QUANTUM PHYSICS

In another life I read quantum physics. It was a walk in the park compared to comprehending all the permutations of different thread types. I have previously posted about the multitude of sizes, threads and finishes for the fasteners on this machine and now I’m at the stage of gradually reassembling the component parts back onto the mainframe I have discovered yet another thread type. The Villiers engine and the bolts holding the engine through support brackets to the frame as well as the clutch mechanism use BSCy (British standard cycle) thread at 26tpi* which I had-visually- assumed in my ignorance to be BSF (20tpi) and bought accordingly.  Despite fixing many bikes in my youth and much to my shame I never realised that BSCy threads even existed. Apparently this thread type is used where constant vibration could loosen a courser thread.  Anyway I’m not going to ‘spoil the ship …’ by using the rusty and badly corroded old nuts so, contrary to my previous post, I have once again had to order new ones online and in the meantime turn my attention to other assembly jobs.

*Footnote. Isn’t the computer wonderful.  With the aid of a huge magnifying glass I counted 13 teeth over half an inch of the bolt thread and simply entered ’26 tpi’ into google and up came the answer –cycle thread. How did we manage before the internet ?

NOT IF, WHEN.

It had to happen eventually. During dismantling every single fixing or group of fasteners were placed in polythene bags and labelled with their identity and location on the machine, not least so I knew what quantity/size/thread replacements to buy. Now I’m reassembling the component parts onto the mainframe I’m missing the two bolts holding the roller shaft bearing brackets to the frame. Obviously they’re somewhere but after an hour of searching I gave up and ordered a couple of new ones online. They are ½” BSW x 11/4” round head coach bolts and although no longer obtainable in imperial the near identical metric equivalents are plentiful. 

Update. Sods Law. Within minutes of buying replacements the old ones were found !   I know what’s going to happen next, it occurs on every restoration I’ve ever undertaken. When the project is fully finished there’ll be a widget, grommet or something left over in the parts box with no obvious ‘home’ ! 

The old Atco transfers on the machine were removed as each part was prep’d for painting. Those on the petrol tank and fan cowling came off with ease; they looked like they had been stuck on and then painted over by someone whilst intoxicated so could not have been original.  In contrast the Chas. H Pugh transfer on the tool box just couldn’t be shifted without sanding back the lid to bare metal – that was original. 

CHAINSORE

The three drive chains were in such a bad state that I had fully expected to buy new. They were rusty, partially seized and full of crud.  I had assumed that a chain was a chain was a chain but the number of types and sizes is bewildering coupled with inconsistencies in the way suppliers use varying reference numbers or names to identify different sizes and types. Anyway as I’m keen to restore rather than buy new wherever possible I thought I would do my best to clean up these chains. They were first soaked with Gunk followed by neat washing up liquid, thoroughly scrubbed and then all the individual links were methodically cleaned up with the rotary wire brush attachment on my bench grinder. (Don’t try this at home folks, very sore fingers despite wearing thick leather gloves.) Finally they were buffed up with an emery pad and sprayed with oil. Although this task took several hours the end result is indistinguishable from new. All I have to do now is to remember to fix these chains onto the drive cog wheels prior to assembly.

WHAT A PLONKER

This week I assembled the engine and fuel tank mounts between the engine support brackets and then onto the frame. It was important to get all the various parts assembled in the right order and once again it was a case of consulting the video at every stage. Unfortunately when the machine was videoed both prior to and during dismantling some of the rear view assemblies were obscured by the tool box so putting everything back in the right order on the rear ½” bars connecting the engine side brackets to the frame support arms was trial and error. Hopefully I’ve got it right, I’ll soon find out otherwise.

At either end of this bar are the brackets to support the tool box- not the frame stay clips but the flat supporting brackets.  Not for the first time a component has disappeared into the ether and is nowhere to be found after an hour of searching.  Fitting the tool box will be one of the last jobs so if they don’t turn up I’ll make new.

Update. I could easily have deleted that previous paragraph but I’ve left it in just to show what a plonker I have been.  The tool box support brackets (arms) form part of, and were fitted to, the handle assembly weeks ago which has been stored in my office a couple of feet away from my keyboard !

JUMBO JIGSAW

I’m making progress far quicker than expected and with the paint now thoroughly dry I have been putting parts back on the main frame assembly. I would defy anyone who is not familiar with this mower to reassembly all these frame parts in the right order and on first attempt. When dismantling I made a sketch and list of the parts and most importantly the sequence in which they were removed, plus of course the video. Despite continually consulting this list and video I twice had to change parts over –especially the cross bar sleeves - that had been wrongly placed. At the risk of labouring the point videoing during dismantling was the best decision I made in this project. Invaluable.

WHAT A GRIND

This mower has several cross bars with 3/8 or ½”  BSW threaded ends. Inevitably over 80 years the exposed ends of these bars have taken a few knocks causing damage to the thread especially the bar through the front rollers. The new brass nuts I’ll be using can be screwed on with some effort  but being a softer metal than the steel bar this can causes cross threading in the nut  so this week I’ve been grinding down the ends of the bars just sufficient to reach clean thread. The nuts now spin on with ease.

MOHAMED COMES TO THE MOUNTAIN

I have many tender plants in my garden which will soon have to be overwintered in the garage. In addition to those indoors I have a multitude of mower parts spread all over the garage floor, walls and hanging from the ceiling and most of these will have to be put together into sub assemblies to clear floor space for the plants.  So this week I started loosely reassembling various sections.  Never having been very good at puzzles it’s fortunate that I have videos of all these assemblies on my computer.  I can’t take my computer into the garage so all the parts have been transferred indoors for assembling Blue Peter style whilst simultaneously watching the videos. Mrs Grass was so pleased !   

'SIGN- RIGHTING'

The raised lettering on the handle side bar castings had been painted over. I had intended having this highlighted in gold by a local sign writer but as this was yet another expense I thought I would give it my best shot. Despite my less than steady hand I’ve surprised myself with the outcome.  I used plasti-cote B33 brass coloured enamel paint with a very fine artist brush. Fortunately this paint is water based so the inevitable smudged and smeared letter can be wiped over with a damp sponge, dried with a tissue and started again.  And this happened several times.

GRASS BOX WANTED

As the title indicates I'm after a grass box for this mower as I feel it would be incomplete without one.
Ideally for a 16 inch machine but I could modify a wider one if needs be. I would also be able to make an aluminium or wooden box if I had the dimensions or possibly borrow one for a couple of days to use as a pattern. Any offers ? Thanks. 

MEA MAXIMA CULPA

I’ve spent a day assembling the ride-on attachment. Despite my best efforts I’ve had no luck removing the galvanised plating from the seat so I’m having this vapour blasted by a metal finishing’s specialist. When dismantled I kept all the fasteners for this attachment in a polythene bag duly labelled but during assembly I decided that these really were too badly pitted, burred over and rusted for reuse. Having drawn a line under buying any more fasteners and with most of the old ones beyond restoring I’ve resorted to using just a few stainless M8 metric bolts and nuts which I had in stock. Sorry Mr Charles H Pugh for this slight deviation from your original spec but I promise these nasty Euro fixings will be kept to a minimum and confined only to the ride-on attachment.  

The photo -minus the seat- shows the rollers wrapped around with rubber strips for protection. This is easily removed.  Now finished the whole sub assembly has been very lightly misted with WD40, covered with oily rags and stored away in my garage till final attachment to the mower next spring.

I'LL BE SELLING THE BIG ISSUE SOON.

This morning I attended my self petitioned bankruptcy hearing.

Judge:  “ Where’s all the money been spent Mr Grass, booze and women ?”

Me:       “No m’lud, on my Atco restoration, honestly”

Judge:  “Nonsense.  Case dismissed.  Next.”

I’ve tried keeping costs under control but I’m on a hiding to nothing. Just the new fasteners alone have cost more than the mower and they’re way down on the list of expenditure !  There is a plus side however. Having said at the outset that I propose offering the results of my labours to a museum or other worthy establishment I doubt I’ll find any takers so auctioning with funds going to a cancer charity may be my only option. At least I’ll glean a little satisfaction that someone will gain from my penury !   

Having decided to replace the ½” BSW steel nuts with the equivalent in brass I’ve realised that I will also need ½” imperial brass washers.  They’re hens’ teeth.  After hours online unsuccessfully trying to trace these in small quantities it occurred to me that folks at Stationary Engine may help so I posted on their forum. The consensus was that M12 should fit over ½” thread so heeding their advice I bought a pack of ten and they fit, just .  I already had M12 stainless washers but their ID was fractionally too small so I had assumed that the same would apply to washers made by other manufacturers. It seems that ID and OD sizes can vary by a few thou from one manufacturer to another so it’s pot luck if certain metric washers fit over imperial threads. I’ll also be using brass nuts over 3/8” BSW thread for which M10 brass washers are an acceptable albeit slightly slack fit.

ONE IN THE EYE FOR ROYTHEGRASS

The HT lead where it joins the magneto was in a frayed and sorry state. At some time the inner wire must have broken as the ends were twisted together and then wrapped in fabric insulation tape. I haven’t seen that old electrical tape since I was a teenager.  Given that the machine was working when bought I’m reluctant to buy yet another -maybe unnecessary- new part so I tidied up the join and used plastic insulation tape. Fingers crossed it will continue to function.

I was not 100% satisfied with the lacquered finish on the brass fuel tank. It’s a bit dull albeit acceptable but as this is a prominent feature on the machine ‘acceptable’ is not good enough.  I stripped the lacquer off, cleaned up with fine wire wool and then used wadding and polish.  Accepted it will require periodic buffing but the end result was worth it.

I’ve spent an entire day in Sutton eye hospital. Earlier this last week when I was sanding the rollers I wore my ordinary reading specs instead of safety glasses. Biiig mistake. A tiny shard of rusty metal must have got behind the lens and hit my eye and for the past few days it’s been sore and weeping.

The doctor in the A&E at the eye hospital found a ‘foreign object’ and after a local anaesthetic removed it in seconds.  I’m now wearing an eye patch so will be out of action for a couple of days. In my business I insist on operators using proper eye protection so this incident serves me right. (Typing courtesy of Mrs Grass ‘till I can see properly again.)

RUDDY RUST

I’ve tried to think ahead on this project as for example painting all the frame parts early so they can have few weeks to thoroughly dry. Annoyingly I had overlooked the handle side bars which had become hidden in the corner of my workshop.  These are the bars with the raised ‘Pugh…Atco…  B’ham’…..etc  letters in the casting. I intend having this lettering picked out in gold and obviously the green paint will need to be absolutely dry beforehand. Autumn has now set in and my workshop is cold and damp so these bars may have to hung next to a radiator indoors, much to the delight of Mrs Grass !

This week I’ve been de-rusting the other rear roller from the ride on attachment. Not quite as straight forward as first appeared. De-rusting with the power sander then using a large rotary wire brush gave an acceptable finish but a few rusty pin holes and minor indentations remained.  As I propose leaving these as bare steel (as original or were they painted ?) they will need to be lacquered or will rust over in no time. I can’t lacquer over even the slightest trace of rust so the entire surface had to be treated with Kurust  after initial sanding and then lightly sanded again to remove the purple Kurust from the surface* leaving the treatment only in the indentations. And this whole process will have to be repeated on the mowers rear drive roller.  This exercise took a day.

I also appreciate that the lacquered coating will be penetrated and the bare steel exposed the second the rollers are reinstalled and the mower hits the ground so I’ll make removable rubber sleeves to wrap over these as well as the front wooden rollers for when the machine has to be moved.

As if to prove my point I finished sanding these rollers just after sunset and it was too dark to commence lacquering. They were stored in my garage for just 18hours and in that time they were covered with fine specs of rust. So for the third time I have today had to use the rotary wire brush to remove every trace. This time as each roller was finished it was promptly wiped over with spirit and given several coats of lacquer. Anyone who’s carried out bodywork repairs on a car will know that as soon as bare steel is exposed it should immediately be protected by a surface coating or the dreaded rust will inevitably return.

* Too late now but on reflection I would caution against using Kurust where a polished bare steel finish is required.  On the plus side the Kurust does it’s job and penetrates the metal sufficiently to get underneath the rust and protect the underlying metal which is fine where it will be subsequently painted but on the minus side the treatment does stain the steel and despite thereafter being both sanded and cleaned with a rotary wire brush the purple streaking left by applying the treatment with a brush does remain visible albeit faintly.   

LESS INTERESTING THAN WATCHING PAINT DRY.

In any restoration project the day comes when a task becomes mind

bendingly tedious. Today was that day.  There are 5 drive chain wheels/cogs on this machine with a total of a zillion teeth all of which are rusty and slightly pitted. Had the mower been in regular use these would of course have been kept shiny by the rotating drive chains but they’re not and I have to make the best of what I’m faced with. I started by using a small half round file to clean up each tooth individually but after having lost all sensation in both hands within an hour I resorted to a rotary wire brush. It’s taken two days to complete the job and tomorrow all that bare steel will have to be lacquered or the rust will return in no time.

BOLTS, NUTS AND HEADACHES.

  I’m really trying not to regret buying all new fasteners for this machine but I’m on the limit of my patience. However much I order there are always sizes and finishes I’m missing and have to buy yet more.   I’m reasonable with maths but those better than me can come up with a bottom line figure for the number of possible purchases. These are the permutations.

Required: Bolts + nuts + washers + penny washers + spring washers.

Multiplied by:

Finishes. Some in stainless steel, some in brass (and a few in plain steel as neither SS or brass are available in certain imperial sizes.)

Multiplied by:

Thread types: Whitworth, BSW (British Standard Whitworth) -there is a difference with head size, BSF (British Standard Fine) and where BSW is not obtainable UNC (Unified National Coarse) which mate with most BSW threads albeit technically frowned upon.

Multiplied by:

Sizes: 3/16, 1/4, 5/16, 3/8, 1/2 and 5/8”.

And just to add to my woes I’m having to buy minimum packs of a dozen or so where only a few may be required.  When this restoration is finished I’ll have boxes full of now obsolete imperial fasteners I’ll have no further use for.

AN ASIDE

 Forgive me for wandering slightly off topic on this comment. Every year in my business we only buy new modern rotary mowers and if we get a 34 week seasons use before they’re scrapped we’re lucky. Admittedly they’re in use 8 hours a day 5 days a week but everything about modern lawn mowers is insubstantial and designed and constructed for a very finite life. Contrary to manufacturers hype there’s no such animal as a ‘professional’ lawnmower for continual commercial use. In total contrast everything about this Atco is shouting at me “solid”.  Accepted that modern engines and electrics are far superior but having been in such intimate contact with every part of this machine I simply can’t imagine anything ever breaking or failing due to flimsy materials or shoddy construction.  In the 1920’s the concept of inbuilt obsolescence didn’t exist. Goods were made to last because continual replacement was not an option.

Rant over, I feel better for getting that off my chest !

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND SIR ?

 The control cables operate as they should but the outer sleeves are very grubby and frayed. I’m reluctant to replace perfectly good working cables but their appearance will detract on the end product. I’ve just discovered heat shrink tubing. It’s a Polyolefin material which is bought just large enough to slip over an existing cable and when heated up with a hot air gun or hair dryer shrinks up to half it’s original diameter. It’s very cheap so I’ll try sleeving the cables to see if improves appearances. Update. Just sleeved the carb control cable and it now looks like new. I had to very slightly file down the brass nipple at the lever end of the wire for the sleeve to fit over. Few products do ‘exactly what is says on the can’ but this does. Thank goodness they don’t make condoms from this material. Ouch ! 

RUBBER SOLE

 The foot-sole rests on the ride-on are rubber and on this mower split and perished rubber. Also the steel side plates are more rust than metal. I’m told that replacements are available but I’ve decided to use the square section of the oak spindle I bought to make up new ones. To be honest carpentry has always been my first love even from a teenager so making these has been thoroughly enjoyable. Admittedly I have again departed from originality but aesthetically they should look good alongside the matching oak handles, front rollers, tool box and starting handle.Old and new in photo.

Earlier I mentioned that as component parts were removed they were labelled and put into boxes awaiting painting / restoration. Another idea fine in theory !  Anyone familiar with this machine will know that all the cross bars and engine & fuel tank mounts have 3/8”+ or ½”+ ID tubular sleeves all of varying lengths. And there’s dozens of them.  When it comes to cleaning up and painting the whole !*&$*! lot get mixed up and the labelling system goes out of the window ! So now on final reassembly I’ll have a monumental task of working out which sleeve fits where and in what order. That’s for another day but the videos taken during dismantling should help.

NO FREE LUNCHES

I have mentioned a few times that I’ve been using black Hammerite. I bought a 2.5 litre tin on ebay a few months back for about two thirds normal price. Unquestionably this has been thinned down, not a lot but sufficient to still see the metal underneath after one coat.  For comparison I tried some from another old but unopened tin I had laying around and that gave total obliteration with one coat. The seller must have bought a job lot of a reject batch. Sad how some people earn a living.

In my humble opinion Hammerite Smooth is both the best and worst in metal protection. In brush on form out of a can it is unsurpassed, I used it on my Land Rover chassis a decade ago and not a trace of rust has come through - it still looks like it was applied yesterday. In thinned spray form it does no more than colour the workpiece and, short of a dozen coats, affords virtually no protection at all.    

SHOCK , HORROR , I'M CHANGING THE SPEC !

  I’m now going to contradict my earlier comment about sticking to originality. Apart from buying new fixings I’ve decided that most will be stainless steel or brass rather than plain steel. There are literally hundreds of nuts, bolts, washers and assorted fasteners on this machine and the prospect of de-rusting, polishing and lacquering all this bare steel is too daunting to contemplate. If this were a classic car concours competition I would be marked down for departing from originality. But it isn’t and just for good measure I may even use some other polished brass fixings if I think they look better.  C’est la vie !    

As I mentioned at the outset I’m not completing every task in one go but flitting between different jobs. Intermittently over these past few days I have been trying to remove the galvanised plating on the ride-on seat which is patchy and rusty in places. Advice online tells me that soaking in vinegar will dissolve the plating. No it doesn’t, at least not after a week in soak but it does make your workshop smell like a fish ’n chip shop !  And no, lemon juice doesn’t clean alloy.  I will have to resort to a Dremel type rotary wire brush or elbow grease for cleaning the alloy engine casing.

 Once again I’ve been spending far too long trying to decide on a suitable red for the cylinder, chain wheels and clutch discs. By chance I was in Wilkos and noticed a tin of Hammerite smooth red and it was a perfect match for the existing shade. Update. However carefully I applied the red Hammerite the brush marks show, it dries too quickly and in consequence does not leave a good enough finish especially on parts on full view. I’ve had RAL 3020 traffic red oil paint mixed as this gave a far superior smooth lustre. (Just visable top left of photo.) 

 Costs are escalating out of hand ! Whenever I contemplate any project I guesstimate the fiscal commitment if only to know how much to budget.  I have been a mile out on this mower restoration and I’ve hardly started. God forbid it may even come to diverting funds away from my beer and women allowance !  

 Although I’m having new rollers and handles machined I decided to make a matching oak handle to fit over the end of the clutch lever. Not original but I think it should look good. I purchased an oak stair spindle, cut out a section, drilled a centre hole and then shaped it to fit. The end of the clutch lever is flat oval shape bare metal which I ground circular so as to be a jam fit inside the new handle centre hole. I’m happy with the result.

The clutch lever leather pad had virtually disintegrated so the remains were removed and the old rivets were snapped off.  I found an old leather bound blank diary in my loft, cut out a section of the cover and this made an ‘as new’ replacement. I didn’t have any small brass rivets nor was I going to buy a pack of a hundred when I only needed two so I used a couple of brass M3.5 electrical screws, ground down the head just sufficient to remove the slot, slid on a tiny brass washer and after fitting burred over the other end.

 

ROLLOVER DAY

  I’ve fully dismantled the ride-on / seat assembly. The two piece roller came apart easily and after more degreasing I’ve painted the inside with black Hammerite.  I’ve been experimenting with ways to clean the rusted and pitted face back to clean bare steel. More on this later because a few weeks back  I also spent a long time trying to figure out how the machines rear drive roller comes apart and I thought I would have one more attempt this week.

Very rarely do I concede defeat but dismantling the rear roller into it’s component parts has beaten me and I’ve spent a whole day in my failed attempt. Not that anything needs mending as it works perfectly but I want to take it apart to properly de-rust, clean up and repaint.  My advice from fellow enthusiasts is that the centre cog/ratchet pulls off the shaft. Fine in theory but without a cog puller and no luck trying to lever off with screwdrivers it will have to stay put. Furthermore the cams were also impossible to remove from the chainwheel pawl pins. The nuts on the inside of the chainwheel can be locked but the slots in the cams/screws are too narrow for an ordinary  screwdriver to get a firm hold. Doubtless there’s a special tool with more leverage to do this job but I’ll not bother. Or maybe I will make one on a rainy day, I’ll decide later.

 For weeks I’ve been deliberating on how to clean the very rusty and pitted face of the rear rollers. I’ve come up with all sorts of possibilities and even contemplated having a few thou milled off on a lathe. I need not have worried. Taking one of the rollers off the ride-on attachment I wedged this on the floor and then simply used a power sander with a very course grit oxide sanding sheet and sanded about a 15 degree segment at a time. The metal came up like new, even some of the pitting disappeared. On first attempt and despite the roller being ridiculously heavy the force of the sander shot the roller over the wedges and onto my toe. Golly gosh I exclaimed as I limped off to construct a safer jig !  

 Anyway I’m satisfied with the results of my efforts, old and restored in photo.

Sods law. Some of the painted parts were temporarily put outside whilst I was working on the roller inside the garage. Whilst distracted there was a sudden downpour and the fresh paint finish was pitted and ruined. I will now have to wait weeks till the paint is fully dry before rubbing down and painting again.  The machine may be green but air was blue !

TO STRIP OR NOT TO STRIP ?

 I’ve been dreading this week, do I strip down the engine fully or leave as is and clean up the casing ?   I’m not too au fait with engine innards and as it was functioning at the outset I see no point in a total dismantle. So I removed everything from the casing that could be removed and bunged up the holes very tightly with rags. I read somewhere that however tempting never to use a sand blaster to clean an engine as grit will inevitably find its way inside. So heeding this advice I started by soaking the engine in Gunk then scrubbing by hand with a stiff paint brush.

I had already removed the flywheel for cleaning but it’s worth recounting this experience.  I followed the instructions on the OLMclub website but as the engine had been removed it was necessary to clamp the shaft tightly in a vice and then wack the nut undone. This was scary indeed as the first turn to loosen went well but the second turn to prise the conical flywheel mount from the mating taper on the crankshaft took an almighty wack to get it unlocked. I had visions of the entire engine shattering.

When removed the very tarnished brass flywheel had been cleaned up with a polishing wheel on my bench grinder. There’s something very satisfying about polishing brass as the results are instant.On advice from OLMclub "the magneto flywheel contains a pair of permanent magnets and the original Villiers maintenance advice was to place a piece of iron (e.g. a spanner) to bridge across the poles thus preventing loss of magnetic flux."  That's too technical for me but I did as I was told ! 

At this juncture a fascinating discovery. When I removed the flywheel case I noticed some very faint hand writing had been scratched on the inside .It read:

“Reconditioned by R C Whitcombe

1983 September

West Pennard

Nr Glastonbury.

Ellison”  (Don’t know what that word meant)

Thanks Mr R C Whitcombe you did a fine job which, 27 years later I hope to emulate.

The engine fins were badly rusted so these were rubbed down with a wire brush and wet&dry and will be painted with black Hammerite. The  crankcasing being alloy was easy to clean on those sections that are accessible but an absolute nightmare in all the nooks and crannies. As an experiment I’ve left part of it soaking overnight in neat lemon juice and await the results in the morning.

 The spark plug was surprisingly just how it should be. Having over the years wire brushed or replaced hundreds of plugs on the machines we use in the business I’ve learnt to tell just from a visual inspection whether it needs replacing or if the an engine is running rich or otherwise but obviously I’ll test for a strong spark when the engine is installed.
Update. Photo shows engine prior to any restoration work but with the mounting plates re installed. After removing  I noticed that the front port and starboard plates (not front and rear) were not exactely the same vis-a-vis hole alignment, only fractionally out but sufficient to prevent them being interchangeable. So after removing a second time each was marked L and R as viewed from the front.    

The clutch lever mechanism was dismantled for cleaning, painting and replacing all the nuts. A straight forward job except that the four actuating links and fixings* are hardened steel and very difficult to polish. Nevertheless I’m satisfied with the outcome.
*These are yet another thread type ! More on this later.