Chief Designer/Engineer at Idle

[Forumadmin]

Greetings.

I am writing a monograph on sleeve-valve Daimlers but am being hampered by incipient dementure. This condition is causing me to forget things which have had an evryday familiarity for me. One such thing is the name of a friend with whom I had some IMechE collaboration some years ago and who was apprenticed to the Daimler Company in the '20s. Subsequently he became Chief Designer/Engineer at Idle; this must have been after The War. I am quite unable to remember his name, although I would recognise it if you would be kind enough to make some suggestions.

I hope you can help.

With thanks,

Dermot Elworthy.

[Forumadmin]

Gerald Palmer joined Jowetts in Jan 1942; but I do not think he ever entertained Daimler. Might it have been Stephen Poole who was there prior to that?

[Forumadmin]

It was neither of these worthies but I'm damned if I can remember the name I'm looking for. He subsequently became a consulting engineer like Harry Ricardo. Incidentally, I owned a 6 volt, oval windowed Bradford in the late '50s. The later 4-speed box made all the difference - although the difference wqas barely measurable!

[PJGD]

I would assume that your collaboration was with Charles Grandfield.

Without looking it up, I can't remember if he worked at Daimler after his apprenticeship at Austin, or not. He was certainly an active member of I-MechE, and he had deep involvement in a sleeve valve engine immediately after the war when he worked for Sir Roy Fedden on the flat-6 light aero engine, although this was a Burt-McCollom type single sleeve valve, not the double sleeve like Daimler used. He joined Jowett after Fedden folded.

Then of course there was Steven George Kammer who had association with Jowett Cars just after the war, and he was developing a 2-stroke sleeve valve engine..... See for example: http://v3.espacenet.com/searchResults?l ... &DB=EPODOC

Philip Dingle

[Forumadmin]

What an excellent source of history the patents are!

[PAUL BEAUMONT]

I am always keen to be educated and am fascinated here by the comment "later 4-speed gear box"
To the best of my knowledge no such thing existed.
Doing an Inspector Clueso bit - we are told that the vehicle was oval rear windowed - so I conclude a van. The van went 12v in late 1950 ie early in the life if the CC, so I conclude that this van was probably a CB and probably fitted with a pre-war 4 speed box!!
What do you think?

[george garside]

[quote="PAUL BEAUMONT"]I am always keen to be educated and am fascinated here by the comment "later 4-speed gear box"
To the best of my knowledge no such thing existed.
Doing an Inspector Clueso bit - we are told that the vehicle was oval rear windowed - so I conclude a van. The van went 12v in late 1950 ie early in the life if the CC, so I conclude that this van was probably a CB and probably fitted with a pre-war 4 speed box!!
What do you think?[/quote]

I think you are right Paul as all CB's were 6 volt & the pre war box fits. The extra length can be accomodated by reversing the front engine mountings so as to move the engine forward - Its a fairly tight fit but has the bonus of slightly improving the directional stability as there is slightly more weight on the front axle.

Horace Grimley told me that Jowetts had experimented with a a sort of Mk2 CC, fitted with twin carbs & 4 speed box (presumably based on 1940 synchro box as used in different casing for Jav & also more or less the same for the CD) Apparently the performance increase was too great for the raodholding ability of the Bradford. I have often wondered what increase in power and ? torque the twin carbs provided bearing in mind that the standard CC gave 25bhp and the IOE twin carb Cd I have alaways understood to have about 34 BHP but have no idea of its torque or at what revs the 34 BHP came. Does anybody have any such figures. It would be very interesting to compare power & torque curves for pre war teins, CA,CB,CC & CD Bradfords.

george