MAGAZINES
First of all, get a subscription to 'Stationary Engine' magazine. It is the best of the mags for engine people, and you can always branch
out later (as I did) into 'Old Glory' and others. Kelsey Publishing are on 01959 541444 Fax 541400.
Second, get a years back issues organised and read them from cover to cover a few times. This will introduce you to the main players in both people and engine terms.
Once you have done that, you can start thinking about an engine or three. First you will need to sort out some tools, a workspace and a trailer to carry home your precious lump of cast iron.
TRAILER
You will need a decent trailer that can carry with comfort at least 5 cwt for the smaller ranges of engines, and probably up to a ton for the
medium to large lumps. Don't cut corners on the trailer, its equipment or tyres; it is the main bit of kit that you absolutely must be able
to rely on for any kind of engine moving.
Note that there were new driving licence regulations which came into force this January, which restrict towing activities for new drivers acquiring a driving licence after 31st december 1997. The DVLA issed documentation in this, and it has been updated three times to my knowledge since the first issue. You can request a copy from the local area office, look in your phone book or ask at a test centre where the office is located.
Basically, older drivers can still drive cars/vans with trailers up to quite high gross train weights (car+trailer total loaded weights) under so-called 'Grandfather Rights'. New drivers are restricted to 500Kg trailer weights unless they have passed a test on a vehicle with trailer attached.
The 500Kg limit is not too restrictive for beginners, but when you pick up a CE twin diesel, or a big Bamford Z series diesel, the engine alone weighs that 500Kg !
The trailer MUST be in good nick, and you MUST have decent load straps, bits of string will NOT do. A loose engine becomes a lethal ballistic missile in an accident: on my return trip from Spain last year with a 15cwt engine, I had eight straps in total to hold the engine in place.
All things trailer related can be obtained from one of the Indespension shops or depots round the country. I have no connection with them, but have built a few trailers over the years using their bits and pieces and can say that I am completely satisifed with their quality and workmanship. They do a good trailer equipment catalogue with lots of information on legal matters, car and van recommended weights etc., and separate price list, phone their head office and get a copy: 0800 720720 Fax 01204 309191.
Your car must be up to towing the trailer, and if lights are fitted to the trailer they must all work. You can tow without lighting equipment in daytime apparently, but I wouldn't like to do it myself. Practice handling and reversing the trailer, nothing looks worse than a complete beginner getting into trouble with a trailer on its first outing. except maybe for a caravan driver doing the same thing :)
WORKSHOP Next you need somewhere to work on the engine, and more relationships have become rocky at this point than in any other aspect of engine ownership. A dry, clean and well-lit area where you can dismantle and rebuild an engine is essential. You cannot do it on a kitchen table or on the living room floor, and it is very unfair on the female members of the hobby to try to work in this fashion.
A bench which will take the full weight of the engine without collapsing, a good engineers vice and a couple of power sockets would suffice, and you will add over the years the collections of odd screws, bolts & nuts, gaskets, tobacco tins of gooey substances that you got from a friend etc. The bench top could be covered in industrial Lino (yes you can still get it) steel sheet or aluminium. Steel is probably best as it does not damage so easily and cleans up quickly.
The vice should be a 'Record', not a Taiwanese cheap copy, and should be securely bolted to the bench top with decent bolts and locking nuts. A good vice lasts for ever, and will never fail you. The cheap copies may seem like a good buy, but if one fractures while holding your treasured engine block over a concrete floor, and the only thing between the floor and the engine is your toes, you will quickly realise what a false economy it was.
Lighting should be above and slightly in front of you, and a decent flexible light such as an 'Anglepoise' is a very handy extra. Flourescents are probably best, and a couple of six foot singles would do nicely. You cannot have too much light.
TOOLS If you have £1000 and a couple of hours, I could do a list which would be perfect: until the day you buy something you haven't got a spanner for. Don't be a tool freak, all the tools in the world will not make you a decent fitter, and a small but good quality assortment can always be added to later.
SPANNERS:
Old english engines almost universally used BSW (British Standard Whitworth) and BSF (British Standard Fine) You will notice that BSW and BSF spanner
sizes run in sequence. This was intentional, and very useful, as all BSW spanners will fit all BSF sizes of nuts and bolts but NOT of the same bolt/thread
size. The reasons for this were embedded in History, but if you look at early nuts, they have a larger hexagon for a given thread size than those made
during and after the Second World War. Sizes were rationalised then, so all sizes had matching hexagons. It is a bit of history really, but saves you
asking later. Get a set of spanners that will go up to 5/8" Whit or thereabouts. Combination spanners (open-ended one end, ring the other) are best.
Double open-ended are always useful, but most fitters use combinations all the time.
A couple of good quality adjustables should be included, mainly for quickness but also for special sizes on things like injectors and carbs etc. Purists do not like adjustables, but in the hands of a good fitter, they are just as effective as a spanner. You decide how much of a bodger you want to be. I have four adjustables and use them quite a lot.
Buying at rallies can be quite economical, as long as you know what to buy. Makes such as BRITOOL, GORDON, RECORD, SNAP-ON, SNAIL BRAND, GEDORE and even DRAPER or KAMASA are decent tools that a professional fitter would use. If you buy any of these tools at rallies, you can often pay less than a quarter
SCREWDRIVERS Again, buy good quality such as STANLEY. They are never the cheapest, but will outlast all others barring accidents.
CHISELS Very much an engineers tool ! buy the best you can afford, and keep the head cleaned up and free from 'mushrooming'. A good 1" and 1/2" should be enough for most jobs.
HACKSAW Eclipse is probably the best branded tool here, and they also make the best blades after SANDVIK.
HAMMER Until I read an old article in 'Engineering' magazine dated 1958 about shattered hammer heads, I had never given the matter much thought. I had never had a hammer head break on me, and probably never will, but this article went through the subject in some detail, and I will copy it to anyone who is interested for the price of the postage. Record and the NEILL GROUP companies (Eclipse, Moore and Wright, Britool etc) all make decent hammers, and a 1lb ball peine engineers hammer plus a 2lb copper/hide mallet (THOR) would be a good choice. The Thor branded mallets have removeable faces, and also have choices of materials as well as Hide and Copper. A club hammer of 2lb is a useful tool, but can be added later.
PUNCHES Pin and general taper punches are really critical tools, both from the general usage point of view and the safety angle. No other tool excepting the chisels can cause so much serious damage to your face and eyes if misused. The Best quality are made by Neills, but not under the Neill brand name, they use the L.S. STARRETT name and they come in dark red wallets. A set of six in sizes from 1/8" to 3/8" will cover most requirements, and a few heavy duty taper punches can be added when you have the money. A truck or car halfshaft, cut and machined makes a truly wonderful heavy drift.
A pair of brass and copper drifts are always handy for knocking bearings etc out, and will not usually mark surfaces. Make your own up from bar, but note that brass will send off splinters like a chisel head if you do not keep it cleaned up.
GOGGLES Mentioning safety brings us to eye and face protection. All fitters at some time in their careers have got things in their eyes, it is an occupational hazard. It can be mitigated by the use of goggles or face masks, and modern versions are quite comfortable. Makrolon plastic is used for the better quality versions, and they should be labelled to the appropriate BS standard. Use of goggles should become automatic when grinding, chiselling and hammering.
MARKING & MEASURING A good quality two-foot rule is extremely useful, RABONE-CHESTERMAN probably the best, but MOORE & WRIGHT are the market leaders. M&W (Their trade-mark) also make scribers, micrometers, thread gauges, slip gauges, height gauges, V-blocks, calipers etc etc etc. The best range of engineers' tools in the UK, all under the NEILL GROUP banner. A decent centre-punch is a must, not the automatic version, just a simple hammer operated one will do.
SCRAPERS & CLEANING UP TOOLS Bearing scrapers went out of use years ago, but M&W still make a small range for those jobs where nothing else will do. A decent lump of 3/4" tool steel is invaluable for cleaning over a gasket face without doing too much surface removal, and a general gasket scraper will pay for itself over and over again. SNAP-ON do a decent plastic handled 1" wide scraper.
TAPS & DIES If you ruin a thread by carelessness or design, a good set of taps and dies can get you out of the sticky stuff quickly. I buy up surplus new HSS (High Speed Steel) taps and dies at Beaulieu Autojumbles, and have all BSP sizes up to 2". List price for a new 2" BSP die-nut is over £400, I paid £5 for a new nut. Don't buy Carbon Steel, and don't chuck all your taps and dies in a box where the thread tops will get knocked off and the cutting edges will be dulled. Get good quality tap and die holders, and look after them.
DRILLS Branded industrial twist drills are relatively expensive, but can be picked up at very good prices from dealers stalls at autojumbles etc., brands such as Eclipse, Presto, LAL etc., are the ones to look out for. Cheap drills are OK for the occasional job, but for drilling RSJ's and box section when making a new engine trolley, only a decent brand will last. If you want to sharpen your own drills, the devices sold in shops are pretty useless, but there used to be a PICADOR drill sharpening jig available which correctly sets the angles and clearances as you sharpen drills in it. I still have mine, and it does a much better job than I ever could. The only disadvantage is the need for either the side face of the grinding wheel which is not recommended, or a wide wheel to start with.
POWER TOOLS Such a range is available now that little comment is needed. 4" angle grinders are very useful, but like chainsaws need care in use to prevent severed limbs and fingers, and please please USE GOGGLES.
LIFTING DEVICES AND HOISTS I use a 15cwt YALE Pul-lift. It is a simple ratchet chain hoist, with a good pedigree. Available under a number of names after Yale & Towne merged with another group, the units start at 5cwt and go up to 2 ton (Ton = 2240 lbs Tonne=2200lbs or 1000Kg) Other makes to look out for are Weston (differential pulley) and Felco Hoists, the people from Crawley. There are many types around, and the piles of rusty chain attached to these relics attests to years of neglect. If you buy secondhand, check it very carefully. Insurance companies will carry out proof tests on request, but it costs. For peace of mind, I bought new and have never regretted it.
GANTRIES AND FRAMES To attach your hoist to, you will need God to provide hooks in the sky, known as Skyhooks, or if you are like most of us you will have to buy or make a gantry of some kind. Again, I designed and built my own, but they do come up for sale, especially as Govt surplus. Mine was designed to be collapsible as I had no permanent place for storage under cover. A decent frame will pay for itself, and a hydraulic engine crane can be hired for the weekend from HSS or one of the other hire shops for quite reasonable money, the thing that hurts is the deposit !
Lifting slings and straps need government health warnings when purchased secondhand. Most companies now discard old chains and slings when testing becomes mandatory, as it is very often cheaper to buy new than re-certify old equipment. A good quality lifting sling in Spain of all places (in the local hypermarket) was less than half the UK price, and came with full test data etc. Think of that when you go on holiday. Pryca and Alcampo were the two that were particularly good in the tool area, while being spectacular in the food area.
CROWBARS & PRYBARS Like chisels, crowbars have a bad reputation for injuries, so be careful when using them and buy RECORD or SNAP-ON. A decent mini-bar with a taper foot is very useful, and I also have a big six foot bar which is invaluable for moving big engines and blocks on the floor. For moving big lumps around, a skid trolley with low deck and heavy wheels is a must, particularly if the engine can be left on the trolley for a while.
Note that tarmac surfaces and highly loaded trolley wheels and engine feet do not mix. We had our front garden tarmacked (tarmaced ?) and we had to pack under the heavier engines with timber as they gracefully sank into the new surface. One year on we have long pallets on which a lot of bits are stored under sheets.
STILSONS AND OTHER DELICATE TOOLS Call them bodgers tools if you must, but Stilsons are the most useful tool known to man, after the can-opener. RECORD make the best, and an 18" or 24" will cover most stuck devices. A small 8" can be very handy, but not absolutely necessary. Chain wrenches are a degree worse in terms of damage to surfaces when being used, but if you have to get something out, that is the only tool that will usually guarantee success.
SOCKET SETS. Like spanners, you can buy good quality English or US made sockets at autojumbles and rallies at a fraction of new price. You will have to pick them out of a box probably, but when it comes to hard earned cash, who cares.
Note that a lot of makers, especially Britool, Snail Brand and Record/Gordon made tools for the MOD, and you can pick up ex-govt tools very cheaply indeed. Large 3/4" drive whit sockets sell for a couple of pounds each, while the current model in Chrome etc is over £20 for almost any size. Same applies to drive bars and ratchets.
That just about covers most of the basics. You will add to the collection over the years, because you never stop buying tools. I have been buying tools again after a break of 15 years, because all my tools were A/F and Metric, to suit UK and European trucks and gensets. I had a basic set of Whit sockets and spanners, but once I got into big Listers, I had to start all over again !