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We have been
looking at the radiator over the last two weeks.
Perhaps a history lesson is relevant first. During its
production run, there were several changes made to the
radiators fitted to the Model CX19. All pre-war chassis and
the earliest post-war chassis had a top tank with the Albion
scroll and the Sure as the Sunrise motif on a rectangular
badge which was screwed on. This is the type shown on the
home page. This gave way to a new design which had the
Albion scroll cast into the top tank with rays spreading
from it. At the same time the screw on filler cap was
discarded in favour of a quick release sprung hinged cap. As
well as being thoroughly practical for bus operation
allowing easy filling of the radiator, this chromed cap was
also an attractive design. This is the type of radiator
which was fitted to 1877 when we acquired it. The final and
the most common pattern of CX19 radiator was basically
similar to the type on 1877, but with a larger Albion motif
without the sunrays spreading from it. So we've got the
intermediate type - the Albion scroll cast into the top tank
with rays spreading from it. The problem is that operators
swapped radiators around after overhaul or accidents and,
sixty years later, it has become very difficult to ascertain
with any degree of certainty exactly when one pattern of
radiator gave way to another. So we think we have the
correct type of radiator, but we can't be absolutely sure -
1877 may have been delivered with the earlier type.
Now it appeared that there was a weakness in the CX bus
radiator in that the bottom aluminium casting was prone to
cracking. In Sydney this problem was solved by replacing the
aluminium casting with a section of steel angle iron. In
Scotland, Western SMT did the same thing but Glasgow
Corporation had a different solution. The radiator was
brought forward and the two lower fixings were mounted on a
new frame behind the radiator, instead of directly on to the
chassis. This frame was centrally pivoted on the front cross
member which supports the front engine mount. This central
pivot required a cut out in the radiator grille, effectively
a downward extension of the starting handle aperture. This
Glasgow mod resulted in a longer bonnet and side panel. The
Cheltenham and Welsh operators and those who ran single deck
equivalents appeared to get away without any alterations -
maybe they had an easier life? When the angle iron
conversion was carried out in Sydney it appears that the
vertical slatted grille was replaced with a wire mesh grille.
All the DGT fleet was converted in this way and if any
post-war CX19s were delivered with the rectangular badge
type radiator when new, they were all eliminated presumably
at first or subsequent overhauls. Here endeth the lesson on
CX bus radiators!
It is our intention to overhaul 1877's radiator and return
it to the way it looked when it entered service in 1947 -
i.e. retaining the current top tank with vertical slatted
grille and cast aluminium bottom. We've been lucky to acquire
a very early CX bus radiator from which we can salvage the
bottom casting and vertical slatted grille. So we've started
work on making one good radiator out of the two.
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