Bradford CC Lorry (The Tramp)

[David Kemp]

If you want to improve drive ability put radials on your Bradford.
A member here in OZ did & it made a vast improvement.
On the recent Bradford 1000, his was the only car not wandering all over the road.

[AlanBartlett]

I went for Taxi tyres in the end, 175 x 16. Seemingly going very well, need to play around with pressures. I attended another local show today another 30 miles under its belt although I've covered about 100 since getting on the road. Though the longer journey has thrown up an issue of the dip stick rubbing against the crankshaft. In one position it doesn't hit, but as it catches it seems to knock the handle of the stick around making it jangle when rubbing. Perhaps its a worn hole where the two notches reside. Has anyone else experienced this? I do prey this isn't an engine out job, as it has been running pretty well so far.

[Keith Clements]

Perhaps bending the stick a little will hold in place or an o ring slid over.

[David Kemp]

For those of us not in the UK, what are taxi tyres? I have seen this term used more than once, often not in good terms.

[AlanBartlett]

David,
They are a radial tyre which are used on I believe london taxi & other commercials. Designed for high mileage of taxi work. I've used them as a cheaper budget alternative to a new set of old fashioned ones. Perhaps others have more input.

[Keith Clements]

British taxis use a 16 inch rim and are one of a few cars that do. Thus there are an abundance of supplies of cheap tyres for them. They are however a much beefier tyre than required by Jowetts with too many plies and are usually too wide on Jowett rims being 175 or greater width. I used them for many years even rallying with them on remoulds supplied by Kingpin. Best use widened rims. You can fit them but they may foul the arches on Javelins and care should be on newly fitted wheels as they may turn under braking and rip the inner tube.

[AlanBartlett]

Another question to ponder. How is the spare wheel fixed in place under the bed? I see it sits on two wooden/rubber rails. But how is it held there? I'd like to remove it from being chucked on the bed at the moment.

[ajg1722]

2 wooden/rubber rails? I don't think so. From my investigations, the spare sits on an angle iron frame with a wooden block in the centre. I have a couple of sketches if anyone is interested.
Cheers,
Andrew

[AlanBartlett]

This is what I have. Is this right? Or bits missing?

[ajg1722]

Yes, that's exactly right. Sitting on the angle iron frame are 2 pieces of wood, which are part of a little wooden platform. I attach a sketch I prepared earlier.
In the middle of the platform there is some device to screw down the spare wheel. I have the dimensions of the holes where this attaches, but I've never seen one.

So my question is - to anyone out there - Has anyone any idea of what the original hold-down screw looked like?

[AlanBartlett]

Was it held down by a central fitting?

I've trial fitted my spare wheel with the repaired square carrier and it is difficult to get any sort of hand or screw down method in there once the wheel is in place.

Looking at Chris S's restoration of Tim's Bradford, I noticed the spare wheel was in a locker and held in place by a leather belt strap? Would this have been the case on the Lorry too? It would seemingly make more sense as there is not much room to get in there. I may fashion up a strap instead.

[ajg1722]

What I think there was, was a central stud affixed to the middle of the wooden holder. You slipped the spare wheel over the stud, then screwed down a large nut to hold the wheel in place.

[AlanBartlett]

I've made up a similar fitting with a central bolt going down through the bottom, with a spring and wingnut to hold it in place. I was going to use studs, but its actually quite difficult to get the wheel in there and a hand to line it all up.

[AlanBartlett]

So having covered around 800 miles in the truck, things are going well becoming quite reliable now. Also pretty nippy! While its running well now I have a Carburettor issue which has got me stuck.

Running along at speed is fine, but when it comes to lots of use of the throttle, when pulling out of junctions or doing manoeuvres such as parking I am finding that the engine seemingly struggles and dies. I've checked the mixture with the plugs all fine, I can stand next to it and rev the engine, let it idle then instantly bring it back up again. The symptoms are like it is struggling for fuel or the carburettor has flat spot. Though all been rebuilt, cleaned, re-bushed etc. I''ve also changed jets to see if that would cure to the recommendations of the technical notes on here. I've taken the bowl off mid splutter, the bowl is full of fuel, I am not convinced it is the pump either. Again new diaphragm, cleaned and rebuilt. So I am current at a loss as to what it could be.
Any suggestions?
On the road at great pace, but when moving the throttle for parking or pulling out, it just seems to splutter, almost die then sometimes pick back up, or just stalls completely.

[BarryCambs]

Hi Alan. I was going to say does the butterfly spindle look ok, but I see it's been rebuilt. I have a couple of spare carbs waiting for rebuild and someone has bushed one with a strip cut off an old washing up liquid bottle! I'd also have a double check of the timing and distributor internals as well as the carb.

When I did my apprenticeship, the workshop foreman would almost daily remind us "90 percent of carburettor problems are electrical". I've always thought it a bit strange as we were diesel engineers, but there you go. Thinking about it, a lot of things he said were quite strange, but a nice guy as I remember.

Someone had put a seemingly random selection of jets in our Long Two, so it had to be completely re jetted. The hesitation coming off idle under load turned out to be too small an idle jet. I think the manual said 50 and it runs at 65 now. Not sure what carb your bradford has on it? I'd still want to reassure myself the ignition system is in good shape before I went too far down the jets route though. Experience tells me coils don't like sitting around for years. They'll normally fire up nicely after decades in a barn, but the first time they get hot on a long run, they start to fail.