Raumer's Heavy Vehicles - Unipower Bodywork

[norfolkshire]

Feb 15, 2021 8:41:04 GMT raumer said:

I would say it all went wrong by resting on their laurels. I've seen one of the last engines they built and it looks the same as the first LW engines. Still had the Gardner badges on the side. Just checked and their last engine was built in 1992. Adding the turbo was needed to compete with the other engines coming in but at some point they should have updated the whole engine.

They got a reputation for unreliability with the bottom end failing. Sadly they just hadn't moved with the times.

Very sad, but not unusual in the British Motor Industry, I am afraid.  Now look where we are as a manufacturing Country.

[raumer]

Agreed, a common theme for the British Motor Industry.

There is still a lot of manufacturing in this country, a lot more than people give it credit for. Most of the mass manufacturing has gone but at the cutting edge there is still a lot. Companies like Taylor Hobson, Renishaw, Delphi (diesel), Rolls Royce (not car) etc... still produce the majority of their products here.

[giuliettaevo]

Unfortunately the brexit will also affect those companies if they have European customers.. importduties, more paperwork and longer deliverytimes could be just the excuse for a customer to start looking at other options.

At work we have some british suppliers and it's not as easy to do business anymore. Offcourse there is also the lockdown that's messing things up.

[norfolkshire]

Feb 15, 2021 11:33:47 GMT raumer said:

Agreed, a common theme for the British Motor Industry.

There is still a lot of manufacturing in this country, a lot more than people give it credit for. Most of the mass manufacturing has gone but at the cutting edge there is still a lot. Companies like Taylor Hobson, Renishaw, Delphi (diesel), Rolls Royce (not car) etc... still produce the majority of their products here.

Having been brought up ,in what was then rural North Worcestershire, and been indoctrinated with the saying, "if  yow cor get it in the black country, nobody mecks it", which was literally the truth.

Then bit by bit the major players, for various reasons, closed shop and down the pan things went.

I did establish a list of one-man band outfits, who were craftsmen in their own right, and it was possible to get most things made as one-off jobs.  On moving to rural North Norfolk, it has taken a lot longer to find similar contacts, but they are here; hiding away in small workshops tucked in farmer's yards; even an old mushroom works, where there about 70 - 80 units working away in what are almost poly-tunnels on steroids, and many more.  I business that I use quite often, specialises in stainless steel/aluminium/titanium welding.  He has attracted one car from the USA for work to be done; some from Europe; a large following of UK based owners of American cars;plus all of the exotic cars that you think off, and more.  Trades as ATM Engineering, Beeston.  So yes we do have some manufacturing base, just smaller.  Hey ho.

[raumer]

One of the fun/frustrating things with these vehicles is finding parts.  Although probably a lot easier than cars from the 1980's & 90's.  At least on the earlier vehicles there were common parts used between manufacturers.  Rather than things like an indicator unit only fitted to one model for a year or two and with a complex shape.

The R6 was built with both electric headlights and oil lamps.  Finding oil lamps that look right is fairly easy, finding them in good condition & a sensible price is a lot harder.  They were also fitted to steam engines and vintage cars.  It took a while but eventually a suitable pair turned up on ebay.  The lamps will need cleaning and tidying up but the glass and bodies are in good condition.  We tried them out on the Scammell and then packed them up in to storage.  They do add a nice detail to the R6.  When we eventually have the rest of the lorry done we might look at converting the lamps to led.

[raumer]

Finally the door handles I mentioned a couple of pages ago have turned up. norfolkshire gets the bonus points for identifying the handles and getting it spot on! Step by step details below.



First of all a comparison of the original door handle that was fitted on the left and the new one on the right. As you can see very close in both size and style.




The old one fitted. You can just see the tab that locates the threaded section of the door handle. The new door handle uses two flats instead.



The pan that the handle fits into. This is after I had filed the tab down so that the new door handle would fit. This also creates a flat to hold it into position.



View from behind with the new door handle fitted.



Finally a photo of the new handle fitted to the pan and mounted on the Unipower. Looks the same as the old one. If I didn't have the original for comparison I'm not sure I'd spot the difference.

The passenger side one fits just as well. Whilst I've got the pans & handles off I'm giving them a clean up and repaint. Still probably a few years away from getting the whole Unipower repainted but always good to get the awkward parts done as I go along.

These door handles are also used on Scammell Constructors plus other classic lorries. So I'll pass the details on to the other owners groups. Should help out a few more projects.

[raumer]

Final bit of the door handle saga. I painted up the pans and fitted the door handles in to them. Then went to fit on the Unipower. The passenger side one wouldn't slide in far enough. I hadn't checked it thoroughly enough before.  Stripped it all down and took off the door mechanism. The problem was that the square in the mechanism had a taper and the door handle shaft wouldn't slide in far enough. Looking at the old door handle a taper had been filed on the shaft! So I took off the sharp edges on the end of the new shaft. Then decided to file the door mechanism out to fit. Easily done but annoying. Then all back together again. The old pans had been fitted with some form of sealant between it and the door. Instead of this I decided to find something to use as a seal. Gasket material was far too thin, as was the rubber gasket material we had. But a cork tile was the ideal thickness.

The seals I made up, all the blue is from using engineers blue to try and get the shape. Didn't really help but did make a mess when I forgot I had it on my gloves.



Then finally refitted to the Unipower. Before refitting them I put some paint on the door to cover underneath where the pans go. The Unipower will eventually get painted in it's original RAF colours - RAF grey for the bottom half and yellow for the top.



So that little job is now done and I can finally lock the doors without having to run a massive chain from door handle to door handle across the back of the cab.

[raumer]

On to probably the most time consuming part of any restoration - making a wiring loom. The amount of time taken in thinking it through and planning it out I find is far longer than doing anything else. Especially as I tend to come up with the diagram from scratch rather than copying the vehicles existing one. Mainly because most of the vehicles we have there aren't wiring diagrams for and we add lots of additional items on.

So far we have done wiring looms for 5 vehicles, 3 will crop up on this thread and my Landrover one. The other two vehicles were an Imp and a Davrian race car. The Davrian being the easiest with very few electrical items on it. Because of this we have a nice big box of the different reels of wire, connectors and other bits. I do have one box with all of the tools and bits we normally need for finding and fixing electrical faults. An instrument screw driver, multimeter and a piece of emery paper being the most used items. I'm sure 90% of electrical faults are dodgy earths!

I'll start with the rewire of the Rigid 6, mainly because I can't find any photos of when I did the Unipower. Although I did do the two of them together. And I haven't got many photos of the R6 rewire, but at least enough to start with.

First big positive with the R6 is that it has an original fitment fuse box! I didn't know that vehicles this early had fuses.


The nice stylish dash. And underneath the silver cover in the centre -



A fuse box. 6 fuse positions that use fuse wire. On the back of the silver cover is a holder for spare pieces. Above the fuse positions you can see five toggle switches and the contacts they switch in to. Sadly I don't have any more photos of this set up. But very neat and easy to get to.

On to the actual rewire. The first thing we did was to come up with a list of items we needed to wire in and what switches were already in place.



After that it was time to come up with a diagram to work from. Done in powerpoint and just has the basic details.



We did the dash wiring and most of the connectors sat in the living room at home. But for the lengths we did them on the vehicle. Especially on a 30ft long vehicle it's a lot easier to feed the wire through and then cut to length. To cover the wiring we use split braided sleeve. This looks good, offers good protection and has the advantage that it is easy to add another wire in easily. We also used superseal connectors for things like the light connections. Easy to take apart and reliable. All hide out of sight so still looks original.

Originally the Scammell was built with no indicators, no brake lights and only oil front sidelights. For safety we decided it was a good idea to add some modern led lights to cover these functions on top of the original lights.

At the rear we did it by taking all of the rear wires in to a fuse box mounted in the chassis rail. Then splitting to go to the original rear side lights and to go to a trailer socket. Then we made up a trailer board to sit across the back.



This is first fit so the wiring is very messy. But you can see the trailer connector and the highly visible trailer board. It's on a couple of brackets so it is easily removed at shows. Then the trailer socket tucks up in to the chassis. Gives us high visibility on road and originality when parked up.

On to the front. We made up a pair of brackets to mount led side lights and indicators. The idea was to make them removalable and to help we fitted 3 pin superseal connectors.



They are not that noticeable so we will change the brackets and make them a permanent fit. Makes a huge difference to driving on the road.

I'll take some more photos of the wiring loom in place and some of the details in the next couple of days. Plus at some point we need to remake the rear trailer board, we had a minor accident with it. But the idea works.

[Rich]

I found with those modern light units on old trucks, that if you tint the lenses out a little with film or paint, they very quickly disappear on the truck but are bright enough to combat the issue of being tinted in the first place. The trailer board is a great idea.

[jamesd1972]

The other thing that is great about the modern LED stuff is how little juice they need, so extra lights don’t add up to a lot. Redid our trailer with led bulbs as the LR has a bodged trailer connector with no relays which solved the issue with indicators. Only issue they spit out is needing an electronic relay.
Nice progress, the tractor needs a rewire but not high up the list, as a new battery and a trickle charger masks the Dynamo not working pretty well - the joy of old diesels that need no electricity to run.
Keep the updates coming different and interesting.
James

[tom13]

Great threads. That Kraz is amazing.

[PHUQ]

Handles look smart, looking forward to seeing the rest of it matching

I hadn't seen the fuse box on the R6 before (not with the cover off anyway), that's unusually user friendly for a Scammell! And rather nice too.

[raumer]

May 4, 2021 11:10:20 GMT PHUQ said:

Handles look smart, looking forward to seeing the rest of it matching

I hadn't seen the fuse box on the R6 before (not with the cover off anyway), that's unusually user friendly for a Scammell! And rather nice too.

Hello Matt. I did pop up and look at the wiring on the UP today, forgot that I need to tidy the inside a lot! Plus take the wings off for repair and painting. It does now have shiny door handles and air filter.

I should point out to everyone else following this thread that Matt has been a key part of the madness from day one with the heavy vehicles.  Including helping to steer the R6 when it was delivered.  And come to think of it steering the Pioneers as well.  Now when do we all get to see photos of Mud?

[raumer]

A few more photos of the R6 wiring and a few bits I had forgotten.

First of all a view of the trailer plug tucked up in the chassis.



Does still need tidying up, in my defence I did finish the rewire on the last free day I had before it went out to it's first & so far only show in our ownership. You can also see an earthing block that we fitted to make the rear wiring easier. The earth block is screwed in to a wooden part of the body. The R6 has some light fittings that are made of wood. Seemed odd initially but wood is an insulator and was readily available whereas there were a limited number of plastics at the time.

Next is a shot of the two electrical junction boxes.



There is the original Lucas round connection box that has the side lights and indicators going through it. The fused box is for the brake lights. One wire coming in and then splitting out for the two rear lights & the trailer board. Again I do need to still tidy it all up and heat shrink the connectors on. You can also see the coiled up wire. This is for the original rear sidelights that we have not yet refurbished and refitted.

And as we are talking about brake lights. Here is the brake switch.



Nothing was originally fitted so time for a bit of ingenuity. The previous owner had a brake switch like this fitted at some point but nothing was there when we got it. The switch is a Lucas one that just relies on the centre strip being pulled. This makes a contact between the incoming voltage and the output to the lights. The spring stops the movement pulling the switch apart. The jubilee clip is on the main brake rod that runs to the rear wheels from an air actuator. Works well and is simple to check that it is working.

One thing we didn't have was an indicator switch. There was a spare hole in the dash so we have mounted the indicator switch there.



The switch is a bit modern but we had it lying around. Again at some point we'll redo this bit. But for the time being it works.

A better view of the dash showing the main switches and the etched labels for them.



An example of how the finished bits of wiring look. This is the various bundles of wires going down from the dash and through the floor. Again the loose wires need tidying up, this is becoming a common theme!



And a really neat bit of wiring. This is the drivers side wiper motor, no wiper motor fitted to the passenger side.



I'll do one more post on the wiring later showing the battery setup.

[llwynogmon]

OCD time folks, even though the Phillip's head screw and corresponding screwdriver were patented in the USA in 1932 and 1933 respectively, ( I did look this up) to me they still look out of place on a 1930's vehicle when the majority of makers would have used a slotted screw.
Having said that, you're doing a fantastic job in preserving these vehicles.

[melle]

They're not Phillips screws but Pozidriv, that's why...

[raumer]

The pozidriv screws do look completely wrong. They were the nearest to hand when I was doing the work. The plan with the indicator switch is to have something that doesn't need screws eventually. The light up switch is completely wrong for the era!

[llwynogmon]

Jun 6, 2021 15:56:20 GMT melle said:

They're not Phillips screws but Pozidriv, that's why...

I did notice, after I posted. Pozidrive patented in 1962 by GKN, way too modern.

[raumer]

Apologies for the long delay in updating this thread.  Life has been a bit hectic but on the plus side I have a job and best bit is I get to work from home.  This does slightly expand the area for house shopping.  Although will try to stay around Gloucestershire and adjoining counties.

On with the progress.  This time I have a few photos of the Unipower's wiring loom.  First some photos of what was there before.  Note that we had to do quite a few tweaks to get everything working after we got her.  She started okay but a few issues with lights etc...  And removing most of the orange flashing beacons.  I think she had 3 when we got her which is a bit excessive, although I think only one worked!




Wiring going up to the drivers side wiper motor.  Which will be familiar to anyone who has played with Series 2 & 2a Landrovers as they are the same Lucas units.


The original fuse box and relay mounting.  Difficult to get to, wiring was very messy and lots of wires not doing anything.  Plus very corroded when we first got her.


Probably the neatest bit of original wiring going to the headlight and sidelight/indicator units.


You can see a jumble of earth wires going to an earth point mounted on the front bulkhead.  With a wooden cab it does mean you have to run separate earths for stuff.  But the cab is naturally insulated.  I'm used to it with having done the wiring on a couple of fibreglass monocoque cars before.  I find it easier as there is always a complete circuit.  No looking for odd earth paths.


An awful photo but you can just see an out of focus piece of angle iron bolted to the wooden cab bulkhead with an earth lead going to it.  The earth lead comes up from the starter motor.  This bar takes the earth from one side of the cab to the other as well as giving a nice mounting points for earths.


The other side of the bar showing the main earth point on the passenger side.

So that was the old setup which after we had got the bugs out of it worked well for a few years.  But the intention had always been to rewire her and put in a decent fuse box.

The next post will have a couple of photos of the new set up.

[raumer]

Now time for the new wiring loom.  The planning for this one was done in the same way as that for the R6 so I won't go in to the details.  A few differences as there was more to work with and more limited space.  Plus we were changing the indicators and their location at the same time.




The wiring going along the inside of the chassis rail.  The clips are original, neat and simple.  The outer braiding is the split type which makes life a lot easier.


The wiring going to the headlight and new sidelight.  You can see the connector for the headlight to the left where it goes back in to the body.  This does mean we can now remove the light units or the whole wing without having to fiddle with disconnecting wires etc...  I will put up some other photos later of the changes to the side lights & indicators.  Whilst we did the rewire we took the opportunity to return them to the original types.


This is one of the biggest changes to the wiring.  A nice large relay to control the main power feed.  This is switched by the ignition switch and feeds power to one side of the new fuse box.  The other side of the fuse box is constantly live for things like the brake lights.  Beside it are two relay & fuse blocks.  One for each headlight.  Neat and simple and made the wiring a lot simpler.  Can't remember where I got them from but they were relatively cheap and now mean that the light switch doesn't have the full current going through it.


First thing to note here is that the wiring is a mess!  I got it all working, then left it so I could make a few tweaks.  Did that and have never got round to tidying it up!  It is the next job on my list to do with her.  But I am getting distracted working on the R100 at the moment.  And she does work so why mess with it........
I struggled to find somewhere to mount the fuse box.  Here it does stick out when the door is open but I can easily check things and change fuses.  So it's probably staying there.  But I will tidy up all the wires and get it looking a bit neater.  It should only take an afternoon or so to sort it all - assuming I don't decide to change anything!

The two red wires feed the two sides of the fuse box.  One side switched by the relay on the bulkhead and the other being live.  The top of the fuse box has the earth connections all fed by one earth lead coming in.  Wish I had used one of these fuse boxes on the last vehicle I rewired.  Makes life a lot easier.  Since the rewire it has all worked faultlessly, a huge improvement over before.  I think before there was always a wire to check or just uncertainty that everything would work each time she went out.

I will make sure to put up some photos after it is all tidied up!