Gearing up (or not…)
1923 Alvis 12/40
Owned by Nigel Boothman
(c/o classic.cars@bauermedia.co.uk)
Time owned Five years
Latest/total miles 0/unknown
Latest/total costs 0/£3950
Previously Triumphant Le Mans trip
It took me all autumn and most of the winter to make a decision about how the Alvis’s gearbox would be fixed. What was obvious even to me was the need for a new third gear pair, such was the erosion of each tooth on that gear and the sparkling quantities of swarf in the gearbox oil, even after three oil changes to get me home from Le Mans. First came the challenge of establishing that this gearbox was what it appeared to be – the uncommon Type B that Alvis made for only a short while in 1922-23. It looks very similar to later ones that share parts with each other, but it’s not quite the same. Spares, therefore, wouldn’t be easy to find.
But getting new gears was only half the challenge. Dismantling and even rebuilding the gearbox are tasks I might have attempted, but assessing why the gear failed in the first place wasn’t something I felt qualified to do. And throwing it back together without knowing what went wrong in the first place seemed not to make any sense.
To cut a long story down to size, I went with a recommendation from my old pal, fellow motoring journo and vintage car fancier Mark Dixon. The name of Michael New came to him through another VSCC pal and, sure enough, various people whose judgement I respected spoke highly of Mike, so I rang him up and arranged to deliver the gearbox to his place in Leicestershire.
My son William and I removed it from the car (teenagers are handy when you’ve given yourself a hernia and aren’t supposed to lift things) and dropped in to see Mike on the way down to visit grandparents for half term. His workshop inspired confidence – sickly vintage and Edwardian oddities were everywhere you looked, each requiring the wisdom of ages to make them go again. Suddenly, a knackered Alvis gearbox looked about as difficult to sort as a beginner’s Airfix kit.
Mike phoned less than a week later to tell me what he’d discovered. Third gear failed because it was new – or rather because when someone made a new gear pair, they used EN24 steel and not EN36, and it hadn’t been hardened either.
‘You can get away with EN24 for gentle use, but it’s not really hard enough for a long, tough life,’ explained Mike. ‘This pair should be case-hardened, which they weren’t. You can tell by looking – they’re silver and shiny, not greyish. The other three gears are probably original to 1923, but they’re made properly and are fine.’
It was mostly good news: case not damaged, shafts not bent, bearings a bit crunchy but they’re only £120 for a set. The nasty moment will be Mike’s next phone call, when he gives me a quote to have his favoured gear cutting outfit machine-harden and grind in a new pair of gears, and possibly the much more complex constant mesh pinion and shaft, which also looked worn. That could be one phone call I’ll take sitting down.