[ThePog]

A minor amount messing around this weekend. I thought I had better sort the cold idle issue, I had fudged a little cam lever type arrangement on the throttle pedal that lifted the revs a bit when cold, but it was hard to get to from the seat and wasn't really adjustable enough. This has been fine over summer but it's getting chillier in the mornings here.
I eventually settled on the idea of using a central locking motor to give an adjustable amount of rev lift;



You can see it up in that mess. It hits the screw, pushes the pedal a bit but doesn't get in the way of the pedal movement.

There is a switch on the dash that activates it.

Cool cool.

After a discussion with some boys who know more than me, I have removed the line to the turbo boost actuator to see what freeboost levels I am getting.

It seems that the fuel setting on the new pump wasn't allowing enough boost to develop, as I was only seeing 7 or 8psi. I bypassed the actuator and wound the fuel up a 1/4 turn. This now gives me a very lively feeling 10psi with potentially more when I become jaded with the level of neck snapping acceleration I am getting.

Also I have pretty much decided to fit an auxiliary radiator down in front. Things work ok but I am uncomfortable relying just on the fan to keep temperatures in check. I might fit a trundles modified thermostat first just to see what effect this has, these are supposedly the tits.

Laters.

 

[ThePog]

Right o, the latest round of ****ery.

As discussed, I decided that a second rad was going in, regardless of the peeps who said not to worry. Basically the thing bouncing off the electric fan just by hitting 100kmh for 2 mins or after a hard pull was not giving me the lovelies.

After a measure up I scoured the internet radiator catalogs for a suitable donor. Unsurprisingly a Hiace van rad was pretty much bang on if maybe a little tall. I ordered one from my rad man and when it arrived presented it up.

A minor forward tilt had it sitting in a good place.

The top inlet pipe was a stupid angled thing so I took it back to rad man to change it for a straight inlet.

I made some bottom mounts that hooked in to existing chassis holes, then fudged up a top mount.

I had to grind off some unnecessary brackets and such but that was no drama.

Then I spent quite a while rejigging the stainless pipework to point in the general direction of the rad pipes.

I dragged the old fan and viscous clutch setup out of the container, however the 450mm safari fan was going to be pretty tight in there and probably going to hit the engine cover. Some google-fu resulted in the purchase of a TD27 fan, as it had the same mounting but only 420mm diameter, perfect.

I then somehow spent nearly a week of evenings dicking around creating a shroud that would miss everything but still do ducty good things.. I have no idea what it took so long, but it did get remade 3 or 4 times.

It's a bit dodgy, ie made out of some old flashings that were the only really thin steel I had lying around, but it appears to duct adequately.

So today I finally filled and bled the cooling system and took it for a spin, and holy sh*t what a huge difference! It basically gets to 1/3 of the way up the gauge and stays there absolutely rock solid. This is where it sat when doodling around town previously.

I did a long run at 100kmh, then went up a steep hill that had always made the big fan come on and it didn't move the gauge at all. Super happy with that....

It also appears the thermostat now has a temperature range it can work with, as the wee fan and aux pump cycle on and off which tells me the thermostat is choosing to open and close rather than stay open all the time in an attempt not to blow the engine up.

So all in all that was a worthwhile exercise.

 

[ThePog]

After a week or so of driving around with my newly confidence inspiring and robust cooling system I got all excited and transferred my tools into the drawer.

This showed up the limitations of my home made drawer sliders, which I kindof expected but was disappointing when the drawer no longer opened after a drive on a gravel road. So I bought some proper sliders and fitted them up;

These are better, although they are not as chunky as I wanted due to space limitations.
However, this extra weight caused things to list slightly to one side. I had previously bought a high lift jack that is useful to brace the body when using the crane, and that was just sitting in the back, so I thought it would find a spot where I could use it's chunkyness to offset the tools.

A couple of hours work and we had this;

It is pinned at the bottom and has a trailer hitch at the top so can't really fall off....
This had the desired effect, it sits nicely as you can see.

It also now has a UHF cb with a chunky antenna, it's quite fun driving around with it in auto scan.

 

[ThePog]

I finally sourced a rocker assembly from a later TD engine, I wanted to swap out the rocker assembly to see if it improved my 2000rpm clatter. These have a better valve contact face.

Here it is before I cleaned it up for install along with a spare set of old style rockers I had;

A couple of days later I took it to the local autocross for a look, there was a bit of fun to get to the track, finally got it dirty . The clatter has improved slightly...

The trip involved going over a hill known as Spooner's, this is a long long pull and is basically the litmus test to see if your car will actually make it the 4 hours to Christchurch. The answer was a hard no when I last went up it in my Humber Super Snipe, however it was solid as a rock in the truck. The big fan came on near the top but it felt sweet, heaps of pull.

It gets a lot dirtier on gravel than any other car due to the sticky out wheels but this just adds to the cred right?

 

[ThePog]

So it's been roughly 6 months and 5000kms, I thought I would do a situation report;

It's fking amazeballs.

It's not stupidly big so I can use it as a daily no problem, although I do need to choose my parking spots a bit carefully.

It's still big enough and industrial enough to make sure that merging like a zip is a given.

It's actually really comfortable to drive, plus it's rock solid on the road. It will happily sit at 100/110 no problem.

I'm getting on average 12.5l/100km, not amazing but not bad either. It is pretty lively off the mark so a reasonable balance.

It takes a shedload of stuff. I put 45 sheets of 12mm ply on it the other day, 750 or 800kg, no problem.

The deck is also big enough to take sizable items, it's way better than my little townace for that.

It's still quite noisy, I must find some vinyl and redo the floor with some deadening.

I put some extra speakers on the dash that I got from the dump shop for $6, this helps me hear my audiobooks a bit better. Last night I installed a wee powered sub, now music is pretty listenable too.

The wiring situation under the dash is getting stupid, I actually bought some distribution blocks today so I can remove the splice upon splice of power wires that power the stereo/sub/egt/cb/etc etc. It's got to the point even I don't know what's powering what.

The engine rattle is still there but seems not to be an issue, I'll run it till it blows up I guess.

But overall I am super happy with it, it is so incredibly practical. Its probably the best thing I have ever built.

PFT, here it loaded up with ****e;




In other news I have been picking away at building a cabin of an evening, which got me thinking about camping trips and spare wheels. So I thought I had better make provision for one, and later, two;

It's a bit flexi, which it probably needs as it is bolted to both the cab and deck, but it might bang on the roof if I hit a bump. I'll go for a run and see how it goes, I'll probably wedge some padding underneath, it's pretty close.

Here is the cabin progress, it's all been cut out on my CNC router;

Even though you can't tell the cabin is now covered with 3 different thicknesses of three different types of material, ie a $100 sheet of 2mm ACM, $20 sheets of 3mm foamed PVC, and free sheets of 4mm foamed who knows what packaging material.

It looks way better in the pics than it actually is.

Nevertheless I ordered a few hundred dollars worth of hardware from Comac today, this will give me lift struts and locking doors and allow me to clamp it to the deck, yay.

That's all for now.

 

[ThePog]

This week in Cabin Builders News;

I glued up the doors and mounted them.

Many different interior finishes.

Then I made some things so the back door could be strutted open with some cheapish Comac struts.

I had a small solar panel lying around so I glued this on. I had been using this as a battery charger with a small solar controller so I bought a dinky battery and an LED light and installed all that.

The controller has a USB port so theoretically I can charge my phone at night.

Got the cabin sitting on the back more or less;

Not much adjustment on those struts so those doors don't open quite as high as I would like, probably brain myself eventually as the front edges are at a good height for that.

I then spent a minor amount of time attaching the hold down latches, and absolutely fricking ages making several iterations of the clamps such that it worked properlyish. The adjustment is sensitive to sideways movement of the cabin, I may need to rethink the rear ones..

Then fast forward a few days worth of effort.

Cabins pretty much done. I made some lifting points so I could fork it around the place.

Its looking pretty expedition right now.

The latches are pretty trick, I got these so the didn't poke out and get caught.

Also here is the light and solar controller setup inside, pretty basic (including the cable routing) but that's all I need.

Next I'll see where it leaks, I imagine pretty much everywhere.

Next job I'll change that roof rack so it can take two tyres and have a spectacular tyre mounting and demounting system. I'll need to buy some hardware for that tho.

 

[ThePog]

So that engine rattle is still there. So annoying as the engine is probably twice as loud at 100kmh as anywhere else. Stink.

I thought it might be the low range lever rod that runs under the cab, but a quick check with some cable ties eliminated that.

So I had a dig in the container and dragged this boat anchor out.

You may notice the lack of a piston. This is because the previous owner hydraulic'd it and snapped a rod. The crank seems ok tho.

Somewhere, but I don't know where, I have a spare rod I shall endeavor to find.

That rattle is frustrating, the local foamer gave me some ideas around fueling but I don't think it's that. It's definitely mechanical as it happens coming down the rev range as well as going up and always at the same revs.

Anyway, a harder look at that block tells me number 3 is going to need a resleeve cos the hydraulic'd and broken con rod has taken a good chunk out of the bottom of the sleeve, and the rear crank seal face is average at best....hmmm.

I am torn between;

1. Going ahead with rebuilding this block and accepting some extra expense. Probably 4k+ for the short block and all the new bits I need.

2. Buying a complete 'runner' from a local wreckers for 3.5k or from the fb dude who buys all the Patrols in the south island and has heaps lying around - also 3.5k. Either of which would be an unknown and could need a rebuild anyway.

3. Buying a 'rebuilt' short block from a fb dude 4.5k exchange. I am hesitant.

4. Find another better short block and rebuild that.

I have potentially found another short block so of it's ok I'll probably go with that and rebuild it, at least I'll know exactly what I have then.

HMU if you live 5 mins away and have a rebuilt block you are not going to use and will flick it off for a grand.

Now a break from that wall of text, I do have pics of some things that have happened..
I have acquired this old hospital bed which I intend to make into an engine lift to help that engine swap. I removed all the excess sh*t which left this situation;

It looks a little light for the 550kg+ of engine and gearbox it will need to support. Those boys are rated for some right fat buggers but I shall do some testing first I reckon.

Also to make it harder I mounted a skid plate I got cut out of 3mm stainless. I have been reluctant to get too offroady with the truck cos the rear rad pipes are pretty vunerable, this will help a lot.

I will find some lower profile bolts for that this week.

The big holes are for the coolant drains and the sump - up here for thinking down there for dancing boys.

I need to make one more skid plate for up front but that will be straightforward.

In other news I messed with my lidar scanner the other day for the first time and got some cool results...



Lidar scanning

 

[ThePog]

Also this week I modded the towbar to be a receiver type, the towball was sitting a wee bit too high, the last time I hired a digger we had to fork the trailer up onto the ball. Now it sits lower and can be lower again if I need it, but the bare socket is no lower than before.

Im just waiting for some pins to arrive....

Then as I had some 65x6 box spare I added one to the front, along with a sh*t-ton of bracing behind it to the mounts. If I ever get a winch I will just mount it to this.

You can also see the extra strop mounts I added a wee while ago...

I have two separate leads on short blocks, if either comes through I will be cranking that rebuild.

 

[ThePog]

A quick jog south to St Arnoud this evening to increase my collection of boat anchors.

 

[rgren2]

Cornering the market?

 

[ThePog]

And two short blocks dropped off at the engine shop;

I took both in because the new block wasn't all that good after all, the two center pistons were siezed from overheating and had to be knocked out forcibly. The bores might be saved but maybe not. The crank had some unhappy scuffing and a serious seal face wear groove so I don't know that it's an improvement.

I have a rather large pile of bits to pick through though.

In the meantime to liven things up I added some bars to my deck in preparation for a potential canvas canopy a bit later...

And a near cousin to the Dynafari sitting next to it ..

 

[ThePog]

I got it into my stupid head that I needed an on board water supply, so now I have this 58L under the deck;

I'll replace that clear pipe at some point, probably when it turns green...

Then yesterday I got onto one of the few remaining real jobs this weekend.

Also I'm basically an upholsterer now.

I found an outfit in chch to sell me this kit, I might have bought a bit too much felt..

I used the old one as a template, with the gaps where I did the roughest job cutting it to shape previously filled with tape to make it more accurate.

The new one placed initially, with extra dome action.

The new one with backing.

The back floor templated with the help of some cardboard that I didn't take a pic of unfortunately.

See how the truck is its own workbench?

Primo.

And trimmed a bit, backing added and in place. I bought a heap of domes from spotlight after I went there initially and drastically underestimated the number of them I would need. Fortunately they click up to the factory receptacles still left in the floor, although I added some extras for extra fixings.

I employed an amazing number of techniques to mark where the domes should be to fit to the studs that already existed, the best was red marker on the stud then mash the pvc into it. I still managed to blow it a bit here and there.

The engine cover cover. Look at how much I cared. I welded those seams with a bad tube of plumbing cement that last got used 5 months ago, I'll get some proper pvc weld stuff tomorrow and make it a bit more secure.

I'll also be able to add some edging then too, the glue means it might not fall off.

I am quite pleased with the result, I like to think it will make a difference to the cabin noise. We will see during tomorrows outing.

The next couple of days will be redoing the front cabin bits as these are also rough and ragged where I simply didn't care when I fitted them.

Thats all.

 

[ThePog]

Did a bit more, mostly the rather complicated front floor. First I added the edging to the stuff in the back, it didn't need glue and held on pretty sweet. It looks nice.

Then this boy, which I had to have two goes at. Just as well I bought so much material eh.

It came up acceptably well. The drivers footwell needed shaping somehow, so I stupidly cut it with the idea of gluing a second layer over the top.

Then last night I remembered I had a heat gun, so I remade it with some templating improvements. Once the second cut was in place, I heated the area up and stuffed a rolled up towel backed by some blocks into the area which was way way better.

Then I did the front engine cover which was tricky as well and required a bit of shaping;

Also like a twat I managed to do this in the middle of the driver's seat with the heat gun;

Its not to bad but I am slightly disappointed in myself.

Now there is just under and behind the seats to do, I'll sort it this week.

I took it for a drive and it has already made an amazing difference, I wouldn't say it is like a rolls, but it is approaching civilised....

 

[ThePog]

Visited the engine builder yesterday;

 

[ThePog]

And here sits the single most expensive part of the entire process;

 

[rgren2]

Wow, twin motors. 😳😳😉

 

[ThePog]

Wow, twin motors. 😳😳😉

I actually have triple motors, maybe I should try to make a V12 TD in a year or so once this is run in...?

The rebuilt one should go alright it is set up to take a bit of boost and has a reprofiled cam that should let it spin up with a lot less restriction.... ;-)

 

[Benny Jahmin]

A bit hard to see in the photos but those liners don't look like they have any protrusion?

 

[ThePog]

That is an interesting question now that I have read up about it. I shall speak to the engine builder before I get too far....

 

[ThePog]

So I talked to my engine builder about the liner protrusion. My research on the internet tells me that it needs it or I will go through head gaskets like toilet paper, however I have a tendency to trust the guy who does it for a living and has been in business for a long time over internet opinions...

The spec was for +0.05mm which doesn't seem a lot. However I was concerned, so I asked. He reassured me that the type of liner he installed, the way better than spec Ra of the head and deck machining, the type of gasket supplied and the boost I intended to run meant that it would be absolutely fine. I am reassured but I guess time will tell. He said he has built many of these and only does it for big boost applications.

Anyway, time to start the process.

Firstly I had to make something with wheels to lower the engine onto that could withstand the 650 odd kg of chunk. That would mean I could roll it out after lifting the truck up. I bought 6x 100kg castors and raided the steel rack;

It was intended to go this way up so it could be lower, but I forgot to account for the swivel of the castors so I had to flip it. Should be fine..

I looks like this and is sturdy as. Altho they are Mitre 10 castors and probably not really 100kg rated. We'll see.

Then it was just a case of removing things to clear the engine.

I had my turbo man check out the turbo, he said it looked ok. My engine man wanted low boost while running it in I decided to add back the weak 9ish psi actuator but in a way better position. This meant modifying the wastegate pivot arm but no biggie;

I have hopefully bought an adjustable Kinugawa one off marketplace, but in the meantime I also ordered a cheap boost tap off the tard which should be ok for initial testing.

The turbo man was super useful. We discussed the setup for a while, including how it seems to come on boost in a linear fashion along with the revs rather than come on hard at lower revs. He reckoned it needed more fuel to spool up faster but probably needed something to actually limit the boost. Hence the mods. When I first started freeboosting it the fuel was turned up a 1/4 turn and it went hard but was hitting 22+ psi. We also talked about oil feed restriction and he said nothing needed as it was not a roller bearing and internally regulated. He also said to remove the bungs on the water cooling jacket that I didn't use, he said its better for cooling and wouldn't matter.

I made an executive decision on Tuesday that it was official Xmas hols, thus freeing up valuable time for shed based shenanigans.

So after much wriggling and jiggling and removing of things I didn't really want to remove and a **** ton of coolant dropping onto the floor we had this;

Jeez it is a big donk, I forgot how massive the unit was when bolted up to the trans. I had to lift the front of the truck scarily high to get it out and the rollers on that trolley are really not up to the task...

I forked the main bit from/through the side door but also used the crane to support the back. This worked out pretty sweet, although after I took this pic I realised I needed to ratchet the box towards the drivers side to keep things even;

I got the head off and took it to the engine man for cleaning/checking/install of the flash new double valve springs.

Gave the block a lick of paint so I can see the oil leaks better and started reassembly. I bought a parts washer a couple of months back so I have been cleaning and painting parts as I go along.

I love this part.

I did a chunk more yesterday so it is looking way more complete, however I probably need to pay attention to family matters for the next couple of days, or so I have been told. I am slightly mystified as the the reasons for this but I have learnt to read the signs.