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

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

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)

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

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.

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

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...