Charlie's Echo/Madam Mayhem - glacial Bedford RL project

[PhilA]

Carburetor/injection plans?

Take care with adding stresses to that, as in physical load because the back of it will always be hotter than the front, which at that length gives a propensity to warp and crack.

Good to see it with a triplet of noses though.

[metalshapes]

Tamber, thanks for the "Moving the hard way" vid.

I needed to move a shipping container sideways until I had it on enough level (ish) ground where I could roll it on big thickwall pipes.

I took the bottle jack out of my press and used that, with my truck as an anchor point

Dragging it sideways off the jack, just like you showed.

A little intimidating to let 8000Lb of dead weight crash back down like that, but it worked.

[Tamber]

Apr 15, 2021 3:06:55 GMT PhilA said:

Carburetor/injection plans?

Take care with adding stresses to that, as in physical load because the back of it will always be hotter than the front, which at that length gives a propensity to warp and crack.

Good to see it with a triplet of noses though.

Yeah, port injection. Going to give it a go, anyway; if it doesn't work, I suppose I can always put the original manifold back on and make it single-point injected. As far as length goes... a 600mm (2 foot) length of fuel rail will just about cover all 3 runners.
Still trying to make my mind up on the basic form of the manifold... whether to go for something in the style of the original manifold -- with a 'down-draught' throttle body -- or more of a 'log' style manifold with the throttle body at the front (Which would certainly be easier!). Trying to come up with something that at least looks half decent, or at least could pretend to be an early factory prototype sort of deal.

Apr 15, 2021 4:32:54 GMT metalshapes said:

Tamber , thanks for the "Moving the hard way" vid.

I needed to move a shipping container sideways until I had it on enough level (ish) ground where I could roll it on big thickwall pipes.

I took the bottle jack out of my press and used that, with my truck as an anchor point

Dragging it sideways off the jack, just like you showed.

A little intimidating to let 8000Lb of dead weight crash back down like that, but it worked.

Glad it was of use! That trick's a bit horrible, but it does work well when there's not much other option. Needs must, and all that!

[metalshapes]

Exactly.

[Tamber]

Did some measuring, got a 36-1 trigger wheel for the crank trigger. Turned out, I screwed up my measuring.
Outside diameter of the teeth is ... pretty much spot on for the outside diameter of the pulley.


Thought I'd give it a try, since there's that nice heavy bevel on the edge of the pulley/damper. If it works, it makes it a little more protected, I think?



And with that, time to fasten it on there proper, like. It remains to be seen what the runout is like, since I had no fancy tools to do this with. Will just have to try it and see; maybe fettle the heights of the teeth by hand, if it turns out to be too bad.



And then a splash of paint...



I also went through & double-checked the torque on all the main caps and rod bolts; threw some new hardened washers under the head nuts -- because apparently I lost a couple of them in the move from the previous unit. Fantastic -- and got the head torqued down, with its new O-rings and a new head-gasket.

Getting closer and closer, now, to having an assembled long-block! Head-scratching still on-going over the inlet manifold design; though I'm reasonably convinced it's not going to be a log-style manifold. I managed to dig out the original one -- which required some surgery to the truck body to allow me to extract the locker door hinge, to remove the door, to give me enough room to extract the manifold from the locker! -- to squint at.

[Tamber]

And today?

More painting!






Now the engine side of stuff is back to waiting for parts to be bought/delivered/built/etc.:

• New core plugs (On their way.)
• Got to hunt down a set of lash-caps for the exhaust valves; well, really, I only need *one*. (It's corrosion pitted, because apparently I didn't smother it in oil enough when I removed it along with the pushrod for the stuck valve. Ho-hum.) I'll probably ask about on hmvf once I've got the brain & cash to spare.
• Also got to get myself a cam follower, because one of those is pitted too, for some reason. No sign of any damage to the cam, and I'd rather it stay that way.
• Sump & oil-pump pickup. Indecision about whether I want to build a new sump from scratch, modify the one I have, or try and find the correct one. Building or modifying is stalled on me finally getting the money & available time to get a bottle of gas for the TIG welder, though.
• Fuel injection parts, various. (Injectors, fuel rail, fuel pump, regulator, lines, misc sensors, etc.)
• Manifolds, of course. Though I could always run it on the carb setup at least temporarily.

I should probably get back to the body-work while the engine work is stalled...

[Tamber]

Made a minor start on body-work. Went to set the go-pro up, it wouldn't turn on. Put it on charge, using the charger & lead that charges my little torch just fine. Still wouldn't turn on. Then I dropped it and got crud in the microphone port and when I went to try clear the port, I managed to poke its ear out. All it can record for audio now, is crackling.

Not happy at all. Then I lost my glasses. (Absent-mindedly put them down somewhere.) Between all that, and my knee being agony, I'd had enough. Managed to find my glasses -- picture me hobbling about hunting all over the workshop, with my nose 6" off everything I'm looking at, cursing growing louder and louder -- and went home.

Hopefully it's repairable for significantly less than the price of a new one, but in the meantime -- especially since I have a budget of "No" for at least the next week, due to a combination of everything coming out at the wrong times. -- I guess I'll be making silent movies.

But at least I've made a start on reconstructing the cab floor on the passenger's side; so I'm not totally stalled for the time being.

[Tamber]

Core plugs


More rust-treatment. (45% phosphoric acid, no special brand.) Thermostat is an 82°C, 54mm jobbie. Seems pretty common.


Spotted a bit I missed while painting the block. Touch that up while I have the paint out for the water pump & thermostat housing.


Hang the pulley & fan on the front, just so it looks like I've made more progress than I have. Still need to fit all the gaskets, little stub of rubber hose between water pump & thermostat housing, and get all the bits fitted up.


s'pose I'd best tackle this, then.




Choppy choppy


Peeling the onion. Layer after layer, and lots of tears.


Skipped a bit. There's video, anyway. It'll only take me ... *checks notes* A year and a half to get around to editing it.


Blurry, and doesn't show what I wanted to show, which was that the upright there now has some box section joining it to the crossmember, rather than air and wishful thinking.


Two-ish(?) days in a row I've been there 'til past 9pm, cutting, grinding, and welding. Starting to have something to show for it. Need to figure out what my next list item is for the engine; managed to miss out on going getting a bottle of argon for the tig welder, where for once I had a Saturday morning available where I could go down to the local hobbyweld stockist...

...and instead, I got mugged by bills & unit rent coming out; leaving me with £80 for the week. Ah well. Bank holiday weekend coming up, so hopefully I can at least get some more bodywork done. Might even push the boat out & get a holesaw of the correct size, so I can drive myself mad trying to cut out the exhaust flanges!

Or I might spend most of it asleep. Sleep sounds nice.

[Tamber]

Time for the tiniest of updates! As a treat!

Progress on the welding? I welded part of the passenger's side door step back in the wrong place, and I'm still in a little bit of a mood about it, two weeks later. It's not the end of the world, but I've got to unpick and re-weld in the right place, and I'm not feeling like it.

Not helped by me also having to do a load of welding on the car, which I am also not feeling like doing. So it stays where it is for the time being. (I will have to sort the car out & get it MOT'd, because I kinda need it to be able to haul parts around. Also, if I leave it sitting there too long, the landlord might notice...)

As for what I have done...

Tappets, pushrods, and rockers have all been thoroughly cleaned, appropriately lubed, and installed. Rockers aren't adjusted yet, because it's rather sketchy to bar the engine over on the stand as it is and I don't want to tempt fate.

I've cleaned the threads on the manifold studs & bolt-holes, so they all run on nicely.

And I've cleaned & refitted -- mostly -- the oil pump. I say mostly, because the bottom of the pump has been left loose for now as I need to sort out a new oil pickup to go with the new sump that I still need to sort out. After all, the sump I have is the wrong one and I'd rather not do damage by assembling it with the wrong sump then having it hit the diff again. How likely that is to happen is debatable, but knowing how I drive, and how tempted I'd be to take it offroad a bit... yeah, it's tempting fate.

Flush with success on that, I cleaned, painted, and refitted the oil filter housing with a new gasket.

Gasket still to be trimmed, and paint needs a little touch-up. I'll be ordering filters at some point in the near future. (Sogefi FA3448 is what I used last time, cross-referenced from the AC72 that's on the housing.)

Having sorted that bit out for now, I went hunting for the side panel. Didn't find it, but did find the starter motor, so decided to clean that up too.



It's a Lucas M45G L7. OE number of 26043A. Isn't it great that pretty much everything used the same parts bin for electrical parts?



Anyway, as part of cleaning up, I decided to take off the cover band and... ew.


Looks a bit like mud, but is glittery. Pretty sure it's dust from the brushes combining with other assorted grunge. But that's when I noticed something else rather concerning...


That wire shouldn't really look like that, I feel!



Looks like it's got caught on something, shredded up and arced a bit. Being that it's a wire feeding a brush, it shouldn't be the end of the world, other than it's connected to the wire coming out of the field windings. Not ideal.
At some point, I'll be running this starter down to the place work use to have their starters & alternators worked on, and see about getting that straightened out.

Thankfully, since so much stuff used the same basic M45G motor, stuff like brushes should still be readily available, surely? (In the absolute worst case, I could probably get a modern-type gear-reduction starter to suit, I guess?) Anyway, that'll be up to the starter shop, and in the future for the time being.

Still didn't find that side-panel for the engine, though. It'll turn up.

[gtviva]

Ive got 3 genuine AC72 filters if you want them, £15.00 including the post for the lot, 1 has a bit of light corrosion on the metal end plates which would clean off

[Tamber]

Jul 12, 2021 9:51:30 GMT gtviva said:

Ive got 3 genuine AC72 filters if you want them, £15.00 including the post for the lot, 1 has a bit of light corrosion on the metal end plates which would clean off

Incredibly belatedly (...is it? Probably. I don't know. I have no sense of the passage of time any more.), that'd be grand! I'll send you a PM!


As for further updates: Oh my god it is too hot, help, I have radiation damage and I think I may have melted at the edges.

*stumbles off singing "The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear fur-nace~"*

[Tamber]

Well, I have learned a thing or two today.

Does this seem vaguely familiar, in a way?


Turns out, my guess that the servo's off a later truck, is spot on. The screenshot above is from a copy of the Bedford Truck & Coach brake service training manual (TS1087) for trucks from 1973.
And it also turns out, I was not missing any parts from the actuation valve in the servo, like I originally thought. ...though, by now, I'm sure they have gone missing amongst the toolboxes & workshop moves.


So that's neat. Assuming I've not lost the bits, I can reassemble the proper control valve, and hopefully it seals!

(I've also learnt that there's a variant of the same system with a spring park brake, which works by putting the spring park chamber on the rear axle, pulling on the same relay arm that the handbrake cable does on the RL. Neat!)

Also, thanks to gtviva , I now have a stock of oil filters. Thanks muchly! Things are inching along, bit by bit...

[glenanderson]

A spring park brake obviously gives a layer of failsafe in the event of vacuum loss, which is in general a good thing and is great on something that gets a lot of use. However, leaving the wagon parked up for extended periods with the rear brakes hard on is a recipe for stuck brakes. I’m fairly sure that is why the military Bedford MK and MJ models retained a separate handbrake despite having air-over hydraulics right up until they were phased out in the late 80s. I’m not saying don’t fit a spring brake, just be aware of the downside.

[Tamber]

Oh, I'm not planning on fitting a spring brake, but it's neat to know it was done (in various ways) and that I could do it if I thought I needed it. I could certainly see them sticking in place if left hard on like a spring chamber would do. Though I wonder if the military's priority list involved "can still drive away with a hole in the air system", more than anything?

In any case, the manual covers a whole range of variants, both vacuum and air, with and without spring & trailer brakes; which is interesting to see.

[Tamber]

Using up some older footage

[CaptainSlog]

Just read the whole adventure - love these RLs, we used to use them in the Rhodesian army in the 70s, they would go anywhere, slowly! I never saw one broken down other than if it hit a land mine.

[Tamber]

Aug 24, 2021 9:49:48 GMT CaptainSlog said:

Just read the whole adventure - love these RLs, we used to use them in the Rhodesian army in the 70s, they would go anywhere, slowly! I never saw one broken down other than if it hit a land mine.

Yeah, it's hardly going to set the world alight when it comes to performance! Might be highly entertaining to find somewhere to put it on a dyno if I ever finish, though! One thing I've noticed, now that I'm allegedly a truck mechanic, is that... it's very stoutly built, for the 'plated' weight! More like an 18 tonner than an 8-and-a-bit!

Still, I'm not planning on running over any land-mines, regardless of how stout it is... Not much left of that one.

[varelse]

The gunners hatch is a neat addition.

[Tamber]

Sept 9, 2021 1:44:43 GMT varelse said:

The gunners hatch is a neat addition.

I think it was in the process of being phased out circa 1958, so mine has it but it's capped off and doesn't have the little mounting balls for the gun cradle. All it'll have to hold up now is the beacon

In unrelated news, I was looking at the 1958 handbook again, going to see what they listed for the fuel economy back in the day; and I managed to find an error in the handbook.
It lists the target fuel consumption as 10 MPG (imperial) or 35km/litre. Now, 35km/litre translates across as 2.86litre/100km, which is nothing short of miraculous.

What does 10 MPG convert across to, though? 28 litre/100km, or ... 3.5 km/litre. Oops! Someone moved a decimal point somewhere! Now, while this is the consumption figure for the older, lower-compression, lower power engine; I'm not expecting miracles out of the current engine.

For sake of some comparison, I found a review of an 18tonne Euro 3 DAF LF with the 6.7 litre, and loaded up to its plated weight it averaged 19.8litre/100km.

It will be quite painful filling up the tank on the Bedford, I'm sure. (Just got to think of it in terms of *smiles* per gallon, because the alternative is lots of crying.)

[Frankenhealey]

Oct 2, 2021 22:41:07 GMT Tamber said:

It will be quite painful filling up the tank on the Bedford, I'm sure. (Just got to think of it in terms of *smiles* per gallon, because the alternative is lots of crying.)

First time I took the Goddess to Goodwood, a round trip of 160 miles, it cost me IIRC about £150 with the spare Jerrycans. The Cummins is at least twice as economical and one-and-half times the torque.