Aluminium bulkheads on series 1's ? didnt know that?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chazza

I did wonder about the die breaking, or being damaged but in light of Bob's points, it still doesn't make sense that there is no obvious run of aluminium bulkheads on consecutively numbered cars; or as Bob points out that a totally new design of bulkhead was fabricated, instead of reverting to the early version.

A broken die is a serious problem but even so I can imagine that within one week of hard-yakka it could be cobbled together to keep working, whilst the die makers made a new one if necessary.

Thanks for posting John,

Cheers Charlie

---

You need to remember that in the period in question, Rover was a small manufacturer with very limited resources, that were pushed to the limit by the demand for the new Landrover. And remember that at the time, Britain had had a significant proportion of their productive capacity destroyed during the war, and most of what they had was still geared toward military needs (this is the major reason behind the alloy body on Landrovers. There is a good reason why the firewall was almost the only (steel) pressing in the early (or late) Series 1. The alloy bits that were formed used wooden dies. The steel dies needed for pressing steel were expensive and difficult for Rover.

I can imagine temporary repairs being carried out that failed after a short run, needing further repairs. It is very unlikely, with the demand for Landrovers and production limited by steel rationing, that there would be more than a day or two's stockpile of the largest bit of steel in the car, so that alloy substitutes could well have been rushed into production even if only to provide a few day's production, rather than stopping the production line.

John

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JDNSW

You need to remember that in the period in question, ... The steel dies needed for pressing steel were expensive and difficult for Rover.

... so that alloy substitutes could well have been rushed into production even if only to provide a few day's production, rather than stopping the production line.

John

---

I am well aware of post war austerity and rationing; however; export sales took precedence for steel rations, which is worth remembering as well. In any case if the die did break and needed repairing, it could have been done so without the need for new steel I imagine.

With regard to your last paragraph, there is no evidence that this actually occurred i.e. no batch of cars with sequential numbers sporting an aluminium bulkhead. It also doesn't address the issue Bob raised about trying a completely new way of fabricating bulkheads, rather than revert to the previously proven 1500 bulkhead style,

Cheers Charlie

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chazza

I am well aware of post war austerity and rationing; however; export sales took precedence for steel rations, which is worth remembering as well. In any case if the die did break and needed repairing, it could have been done so without the need for new steel I imagine.

With regard to your last paragraph, there is no evidence that this actually occurred i.e. no batch of cars with sequential numbers sporting an aluminium bulkhead. It also doesn't address the issue Bob raised about trying a completely new way of fabricating bulkheads, rather than revert to the previously proven 1500 bulkhead style,

Cheers Charlie

---

Not being a S1 nuttier, none the less I feel the urge to wade in here. The pommy sites all seem to accept that there were production stoppages on the manufacture of bulkheads on 2 or 3 occasions.
the round cnr S1 bulk heads that I have seen would have been a complete pain to press mainly due to there depth and would would not be that easy today for the same reason. I would assume thats why they changed from the round cnrs to square cnrs.
There are some other points to take into account.
There sohill factory didn’t have any heavy presses. These pre war heavy presses were at Coventry which had been bombed during the war. so either the pressed firewalls were pressed at Coventry and transported to sohill or a press was recovered for the bombed out factory and relocated to sohill. I suspect the former is more likely due to the restrictions and problems of the day.
Both the male and female dies would have been cased and hand finished with nothing more than a hard bustard, shark skin and a scraper. As dies were not cased out of any old scrap i would assume that the foundry would have waited until there were sufficient components to cast from that particular Poor. Regardless and even with skilled craftsmen ( NB not tradesmen as its more akin to sculpture than any thing else) i would imagine that to scrape off and finish both dies would be in the order of 500-700 man hours, possibly. No spark eroders in those days! A die is not as a rule reparable.

As a result i would say that the story is quite credible and reinforced with the change to the square cnrd firewalls. (if there were no problems why change)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by clean32

Not being a S1 nuttier, none the less I feel the urge to wade in here. The pommy sites all seem to accept that there were production stoppages on the manufacture of bulkheads on 2 or 3 occasions.
the round cnr S1 bulk heads that I have seen would have been a complete pain to press mainly due to there depth and would would not be that easy today for the same reason. I would assume thats why they changed from the round cnrs to square cnrs.
<snip>
As a result i would say that the story is quite credible and reinforced with the change to the square cnrd firewalls. (if there were no problems why change)

---

Only one problem with the whole post is that the first 1500 vehicles had square cornered firewalls and as Bob suggests, why would they design a bitsa steel/aluminium firewall when they still had the design and dare I say dies to reproduce them during the press stoppages.

The rest of the stuff on the pre-war machines and nature of the curved 1949-53 firewall panel would be correct.

At this stage it is unlikely that the exact circumstances of fitting aluminium firewalls will ever be documented - there are probably getting to be very few people left alive who were involved, and it is likely that there was little documentation, much less than would be the case today, or even fifty years ago. Factories in the immediate post war period were very much into getting things done rather than following procedures!.

What seems quite clear though, is that there were a small number of 80" Landrovers left the factory with aluminium firewalls. The design of these is likely to reflect expedience rather than best practice.

Whatever the circumstances, they are quite rare.

John

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Only one problem with the whole post is that the first 1500 vehicles had square cornered firewalls and as Bob suggests, why would they design a bitsa steel/aluminium firewall when they still had the design and dare I say dies to reproduce them during the press stoppages.

The rest of the stuff on the pre-war machines and nature of the curved 1949-53 firewall panel would be correct.

---

ok I didn’t know that. And its a good question

The first 1500 S1 had a steel fabricated firewall and not a pressed one. from 49-53 they produced pressed firewalls and then reverted back to fabricated firewalls again similar to what we have today. ( is that correct)

Simply a pressed firewall normally would be cheaper both in labor and material to produce. More complicated would be the fabricated firewalls.

For example a pressed firewall would be a 3 steep operation (possibly) stamp ( shape and holes) press, then trim. a fabricated firewall would either be stamp. or cut/ slot/strip ( depending on plant) then either a stamp or fold ( depending on plant) this is for each component. the assembly to Jig and fixing ( welding/ spot welding/ rivet)
Now that would explain the change to a pressed fire wall. And if we were to assume that the pressed firewall was not successfully from a production point which initiated the change back to a fabricated firewall.

That leves the question of why that didn’t return to there fabricated jigging when the dies were being replaced. And its a good question.

2 possible answers
sohill produced the original 1500 fabricated firewalls, to be replaced by the Coventry pressed firewalls. With the problems of the presses Coventry produced the aluminum firewalls as substute. BUT Coventry had steel and sohill had aluminum? So why didn’t Coventry just produce steel fabricated ones?

Or that the original jigging was recycled as soon as the Coventry presses came online. Leving sohill with no jigging and no steel?

i think the second version would have been more likely

I did my apprenticeship ( time) in part under a Scottish tradesman who as a teenager worked for super marine during the war. There were many interesting stories on how English manufacturing was approached during and after the war and how a teenager survived working in a factory full of females. in short the Forman had more influence and was expected to fined solutions pretty much regardless of what the drawings had to say.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chazza

Bob presents some compelling points and I must say the "broken press" story doesn't make any sense to me.

Where I work as a maintenance fitter the press also breaks down at regular intervals and as it is the only press, production comes to a complete halt. In our case it is all hands on deck until the blasted thing is repaired.

Rover of course would have had the same policy and lying in the heart of industrial England there would have been hundreds of businesses and tradesmen to call upon to fix the press. I find it hard to imagine that something so catastrophic happened to the press (on 4 occasions!) that it was deemed economically sound to start a slow and laborious hand-fabricated replacement programme. ;) ;or that the breakdown took so long to repair, given the skills and resources which abounded in those days!

Presses and dies, as we know, are immensely strong structures, so likely fail points can be limited to: electrics; hydraulics; or at the worst a wide-scale disaster such as fire, which would probably have destroyed more than the press and be well-known. The other two faults are relatively easy and quick to fix.

What is far more likely is that long after the 80" ceased to be produced, the dies were removed from the factory and destroyed/recycled; replacements then needed to be fabricated and as Bob points out they could have been made by any small fabrication shop in Britain as emergency replacement parts.

The press - being a very expensive piece of capital equipment and slow to wear - probably soldiered-on making new panels such as roofs for S1 and S2's ,

Cheers Charlie

---

There have been posted many and interesting possible solutions to the manufacture of Aluminium firewalls on series one's.
One that had occurred to me is that the Aluminium ones were JUST Prototypes and nothing else, being refined and tested and eventually found themselves attached to models going out the door? Hence the very limited number and no documentation...... :)

so, can anyone make the templates so we can make our own?

Imagine the market, (to sell the firewall or the plans) most of europe just for starters!

would rescue a lot of otherwise scrapped landies

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by digger

so, can anyone make the templates so we can make our own?

Imagine the market, (to sell the firewall or the plans) most of europe just for starters!

would rescue a lot of otherwise scrapped landies

---

Tony Schmierer is good at drawing up plans and fabricating stuff,
Give him call, he needs encouragement at he moment, HSC and all...:TakeABow:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chazza

Bob presents some compelling points and I must say the "broken press" story doesn't make any sense to me.

Where I work as a maintenance fitter the press also breaks down at regular intervals and as it is the only press, production comes to a complete halt. In our case it is all hands on deck until the blasted thing is repaired.

Rover of course would have had the same policy and lying in the heart of industrial England there would have been hundreds of businesses and tradesmen to call upon to fix the press. I find it hard to imagine that something so catastrophic happened to the press (on 4 occasions!) that it was deemed economically sound to start a slow and laborious hand-fabricated replacement programme. ;) ;or that the breakdown took so long to repair, given the skills and resources which abounded in those days!

Presses and dies, as we know, are immensely strong structures, so likely fail points can be limited to: electrics; hydraulics; or at the worst a wide-scale disaster such as fire, which would probably have destroyed more than the press and be well-known. The other two faults are relatively easy and quick to fix.

What is far more likely is that long after the 80" ceased to be produced, the dies were removed from the factory and destroyed/recycled; replacements then needed to be fabricated and as Bob points out they could have been made by any small fabrication shop in Britain as emergency replacement parts.

The press - being a very expensive piece of capital equipment and slow to wear - probably soldiered-on making new panels such as roofs for S1 and S2's ,

Cheers Charlie

---

Quite correct. And there is a good chance that this particular press is still thumping away some where. To add to your argument. The press would have been mechanical and highly likely of the clutch brake type, add to that it was probably belt driven as well. We know that heavy equipment survived bombing quite well and a press like this with only 5 moving parts and 7 bonze bushes was immensely reparable.
On the other hand, unlike today the die's both male and female would have been sand cast in individual pours and finished off by hand. No grinders or spark eroders. Just files, scrapers and sand paper. Even then the sand paper probably would have been Shark skin.
If you have a look at a S1 pressed fire wall it is actually quite a bit deeper and more acute than what you would even expect to see today in modern cars. The draw and drag would have been horrible to try and deal with. I could even imagine some one dumping a heap of lubricants in there and then hydro locking the die until it fractured. but that is all conjecture.

As for the steel framed aluminum firewalls. a trial run, a bit of R&D ? possibly but there seems to be to many of them and they all seem to be the same. they don’t seem to be apart of a production run or special order as they seem to pop up everywhere, MOD, private, SA and Australia. But there certainly seems to be enough of them to demonstrate that there was quite a bit of effort behind the idea. Adding to that, the lack of documentation and or Mystery surrounding these aluminum firewalls add credence that they were a result of a failer some where else. i.e. a bit embarrassing, mums the word etc.
Lastly they were under the pump, with a successful vehicle to make, problems keeping up with demand and MOD orders on top.

To diverge a bit here and to try and give some inside to manufacturing of the day.
warbirds. we saw a lot of hawker hurricanes restored to flying condition long before we saw any spitfires. Now since the spitfire was manufactured in greater numbers and for a longer period ( even after the war) one would have thought that spitfires would have graced our sky’s long before someone rebuild a rotten wooden hurricane. More so considering the number of surviving air frames there were laying around the place.
Well the problem comes to not only how they were constructed ( spars and different gage aluminum) but more so that you couldn’t just take a component off one airframe and bolt it onto another. they may have looked the same but they didn’t fit. they may have come from the same factory on the same day and be of the same MK but swapping components was not feasible. Spitfires today are in reality remanufactured. I would go as far as to say you could just about build a new spitfire with new components off the shelf.
The hurricane on the other hand was largely made of wood, bolted to gether with steel brackets and bolts. any chippy can build one of these and they were all the same.

Unlike the Americans where there is a reasonable well known story of a RNZAF SPD Northrop built that was fitted with a Douglas SPD wing. The thing just bolted up. Nothing like that was possible with the British manufactured Kit.
worse you couldn’t pull a head of a Merlin and drop it on another block in the manor that we do today but you could with an Allison.

Lastly I would add that the attitude of the pommy manufacturing would still have been in the early 50s akin to there war time production. “the huns are comeing! Get it out the door"