Hello Ray,
I will look into vermiculite but I do not think that it is strong enough, perhaps too brittle. This does have to be very strong as it takes the weight of the engine and the steam generator. I cannot risk anything that will break or it could cause a fatal accident! The rest of the car is almost built around it. I have it bolted in with three 5/16th inch bolts at each end and a 5/16 bar through its length about 1 inch from the bottom. Looking at the section of wood that I have just removed, I do not think that the grain was straight enough and hence it has warped.
I have taken apart the last board which had copper coating still on it. I can reuse the copper and the wood is in better condition than the one that I have just removed. I will get some new wood today from the very good wood suppliers in Falmouth who supply wood for yacht building.
Bob



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/30/17 02:59AM by Steamcarbob.

24.2.2017
Slowly progress is being made in my workshop. The 1902 White Model “B” Surrey has its new copper coated oak central beam fitted which supports the engine and the steam generator. It also holds the throttle and the steam exhaust pipe coming out of the engine conducting steam to the condenser. The latter two tend to get hot enough to burn the wood and last time caused much warping. I have a much better bit of oak this time and hope that it will outlast me!
Of course each part such as the throttle were taken apart and serviced as I went. It has all new clack valve balls too which is quite a treat for this old car which tends to be rather neglected for servicing as it is ready to go at short notice if any of the others fail.
I found that many parts such as the steam pipe line did no longer quite fit and needed fiddling and adjusting as the measurements of the holes was clearly not exact last time – this time I used the copper coating with its holes already in place probably being original. A quarter of an inch out is plenty to disturb the fitting of the steam pipes!
The car now has oil in its oiler and tomorrow I will get my grandson's help to set it up and test it. I also need to do the same with the 1903 car which I have yet to test since its servicing.

In the meantime I have managed to sort out the towing system on my new tow horse – a BMW X 5 which seems actually slightly larger than my Land Cruiser! I am told that they are very good at towing; we shall see as my brother and I intend to go to the Isle of Man in April with the 1902 White and his 1902 Steamobile both in my trailer. Nick Howell is also taking his 1902 Toledo so the far west of England will be going in 1902 veteran steamers.

The 1908 White still has no rear axle insides as they are somewhere in the USA going back to Oklahoma from whence they were sent as someone in the postal service in England wrote the wrong address on the letters that were supposed to come to me to pay customs and collect the parcel. They say “claim the money for it” but do not realize that I may not be able to find those parts again. So the car still sits on a Morris Minor rear axle and can go nowhere.

Next week I hope to get started on Billy’s winter service. I need to remake some steam pipes and do a few small modifications as well as go through the engine in detail. It will need all parts servicing and new clack balls etc. It is quite vital on this car that the throttle shuts completely and that the flowmotor is working well. Also I need to get the thermostat working better as it tends to run away with the temperature when used in anger even with the steam pressure and throttle reduced. Last year I found a cracked cylinder at this stage. I have no more spare!
My new blocks for the car are at the pattern making stage so are not likely to be ready for a while yet. There were many cracks both inside the blocks and down the cylinders so we are beefing up quite a few parts as well as using better metal.
I have had to cancel Montlhery in May for Whistling Billy. I was looking forward to going on the banked track and they were keen to have the car there. I hope to be on full song for the next event there in two years’ time.
Bob

7.03.2017
This week my progress has been slow but hopefully solid. I have taken the steam pipes off Billy which is no simple job as they end up almost welded together. Using copper washers in the steam joints at least makes them all undoable one way or another even if I get some leaking steam when it is warming up, usually to seal when up to operating temperature.
The first step for removing the nuts which have been well soaked in penetrating oil for a few weeks, after the spanner with an extension tube on it has no result, is a 2lb hammer on one side of the nut while it is being attacked from the other with another similar hammer, on all the flats if possible. If it still does not shift, it is heated red hot. This worked with all the joints this time but the last result with failure of these methods is splitting the nut with the angle grinder.
These nuts threaded 1 1/4 inch X 14 tpi on Billy’s steam line are suffering from the same problem as the insulation; severe sudden overheating. I set the car up fine as for the touring cars and the temperature is maintained at about 750 F(400deg C) but when used in anger we get half way up the hill climb or going well on about the second or third lap on the track and suddenly the heat runs away. The system is fine for touring but I am not so sure that I should not have stayed with the early regulation system as Billy used in 1905 with the fuel control on the thermostat rather than using the flowmotor. I probably would have had a lot less trouble!
I have now replaced the original style copper thermostat rod with what many use now; a stainless steel tube with a steel rod inside. Stainless steel has the same expansion as copper and the tube is pinned to the central rod at each end. The center rod has a gap in the middle of about 1/8th inch. This results is the expansion of the stainless tube pushing the steel rod. The cast iron casing (SG iron now), namely the steam pipe part of the thermostat, is the plain iron part which it expands against.
I have made a slight modification this time. I machined out of silver steel the keyed and threaded adjustable end and tapped the end of the tube 5/16 Whitworth. This means that the end screws tight into the tube and takes the strain rather than the pin. I then pinned it through the thread. This is adjustable to get the rod about right on assembly and possibly later before it invariably seizes up but once set up there is really no need for adjustment.
The business end which moves the lever to open the water bypass valve was inserted into the tube with a small brass shim to keep it central and then pinned. I did not fix the central rod so firmly a while back and a rivet pin broke, hence the extra modifications. This rod is of silver steel and seems to remain smooth and polished so that it should be able to move in its packing.
The next problem to sort was the packing glands. For the packing in the water valve end I had used a PTFE based packing which had burnt to a solid black mess. It seized up the thermostat so much that I destroyed the rod getting it out; see the picture of it twisted with another original one and the new one. It was jammed into the nuts at both ends and neither could be undone without turning the copper rod.
This time I have used what is supposed to be an unburnable graphite packing –indeed it seems not to burn in a flame. For the adjusting end I used asbestos string with grease and graphite added.
Hopefully, now again I will have a fully functional thermostat which I last rebuilt in the middle of the last season! I wondered if the bypass hole in the water bypass was too small for Billy but when I adjusted it to run cold it worked fine and sat at about 250C indefinitely.
I reassembled the thermostat ready for the next stage. I will run a die up the threads which should be alright still and then I need to tackle the insulation. Some of the large steam line nuts we had nitrided but it seems to make little difference!
I have tried various types of modern insulation but the results on this car have been either that they melt or disintegrate with the vibration. As you see here, I have tended to go back to the dreaded asbestos but am not happy doing that. The other steamers seem to cope alright with an initial thin aluminium wrap followed by Kaowool or similar and a bandage with copper wire binding and then smoothed with fireclay and painted with several layers of white emulsion. This I have found as good as anything in the past but not on Billy. I am open to suggestions. I have tried to get some insulation and paint used in the navy for super-heated steam but as yet without success. It seems that one can buy insulation for long runs of superheated steam pipe but short bendy vibrating pipes are not so easy.
In my pictures of the thermostat and some other pipes, these all looked smart, almost like new, before the last two events of the season! Similarly the nuts were painted black with a “heat proof paint” and are now well rusted.
I am removing the original pyrometer which has to be on the steam pipe going to the throttle as I am unable to read it when on the track and have fitted a large steam temperature gauge. This will simplify my steam line with another modification to the blow off valve take-off so that I can hopefully stop burning away the firewall in front of the engine. The fire walls, as well as their basic function, protect the driver against heat from the steam generator and any steam leaks around the engine. These were problems that I did not see when building the car. I was almost cooked one hot day in France a couple of years ago!

12.03.2017
We had the first reasonable day today with the mist and rain of the last couple of weeks clearing. The sun shone but there was still a strong chill wind but good clothing sorted that!
I steamed the 1902 White. It seemed to get up steam quickly and easily but I could not go far. On tightening the chain and resetting the engine position with the new mounting board, the Stephenson’s link lever was out of place. I had attempted to sort it before steaming but overdone the adjustment. I had to reset it to “go forwards” more easily.
I then drove a few miles around Sancreed but lost steam on the way up to the Beacon. Very simply, I was over keen and had forgotten that on this car one must not open the throttle to give less than 180 psi of steam or it will use all your reserve steam and water. I had in my wisdom allowed the later style throttle with a 5 start spiral in it to open too far. Bessie can maintain about 200 psi on the hill if adjusted correctly but dropping the pressure to 160 psi by over opening the throttle, it will suddenly start going down further as the steam temperature cannot be maintained.
Temperature rules over pressure on a White!
This car originally had a throttle like a petrol car valve with two small oblong holes (about 1/16th inch diameter) set in the angled face 180 degrees apart with similar holes in the seat. Rotating it opened or closed the throttle. If one could drill these accurately, which was not easy, these early throttles were quite good and very gentle but had a tendency to leak. Whites retro-fitted many early Whites with the later type of throttle although they can easily be opened too far for the small early steam generator. I had made a throttle lever with two holes for adjustment and used the one that gives the faster opening to the throttle, another mistake to be corrected!
Resetting my aging brain to this car’s system, it really went quite well! I did not recover enough steam to get up my very steep drive on a good short hill after coming down a long lane, so I carried on to the top of the hill to build up the steam. I then turned around and came down the hill with plenty of good hot steam and climbed my drive easily.
I now need to cure a couple of steam and water leaks, reset the Stephenson’s link motion, probably steaming with the wheels jacked up on my ramps on jacks to get it all set more accurately. I specially made these for this car. I will also reset the throttle linkage before going out again.
On cars like Billy one cannot use all the steam but even the 1908 White can lose the steam temperature if pushed too hard.
I am at present preparing the car for the Isle of Man trip (April 16th to 21st) where I will remove the rear seat over the road and put my black period trunk on so that we can fit this and John’s Steamobile in the one trailer.
Bob

27.3.2017
The AGM has come and gone with no serious problems. It was good to meet many members of the club again but it is getting noticeable that the average age is creeping up. We need some more young blood in the club!
We stayed at Peter Stevenson’s house and much admired his work on the three 1909 White bodies and his new pilot lights. Two of the bodies are for Peter’s two cars and the third is for Chris Relf’s, the x–Francois de Backer 1909 White. The body is really very intricate with its jointing that will probably hold the body together even without glue, almost certainly done by Whites to combat the effects of heat on the structure. Around the steam generator, it is much more complicated than a standard Edwardian body.
I have been working on the 1902 White. The position of the Stevenson’s link now allows full opening of the valves in the forward position but not quite going backwards. This should be a better compromise allowing more forward adjustment although I tend to run it on quite a lot of cut-off most of the time. I might need to adjust it more finely to get just the right setting for general touring.
The throttle lever is now shortened on the bottom of the hand control rod. The throttle controller is like a grandfather clock handle operated by the right hand. I have cut the long part off so that I will not make the same mistake again and have it opening too far and too fast dumping all my steam. The alternative to this is to make a new throttle tip out of Monel metal with a longer tip with less taper which would give a similar effect. I wonder if White did this when they retro fitted these cars with the later throttles.
I have adjusted the position of the hand valve for the hand water pump where a pipe end was also leaking. I had difficulty reaching it with my inflexible aging body as it was set lower than it had been, just off the floor. My tweaking the pipes resulted in one joint on the pump giving up but I had expected that twenty years ago as the old thread was poor. I increased the size of the taper thread and made a new fitting. All is sound again and it is better that it gave up now than on the road.
The next job was a leaking joint on the exhaust before the condenser. That was soon sorted with a new O-ring for washer.
The leaky condenser on this car is harder to solve. Unlike the post 1905 cars, it does not run with a vacuum and has no valve to hold pressure or vacuum. The frame of the condenser is made from brass which is too thin and too soft to seal between the bolts. I use a soft cork gasket and it needs occasional tightening but always seems to leak in a new place so it keeps dripping on as part of its character! This was White’s first effort at a condenser and not everything was perfect. I am very reluctant to modify it. The 1903 White has a stronger condenser structure but still does not run at a vacuum as that came in 1905.
I have yet to temporarily replace the rear seat which hangs over the road with my large black vintage trunk so that the car fits in my trailer with the Steamobile. The seat would hit the front or rear body of the Steamobile but the trunk is flush with the wood frame of my car. It is also very handy as our weather gear and junk fit into it.
This week I will try a further test run. If all is well, the car should be ready for the Isle of Man tour only leaving my trailer which is now 15 years old to be serviced after winter storage.

Rod Burnley has been busy with Billy’s new blocks. We are at the stage where the CAD drawing work is all but finished and the casting patterns are being machined with the nine inserts in the pattern. These will be standard 1907 and 1908 White 20hp blocks but made stronger than the originals and with four drain cock lugs added which could easily be removed if one did not want them.
The blocks will also fit the 1905 and 1906 engines; the only difference being that the LP slide valve is replaced with a piston valve which is more efficient. The strengthening is following observations on the damage and cracks on the x-rays on Billy’s blocks. Some sections especially on the LP cylinder were remarkably thin partly from heat and corrosion.

Would anyone wanting any of these blocks please contact me.

10.4.2017
Things are on the move! My 1908 White rear axle parts, having travelled from Oklahoma to Cornwall and been returned to the USA after they sent the notification of its arrival to the wrong address, are again in Cornwall. I have paid the customs duty and they should be here tomorrow! Unfortunately it looks as if I will still have to have a pinion made.
I had a squeak in the rear axle of my 1902 White. I came to the conclusion that it was from the modern disc brakes fitted in about 2002 after it had run away for the third time with me (and three times with the original owner Sir Charles Ross). The single bronze brake drum on the chain wheel is not, and indeed never was, adequate for stopping the car even without the breakages that usually caused the problem. The brake had to be used with the car in reverse to slow it on a steep hill. The alternative is to let the car sit in a museum but she has done a lot of miles with me and been quite reliable.
I removed, stripped down and cleaned the disc brake calipers replacing the shoes before refitting them. These needed a good servicing after 15 years use and one disc pad was absent without leave.
While the disc brake calipers were off the car, I ran the engine on compressed air again as the car was still jacked up. The squeak was still there! It turned out to be a slight movement in the new right hub. I made the new rear hubs last year and some movement has developed. There is no room for shimming but I think that I may have to make a slightly larger key. These are not on a taper but can go nowhere. A little steam sealer temporarily stopped the squeak with some tightening of the wheel nut. At least the squeak is now located.
Yesterday over 40 people from the Cornwall County Car Club came to have a look at my Whites and workshop. Nick Howell came along to assist me and we had a good afternoon. The members seemed to enjoy themselves too. The four Whites and my son Michael’s 1914 Stanley show quite well the development of the motor car through the veteran and Edwardian period besides being all steamers.
Preparations are well on the way for our Isle of Man trip. Nick on his Toledo and my brother John on the Steamobile are busy sorting steam and water leaks. The trunk now temporarily replaces the rear seat on my 1902 White. The big question is: is it still a “Surrey” without it? Whites advertised this rear seat as “for your man”, he sits over the road and is unable to see where he is going. Some cars had extension air and water pumps fitted so he could do any pumping required in the back! Most who ride on the seat seem to enjoy the experience!
This week we have grandchildren visiting, then Chris Relf and I will be off on Friday to Lifton with the 1902 White in the trailer. We will load the White with the Steamobile behind it in the one trailer with little room to spare but the load is usually reasonable balanced and should tow alright. We took these cars to the South of France like this a couple of years ago. John and Anne will be with us on the long trip north on Saturday but at least we will be out of Cornwall and on motorway.This way the travelling and boat costs are halfed and we will have three drivers if needed for the long stints.

Impressive shedful Bob


Mike



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 04/10/17 04:38PM by Mike L Clark.

24.04.2017
Those who did not go to the Isle of Man missed a very enjoyable week. We have just returned from what hopefully will be the first of many such events organized by Chris Wedgwood. The cost had put many people off but rather late in the day we heard that deals had been done and that the cost of the trip over and accommodation could be paid in advance at a much reduced reasonable cost.
We travelled over the water for less than three hours on a fast catamaran at about 30mph with two steam cars in my trailer; my 1902 White Model “B” Surrey and John’s 1902 Steamobile. After initially being sent by the Satnav up the mountain on the TT course which was closed for roadworks, we arrived late Saturday evening at Ramsey to be told that the Satnav and telephones are both difficult on the island. Mobiles on the island are no problem! We retired to bed, taking the cars up to the old airfield at Jurby the next morning.
Chris Wedgwood has been very busy restoring the Whites for the owners, at present mainly mechanical work, and he is rebuilding several 1909 and 1910 White engines (“O” and “OO”). He has worked on Serpollets and other steamers also and hopes to start work on the remains of a Doble that he has. He is clearly a very capable engineer and does lots of research before tackling a problem. Chris has built a steam motorcycle for record breaking. It is quite a machine and he hopes to do at least 120mph. We need to persuade him to do an article on it for our magazine. He too has been physically damaged by a motor cycle accident. We heard a lot about them over the week and we hardly saw a road fit for 100mph yet alone average speeds of 120+mph. The TT roads certainly had a much better surface than the other roads.
We arrived at the fine new Motor Museum run by Dennis Cunningham and his son Darren. We had free access all the time and there was a lot to see in petrol, diesel and steam, two and more wheels.
Next door to it was Chris’ temporary workshop where he had been for less than a month. Sitting there were six more White steamers! All the museum and workshop staff were very helpful especially Chris, Darren and Mike.
Malcolm Ranieri was there for the week and I expect that he got some good pictures for Old Glory!

The Whites at the site in date order were;
My 1902 White model “B” Surrey
Arnoud Carp’s 1904 White model “D” with American body
The Ward brother’s 1904 White Model “E” (not running this week)
Another White 1905 Model “E” was in the Museum (not running this week)
John Saunders 1909 White Model “O” with English Cann & Co body ( x-George Milligan).
Chris Ashford's 1909 White Model “0” with the American body
Alfie Cheyne’s 1910 Model “00” White with the American body
Also present were
Nick Howell’s 1902 Toledo
C 1904 Turner-Meisse, not running, it was the late Dennis Wedgwood’s car
The x-Mike Clark Stanley 2 seater C.1909 style now owned by Chris Wedgwood and this week driven by Stuart Gray.
Bob Bruin’s condensing Stanley C. 1919, over from Holland.
Outside our hotel in Ramsey sat Tommy Dreelan’s rig: a very large caravanette with a widening center section towing a trailer with his Speed Six Bentley in it. Neither of the Dreelan brothers brought their White steamers but it was good to see them at the event.

After looking around the museum, we steamed locally and chatted on the first day before retiring back to The Ramsey Park Hotel. From there we walked into town and we all met up at a local pub by the harbor to enjoy the very good local beer. This became our evening ritual which we continued to enjoy all week. During the week we had two Italian, two Chinese and two French meals which were all good and but a short walk behind the pub.

On the next two days we went on short tours around the top of the island and then down to the west of the island. The three later Whites were driven each for the first time by their owners who were hoping to tour for the week. None had driven a White before!
Alfie shot off only to break his valve gear on the first day. Chris Wedgwood repaired it but he bent it again on the second day.
We could see that Chris Ashford had a poorly set up bending propshaft which I did point out but he went off and bent it properly, denting the water tank. Chris Wedgwood did the repairs and fitted another propshaft but next day the hand water pump bracket with its clacks on it was found to be fractured, so his week was ended.
My brother John managed to scorch the Steamobile’s boiler on its first test run after three miles. He had only just repaired it and it will obviously need ferrules which it does not have or, more likely, a new boiler. He then went out with John Saunders in the 1909 White and they had a problem on a steep hill with blowbacks. The pilot light had cracked a tube. Again Chris came to the rescue.
In the meantime Arnoud, Stuart Gray driving the X-Mike Clark Stanley and Bob Bruin were going well. My little 1902 White was going well on the flat and light hills but struggling on the steep ones with its 6 hp more than usual. Running out of steam oil on the hill had finally stopped me this time. I stopped just by John Saunders car which was on a long steep hill with padded crash barriers as it was on the TT course. I gave him the diagnosis of his problems. He had gone out with no tools – not a spanner, screwdriver or pliers! It was a good job that John was with him to help or that car could have been severely burnt!
As we were stuck on this steep hill on the bend, suddenly sirens were going and speeding police cars, ambulances, fire engines and recovery vehicles went by going as fast as they could. We went on up the road towed by a very kind chap called Derrick Whittle as by then I had cold steam and would have struggled. We got up over the hill only to be diverted. A motorcycle had hit a car further up the road. We were told that they cut the top off the car.
We were sent down a narrow road with a steep downhill. Near the bottom some 6ft flames came out of both chimneys and from under the back of my car as I turned the fuel on again. I presume that the fuel had slowly dribbled into the burner as a liquid and then ignited as I turned the fire on full again. It has done it before. I turned the fuel off and kept going as the fire died down. I could have been burnt or had to use a fire extinguisher if I had stopped! Apparently it looked quite good from the car behind me! John went on with Mr. Whittle and was told stories of the motorcycle accidents and deaths at each corner. He towed me up another very steep short hill and found me some water. A motor cyclist had been smashed up in their garden last year (the helicopter landed on his lawn) and two had been killed landing in next door’s garden, one had lost his head! This was in Kirk Michael. It seems that these motorcyclists do not value their lives very highly! When injured with bones sticking out they try to persuade their rescuers to put them back on their bikes!
Now filled with water, I had a good drive back from there.
I had ruptured a rubber pipe on the steam line to the condenser on the first day and on the second the new pipe also broke.
The next day we more or less had a day off. John took his boiler out confirming that he could do no more before going home. I had a good look at my car and found that I had fitted the condenser return pump the wrong way around so I was pumping against the flow with renewed clack valves fitted the week before. This is easy to do as the in and out fittings are identical, the clacks just only work one way. This condenser does not run at a vacuum as the later ones do but has an exhaust overflow into the chimney so the solution was less obvious. I had not done that before! The water problems then ended and performance improved probably mainly because of the water tank warming up with the returned condensate.
The following day we drove the modern car around the island to have a look around. We went down the West coast via Kirk Michael, the home of the late John Walton who wrote the magazines “Light Steam power” and Peel to lunch at Castletown.
We then headed towards Douglas. On the way we went over a bridge and around to the left where there were nice new and neat vertical black and white panels with a neat hole in the middle that just fitted a motorcycle. The fields on an estuary were about 50ft below! We hoped that someone had had a look over the side. We could hardly stop as we were in traffic.
After Douglas we went on to meet the heavy haulage boys towing their 120 ton load. There were three large Fowler crane engines towing a solid rubber tired trailer with steering at both ends with a train on the top. Mike Dreelan was driving his leading engine and I believe that Les Searle was the brake engine at the back, I am not sure who was on the second engine. We passed them in a lay-by where one engine had a bearing running hot and then waited for them to go by. We then followed on.
On Friday we had our steam cars outside the Museum and the engines steamed along with their load. They were going over the mountain at Snaefell the following day while we came home.
On the Wednesday Darren, the son of the Museum owner gave us a ride in his Tessler electric car. He walked up to it and got in it. The key equivalent is in his pocket. He can just drive off. It takes less than 2.4 seconds to 60 mph. He asked us if our necks were alright (mine was well bedded into the headrest) and off we went pressing a few Gs into the seat. I have just bought a BMW X5 Sport which I now consider to be slow but it tows well! He tells us that he has to charge it twice a week but only uses it on the island. He purchased it in 2015 and has used about £900 worth of electric but his tyres only lasted 10.000 miles! Tessler gave him four chargers at the museum which take 45 minutes for a charge.
This seems to be the way that we will go.
You missed a really good week with lots to see and do! Let us hope that it all happens again.

I will just add some more pictures to my Manx trip. There are other pictures and video on the internet.
Bob

Nice report Bob - good to hear that my ex is performing as she should! Actually it's a he.

The Doble at the Museum is a fascinating beast. The chassis and running gear are that of a large sporting Delage of the early 1920's while the engine and steam generator were originally built for one of the New Zealand steam buses. Chris and co have done masses of research on the history of the combination which was assembled but not completed in the 1950's which means that it has been a Doble Delage longer than it was a Delage.

Mike