Project Beach Hut :: '89 Talbot Express Pilote Motorhome

[delux]

It's funny how retro car projects seem to sneak up on us isn't it...sometimes we need extra space for guests (..I mean the in-laws...) over the coming Christmas holidays and buying a retro motorhome seems the logical solution that keeps both marital parties happy

The only proviso from SWMBO was "the interior must be good enough for my mum" and it's got to be bigger than a VW camper. Well ok then, challenge accepted.

With not much time to execute my cunning plan before their arrival it was off to the bay of plenty to see what was on offer for a modest outlay and after a perfectly timed bid I was soon heading off to the south coast that very afternoon with my OM to collect my latest MOT'd reality distraction. I had my RAC card at the ready too as it was 27 years old after all.

I wanted to be all fancy and call it "The Cottage" - like "Yeah we just bought a cottage for you to stay in on the holidays, what a nice son-in-law I am" - but it was deemed more appropriate by the family in general that it be called "The Beach Hut" as hopefully next year it will carry us and our surfboards in comfort to various places along the British and european coasts. Well that's the fantasy after Crimbo anyway.

So after the legalities were taken care of I jumped into the captains chair of this coachbuilt 1989 Talbot Express Pilote R450, pulled out the choke, fired it up and headed home - with the leisure batteries on charge cos you never know if you might need them by the roadside. I've got to admit I was grinning. A lot. There's just something very enjoyable about older basic cars that are new to the fold - and you don't get much more basic that a Fiat Ducato commercial delivery van based motorhome 'sporting' a normally aspirated carburettored Peugeot engine that apparently has it's roots in the sixties - groovy baby, yeah!



While it may not be perfect it's in pretty good shape all around with only 67k miles on the clock and a new motor about 18k miles ago. It used to run LPG but that was ditched when the engine was changed to it's current 2.0 petrol motor. The 90 mile trip home was rather uneventful listening to all the noises, or lack their of, that a new car makes and drawing up a to do, and wish, list as the miles passed slowly by. The Beach Hut is not fast but thankfully it's not as slow as I remember the 1.9 petrol VW Westfalia we had as a kid. It cruised comfortably along the M23 and M25 at a smidge over 60 miles and hour and even overtook a bus. The heating worked as well as all the other essential bits, and beside an odd & random chatter from the front NS wheel over rougher tarmac, it was a solid runner and more sturdy than I had imagined.

I was well chuffed with the french-italian brick house on wheels.

The interior has got some great features, the style of the wooden cabinets are cool by me and remind me of whisky cabinets used by Mad Men, and best of all it feels quite roomy for a medium wheel base coach built motorhome.





A nice little beer fridge...



Two decent size double beds and a single for tall people like basketball players.



The driving position is good and the dash suitably retro and thoroughbred eighties design by block. Not a crack anywhere which is nice unlike the original dash that was in the 924.



Can you spot an aerial fitted horizontally inside the cab?

Sorry I can't offer even a reasonable exclamation for that one - but the JVC head unit is very nice but not connected up - like a lot of things in the engine bay I was later to discover...



There are a few knobs missing from the heater control sliders but it all works A-OK despite being fitted all wonky.

Outside and up front the grille has been lovingly painted by hand with what I suspect is black gloss enamel - looks ok from far as they say but the headlights are new and full beam should wake up any campsite...



The wheels need some attention!



As do the arches which have been hastily repaired in the past but hopefully has stopped the rot which is common to these cabs.



Today I had a good look around the engine bay - and this is where things started to get interesting - very interesting indeed.



At the end of the day this is a great base to start with and should be a load of fun restoring it.

An input regards old Peugeot petrol engines is welcomed - I have a small turbo in mind.

[westycapri]

Awesome looks great with so much space! Bookmarked

[delux]

Cheers westycapri

I started to poke around in the engine bay and discovered that virtually all the hose clamps were loose - loose enough to just pull the hoses off with a firm pull. I also found a few connectors without hoses attached, a bodged intake boot badly using silicon to hold a hose connector on a few unused items from the LPG system.

I started a thread looking for help here: link - please feel free to comment so I can get this engine running perfectly.

Bodged Boot:



I'm guessing I need a new intake boot - anyone got one for me please?

At the vacuum canister behind the air box cylinder there is a small take-off connector that once again is just sucking in air... apparently this should connect to the intake manifold under the carb, so I need to check that out.



Below the battery I found this little gubbins. It's not connected to anything and has a loose hose dangling in the engine bay as seen in the pic - old LPG stuff I'm told, so that's heading to the bin.



To the rear of the engine, and a part of the exhaust manifold it seems, is this steel pipe - it should be connected to the air filter as a warm air feed I've discovered. I still don't know why you'd want warm air feeding from the exhaust into the intake...surely this would effect performance?



This is where the above steel pipe should connect to - it's been "professionally" dealt with - at least it's before the air filter.



Inside the intake boot adjacent the brass connector I found this - which I now know is the venturi related to the LPG system and can be removed to free up some air flow into the Solex carb.



Talking about intake - how's this for simple induction. The only shiney bit in here at the moment:



And below it some more LPG related stuff that I can ditch:



I plan to sort this out and get The Beach Hut running smoothly before I figure out how to add a turbo to push it up hills quicker.

In the mean time I've started a list of add jobs of tightening & tidying up tasks that I hope to tackle while we have some winter sun - that includes trying to figure out why the front NS wheel rattles over rough tarmac.

[strikey]

what a cracking bus....that interior looks really comfy. all that matters is that the beer fridge works , don't sweat the rest!

[fr€$h&m1nt¥]

These always catch my eye when I drive past motor home specialist garages.

Having seen your interior photos isn't going to help with my urges!

[froggy]

As it hasn't jumped out of gear the box must be ok but I'd have a good look at the condition of the engine mounts and change the gearbox oil as a first job . There is a dipstick on the back of the box which makes it a nice job and if the oil is looking grim you'll have some advance warning that it needs attention before it breaks ,

[georgeb]

Nov 29, 2016 11:22:12 GMT delux said:

To the rear of the engine, and a part of the exhaust manifold it seems, is this steel pipe - it should be connected to the air filter as a warm air feed I've discovered. I still don't know why you'd want warm air feeding from the exhaust into the intake...surely this would effect performance?

Warm air feed for those cold winter days!

Looks like some sort of valve arrangement on the intake so that it pulls warm air off the exhaust when cold, but as things get up to temperature, it should shut that off and start sucking cold.

[pistonpopper]

Love it, in all it's Talboty Beige goodness!

[neilsdavies]

If it's Pug powered, would a 1.9 turbo diesel bolt in? Tunable and economical?

[delux]

cheers guys!

The PO used it almost every weekend for short trips away to local sites - the interior is very clean.

froggy - how's that Volbot going? That's my dream engine swap right there - pity the Volvo straight 6 sitting in my garage won't go into this! I'll check the gearbox level as you suggest. Engine oil looks like a diesel but the filter looks new (could be smoke and mirrors)... top engine mount and lower rear mount are now on order. Thanks.

georgeb - there is a spring loaded flap inside the airbox right where that spout is - closed on default. Would that somehow open for cool air when required?

neilsdavies - there seem to be a few swaps to 2.8TD motors that I'm looking into that owners have actually done so I'm looking into the finer details - that may be a good option.

Funnily enough it seems that the Petrol engine is the preferred option of the original choices which also included a 2.5TD. I'd like this running again asap but I need to sort that intake boot out.

[kevins]

With it's high octane value Lpg would work really well with a low pressure turbo, might be worth considering keeping the parts, Does it have a LPG tank? it is possible to use the same tank for the van cooking / heating supply and engine.

[delux]

kevins the PO told me the LPG system was independent of the cooker and heater but I think I should double check. I know nothing about LPG except that it costs less per litre haha.

I've been reading some peoples thoughts on turbo charging this engine (and old carb engines in general) and as usual it's all over the place with no definitive guide - although some elusive chaps have turbocharged this engine the info on their posts was minimal... The compression ratio is only 8.8:1 (similar to 944 turbo) so it's in low enough to boost I reckon but I'll need a collective hand holding to get it to work. I checked out the exhaust manifold from underneath and there's more than enough room back there. The downpipe bolts on with 2 bolts from what I can see so I could fashion an adapter and then bolt on a small turbo but there's lots more I don't know especially when it comes to fuelling when it comes on boost and needs more juice - I've read that someone suggested a raising rate fuel pressure regulator and a high pressure fuel pump - unchartered waters for me so any advice would be welcome.

While I wait for parts to arrive I decided to sort out the top rear joint seal - it looked pretty dodgy to me although inside it's bone dry and no evidence of ingress. Obviously at some point someones done a job on this for whatever reason. It was probably working but it bothered me that it was nasty looking and I'm pretty sure sellotape is not water proof



Despite the sub-zero temperature the sun was out but not warm enough to melt all the ice crystals on the roof of The Beach hut and with the Sikaflex Caravan sealant being delivered by Amazon I started to rip off the old grey seal which pulled off like it wasn't even bonded. Turns out there was two layers of the stuff that looked at lot like window putty...note the ice crystals...



I was starting to feel glad I did this before the mother-in-law arrives even though she's unlikely to climb on the roof.

After pulling off the large 'bead' of sealant I set about removing the residue with a sharp chisel, then a scotch pad to reveal the actual joint:



The putty has been pushed into the joint along with the original silicon so I set about getting that all out with a hobby knife and small hooked tool to reveal the gap needing filling.



I then ran some folded sandpaper the length of the joint, scraped out all the putty and old silicon, wiped it down with nail polish remover and grabbed the freshly delivered Sikiflex - at this juncture I would like to thank the seller for not including the nozzle with my order...which made using the sealant gun a rather frustrating & childlike effort. Typically, and of being Irish decent, Mr Murphy guaranteed that the other nozzles I had didn't fit...with the sun going down and the cold setting in I just had to press on and make do - something which I don't really enjoy. After all I was trying to improve this nastiness and not leave some of my own.




It was more difficult than it should have been without a nozzle on the Sikaflex but the result is nevertheless a stark improvement and the joint gap is thoroughly stuffed with silicon. It was a messy affair but nothing that can't be tidied up after winter.

There's a few of these nasty sealing efforts that I want to tidy up over the coming weeks & months.

[SmokeEm]

Talk to mr on here as he fitted a small turbo to his 2.8 granny using an SU. I don't know for sure but he has either converted it to accept forced induction or actually used a montego/maestro turbo carb? The Renault 5 Turbo carb could also work?

[delux]

Cheers SmokeEm I'll look up his build thread. Nice STi BTW!

[froggy]

I always find the petrol vans without a massive body on the back feel a bit more lively to drive than the diesels . Awful exhaust and teeny carb don't help these but I think a decent grind off the head and a 421 exhaust with a twin choke Weber would bring the power up 15-20 hp .

Refreshing to not hear that it will happily cruise at 70mph as I've been using mine for the last 3yrs and never seen a Talbot out of lane 1 on the motorway or above 60mph .

[georgeb]

Nov 30, 2016 10:58:11 GMT delux said:

georgeb - there is a spring loaded flap inside the airbox right where that spout is - closed on default. Would that somehow open for cool air when required?

Something like that! Various manufacturers used different methods to open/close the flap. Someone should be able to tell you about yours.

Going back, some were manual, in that you flipped a small lever on the intake in winter and put it back in summer. If you remembered. Another method was an intake nozzle that rotated through 90 degrees. Down (and over the exhaust) in winter and horizontal (cold air) for warmer times!

[delux]

georgeb it turns out the flap is activated by a mechanism that apparently failed to work much after the engine was new and many have deleted them. Some say that it can be activated manually but mine is stuck so it looks like I'll be 'modifying' it to allow a cold air feed.

While a few mechanical bits were in the mail and temps below freezing outside I got stuck into getting the JVC stereo to work. It's a nice bit of kit with great build quality - pity there's no aux input for a stealth iPod install. Any ideas?



Extracting all the lengths of wires behind the dashboard revealed a blown inline glass 6A fuse. With that replaced the stereo burst into life and revealed the next issue - the left hand rear speaker wasn't working and the front left was barely audible. A wiggle of the wires stirred the front to life but the back one was dead.



Out came the multimeter trying to measure resistance on the cable at the speaker end and without any success moved to the head unit and then deeper into the dashboard to discover not one, but two broken connections in the wire...why do people think it's ok to do this kind of thing, especially when there's more than enough wire?!



The sound is amazingly good. I think I need to open up the rear speakers and get those inserts turned right way up.

[darrenh]

PYE !!

i have some nearly identical matsui pod speakers in my land rover

[sciclone]

I'm sure you could probably pull apart that tape deck and wire in an aux-in plug on the PCB. There's plenty of tutorials around, so even if they're not specific to that model, you'll still be able to get a decent idea of what to do. Then you can mount the 3.5 jack in the glovebox to keep it away from prying eyes.

[fr€$h&m1nt¥]

I used one of those cassette to 3.5mm adaptors in my cuore, nice and hassle free and if you get an dash mount you can control from the iPod.

Just put it in the glove box for return to retro goodness