1964 Alvis Stalwart

[eltax91]

MBVitoria said:

LewG said:

Some progress, most of the bits needed to do the next couple of wheel stations were already prepped and painted so just needed finishing touches such as gaiters and clips fitting. Speedo drive and handbrake assembly has been stripped and taken to work to politely use their hot wash. Hopefully they will get a coat of silver paint later in the week. My mate Tyler has been putting in a few evenings to achieve that which is most helpful. The wishbone assembly was freed off a while back and ready to go back on. We refitted this one with torsion bar already in the tube, a job i was expecting to be an utter sod but went remarkably easily! (Tempted fate for the next one now haven't I)

More to follow soon, hopefully before long I'll have a little helper, Gretchen is making sure of it as she's already kindly bought Ava her first spanner

Nice one, congratulations and love the 1st spanner

She's lost her first socket already, somebody bought her a 10mm.

[Gretchen]

eltax91 said:

MBVitoria said:

LewG said:

Some progress, most of the bits needed to do the next couple of wheel stations were already prepped and painted so just needed finishing touches such as gaiters and clips fitting. Speedo drive and handbrake assembly has been stripped and taken to work to politely use their hot wash. Hopefully they will get a coat of silver paint later in the week. My mate Tyler has been putting in a few evenings to achieve that which is most helpful. The wishbone assembly was freed off a while back and ready to go back on. We refitted this one with torsion bar already in the tube, a job i was expecting to be an utter sod but went remarkably easily! (Tempted fate for the next one now haven't I)

More to follow soon, hopefully before long I'll have a little helper, Gretchen is making sure of it as she's already kindly bought Ava her first spanner

Nice one, congratulations and love the 1st spanner

She's lost her first socket already, somebody bought her a 10mm.

I’ll get her half a dozen for her first birthday

[LewG]

Some photos of freshly painted bits, handbrake drums have been resprayed and outer brake bands relined. The cab floor plates should technically be deep bronze green but I've decided to do them in 2k silver as it's hard wearing and a bit brighter inside the cab otherwise it's like entering a black hole.
Started to build up the centre bevel box last weekend which can only be described as fiddly sod, but needed in order to fit the centre wheel station. We intend to do that tomorrow if possible.
I sent a load of parts like bushes and pins away for a quote on getting them remade, not in any massive quantity and had a quote back of over 4k needless to say my budget doesn't quite extend to that at present! Pushing hard for work to mend their lathe so I can make a few bits myself. It's for work purposes, honest!

[Mercdriver]

Good to see you are progressing Lew, hope you and family doing well. Baby teething on a whitworth spanner yet?

Edited by Mercdriver on Saturday 18th November 17:27

Edited by Mercdriver on Sunday 19th November 10:09

[Shadow R1]

Great to see an update on it.

[LewG]

We are very well indeed, thankyou MD. Not quite at teething stage yet but I'm sure that'll be the next hurdle! She turned 3 months on Friday so time has flown by, it seems like an age ago from my perspective but feels like a lot has happened since then.

Pressed the old knackered suspension bushes out of the front shocks today. I was extremely lucky to find 6 NOS replacements via a company called Green Machine Surplus as they seem to be made of unobtainium. When the package arrived they ended up sending 12 bushes and charging me no more, so I was absolutely chuffed with that, many thanks to GMS if you see this!
The new bushes were pressed in and tried for size with one of the remanufactured pins, spot on.
Operation fit centre drive was then underway and would you believe it, a Stalwart job was more difficult than hoped?

The centre in place, it is notoriously difficult to line the tracta joint halves up as once the drive challis is in its very finely machined gearbox hole you don't really have any way of ensuring it's lined up, just by eye and bash it in hoping for the best. The best bit is out in the field during service they would have replaced the whole thing as one unit with brakes, planetary hub and everything but the wheel in place. Christ knows how they managed it, especially whilst covered in mud and being rained on. I thought I'd go for a test run with no joints at all to ensure the challis went into the gearbox ok, even that alone was bloody tight so I ended up putting a slight leading bevel on it with a file all the way round and fine scotchbrite/WD40 to get them agreeing with one another. Once that was OK, tracta joints were fitted and we must have tried 25 times to mate them together with no success. After that we turned the shaft inside to rotate the drive 90 degrees and it went in first try I'm sure after all 6 we'll get the hang of it!

[LewG]

The last bevel box this side going in, this one once cleaned up fitted bob on first try so that was a bonus.

And nutted in place with some tiger seal on the spacer ring to keep the water out.
We then needed to fit the front tracta shaft/fork, this is specific to this wheel station being longer to drive the handbrake drum inside the hull. We went to retrieve that from one the old knackered bevel box in storage.


Sadly as you can see it was in less than great condition so for now I've welded and ground back the faces slowly taking a bit off at a time then getting really fine with 1200 grit paper and oil to match the joint. I have got a mate checking his stocks for me so if they have new then fantastic, if not then we'll have to give this a try. I'm sure there are better ways of doing it but realistically I imagine this will be OK for the relatively light use it'll receive.

We are getting very close to rolling the old lady out now, hopefully at Christmas. Looking forward to that

[Mercdriver]

LewG][url said:

We are getting very close to rolling the old lady out now, hopefully at Christmas. Looking forward to that

Looking forward to it as well Lew, please post pikkies

[Crook]

It’s great to see things back underway

Whilst having a bit of a nostalgic moment I noticed something, Altern 8 go car shopping around the 1 min 30 mark with great results

E-Vapor-8

[LewG]

Brill I've never watched that video all the way through, didn't realise they get chased by some Saracens at the end a full day out of mostly drugs and playing in the best Alvis had to offer making that!

[Shadow R1]

Great stuff, looking forward to it rolling out.

[LewG]

If I'm not mistaken too, a lot of that was filmed in Stafford high street as I went to engineering college there and recognise the buildings in the background!

Cheers Shadow, I feel like that'll be a more worthy update rather than the Groundhog Day of endless wheel station photos

[Stick Legs]

Crook said:

It’s great to see things back underway

Whilst having a bit of a nostalgic moment I noticed something, Altern 8 go car shopping around the 1 min 30 mark with great results

E-Vapor-8

Ahhhh, back when I were a lad you could buy an Alvis Stalwart for £808 and still have enough for some disco-biscuits for later.

[Captain Smerc]

Stick Legs said:

Crook said:

It’s great to see things back underway

Whilst having a bit of a nostalgic moment I noticed something, Altern 8 go car shopping around the 1 min 30 mark with great results

E-Vapor-8

Ahhhh, back when I were a lad you could buy an Alvis Stalwart for £808 and still have enough for some disco-biscuits for later.

got any veras?

[Stick Legs]

Captain Smerc said:

Stick Legs said:

Crook said:

It’s great to see things back underway

Whilst having a bit of a nostalgic moment I noticed something, Altern 8 go car shopping around the 1 min 30 mark with great results

E-Vapor-8

Ahhhh, back when I were a lad you could buy an Alvis Stalwart for £808 and still have enough for some disco-biscuits for later.

got any veras?

Laaaaaavvverly!


Sorry OP.
Back OT.

[LewG]

Front shock pins away being remade as we speak, but some good progress today. Front wishbone assembly sealed up and bolted on, and best of all the centre wheel station in place and pinned in. As usual everything needed a bit of prodding and percussive adjustment to get lined up but another step closer to being back on all 6 again

Edited by LewG on Sunday 3rd December 20:35

[Crook]

It’s great to see that this is a proper restoration rather than a “get it running” project.

Also, impressed with the load bearing qualities of those axel stands!

[Bobberoo]

Still watching, still loving the updates, how's the littleun???

[LewG]

Thanks chaps. I think it's one of those where suspension-wise it's so knackered you know if you bodge it back together you're pretty much wasting your time as it'll come back to bite later, so may as well do a half decent job at this stage.
Little one is doing very well, growing up rather quickly. She's not quite had her first try at the oxyacetylene torch yet but give it time

Lovely new front shock pins made by a local chap, and a very nice job he's done too.

Some reference photos Tyler took of the other side, it's when you see those you realise we've come a long way even though it's taken an age.

Front station and callipers mocked up

Today was spent connecting up wishbones and fitting shocks, lubricating all pivots etc. It doesn't look like much but there is actually quite considerable progress

We wound some preload into the centre torsion bar, I'm a bit unsure about these at present as they are marked with a dot on the tube, and a dot on the bar, we then marked where the reaction arm lined up. They seem to be completely unloaded when fully wound out way before the suspension stops so in my eyes they may need some more 'spring' adding in. That will be something of a nightmare to achieve, so we're going to see how she sits when it's on wheels and dragged outside for a couple of laps of the yard, then decide what to do. Bearing in mind it should sit high with no engine/gearboxes in.
Next step was fit front torsion bar, however mount to the hull was so close to the rubber cap of the centre station tube that the bolt heads would have torn the centre or been completely touching. So after looking at the parts diagrams for a bit, we buggered off home none the wiser

[Mercdriver]

Good to see Lew, keep up the good work, daughter been enrolled for apprentices course yet?