[shankar.balan]

A most wonderful and classy machine the Daimler.
What a beautiful thread.
Its lovely to have these wonderful references and archives to go to whenever one is weary of this horrid modern world...

[KPS]

Originally Posted by Cooltronics

Any updates KPS and team ?
Have visited this thread enough times in last 3 months and eagerly waiting for some more pics, news on how the project is turning out

Sorry for the lack of updates. Things were a little slow, as Chris lost his father and the slack in the workshop meant that the work on the car was delayed.

We will restart work on the car shortly. Upholstery has started

Chris will open up the gearbox next for inspection and overhaul. From the first look, it appears to be very clean and probably in great condition. Since Raman was the only one who extensively drove this car, I believe this should an easy overhaul.






Meanwhile, Kasli shared with me some correspondence he had with Raman in 1997. Raman had sent him a picture of the car then.



Thanks to Kasli for sharing this wonderful picture of the car in Cubbon Park, in-front of the Central Library.

Cheers

KPS

[KPS]

We crossed a big hurdle. The door glass. The old laminated class had turned yellow and was cracked in some places. But we had significant problems in getting new toughened glass replacements.

The problem was the glass was only 4 mm thick and had a double curvature. There was a top to bottom & left to right curve. To heat such thin glass and double curve, was a major challenge. After 3 months of trial and error, we managed to get it right, phew!

Now the tinker can now fit all the glasses and the fittings. The upholster can now complete his work.

The door glasses finally arrives!





You can get the sense of the Top to Bottom Curve. The left to right curve is very subtle


4 mm thick!


The roof has been completed, the sun roof fixed back.


Looking forward for completing the car by March'2020.

Cheers

KPS

[KPS]

The Daimler is proudly displayed in this water colour painting by my wife.


The painting reflects the cars in the order of my ownership

1960 Morris Mini Woody, sold in 2004 and the car is now in Goa
1932 Plymouth PB, which remains with me since 2009
1954 Dodge Convertible, which I sold in 2016, as it made way for the Daimler. The car remains in Bangalore
1947 Daimler, has been with me since 2016
1967 VW1300, has been with me since 2019

This painting will proudly hang in my Garage!

Cheers

KPS

[Tejas@perioimpl]

Wow, your wife is super talented! I wish I could get a similar painting for my offroad vehicles!

[Bulldogji]

Originally Posted by KPS

The Daimler is proudly displayed in this water colour painting by my wife.
Attachment 1969122

The painting reflects the cars in the order of my ownership

1960 Morris Mini Woody, sold in 2004 and the car is now in Goa
1932 Plymouth PB, which remains with me since 2009
1954 Dodge Convertible, which I sold in 2016, as it made way for the Daimler. The car remains in Bangalore
1947 Daimler, has been with me since 2016
1967 VW1300, has been with me since 2019

This painting will proudly hang in my Garage!

Cheers

KPS

Beautiful is a word that pales in comparison .

Sadly the English language does not have words to adequately describe my feelings

When will we be lucky enough to ride in the Daimler?

[r_nairtvm]

Originally Posted by KPS

The Daimler is proudly displayed in this water colour painting by my wife.

This painting will proudly hang in my Garage!

Beautiful painting - please pass on my Congratulations to Mrs KPS

Dodge Convertible had the "best colour" isn't it KPS

Best Regards & Drive Safe

Ram

[travancore]

Originally Posted by KPS

The Daimler is proudly displayed in this water colour painting by my wife.

Wow !!!! Next an interesting top view.

[KPS]

Originally Posted by Bulldogji

Beautiful is a word that pales in comparison .
Sadly the English language does not have words to adequately describe my feelings
When will we be lucky enough to ride in the Daimler?

Thank you Bulldogji. It will be a pleasure for me to bring the car to Mumbai one day. I can imagine parking it next to your Dual Cowl Dolphin!

Originally Posted by r_nairtvm

Beautiful painting - please pass on my Congratulations to Mrs KPS
Dodge Convertible had the "best colour" isn't it KPS
Best Regards & Drive Safe
Ram

Thanks Ram. Yes the Blue was based on your feedback, great choice!

We after a lull the work has started. The tinker has started to put the car back together.

Thanks to Chris who has tons of patience, the tinker is slowly but surely putting the car together.















Cheers

KPS

[r_nairtvm]

Originally Posted by KPS

It will be a pleasure for me to bring the car to Mumbai one day. I can imagine parking it next to your Dual Cowl Dolphin!

Can I reserve the Co-drivers spot for the Mumbai trip now itself please

Best Regards & Drive Safe

Ram

[KPS]

Enjoying the way Chris is restoring the car. The gearbox has been opened up for inspection and rebuild, if required

The gear box appears to be in good shape


Patented Pre-Selector gear box from Daimler


The Coupling


The drive shaft peeps out


The automatic adjuster spring and nut is seen











The dismantled parts are carefully batched


The inner part of the brake band assembly. They are in great shape





One gets to see the Reverse planets and carrier followed by the Gear Brake Drums


Every thing remains in great condition after all these year. Tribute to the English Machining





The parts are neatly laid out for inspection











The gear brake bands


Three are four forward gears and one is for the reverse gear


The whole thing would be cleaned up before the rebuild





Then we hit an issue with a drive shaft


Reference # 103


There is clear evidence of a torque bend. The means the gear box had temporarily jammed, probably the torque power had freed it


The shaft having a torque bend, is a major issue


We have now have 3 options. One is to fix it back and hope for the best, but we run the risk of it getting snapped under pressure. Option two would be to try and make it in India, or lastly to import the same.

We agreed to try and import as the best option. The machining is so precise on this, it would not be great idea to try and reinvent. The search has begun! Hope the close this out fast.

Chris says the clearances on the gearbox is still very precise. He was was all praises on the build quality.

Cheers

KPS

[KPS]

Thanks to Bhpian Mr. Ramanna, who also has a DB18, I was put across to a supplier in London for the gear shaft.

Don Whitehouse of Graham Whitehouse Autos Ltd, was super responsive and I could acquire this part without much delay. Dealing with Don was pleasure as this is a rare part and hard to come by.



This package weighted 3.5 kgs, was promptly couriered and cleared customs after paying duty and clearing charges



Customs duty was high , but we cannot have it our way all the time!

Now the gear box can be completed!

Cheers

KPS

[KartikeyaL]

Originally Posted by KPS

Now the gear box can be completed!

Cheers

KPS

Well done Sir !

Have been glued to your thread from the beginning, very excited to see the final stages now.

[KPS]

The engine was started in the Bench! Once the gearbox is completed and fitted, the engine will be run and cooled, before installing in the car.

Chris, prepares to start to engine


She starts without a hesitation!


Running well!



Cheers

KPS

[KPS]

Working from home, Chris was able to complete the gearbox. Fortunately all the parts had arrived before the lock down. The Garage is shut till the lock down ends.

The Wilson Pre-Selector Gear Box coupled through the Fluid Flywheel is used in the car and is explained below

The Wilson gearbox was produced with a variety of clutches. The best-known is the fluid flywheel, used for touring cars such as the Daimler (Armstrong Siddeley used a centrifugal clutch).[2] Sports cars used a Newton centrifugal clutch.[2] This was a multiple plate dry clutch, similar to racing manual clutches of the time, but with the pressure plate centrifugally actuated to engage at around 600rpm.[18] Pure racing cars, such as the ERA, avoided a clutch altogether and relied on the progressive engagement of the gearbox's band brake on lowest gear when starting.[2] When fitted with a centrifugal clutch or fluid coupling, starting from a standstill involved simply selecting first gear, then the clutch would automatically engage once the accelerator pedal was pressed. On other cars, the gear change pedal functioned like a clutch when starting from a standstill.

The Wilson gearbox relied on a number of epicyclic gears, coupled in an ingenious manner that was also Wilson's invention. Successive gears operated by compounding or 'reducing the reduction' provided by the previous gear.[19] A separate epicyclic was required for each intermediate gear, with a cone clutch for the straight-through top gear and a further epicyclic for reverse.[20] Four gears were provided, at a time when many cars (especially American ones) usually only had a three speed gearbox. This was owing to the sporting, or indeed racing, market for the Wilson gearbox, so that the ratios could be more closely spaced. Although this same arrangement of epicyclics would become the precursor for the post-war automatic transmission,[2] the automatic transmission's use of a torque converter, together with the broad power band and excess power of US V8 engines, meant that wider-spaced, thus fewer, ratios were acceptable. Unlike the "crash" gearboxes of the first half of the 20th century, the gearwheels in a preselector box are permanently in mesh in an epicyclic layout.

Source

The parts taken home and set up on the work bench








The assembly starts












Chris made a video to explain how the Pre- Selector Gear Box Works


The Daimler patented



Reverse, 1, 2, 3 & Top


Changing gears


Explaining neutral which is achieved by partially engaging Reverse and 1st Gear and thus there will be no output.


The 3 part video prepared by Chris explaining the working of the gearbox was shared with KVCCC Members as part of the technical sharing at the Club. The members appreciated the same.

I requested MOD Ajmat to combine the 3 parts into one, so that I could share the video here too. Thanks Ajmat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD8CCan1XkM

Happy to share

Cheers

KPS