Protruck Services recently had an enquiry for the availability of a Scammell Crusader Radiator Cap from a member of our forum, that had been searching for months with no luck. Not a part found easily on the second hand market...most in existence come complete with radiator attached.
So I put on my detective gear, traced the original manufacturer and found out that they had not manufactured or supplied one of these caps for 25 years or more! BIG problem.
I spoke to a very helpful guy at the company who managed to find, after a lot of digging through some old archives, the original drawings. So onto the next step.
I then had the task of finding a good machine shop to fabricate this without costing an arm and a leg, after all I don't think there's any possibility of the demand for these being more than the odd 1 off here and there (the final unit price for the cap and o-ring actually worked out at £85* *incl 10% disc to forum members & scammell register members delivered to customer in UK). I found a very good company and went to see them with the drawings. I had a look round their machine shop and saw this was a small, but very well set up manufacturing facility. The following day I received an email with the price and availability.
The company queried the angle of the pitch on the old type thread as this is not a standard pitch angle that is used today. We verified the information on the drawing by making three threaded plugs with slightly differing pitch angles to try in a radiator to check the thread. We ascertained the correct pitch and within two days I collected the caps from the manufacturer.
Receiving them I can honestly say I was extremely impressed by the standard of workmanship and quality of materials and finishing. It's nice to think that it's still possible to source quality UK manufactured parts for these great old British trucks. So I then packed the cap and sent the parts to the customer, hoping he would be every bit as happy as I was.
I received an email from the customer the following day and in his own words, "it fitted like a glove"... Another happy Scammell owner, and a happy me.
The upshot of this is we now have a very small stock of the new, beautifully shiny Radiator Caps! They will be added to our Parts Store which will be on the Protruck Services website soon. In the meantime, if there's anyone out there that wants one, just give us a call.
They are very shiny and could also make a great coffee mug stand, although maybe a bit pricey for that.
