Forum Replies Created
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Hi Bill,
Sounds like you were trying fairly hard!We made up an apparatus that bolted to the flywheel, had a shaft that located inside the spigot bearing and then another large square bar / frame going over the gearbox and dropping down to 2 bushes in front and behind the box, that were exactly in line with the spigot bearing, a 3/4″ steel pin was then inserted into the front and rear bushes and the pointed end of each lined up with the front and rear of the gearbox shafts. This was the only way we could get consistent results without a lot of trial and error. You could of course do it with little Lasers now though!
The main thing is to get the box to align in every plain, from up and down to side to side and not twisted either and this is not east with the strange way the mounts are arranged!A real pain in the bum job we find!
Good luck and hope the vibes stop!
Best regards,
JulianI think the thing is that when someone owns 20 or 30 cars and 10 different makes, then sometimes they don’t want the hassle of joining each individual club, and they use specialists to look after their cars and therefore have no need for spares etc directly.
I can relate to this as have old motorbikes from several different types and I really don’t want to be a member of numerous different clubs. (as a business I’m member of enough car clubs ;o) Although I am aware of the various clubs etc and have been in contact out of courtesy, after all it is them who correlate records etc that allows us to help gain info on what we think we are buying!Julian.
Hi John,
You don’t say what car it is but a 1932 car indicates maybe a 2 or 3 litre?Generally there are “factory colours” I have a sheet somewhere, I will look it up for you when I have a little time.
But you as the owner could specify any colour combo you liked so nothing is “standard” as such.
However. Our experience in stripping and restoring these models has been that axles front and rear were painted “chassis colour” usually.Best regards,
JulianHi Bill,
Interesting!
Only comments I have is that in my experience neither the Three litre or the 4.5 Meadows show much cooling problems in “standard tune” setup and manage generally ok as long as the rads are clean. The 3 litre does suffer when power goes up though and you have to be rather aware that the temp gauge is not telling the whole story either when driving hard. Or stuck in traffic with either a standard or tuned engine as the block has very poor water flow and is actually “thermosyphon”.
4.5s generally don’t “show” cooling issues until it’s too late, the temp gauge reads fine and all will be well “until” it picks up a piston for no apparent reason! this is usually down to stagnant flow around certain cylinders. Clean blocks and heads, clean radiators etc all help a great deal and in general and in standard form and normal driving conditions we have little problems with any setup.
We find problems occur most when people expect a little too much from a 70 year old design and drive as they would in their Audi. Or go racing! then we really need to know the truth about the complete engine temp, not just the rad header tank!
I think Bill, people like your self who have rather a good knowledge of the vehicles you drive have little problems with any of this because experience plays so much in driving these old cars and keeping your selves out of trouble areas. Monitoring gauges and listening to sounds, and above all “knowing what those sounds are from experience”Julian.
Hi Collin,
Great point you are making here! And this refers to every single “classic car” engine I have ever seen. The cooling circulation / coolant distribution is poor to say the least! The mods you recommend are certainly worth doing to the rear of the block on the 4.5 Meadows, as it is almost always 5 and 6 cyls that seize first if they are going to do. This must point to poor circulation around this area at the very least. We have measured this and found it true. V12s suffer on the front right bank to a very severe extent, and when you take even a little look you can see exactly why!People fitting modern thermostats should read this VERY carefully. In an ideal world we would like to run our engines as hot as possible in order to make as much use of the heat produced by our combustion, and get that heat to act on expanding gasses and making power and not heating water! Fantastic modern cooling systems can do this quite well and we find some engines running at a design temp of 100+ degrees. However, if you are running your old pre-war engine at a happy 70 degrees C, you may find that on very poor cooling systems in some blocks like the V12 Lagonda, that some of your cylinders have water surrounding them at 95+ degrees C ! ! ! ! ! you therefore are not far away from a problem if you hit any situation that causes your water temp to increase! Although you may not even realise it as you think your water is “only” at 75 or 80 degrees as your gauge is telling you.
In any Lagonda other than a V12 you will be running at about 50 to 60 degrees in normal conditions with a good pump and clean radiator with shutters open. My advice is to let it be, it is rare for such low mileage engines to be harmed by too little engine temperature, but VERY common for them to overheat cylinders for seemingly no apparent reason!! (the reason is actually very apparent once you are aware of the poor coolant circulation in various engines)
The V12 is another fish all together and needs extreme care if damage is not to be encountered! We are thinking about making a “cooling kit” for the V12 to help the situation. Hope we find time soon!One thing to be careful about though is making things worse and not better! unless you are sure where the “new” water is actually going and able to measure this accurately (we are regularly surprised when testing that “theories” often don’t work quite as well as we or others thought they would) then best leave it alone and just rely on a good clean Lagonda radiator to keep things on your gauge at about 60 degrees as ALL Lagondas with water pumps can do with the exception of said V12s, unless your radiator is not working to it’s full capacity.
Good luck and enjoy your sunny days!
JulianHi Bill,
Test,
Drive along and press and keep down clutch with car in neutral. No gears selected, Is vibration less?
If yes, re-align gearbox. This is important to align as if you have one line from entire length of crank centre line through gearbox entire length.
If no change then maybe propshaft.Peter,
Yes, I used to do it myself many years ago and even fixed one on a rally like that and used a hand file!!! however it’s not easy and very costly to re-machine! even then you are only going to have a temporary repair as the other teeth usually fail shortly after.Hi Peter,
Sounds like you have been lucky with your finds!
3rd gear problem
This is a usual problem and it is generally incurable without considerable expense but do as follows.
The problem is usually caused by the dog teeth that engage into 3rd to make it engage wearing at an angle, this angle then forces it out of gear harder and harder with the more power you feed in! Quite often this is caused initially by worn bronze bearings but as the teeth wear also the problem is compounded!
The only thing (simple) to do to cure this is to re-make all the bronze bushes for the sliding gears in the box and make sure all shafts etc are in tip top condition and then re-assemble as carefully as possible. Set the detent springs a little harder but don’t over do it! and make sure that the gears are going fully into engagement!! the selector rods and detent groves are often not correctly set and often need re-making!Good luck.
JulianHi,
Not sure which they “actually left the factory with” but all the wheels I have just checked have tapered spokes.
And spoked Centre-Outer almost always.Regards,
JulianAfternoon Bill,
We do indeed stock G9 box sets also,
This is the full monty with everything included including synchro hubs and bronze linings, but does not include the round cage that goes over the main synchro hub. This never wares and only holds the balls in place, so would be silly to manufacture, the centre part of the main hub with the fine dog ring teeth on it though is included and this is matched to the new synchro hubs on 3rd and 4th.The attachment shows the kit but you also get the reverse shaft and bronze syncro friction rings etc.
Price is I am afraid 8850 euros as it is rather more complex box and the usual problem is dog ring teeth wearing tapered meaning there is no getting away from the expensive parts for us :o(Hope this helps but actually hoping you won’t need them!!
Very best regards,
JulianPS.
Always here to help if you need advice on repairs etc, Just mail me or phone, very happy to help in any way! And that bit is FREE!!!! :o)Hi Colin,
thanks for the question,
Yes, usually we charge about 1800 euro for a complete box rebuild, (we take about 25 hours from start to finish) that means the full box given to us, we strip it, repair any threads etc, de-burr and slightly modify the selector shaft holes, chemical clean it and then rebuild with our kit etc, We then test it running on a modified lathe to ensure all is working well, and with No leaks which is not an easy task on these ;o)
However I have just quoted an English customer for one that is coming over in a couple of weeks and we try to be flexible on the fitting cost as I am well aware it is not an easy pill to swallow!In case of emergency, it’s worth noting that we carry a complete gearbox, fully rebuilt with our gears and shafts etc “in stock” ready to be shipped immediately if someone is in dire need!
Very best regards,
Julian,Hi Barry,
A little shameless plug for ourselves too,
We can supply a complete “gearbox kit” with all 10 gears and 4 shafts complete with complete bearing set etc, for 5260 Euros or about 4500 GB depending on exchange rate.
Maybe worth a thought if you want to go the whole hog!
Regards,
JulianAfternoon Barry,
We have pistons in stock, for bores, 3.5″ 3.52″ and 3.53″ I do not recommend going larger than this!
These are “Forged” top quality low expansion silicone alloy pistons and are designed specifically for the Meadows engine by us.The Volvo piston is a bit of a common problem as this piston is designed to be run “fully floating” ie. moving in the big end AND in the piston. the pistons are HIGH expansion ally and the pin is fitted a little tight in the piston so that when the piston expands, the pin is then the correct fit. The problem occurs when fitted with locked pins in the connecting rod, as in a standard Meadows, so that when cold the piston can not move freely on the pin, it then exerts excessive side load onto the rings and skirts and over heats the piston. The high expansion means the bores must be loose to start with and this also allows more piston “flop” as the piston goes from upwards thrust to downward thrust at tdc, Not very good but we all were thankful to Volvo when we had no other choice!!
Running in was also crucial for at least 1500 miles at very gentle throttle loads!Life is easier now thankfully ;o)
Best regards,
JulianPS.
Barry,
There are no genuine “stupid Questions”
There are only ones we know the answer too or those we don’t,
Unfortunately in our short lives, the latter are in a vast majority! 😀Afternoon Dave,
Your 2.4 now sounds like it is a real flyer! glad you are having some fun wit it!!The 16/80 is still in the “development” stage but we will be doing the whole hog with better oil pump, and the water pump will also be completely changed internally to make it work better in many ways! We do this a lot with Alvis water pumps which always give similar problems to 16/80s. (ie. little flow at low revs and leaking)
The Crosley engine is not a bad one really, just very under developed, which is typical for the period I suppose.
Will keep you posted. But need some time as we are very stacked with work at the moment.
Best regards,
JulianMorning Eddie,
“If only” 😆 😆
Maybe one day!For now though we have to rely on the ingenuity of people like yourself who found all this info out for them selves and were kind enough to pass it on to us youngsters! 😉
Parts books and spare, what I call “Toilet time” are invaluable assets to all restorers!! (only Men would understand that one though I suspect) 😆Best regards,
JulianHi Eddy,
Due to the design of the gears and their locations, it is not possible to “just convert” to straight cut or single helical, if you did there would be nothing locating the input gears or third gear on either the T8 or G9. You would need to re-engineer the complete box! or at the minimum 3rd and inputs along with selectors. Doable without a big problem but nowadays massively more expensive than having a gear or two made as standard! Even herringbone gears! I don’t think there is a design fault with the G9 or T8, as Bill says, they have lasted 70 years of use and abuse. Shame to change unless you have a good reason! They work wonderfully well when in tip top condition.
Very best regards,
Julian.PS.
We do change some boxes reluctantly for customers, and I do understand where you are coming from! It is certainly easier to change a preselector or Alvis box, but personally “I wouldn’t swap” especially if you have a powerful engine as the Alvis boxes do tend to be more fragile!