Folder 6. . . . . The Teleflex Controls
From the beginning there were no control levers, having been stripped out by the Navy. No-one at all could help, neither with pictures nor actual evidence that these controls existed on ANY vessel ANYWHERE !
I placed Ads everywhere I could think of. . .at boat jumbles and magazines. I contacted dozens of chandlers and also breakers yards all over the world, and got absolute and total silence.
Here is the only proof of what the original looked like. Even teleflex themselves were baffled. . no records of it at all. The FMD project was probably too small for them. I did consider making a copy, but did not know it's dimensions, or what was inside. . . . and no-one else did either !!
So I sourced from another friendly chap- Roger Baxter- a set of period controls that would not look too out of place. . .and after all. . .no-one else could dispute it !. So here it is ! I managed to buy modern control cables and joined it all up. . .and it worked ! The " Auto-interlock" system left me baffled though. It turns out that with that system it is impossible to change forward to reverse motion at high revs. It automatically throttles back in that situation to avoid damage to the gearbox. Earlier series FMDs did not have this and obviously it had been necessary to modify
THEN. . .one day after the restoration was well-nigh finished and we had even had two test days on the water. I got an email froma naval architect in Cumbria who had just found on ebay what he remembered from my wanted ads in Classic Boat. He contacted the assistant editor at home and managed to get my emaill address. By pure fortune there were just 28 minutes left in the auction ! I placed a decently high limit and made a bid. . . . 15 minutes later I raised my limit to a very large amount and waited anxiously. . . until. . . .'Bingo' It was mine !
It was up in Fort William and the seller was called " Prawny Ronnie ". . . a very jolly langoustine fisherman who was delighted that the part should have found it's way back home. Of course there were no other bidders! . . . how could there be?? It is amazing that it should have survived this long. . .just waiting.
SO. . .two enormous "thank you"s to two friendly people. . . . .and here it is. . . .
I soon discovered that the original cables were the rack type which is used in windscreen wiper motors. . .but I could NOT trace the manufacturer, and also gave up the idead of making up an outer casing in tube which winds about inside the boat. So I made a conversion connector as you can see below
Here is the conversion I came up with. The interior of the unit is seriously impressive and built to last forever ( as long as the scrap men stay away ! ) I hope that my changes will be acceptable. Certainly the transfer of motion is extremely smooth
I fabricated an enclosing casing box to avoid anyone leaning or standing on the exposed cables. The brass casing will have it's original logo and details very soon
I have finally managed to get the proper labelling on the controls ! .
