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Anon
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Seats cleaned....minor repairs still to be done.
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 Sun 07 Feb 2010 @ 15:38
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Anon
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;]
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Sun 07 Feb 2010 @ 23:01
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Anon
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Day 16 & 17, cab refit
Cab floor after Margrae had only just finished painting it -
First things to do though were reconnect the underbody wiring -
and make a start on replacing the brake pipes with the front to rear pipe and front tee piece -
Camper wiring is being ignored for now because I've no idea yet what the wiring goes to. The reverse switch tails have had bullet connectors & sleeves fitted rather than leave bare wires dangling like I found them (the green cable is 12V ignition fed supply).
First thing to replace inside the cab once the paint had dried next day (with the help of a fan heater the night before) was the insulator over the top of the floor aperture above where the engine cover meets it. Evil-Stik can be used but spray glue is a lot easier -
At pretty much the same time the left and right side bulkhead insulators were given the same treatment -
These are shoddy flock (as in recycled textile fibre) mats with a rubberised surface; spray glue wins over everything else because it sticks down the loose stuff without bits falling off.
The front floor mats aligned with the steps helped position the bulkhead mats and keep them in place while the glue did its stuff once the mats were pressed into place -
Cab rear floor mat was laid as well for something to walk on -
The insulator and all the mats came from the donor; the original ones from Margrae's van were fit only for the bin. From the cut-outs in the rear floor mat the donor probably left the factory with a single passenger seat because the mat should have been cut out for a double seat base: bases must be bolted down metal to metal to be properly secure.
Heater was next, starting with the temperature control cable by poking it through its grommet in the hole in the bulkhead -
Next, the heater box ('scuttle ventilator') inside the cab -
This is from the donor too because it's the later one with better footwell/demist regulator flap.
The control cable is best fitted to the dash control first & then adjusted at the flap lever for flap fully open, fully closed at each end of the control travel.
Once that's done the 3 demist tubes can be fitted & the box offered up to the bulkhead so that the 6 captive fasteners align with the holes in the bulkhead. This one sat in place ok but when a box tries to fall out a lump of polyurethane foam or even a wedge of cardboard between the box & scuttle panel will keep it in place.
Under-bonnet part with the heater matrix & motor in it was built up out of two in order to have a complete casing & also lose extra connections in the heater motor wiring.
Box fitted -
The control valve has to be detached from the bracket on top of the casing in order to fit & adjust the cable (need to be careful to avoid fracturing the thermostat tubing that's clipped to the heater matrix) and the bulkhead grommet has to be removed to pass the wiring through it then refitted.
The fresh air duct inside the cab was a rigid plastic moulding but it had been butchered so the tubing type from the donor was fitted before fitting the tubing to the heater box under the bonnet.
Pedal bracket -
One-piece assembly from the donor: so much easier to fit than the two-piece earlier one. Brake light switch wires are green & green+purple.
At the same time the servo & master cylinder went on before tightening any of the bolts -
Indicator wiring connected too - forgot that when the rear harness was put back. There's no side repeaters so the tails (green+white, black) can be poked into the wing cavity out of the way.
Clutch & brake pedals, accelerator pedal & also the fusebox bracket -
Servo clevis fits in the lower hole in the brake pedal; if it can be fitted in the upper hole then there's something wrong, usually a bust servo piston (plastic bit that's under the dust boot is part of it)...
Accelerator & clutch cables -
Both from the donor; accelerator cable has the relay lever bracket for the Perkins engine; clutch cable is like the slant 1.8 type with threaded adjuster on the clutch end.
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Tue 23 Feb 2010 @ 00:14
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Anon
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Looking great already...Phil, so good to see things going in as opposed to taking apart. She is being reborn ! fantastic job. Great to see a craftsman at work, me a mere 'lacky' or more like a goffer !!
Margaret
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Tue 23 Feb 2010 @ 12:06
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Anon
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Truly amazing. What a transformation & to think that all this work has been done outside without a workshop. Garden shed engineering at it's best.
I tip my hat to the both of you.
Rae & Ann
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Tue 23 Feb 2010 @ 21:24
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Anon
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My contribution so far is very small compared to the massive work Phil has done, but I am watching with great interest and trying to learn. God knows how he knows where all the bits go...boxes of screws, washers, and bits of metal parts....jeez he recognises them all !
Spagetti junction......
After sorting out wires and repairing bodged wires, Phil fitting console back on.
Had to leave at that point to drive back to Scotland....but she's getting there !
Margaret
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Tue 23 Feb 2010 @ 22:20
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Anon
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Day 18, wiring
Cab wiring wasn't too difficult with having 2 sets of switches to play with, apart from having to glue together the only complete fog lights switch that someone had broken in the past (nothing wrong with the switch otherwise). Facelift & CF2 are so much easier anyway because the switches have dedicated plug mouldings.
Non-original wiring got removed first including a bridge soldered between the lights switch and fog lights switch supply cables; the fault that this indicates can be fixed when the column switch is installed.
An addition with fitting a Perkins engine is an igniter switch (from the donor). The cigarette lighter socket was retained for running accessories with a matching plug -
Where the igniter switch is fitted there's 2 connections available in the harness, purple (fused battery supply) & purple+brown out to the bulkhead connector (not used though, ideally should be horn relay to conform with BS AU 7). More on this in under-bonnet harness below.
Cigarette lighter feed is from the brown leads with a double bullet connector behind the dash provided for un-fused battery supply so had to have a 15A line fuse fitted, behind the lighter socket so that it's easy to get at from underneath the switch panel.
Dash & switch panels in place -
Absence of a glow plug warning lamp is consistent with Perkins igniter starting aid but I might fit the one from the donor that wasn't working to indicate what the igniter switch is doing when it's pressed in.
Extra rocker switches are to fill the hole in absence of a blanking plate & aren't wired to anything yet.
Hole below the fresh air vent had a rocker switch connected to the camper wiring underneath but not to a supply (cables taped up) and may have been a manual 'split charge' switch because the leisure battery doesn't seem to have anything except the Zig unit to charge it.
Hole next to the cigarette lighter is for the idle control from the donor -
This has a short steel cable connected to the accelerator pedal (again from the donor) and works by twisting the knob on its screw thread while depressing the accelerator pedal to obtain a fast idle. Once the knob is glued back onto the threaded spindle that is; Araldite rapid + hot air gun to get it to cure at 2C or thereabouts, sorted.
Under-bonnet harness took a bit of thinking about. The original harness was scrap with being chopped about so much; even the thick brown leads for the alternator had been twisted together & taped up any old how.
Donor harness had too many wires in it for the Perkins engine; it only needs wiring for oil, temperature & thermostart as well as starter, alternator & bulkhead feed wiring so it had a bit of a tidy-up, starting with un-wrapping the harnesses from the 2 bulkhead plugs used -
Incidentally, I'd stuffed the underbody wiring plugs in the wrong sockets a few days back; helps to have brain in gear and use the numbered tags, 1 to 6, and fit them in the right order from top left to bottom right...
Also, both the original & donor harnesses had the resistance wire in for petrol engines with the extra white cable for the starter solenoid. Without the 81-on link connector fitted near the ignition coil (Delco or Bosch system) they're redundant because the white lead spliced in near the bulkhead connector is direct ignition supply (used with the Opel diesel for fuel shut-off solenoid). Perkins engine is mechanical (cable) stop so the white cable got bundled with other spare cables once the resistance wire was chopped out.
End result once the engine wiring was complete was 4 spare wires but rather than chop them back I made them up as a spare harness for extra ancillaries if need be that can be wired up without putting extra holes in the bulkhead.
The igniter feed wire (purple+brown behind the dash) came out at the bulkhead plug as black (so much for BS AU 7...) & cut short to about 6 inches long. I spliced in the white+red cable from the original harness using a Solistrand crimp tube (+ heat shrink tubing) and fitted an eyelet for the thermostart element. The white+red cable for the starter solenoid wrapped with the brown leads to the starter is a lot thicker & has a 6.3mm spade terminal so there's not much chance of confusion.
Finished harness using the original plastic harness tubing -
Alternator harness (6 sq mm brown + 1 sq mm brown+yellow) also has the temperature sender lead (green+blue) in it.
Speedo cable has to be found & fitted yet (original & donor ones are for ZF boxes but one for a facelift CF with Vauxhall box will fit the TK box) but the grommet is in its hole ready. An ordinary universal choke cable with the friction lock removed should do for engine stop & might reach the hole below the fresh air vent. We'll see...
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 00:23
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Anon
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margrae wrote:
Impeccable timing with the painting.
;]
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 01:32
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Anon
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[bow]
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 07:17
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Anon
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Day 19, brake pipes & tidy up
Brake pipes from the master cylinder made up & fitted so that once the axle beam is on there's only the short link pipes to the flexy hoses to do.
Pipe for nearside front runs from the tee piece near the steering column aperture and across the front of the floor panel box section & the rear pipe runs under the tee piece -
At the master cylinder the front & rear pipes have to have fairly large radius bends with the servo vacuum port being where it is -
When the servo vacuum port is on the other side of the master cylinder (usually an elbow type) the pipe bends can be a lot tighter.
The plastic clip that lives on the bracket below the servo was broken (as ever) so I found some spare metal clips to bolt on & sleeved the brake pipes with plastic tubing to make things tight & tidy. Plastic double clip between the pipes higher up is to damp vibration; can find these on other motors if the original one is missing or broken.
Chassis clips need 3/16" bore rubber hose around the pipes for insulation. Clip screws are machine screws, not self tappers, and every one needed an impact driver to get them moving during strip-down but once they moved they all came out clean. It's always a bit of a pain to salvage clips & screws for re-use but they're far better compared to plastic clips when shaping pipes to fit just right & once any slack ones are tapped tight with a hammer they won't need looking at again.
Incidentally, I'm using cupro-nickel tubing for brake pipes & junking the copper ones that were fitted; much as copper is suitable in terms of bursting pressure it has a chronically poor fatigue resistance & can fracture without warning. 10% nickel alloy is as easy to work as copper but needs a lot of abuse before it fractures.
Downside (as with copper) is differential corrosion of steel parts that pipes are attached to but even if I could get steel brake tubing as easily as cupro-nickel the copper lining it comes with has much the same effect in the end, usually as pitting of the pipes that doesn't look bad at first but can penetrate right through the pipe wall (hence the copper lining).
Pretty much ready for fitting the engine and axle now; anything I've missed can be done as a snagging session afterwards.
EDIT
Fatigue of copper brake pipes needs qualifying; thanks to Greg for raising this by pmail.
Places to worry about are runs that aren't adequately supported and at unions that have to be cooked to undo them, or the pipe has been twisted at a union or is under tension with being too short. U-bends aren't desirable either because they can form a vibration node that can accelerate fatigue cracking.
Conversely, copper available these days will re-anneal itself over time and regain its ductility (without looking it up I think it's to do with the micro-crystalline structure achieved by modern processing) so is a lot safer than the rubbish that was about when I was mending CFs full time and Kunifer (K10, 10% nickel alloy as fitted to Volvos from new) got to be the only non-steel tubing that my local MoT place would pass.
There's a lot more to it of course (a shed load of research papers on the topic) and steel pipe can fracture too if it's mistreated but I prefer to play safe especially with Margrae's van having had so much inept & incompetent work done on it before I laid my hands on it, not least badly fitted and poorly secured brake pipes.
On CFs the pipes to keep an eye on are the long one across the rear axle when the steel straps are too thin to be any use or have fallen off due to corrosion and the front to rear pipe where chassis clips are hard to get at (e.g. above the fuel tank).
Fitting a Perkins engine to Margrae's might bring some changes if any of the pipes start vibrating when the engine is idling but (as with any van so afflicted) an extra clip or even just another insulator strapped on with a cable tie may be all that's needed.
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 18:44
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Anon
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Incredible work Phil!! Keep it coming - it gets to be like waiting for the next thrilling episode!!
This would be a great tv documentary - Rebirth of a Bedford:D
Would be better than some of these "reality" tv shows we get at present!
cheers
Dave
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 20:37
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Anon
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DaveS wrote:
like waiting for the next thrilling episode!!
I am checking the site daily at the moment, and enjoy following the progress on the various 'project vans' on the site.
Dave you are right - this would make good TV. Like Pimp my Ride, only less tacky!
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Wed 24 Feb 2010 @ 21:57
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Anon
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Anyone got a video camera? know a 'programme maker'?- a 'video diary' of events would be fantastic. It would make a brilliant TV programme. !
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Thu 25 Feb 2010 @ 08:44
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Anon
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philbradshaw wrote:
thanks to Greg for raising this by pmail.
Thanks Phil, I wasn't really after any credit there, thats why I PM'd, but you put in a really good piece though.
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Fri 26 Feb 2010 @ 16:43
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Anon
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Greg, I know you weren't seeking credit but I thought it polite to acknowledge your input. Credit is due though for reminding me that some of what I take for granted needs a bit more detail for general consumption! 
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Fri 26 Feb 2010 @ 21:54
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Day 20, fit axle beam & engine
First, the handbrake lever needed refitting then heaving on tight -
This was needed in order to use the van as an anchor for a chain block for hauling the engine & gearbox under the van from about 10 metre away -
Even with the mechanical advantage of the chain block worm gear, shifting best part of 750kg on soggy scaffold planks called for a 2-brew sit down to recover.
Engine in position for lifting -
After a number of lifts to get the engine off the ground & on timber blocks & the gearbox strapped to a lump of 3x2 over the gear lever aperture the final lift got the engine high enough to fit the front axle beam less brake drums.
There followed a bit of cussing ... a lot of cussing to be honest, because it had gone dark and I didn't notice that the exhauster connection for the servo pipe had jammed against the bulkhead & bent the edge. After that was sorted by re-hanging the engine the axle beam then refused to go up evenly. However, with a bit of timely help from Margrae holding lights & stuff I won in the end -
The gearbox is supported on a lump of timber for now until the cross member is fitted, in daylight!
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Sun 28 Feb 2010 @ 23:15
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Day 21 gearbox cross member, fuel lines, axle beam control rods
Gearbox cross member was a straightforward fit because a full set of bolts, bushes, spacers and locktabs came off the donor -
Rear mounting offset (position of single stud in relation to the 2 studs that fit the back of the gearbox) is to the front & the rear 2 holes in each of the chassis brackets are used. The cable trunking hanging down on the right side is the camper wiring that will be sorted once the battery is connected & the van wiring checks out ok.
In the process the stands were moved to the front because they were in the way of rolling around underneath; engine earth cable was fitted first -
The threaded boss needed cleaning out with a thread cutting tap (it's 8mm thread) & the mating face for the cable cleaned up with a file. The original cable would have been flat, 45mm wide braid & I thought at first that another one would be needed but the cable that's on is 20mm diameter tubular braid so should be as good as original.
The propellor shaft centre bearing made a horrible grating noise when the bracket was turned on the shaft but it turned out to be the clip for locating the rubber cushion that somehow had come out & wedged itself in the front shield.
Easy enough to fix: unpick one end of the flat part of the bracket, assemble with clip located in curved bracket hole & crimp over the end of the flat bracket with vice grips -
With the front section fitted (pic lower down) the rear section was fitted & measurements taken for extending the rear section for 140" wheelbase (donor is 126" wheelbase). It's not as simple as 14" difference though because the front section has a Layrub coupling and there's a torsion damper disc to fit at the rear -
To allow for the 10mm thickness of the torsion damper disc plus 20mm to allow for the rear axle hitting the bump stops (when propellor shaft rear section slides forward on splines) the increase in length came out at 330mm so the rear section is now at Dunning & Fairbank having this added.
Fuel lines from the truck tank fitted on the left side of the van are plastic so should have been easy to re-route for the Perkins engine but they were a patchwork job with not a single ferrule at any of the rubber hose connections where the plastic was crushed -
Hot air gun on a low setting and some bits of cupro-nickel tubing for ferrules in new pipes & new hose connections at the ends: sorted.
Fitting the feed & return lines to the tank in the gap between the top of the tank and floor of the camper was a case of reaching over the tank from the back (easier said than done!) -
At the same time the mains flex lead with several sticky-taped twisted joins for the sender unit was replaced with a length of green+black from the donor rear harness and the correct crimp terminals to fit the sender unit & the bullet connector in the harness above where the original slab tank was fitted.
The fuel pipes were re-routed over the chassis cross member instead of underneath the handbrake cable and rather close to the propellor shaft as they were originally; this made clipping them to the right side chassis longitudinal so easy that it's surprising this wasn't done in the first place.
The reservoir for the CAV cold starting aid ('thermostart') needs to be fitted yet but in order get as much as possible underneath the van done this session the clutch cable was fitted along with the axle beam control rods were as I worked my way to the front.
The control rods from the donor were removed without disturbing the front nut of the 2 at the chassis bracket on both of them. To fit them the axle beam needs tilting by jacking on the lifting eyes at the front but it's still a fight to get the control rod front brackets past the lip of the double skin on the axle beam then align the front one of the rear bushes so that the spacer fits properly. Also, both rods need to be fitted before tightening either of them.
Likely the steering geometry will be out anyway with not being the original axle but with not disturbing the nuts there'll be less head scratching once the van is back on its wheels & moveable so that things can be done with spirit level bubbles (camber, castor, king pin inclination gauge).
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Tue 02 Mar 2010 @ 00:31
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Anon
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The roof vents were not watertight so removed all the sealant. Shirl was the lightest so she went up onto the roof !! I think they will need replacement.....not worth trying to reseal and end up more water damage.
Job done.....keek-a-boo
Covered holes with polythene ......now to find replacement vents !!
Margaret
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Sat 06 Mar 2010 @ 16:02
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Day 22, front axle bits swapping
The suspension springs, shock absorbers (proper fat ones with the donor being a 350) & wishbones on the donor axle look to be in much the same condition as Margrae's original axle so they're being left alone unless it turns out that the springs are a bit tired once the van is back on its wheels.
The brakes were shot though: cylinders and adjusters seized and brake pipes rotten -
Backplates swap then, meaning everything off from the stub axle -
With the brakes being 10-inch the lower of the 2 bolts for the brake hose bracket can't be got at with a socket (thin wall type, 3/8" drive usually fine) until the 4 backplate bolts are out. Having the bracket loose makes fitting the brake pipe union a lot easier.
The 4 backplate bolt heads & their nuts are 3/4" AF, nyloc nuts on the 2 longer bolts through the steering arm, plain nuts + rectangular section spring lock washers for the others. All 4 bolts have shake-proof washers under their heads; these need not be refitted if they come off broken but the shake-proof washers make tightening the nuts a lot easier.
The brake pipes were renewed using cupro-nickel tubing; the bridge pipe is best done with the backplate off so that it is shaped to clear the brake adjuster and also close against the backplate in the middle with about 3mm gap -
The small head on the smaller of the wheel cylinder retaining screws is an oddity, due to limited access. A 3/8" drive 1/8" BSF socket usually does the trick when the bolt heads are a bit rusty.
One thing to check every time the brakes come apart is that the bleed screw can be moved; the one on this backplate had to be removed & cleaned out because it was missing its dust cap.
Back together with the nearly new linings fitted for the MoT test just before the van came off the road: link pipe to the hose (3/8" UNF unions again) has to clear the other brake adjuster -
(I'll put in more detail on brake shoe fitting for the other side - short day with needing to pack up & be back home.)
Throw the wheel on (nearly new Michelin van tyre from the donor - original front tyre walls are cracking) and a check to make sure nothing fouled the wishbones lock to lock -
Right side done, just the hydraulics to bleed -
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Sat 06 Mar 2010 @ 16:15
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Anon
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Put antirust primer on bumper.....don't know if I want it white or black. Resprayed light inserts silver. When removing roof vents saw that the coach build was a Winnebago !
Margaret
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Sun 07 Mar 2010 @ 19:07
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