This rear timber piece has been added. It was a bit confusing to work out as it was missing on all our wrecks and didnt make sense until Andrew Bloxham sent some clarifying photos from the UK. Thanks Andrew.

Tailgate put together over the last couple of days. I first glued and clamped the planks together then assembled the outside frame complete with mortise and tenon joins and then glued and clamped that all together.

Hello Jack,

You may have mentioned it earlier Jack and I have not caught the details. However, could you please identify the trade name and common name for the "timber" you are using on the truck body?

Kind Regards
Lionel

Good old Aussie KD hardwood Lionel. Mountain Ash.

Tailgate fits very nicely. We need to make another set of hinges as we only had one set.

Hello Jack,

Thank you for the reply and for naming the timber as Mountain Ash.

Is this the Mountain Ash you are referring to Accessed September 19, 2017 from https://www.woodsolutions.com.au/species/ash-mountain

Kind Regards
Lionel

Yes that would be it Lionel.

Thanks Jack :)

As mentioned above, (despite Chris amassing 10% of all the Morris Tillys that came to Australia), we only had one set of tailgate hinges from all the remains.
Each hinge is a strange shaped cast piece with a fixed pin which holds the long upright flat piece. It also has slightly raised bumps where the bolt holes are.

A piece of 4" heavy angle iron gave me the shape to cut down to form the hinge base. The rest involved a bit of lathe work, angle grinding and file work. The raised bumps are little pieces turned on the lathe and bronzed on.

Hinges completed and tailgate finished off ready to paint.

General knowledge quite likely known already to interested parties but just to make sure.
The KD in the description of timber refers to having been 'Kiln Dried'.
Your timber work is every bit as good as your steel Jack. Very neat,

David

We have already cleaned up one set of engine side panels and after searching for several weeks I stumbled upon the second and only other set we have which one of us misplaced. Since I am typing this I blame Mr Collins.

This set is from the very rusty remains we originally got from Len Watkins. Like the rest of that vehicle it has weathered badly and although the main panel is redeemable, the inner rib is very badly rusted and will not survive the sandblaster. I carefully drilled out the spotwelds and removed the rib with the intention of fabricating new ones.

Then I remembered we had a spare set from the car which were in excellent condition. The panel on the later cars had the flutes pressed differently but that is the only difference. So these engine covers have been sacrificed to provide the inner ribs for the Tilly.

:whinge Bounder, cad...

They were placed in a fairly visible place ands we'd no doubt wandered past the dozens of time and we'd not noticed. :o No matter, they're found now and on their way to being resurrected :cheers:

I have digressed a bit to do some work on the Tilly seats. We only have one set of original seats which are virtually the same. The construction is simple formed mainly by flats and angle and straight sheetmetal. The base has a pressed cross in the centre which is the only complicated piece. There is a simple lock to allow movement of the seat.

My youngest son Nick is an engineer so I convinced him to give me a hand to make a die to press the cross into the seat base. Once I had measured it all up and worked out an idea I got him to draw some CAD plans to get some steel laser cut.

A heavy steel base was cut which had a 5mm template plug welded to it.
The small pieces to fabricate the movement mechanism was also lazer cut. I got a few extras done just in case.

Three 10mm template pieces were tacked together and positioned over the 5 mm piece and then clamped together. I welded small positioning tabs around the outside to locate the top template. I added loops for lifting as It was getting pretty heavy. Heavy angle iron was drilled and positioned over the templates to clamp the die together. I then drilled and tapped into the heavy plate for the bolts to secure the angle iron. My gantry allows me to move anything anywhere easily which came in handy for drilling the heavy plate.

So that was the female part complete. The male part I used 25mm steel bar. The ends were rounded of in the lathe and a cross piece welded in situ in the female template. Some 10mm flat bar added to reinforce the round bar and then it was ready for a test on a piece of scrap.

I have to say I was very satisfied with the result. The pressing was very uniform and the lines on the underside very defined and exact.

So I cut a piece of sheet to size and gave it a go. I allowed a few extra mm all round in case the pressing pulled in slightly. It didn't seem to move at all so once it was done it was a simple matter of scribing around the top template and cutting out with tinsnips.

Re
 

Love your work mate! It looks great I think you are on a winner their :thup2: :thup2: one little tip use's some oil on the forming tools it will help.

It would seem a lot of effort just to press out two seat bases but I will get more out of the die. The seat base frame is light right angle fold in 2mm steel. I will use the top template to form that angle around. Also the seat legs have the same profile as the front of the seat base and are made of 3mm angle iron. I can use the same template to form them.

I have since convinced Nick to give me lessons in CAD drawing.

To prepare for the seat base frame I had a piece of 2mm strip folded to the correct dimension. I ground a round edge on the top of the template to accommodate the curve of the strip of now angle. I was able to use the cross cavity to anchor clamps and supports to secure the angle and with a bit of heat worked the angle around the template. It puckered in the corner as is went which I expected and it was just a case of heating the pucker up and hammering it down.

It came out exactly how I wanted it.

Next is the legs of the seats. This is made from standard 3mm x 25mm angle iron but is trimmed down to 18mm on one side so first was to cut off the excess on one side. I will do these as eight bends on the lager radius of the template and then weld them in the centre where required to get the correct shape and size.

With the legs bent up and joined I added them to the base frame and also added the adjusting mechanism and the claws that locate the legs to the floor frame.

I drilled holes around the edge of the seat base to plug weld to the frame and turned down some half inch bolts to match the stepped bolts that hinge the to seat halves together.

That almost completes the bottom half. The seat back on the complete set of seats we have are not good enough to use so I will make two sets of those.
There is a reinforced section on the bottom which has two small pressings which take the weight of the seat back against the legs. The first thing to do was unpick the wire edge and fold out the frame for a pattern.