Churchill Hydrolastic pump

[850man]

I have owned and repaired a heap of churchill & austaloy pumps. At one point I owned 6 of them, I am now down to a restored Churchill and a unrestored Austaloy. The former Mini specialist business I worked for had at least 20, back in the 90s you could buy them for next to nothing, and almost every garage/service station had one here.
I had the Churchill ID plates remade a few years ago, along with the instruction plates. The traffolyte label company I used to get them made has now gone out of business so I have not bothered to have any more done.
A chemist friend supplied the ingredients to make proper Hydro fluid as well.
Tony Cripps here in Australia was making up repair kits for them & selling on Ebay for awhile, I think he sold his last one recently and a well know Mark on this forum ended up with it with some help from a couple of Aussie friends.
I have always been able to repair them usually with minimal parts, they often only require a decent clean/flush out. The plastic hose is available from any hydraulic supplier, and the square section seal in the fitting on the ends of the hose is found easily.
I even had a couple of the plastic caps 3D printed.
Aussie pumps had either Smiths or Floyd gauges, Floyd is still in business and can repair original gauges or supply the modern equivalents.

I have 100s of photos but its a pita to reduce the size of them so I cant add them here.

[111Robin]

Good to know there's a wealth of experience on these units, thanks. First question I have is regarding the flow restrictors on the vacuum pump inlet and outlet. I wasn't aware of these when I was removing the pump but found one lying on the ground. These are the thin hexagonal buttons that fit inside the female ports. I take it there are no additional parts that might have gone missing ?. No springs or balls or anything like that ?. So presume it's just a case of placing the restrictor into the female port before making up the union, same on inlet and outlet ?.

[OGW 1082]

No Robin, no ball or springs in that part you are correct.
Glen

[111Robin]

No Robin, no ball or springs in that part you are correct.
Glen

Thanks Glen, saves me crawling around the garage floor looking for missing parts

[111Robin]

My pressure gauge sits at 100psi with no pressure applied. It does respond to applied pressure and isn't leaking. If I press inwards on the bourdon tube the needle moves back to zero but just springs back when I let it go. Perhaps it has jumped a tooth or two on the gear mechanism ?. I can't get the needle off to enable the face to be removed to gain access to the mechanism, I'm assuming a special puller is required?. Any ideas ?. I don't really want to replace it. It's a Smith's instrument.

20200714_150904 by Robin Derrick, on Flickr

[mk1]

All fascinating stuff!

Mine is still waiting for me to get round to sorting it out. It will still pump but its vacuum side sucks (but not in a good way).

[iain1967s]

Illustrated parts list for the two hose pump
[ extract from http://mk1-performance-conversions.co.u ... -sti-g.pdf ]

[Peter Laidler]

I've been making my own hydro pump on-and-off over the past couple of months. I have used an old pressurised fire extinguisher as the vacuum reserve and catch tank and ordinary plumbing isolating valves as the a) hold the system vacuum and b) release the new fluid into the system valves.

The only drawback so far - which I see as an absolute ADVANTAGE - is that you cannot use the old/drained fluid to replenish the system. You have to use new or previously cleaned and filtered hydro fluid

Moulton and Churchill certainly knew how to complicate things, believe me!

The BEST bit is that it works perfectly, so far*, AND THE COST SO FAR HAS BEEN ABOUT £10
* needs a new vacuum pump as experimental pump doesn't have a gauge

Anyone interested in the details/pictures when it's finished in a couple of weeks?

[spoon.450]

Sounds interesting Peter, and it would be good to see pics and details when finished.

[Andrew1967]

Just collected a Churchill 'Dalek' that I bought last year on eBay. Apart from a repair to the pressurising pipe, it looks pretty good and appears to work.

The instruction plate is somewhat past it so I'd like to find a replacement.

I know these have been remade in the past and was hoping someone had one left over waiting for a good home