely wasn't for trying
chuffed all the same though.
Spent some time messing around with other stuff at home today and popped to the yard this afternoon to find Tyler had separated the hub I was messing around with in the week so that was a great step forward and much appreciated. We heated the ends of the wishbones up to glowing orange and it still took a drift and club hammer to get the ends of the cut pin out!
After that lots of cleaning bits up and wire brushing, all with the help of Mrs G to be in appropriate work gear. I would definitely be killed if she knew I'd posted a pic. On the plus side she seems to have found a new calling in life with tapping out UNF threads. Suits me
A good bench tidy and that was that for the day.
It makes me wonder whether it's a HGV thing as my Series Landy only has single circuit brakes and no issue there, it was always adds a degree of background excitement when flying down a mountain pass in Wales that's for sure.
Big congrats to you too Niall, think it's about time we both got a move on! This wasn't in the plan for this year and definitely wasn't for trying
chuffed all the same though. Spent some time messing around with other stuff at home today and popped to the yard this afternoon to find Tyler had separated the hub I was messing around with in the week so that was a great step forward and much appreciated. We heated the ends of the wishbones up to glowing orange and it still took a drift and club hammer to get the ends of the cut pin out!
After that lots of cleaning bits up and wire brushing, all with the help of Mrs G to be in appropriate work gear. I would definitely be killed if she knew I'd posted a pic. On the plus side she seems to have found a new calling in life with tapping out UNF threads. Suits me
A good bench tidy and that was that for the day.
Hi LewG
I have just started to read about your progress with your Stolly, hats off to you they are a big project.
You said you had fitted new brake piston seals in your reverb callipers, I'm trying to find some for our Stolly brakes, do you have a supplier or was it just old stock you owned?
I have just started to read about your progress with your Stolly, hats off to you they are a big project.
You said you had fitted new brake piston seals in your reverb callipers, I'm trying to find some for our Stolly brakes, do you have a supplier or was it just old stock you owned?
vol-au-vent said:
Hi LewG
I have just started to read about your progress with your Stolly, hats off to you they are a big project.
You said you had fitted new brake piston seals in your reverb callipers, I'm trying to find some for our Stolly brakes, do you have a supplier or was it just old stock you owned?
Sorry, I know it's a post with a serious enquiry in it but...I have just started to read about your progress with your Stolly, hats off to you they are a big project.
You said you had fitted new brake piston seals in your reverb callipers, I'm trying to find some for our Stolly brakes, do you have a supplier or was it just old stock you owned?
Woof!
...I can't be the only one thinking of this... https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... ...thread when I see that?
Very good!
V-a-v I got the seals from Richard Banister down in Northiam in Sussex, he is extremely knowledgeable and even in 2023 has an amazing stock of pretty much everything. He responds best to his email, wjrbanister@gmail.com
I must say those callipers look in nice condition, are they leaking at all? If the seals aren't cut up with rust or debris and the pistons are tight in the bores I would potentially re-use what you can. One piece of advice I can give is make sure the grooves the seals sit in are absolutely surgically clean with no rust deposits at all, I put a new seal in having just cleaned the groove out with some Scotchbrite and the piston was extremely tight to refit, resulting in a broken seal which was annoying.
Had the day off work today so cracked on with needle gunning the centre wishbone assembly and getting my head around removing the worn shock absorber pin.
Out with the monster slide hammer complete with my masterpiece of step down engineering
Unsurprisingly this swiftly broke, left the snapped bolt inside and didn't move even a fraction.
Drill it out, hammer in a Torx bit and hope for the best. Result!
Deciding to go for full destruction I burnt the rubber bushes out the bottom of the shock and rebound units, moved to one side as much as possible and tries accurately cutting with the torch each pin and sleeve.
The first section of pin out. The middle part could then be drifted out from the 'open' end.
This then left the very inner seized still in place. This was something of a head scratcher to solve. I tried drilling a small blanking plug hole out in the bottom of the wishbone for a grease nipple and tried to 'hydraulic' it out as you would a spigot bearing in a flywheel for example. As the pin is hollow this didn't work as it simply pushed grease through the hole, and after plugging only pushed it into the other side pin, as there are a pair of pins, both handling 2 shocks a piece.
I knew I'd got some very long M12 bolts in my odds and sods collection so my idea was weld it to the end of the pin and use it with the slide hammer. By some miracle the grease gallery hole up the middle was perfect to tap to M12, so with an M12 tap on several socket bars we tapped the last piece out, then threaded the bolt up the middle and welded in place
![](https://thumbsnap.com/sc/bdW1crGM.jpg[/img]</a> <a href="https://thumbsnap.com/zWAdwjpR" Target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[img]https://thumbsnap.com/sc/zWAdwjpR.jpg)
With some heat and a good few whacks, out it came! With the hole going right through to the other side, we noticed when greasing dampness around the pin joints, so it was clearly lubricating properly. We tried a drift right through and with sledgehammer persuasion it came out easily. At least we now have one to copy to make a new one if required. All good progress!
V-a-v I got the seals from Richard Banister down in Northiam in Sussex, he is extremely knowledgeable and even in 2023 has an amazing stock of pretty much everything. He responds best to his email, wjrbanister@gmail.com
I must say those callipers look in nice condition, are they leaking at all? If the seals aren't cut up with rust or debris and the pistons are tight in the bores I would potentially re-use what you can. One piece of advice I can give is make sure the grooves the seals sit in are absolutely surgically clean with no rust deposits at all, I put a new seal in having just cleaned the groove out with some Scotchbrite and the piston was extremely tight to refit, resulting in a broken seal which was annoying.
Had the day off work today so cracked on with needle gunning the centre wishbone assembly and getting my head around removing the worn shock absorber pin.
Out with the monster slide hammer complete with my masterpiece of step down engineering
Unsurprisingly this swiftly broke, left the snapped bolt inside and didn't move even a fraction.
Drill it out, hammer in a Torx bit and hope for the best. Result!
Deciding to go for full destruction I burnt the rubber bushes out the bottom of the shock and rebound units, moved to one side as much as possible and tries accurately cutting with the torch each pin and sleeve.
The first section of pin out. The middle part could then be drifted out from the 'open' end.
This then left the very inner seized still in place. This was something of a head scratcher to solve. I tried drilling a small blanking plug hole out in the bottom of the wishbone for a grease nipple and tried to 'hydraulic' it out as you would a spigot bearing in a flywheel for example. As the pin is hollow this didn't work as it simply pushed grease through the hole, and after plugging only pushed it into the other side pin, as there are a pair of pins, both handling 2 shocks a piece.
I knew I'd got some very long M12 bolts in my odds and sods collection so my idea was weld it to the end of the pin and use it with the slide hammer. By some miracle the grease gallery hole up the middle was perfect to tap to M12, so with an M12 tap on several socket bars we tapped the last piece out, then threaded the bolt up the middle and welded in place
With some heat and a good few whacks, out it came! With the hole going right through to the other side, we noticed when greasing dampness around the pin joints, so it was clearly lubricating properly. We tried a drift right through and with sledgehammer persuasion it came out easily. At least we now have one to copy to make a new one if required. All good progress!
Wishbones given some heat and several dosings of WD40 to soak, then pushed apart with a small bottle jack and hammered back with my big hide mallet. I thought I'd like to get them moving at this stage as it'll make it all hugely easier to get back together.
The rear station setup was basically solid, so with torsion bar fitted we clamped up the gaiters we made and absolutely pumped all the suspension points with 5w ATF in an attempt to creep some oil into every bush and pivot. These normally run EP90 gear oil, not grease.
It was good to see oil spilling out of so many of the joints because that means it's actually getting down the built in pipework to where it should.
With the old shocks removed we pressed out the outer bush sleeves with a 20t press, the bushes for the top 'cap' were knackered too so I sacrificed one of my new rebound bump stop cylinders and nicked the bushes from that.
Finally some paint on several hub components, I just had to put the shock together for a picture
Edited by LewG on Sunday 26th March 10:52
Another exciting Friday night applying more of NATO's finest! Shock absorber pin dropped off at a local engineering company to be copied and remade. Annoyingly work's ever helpful health and safety weirdos have locked off our lathe as 'nobody is trained to use it', so that's rather annoying
A small update on activities of late as we've just returned from a few days exploring North Yorkshire.
I dropped the shock pin off for remanufacture some time last week so that's collected now, they seem to have done a nice job of it in EN24 steel so hopefully that works well. I am hoping it will work as a shock absorber mounting pin without further hardening etc, so if anyone has any advice on that it'd be appreciated. In the past I have made knurled punches etc at college and from memory we torch heated them to a straw colour and then quenched them in oil to harden. They still work well now so must have done something right.
In my absence my mate Tyler had some time off work and fair play to him he's been cracking on like a champ, prior to me going we dragged some extra bevel boxes out and the front wheel station ready for stripdown.
The shock pins and bushes on this station are helpfully also knackered no change there
Replacement drives cleaned up and painted with some finest red lead
Something tells me this wishbone pivot hasn't seen any oil in some time
Finally the last torsion bar for this side in pieces.
I dropped the shock pin off for remanufacture some time last week so that's collected now, they seem to have done a nice job of it in EN24 steel so hopefully that works well. I am hoping it will work as a shock absorber mounting pin without further hardening etc, so if anyone has any advice on that it'd be appreciated. In the past I have made knurled punches etc at college and from memory we torch heated them to a straw colour and then quenched them in oil to harden. They still work well now so must have done something right.
In my absence my mate Tyler had some time off work and fair play to him he's been cracking on like a champ, prior to me going we dragged some extra bevel boxes out and the front wheel station ready for stripdown.
The shock pins and bushes on this station are helpfully also knackered
no change there Replacement drives cleaned up and painted with some finest red lead
Something tells me this wishbone pivot hasn't seen any oil in some time
Finally the last torsion bar for this side in pieces.
The last pikky has four what looks like shock absorbers, Does each wheel have four shock absorbers Lew?
Must be really satisfying turning a piece of rusted, seized scrap into a lubricated and freshly painted unit ready for refitting.
I get tired just looking at what you are achieving, never mind doing the work.
Must be really satisfying turning a piece of rusted, seized scrap into a lubricated and freshly painted unit ready for refitting.
I get tired just looking at what you are achieving, never mind doing the work.
Tango13 said:
I recall you're Bedfordshire way? If you're not that far from Bletchly then Quantum Heat Treatment might harden your shaft (Ooo-er missus!!) for some beer tokens.
^^^° Definitely do this, without hardening there's a possibility of shear issues, especially if the pin is under stress a lot.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff