Spreading the Bonney affliction!

[3baygarage]

Neat find. I hadn’t seen your Williams before or don‘t remember. I’m in to see what purpose these served.

 

[Ricky Joe]

I found this low profile DBE at the flea this morning. Extra long skinny shank with extremely thin heads especially for the opening sizes (1-5/8" x 1-1/2"). I recognized it immediately because I already have a wartime Williams ALLOY V Superrench just like it painted very light green. I never could identify the application for the Superrench, but now I have an FSN (41-W-890-20). The best surprise was the forged-in date code marking: "JU". October 1944. Whereas the Williams is all gussied up with all kinds of markings, there is no other marking on this one except the FSN, but it's undoubtedly a Bonney. The nice thing about having the Williams was I didn't have to measure the openings!

What is the application?

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Inquiring minds want to know!

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I don't know! I can't find that FSN in any of my references. Whatever it is, I'm guessing something not easy to reach, in tight quarters, and, based on the diameters, on a large truck or apparatus. And yet, not something that's liable to crack the box/ring. Just like how thin they are! Usually when we see wrenches with heads like this, they've been ground down for those same reasons.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Those are thin. Maybe for some sort of locknut, or an adjuster of some sort.

 

[Mikeske]

I have decided to start to sell the duplicates of the Triangle era Bonney tools. Here is the start of the listing that I have on Facebook Marketplace. 282108956608000

 

[LesserSon]

Yesterday, I picked up a few DOEs, a Popular Science, and a TT707 ratchet, among other things.
The No21 caught my eye mostly because of TRADE / MARK bracketing BONNEY, as illustrated in the 1914-1923 catalogs. The trademark was granted 1908, first use 1876. The fractions stamped on the back are USS without that explicit label, nor SAE, hexC equivalents. I think I may have ignored this type in the past, not recognizing that it is as old (or older?) than the forged-in Princeton shield and B-shield types that pop up in the same catalogs. I don’t know where the Bonney-arc (jellybean, pickle) type fits in.

 

[LesserSon]

Today, a bug of insatiable curiosity bit me, when I encountered a hitch in the otherwise ultrasmooth action of the TT707 ratchet. I’ve had other Bonneys apart, but if I’ve done the same on this series, I’ve forgotten. Stupidly, (blame the coffee) when I ran into resistance getting the cover plate off, I turned my attention to the selector switch. BAD, BAD, BAD. You cannot do that without breaking something.
Eventually reason reasserted itself and I got the cover off.
As dumb luck would have it, I merely bent the selector spring. Too narrow to squeeze a sewing needle into the coil, I plucked a bristle from a wire brush, fed that through, and began manipulating the coil between the smooth areas of the jaws of two long nose pliers. Eventually, I got it into some approximation of straight without snapping it.
I reversed its orientation upon reassembly, but it seems it encounters similar stress either way. It will work for a while, anyway.

48 teeth on the wheel, 5 on the pawl. I put a sheen of ATF/kerosene cocktail on the parts and a drop on the pawl for good measure.
Haven’t encountered the hitch again, so it was a fleck of chrome or crud, or possibly (suggested by the slightly deformed initial state of the tiny snap ring holding the selector switch) I am not the first person to attempt disassembly and kink the spring.
Interestingly, my other TT707 (left) is held together with a spiral ring.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I’m in to see what purpose these served.

What is the application?

Inquiring minds want to know!

UNAIU found the FSN in an old Worthpoint sale in which the seller connected the wrench to the M4 Sherman tank.

There's a 1943 M4 Sherman tank TM on archive.org, linked here, that lists wrenches in several on board tool-sets.

The problem is the tools are not listed by FSN, they are listed by manufacturers code, which are all MTM, which is Miller tool. (That's not unusual. Miller clearly outsourced the tools. In fact, it's promising, because while I can see them using Williams, I can also see them using Bonney, especially since they bought them a decade later.)

Exacerbating the problem is vague, terrible nomenclature. While a few of the wrenches sound promising, none of the descriptions match this wrench exactly.

Following the lists are almost 400 pages of maintenance instructions, but none of those describe turning anything with a box wrench with these openings.

If any of you inquisitive-minded grease monkeys want to see if you can find it, be my guest. Just click on the link above.

But the seller in the Worthpoint record (almost certainly an eBay sale) may also have just been wrong.

 

[Username already in use]

But the seller in the Worthpoint record (almost certainly an eBay sale) may also have just been wrong.

I’m leaning toward this as my eyes begin to glaze over from the nearly 500 page technical manual!

 

[Mikeske]

I’m leaning toward this as my eyes begin to glaze over from the nearly 500 page technical manual!

Yeah even three decades later mechanics would not read the entire manual just find the section they needed for the repair at hand and then scan it and then go to work. Most repairs they would not even bother with the manual just using experience and tribal knowledge.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

I’m leaning toward this as my eyes begin to glaze over from the nearly 500 page technical manual!

Haha. Yeah, I gave up after 50 or so pages, but I was trying to **** those guys in!

The wheeled vehicle manuals are so much better than the tracked vehicle manuals. I got spoiled by the ORD 5 and the ORD 6 SNL G-27 and, when I was bringing my Willys MB back to life, the ORD 7 SNL G-503. Very detailed and descriptive. There's not a single figure of a tool or tool-set in that Sherman TM.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

That's amazing considering how many sherman tanks were produced.

 

[twertsy]

Well gents, it's time to let go of some Bonney. Auctions will be starting this Friday at 8pm on the bay and my ebay handle is vintageratchets if you're interested. Here are a couple teasers.............

 

[bonneyman]

Glad to see you back around Todd.

And sorry to hear you're selling some of your Bonney. You have one heck of a collection.

 

[RTM]

Ah, cute little postage stamp pictures. (Just FYI, clicking isn't making them bigger, so a real tease)

 

[twertsy]

Ah, cute little postage stamp pictures. (Just FYI, clicking isn't making them bigger, so a real tease)

Lol, and those are the ones I fixed!! You should have seen how small the first try was! Let me try again……from my phone this time.

 

[twertsy]

One more

 

[four.cycle]

Give me a heads up when you're ready to unload some Indestro.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Where's the early woodie?

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Guys,

Not to distract from the excitement of Round 2 in Twertsy's Hoard Reduction, but I have an update on the strange Bonney (and Williams) wrenches with the thin shanks flaring to the extremely low profile box ends.




An offboard friend sent me this snippet from an Army 1945 reference.



I need help making sense of it. It has the correct FSN. And the nomenclature has the right opening sizes. 1-5/8" x 1-1/2". Citing a Bendix Prods Div part number (T-50024) for this wrench doesn't surprise me. (They supplied a dizzying array of brakes from 1/4-ton to huge trucks and of course aircraft, too, but likely got their tools from the likes of Bonney and Williams like everyone else (Wright, P&WA, etc). And I actually have wrenches with eccentric openings for an eccentric adjust nut, which is the wrench (T-50021) just below that.

But I don't understand the "duo anchor" reference. I'm reading that as double anchor and picturing two shoes pivoting on anchor pins with anchor pin nuts. Something like this...



But does it makes sense for the anchor pin nuts to be that big? How big were the brakes?

Or were they turning something else on the brakes? If so, what?

I am trying to get more info from my source on the catalog (i.e, context on topic, type of vehicle, etc)

 

[humber2]

Fig N25 from Bendix correctly states Duo-servo, the military references have abbreviated into confusion the description.

Duo-servo describes the mechanical arrangement whereby the braking application is self assisted equally in either forward or reverse direction.

Invented in the 1920’s and usually 14” diameter.

I think Studebaker was an early user. Humber cars from 1930 models from England.

Used on Ferguson and Ford Dexta tractors into the 1960’s

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Thanks for confirming I was thinking of the right brakes, humber. But I'm trying to ascertain if it makes sense for the wrench. Would the AF diameter of the anchor pin nuts on 14" brakes be that big? Or is the application (i.e., vehicle/brakes) likely bigger?

 

[RTM]

Any chance it’s up on the master cylinder, or the thing that divides the flow out to the wheels? I’ve run into fairly large nuts on master cylinders, but that sorta goes against your Duo Anchor, unless that had specific master cylinders.

 

[LesserSon]

Have you looked at this?
The plug (A, part# B210050) on the steering brake cover panels looks pretty big.

 

[humber2]

Thanks for confirming I was thinking of the right brakes, humber. But I'm trying to ascertain if it makes sense for the wrench. Would the AF diameter of the anchor pin nuts on 14" brakes be that big? Or is the application (i.e., vehicle/brakes) likely bigger?

The anchor nuts on the 14” Bendix brakes I have are 1 & 3/16”

These are nothing like the steering brakes on the Sherman tank but that was interesting reading today.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Here's an image

 

[LesserSon]

The brake shoe rod adjusting nut (A246038) looks about the right size in that diagram, but it suggests a deep socket-like opening to reach through the plug hole without removing the panel. A278621 (reverse anchor adjusting nut) and 219760 look nearly 3” in that diagram (must be drawn with perspective), but not in the cross section.They make more sense for the shape of the wrench, being external and jamming against each other. And they have ”anchor” in their names.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

The anchor nuts on the 14” Bendix brakes I have are 1 & 3/16”

These are nothing like the steering brakes on the Sherman tank but that was interesting reading today.

Thanks. No cigar, but proportionally realistically possible (1-1/2" x 1-5/16").

Here's an image

A278621 (reverse anchor adjusting nut) and 219760 look nearly 3” in that diagram...[ ]...They make more sense for the shape of the wrench, being external and jamming against each other. And they have ”anchor” in their names.

I don't know where you're getting those numerical referents from, but if you're talking about "DD" and "BB", identified as the (Reverse Anchor) "Lock Nut" and "Reverse Anchor Adjusting Nut", respectively, on the figure Otg posted, I agree. And, they appear to have slightly different AF diameters, possibly such as the difference between 1-1/2" and 1-5/16".

This page from a different article on the M4 Sherman steering brake from the same site discusses the old (singe-anchor) and new (double-anchor) brakes, and provides a better perspective on the spring-loaded lock and adjusting nuts. See Figure H and the text just to the left of it. And don't miss the last line of the caption in Fig. H.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

As I mentioned, though, the tracked world is so different than the wheeled world. Two M4 Sherman TM's and two Army Motors articles on maintaining steering brakes - and not one mention of the manufacturer of the brakes! If it's Bendix, I'm all in, but further research will be required. Note that the snippet above that I got from a friend, taken from Army Service Forces Catalog 50-2, Alphabetical List of Tools and Tool Equipment, April 45, does not include a column for applications/vehicles. It's possible that 41-W-890-20 was issued for M4 Sherman tanks and/or other tracked vehicles for the steering brakes. But we could be way off, conflating a very detailed and seemingly correct description of it with an old Worthpoint sale that vaguely mentioned M4 Sherman with no backup.

 

[LesserSon]

I don't know where you're getting those numerical referents from, but if you're talking about "DD" and "BB", identified as the (Reverse Anchor) "Lock Nut" and "Reverse Anchor Adjusting Nut", respectively, on the figure Otg posted, I agree. And, they appear to have slightly different AF diameters, possibly such as the difference between 1-1/2" and 1-5/16".

Yes. The numbers are on the same page as the source image.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Anyone have a sherman tank handy?

 

[RTM]

Anyone have a sherman tank handy?

This collection used to be down the road a ways from me, but was sold off in 2014

Tank auction! Littlefield military vehicle collection to cross the block

Tank auction! Littlefield military vehicle collection to cross the block

www.autoweek.com

 

[Private Lugnutz]

One of the issues that could be compounding the problem is how many variants of the M4 Sherman there were in such a short time span, all with different power trains, etc. But to give you an idea of how frustrating this is, I combed through that TM 9-754 (from 1945) on archive.org again (1945, A4 (Chrysler) variant), link a few posts upthread, and the wrenches they cite in the procedures section for turning the lock and adjusting anchor nuts on the steering brake are open end 1-1/8" and open end 1-1/2", which are not even included in the crew tools listed earlier in the same TM.

 

[oldpliers1]

Does anyone own a pair of Bonney 3800 series linesman pliers , Mr D42 Jeep kindly gave me the link to a great catalogue. Did they become popular, I have been trying to find a pair . Regards A

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Back on the topic that won't quit...

I just heard back from the guys and gals at Google Books on an unlock request I made a few days ago. These are excerpts from a 1930 issue of the Automobile Topics trade mag, previously available only in Snippet-only view, that was just released to me.

Am I seeing things? Or is that my wrench at the very top?! Described explicitly as "a socket wrench designed for anchor pin nuts of Duo server brakes."

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Sure looks like it

 

[Provincial]

Lugz, here is an illustration from Motor's Truck Repair Manual, First Edition, 1940. I believe that they made several sizes of truck brakes, and the anchor pins would be sized to match the load applied by the braking action.

By 1940, cars and trucks had largely adopted hydraulic brakes, but the self-energizing design remained very similar.

 

[Mikeske]

I found the original pictures of the broken 3/8" ratchet. Another person wanted this ratchet and I sent it on for just the shipping cost.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

That is busted ugly