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

[Tamber]

Jan 18, 2022 14:13:22 GMT gtviva said:

The only one I have near is this but its marked up as SKF 414293D, its 102mm OD, 59mm ID and the overall height is 47mm, the groove is 11.3mm wide

So, I did go and measure the original one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my verynears so had to do my best with a little ruler; and then managed to not take a clear photograph of my notes, somehow.

Best I can tell: 59mm ID, 40mm overall height, and about an 11.5mm wide groove. So it seems to be very close to the one you have! Part numbers are a strange thing sometimes...

[Tamber]

Also, no progress on the truck of late, I'm afraid.

Work is seemingly working hard on being covid central, and unsurprisingly it's wiped me out. I ended up dragging myself through a coupla days of being almost pass-out rough -- and being almost the only person in the workshop -- before testing positive, and now I'm out isolating & trying to recover. (I suspect I must've used a test that'd been sitting around a while and had gone duff, at first.)

I did spend some of my christmas money and replace my camera, though, so that's cheered me up! (Just need to move on the old camera(s), and the lenses that I've accumulated for 'em.)

[dodgerover]

Jan 28, 2022 19:04:54 GMT Tamber said:

Also, no progress on the truck of late, I'm afraid.

Work is seemingly working hard on being covid central, and unsurprisingly it's wiped me out. I ended up dragging myself through a coupla days of being almost pass-out rough -- and being almost the only person in the workshop -- before testing positive, and now I'm out isolating & trying to recover. (I suspect I must've used a test that'd been sitting around a while and had gone duff, at first.)

I did spend some of my christmas money and replace my camera, though, so that's cheered me up! (Just need to move on the old camera(s), and the lenses that I've accumulated for 'em.)

The tests are rubbish really, I know people who have had all the symptoms for days but consistently treated negative until they went and had a PCR test that was positive. Hopefully you'll be the same as most people and it's just a case of the sniffles with added tiredness that takes longer to shake off than the illness.

[Tamber]

Oh, it utterly kicked my up and down the street. The worst part of it was, the symptoms came on fast, so I'd cycled to work feeling just a little under the weather and then it whupped me. I don't remember anything about that day other than getting home and crawling into bed as a shivering, twitching wreck (...and then having to go in the next day because I had an MOT prep to do... )

When I did manage to rustle up the co-ordination to do a test, it went instantly positive and there was a sort of "...ah! That'd explain that then!" moment. (Then I got a few days to rest up, recover a bit, and all that.)

I'm hoping that being triple-jabbed means there's fairly minimal long-lasting effects, but I fear the fatigue & occasional tremors might be here to stay. I got lucky, though. Some have had it much, much worse than I did.

In truck related items: I've managed to snag a second-hand park-brake hand valve, that I can fit somewhere towards the back of the cab for trailer brake stuff when I start plumbing all that up.

And while I was in isolation, I wrote up an application to let me search through the brake-tester database, to see if I could track down what DTP No. my truck might have. (Which also then lets me see what axle-weights and, more importantly to me right at the moment, what train-weight would apply!)

It seems that I should be able to apply for registration with it rated to pull a 3-1/2 ton trailer, which matches the little info I have from the EMERs. Namely, the bridge plate, which is 9/4. 9-ton class vehicle, 4-ton class trailed load. (8640kg GVW, 12140kg GTW)

So that was neat.

[Tamber]

This week's entertainment: Discovering that, apparently, the plug I need for the inlet air temp sensor I picked up just doesn't exist any more unless I want to spend a small fortune importing a repair pigtail from the US.
Oh well, that sensor can lurk in the back of my shelf for the rest of time; I'll pick another, more common one to use instead.

Anyway!

Remember this bit?


Well, that was only half the synchronisationary goodness! Well, it didn't have to be; I could certainly have done without cam sensing and it would have produced perfectly satisfactory results, but the option was there so I have taken it!

Some time with shears and files has gotten me this, fitted as shown:


Which, along with a dizzy cap butchered just so...


Lets me do this:


And, by making this worse...

(It's temporary, for testing only, honest! I promise I have actual connectors for here when I do this for real!)

We get:


Belting! So I plopped the inlet manifold & carb on there just so it could look pretty for a bit.


And this evening's joy? Well...


...the starter did not like that very much. I performed some bodge surgery that improved it somewhat, but I suspect the real fix will be a gear reduction starter. Going to do some measuring and counting of teeth, then let my bank account recover a little before I get on the blower to Powerlite... (I suspect it'll be somewhere in the region of £300. It'd be cheaper to have the original starter overhauled, I'm sure, but going to a gear reduction one seems like a better solution all round... Well, other than the wallet pain.)

EDIT: Oh! And I have video of the last couple of days' muppetry, that I quickly edited together last night, only for it to turn out there's a bug in the current version of my video editor that means it leaks memory while rendering/encoding and 64GB RAM/42GB swap just isn't enough for it to finish; so that might be a while. XD

[kevins]

could you make the starter off something like a 4.6 range rover fit, they churn over at quite a reasonable rate and cost less than £100 for a reman one.

[Tamber]

Not sure, to be honest, haven't looked into it much. Need to do some measuring first, but it snowed today and after getting wet & cold, plus falling a coupla times while pushing someone out of a junction, I didn't feel like heading down to the unit!

In other items:

[Tamber]

Hole drilled in the wrong place?

...What hole drilled in the wrong place?



Not the neatest on the inside, but it was my first go with bronze brazing and it seems to be staying put, so I'm still happy with it.

[Tamber]

Gearbox: Gaskets, Reassembled, Painted. (Well, etch primer, but close enough for now.) Back on the stand in the corner, so it's off my workbench for now. I'll have to carefully flush it out before I go and put oil in it, because I can still see a little bit of bronze shavings from the braze repair sticking to things.



Then, after a successful morning freeing off --and replacing -- a stubborn track-rod end in order to change a steering rack boot, I thought I'd crack on with that manifold I'd started! Especially now I've gotten a bit more tig practise! (And a lot more practise ensued!)





Made a right pigs-ear of the merge at the bottom because I didn't think it through enough before I welded the pipes together. Ah well. Next one should be better, I hope!


Need to tidy my ugly welds up at some point, but I'm pretty happy with it all told!






Is it a beautiful piece with stacked-dime welds, and a perfect merge? Oh goodness me no! It's pretty ugly, especially at the bottom where bodgery ensued. But for the first manifold I've made, and it all being stainless tig, I'm pretty happy. I can clean the welds up some, and it'll be adequate! You'll hardly see it, where it is.

Now to do the other side, and hopefully not run out of gas before I'm done...

[Frankenhealey]

Apr 24, 2022 21:35:34 GMT Tamber said:

That's almost a race engine now! Bedford airport crash tenders had twin Zenith 42VIR fanimolds so they could reach terminal velocity quicker. Would look good on your equipe.

[gtviva]

Apr 25, 2022 12:57:50 GMT Frankenhealey said:

Apr 24, 2022 21:35:34 GMT Tamber said:

That's almost a race engine now! Bedford airport crash tenders had twin Zenith 42VIR fanimolds so they could reach terminal velocity quicker. Would look good on your equipe.

Ooo twin carbs, I might get the parts book out and see if I can find the part number for the manifold out of interest!

[Tamber]

Apr 25, 2022 12:57:50 GMT Frankenhealey said:

That's almost a race engine now! Bedford airport crash tenders had twin Zenith 42VIR fanimolds so they could reach terminal velocity quicker. Would look good on your equipe.

Thanks! That sounds highly entertaining... extra performance for getting to the scene of the crash quicker! (Whether the aircraft's crash, or the fire tender's, is left as an exercise for the reader. )

I'm hoping I can come up with something for the intake manifold that is something that looks like a mysterious factory piece or some sort of period bizarre custom work. ...well, it'll certainly be bizarre custom work, anyway.

(Also, odd aside, but out of curiosity do you happen to know the Red Goddess' DTp number? Hoping to see what the Official™ idea of axle weights, etc, comes out as...)

[Ratchet]

Great project, really love the look of these old RLs

Interestingly when i was a kid i remember seeing one in near identical shade of yellow which was a tanker that a garage then converted to a wrecker (this had been in the late 80s or early 90s) saw it first with a tanker body, then later the tanker was off to one side and it had a big tow crane mounted on it..

this was up in Kemney Aberdeenshire so i doubt its the same truck, do wonder if its still around though, garage is no longer there afaik, was the kind of place that always had interesting stuff languishing in its yard.

[Tamber]

Tapped the thermostat housing for the temp sensor for the EFI! Took over a week, because the first tap I used just broke off with little to no effort or warning.


Fine, be that way.

New tap was ordered from a trusted supplier, and after a few days I could finish that off.



Loosely assembled, waiting on heater hose for that little link stub that goes down to the top of the water-pump, which I now have.


Exhaust headers coming together bit by bit.



Currently stalled on that because it turns out the 6 meters of 38mm stainless tube I bought ages back, which has been stood up against the wall in the unit in the packing material, was in fact 30mm diameter. Not sure if that was my screw-up, or their screw-up, but it makes no difference at this point.

Thankfully, I think I only need another meter or so of 38mm, so I've ordered that so that I can finish the damn header. The 30mm? Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'll find something...

Once I get the merge and 90 done, I think my next step is probably some flanges (probably V-band, honestly), and make up an unequal-length Y to merge the exhaust and bring it about level with the bellhousing in such a way that I either avoid blocking access to the oil filter housing or if that's unavoidable then at least the offending section is easily removable as needed.

It would still somewhat suck to have to remove a section of the exhaust to drop the oil filter, but it would suck even more if I did a Subuwu and gave myself a ring of fire to wrestle the filter out from...

Oh! And I have potentially got a solution in the works for the wiper spindles; I just have to get some time on the lathe at work for some hole-drilling so that it's all concentric. Y'know, because wiper spindles are really a big priority when I still have the cab corner all in bits.

Still no change on the starter, so I'm no closer to firing it up yet. In fact, I think I went backwards because I have to re-do the coilpack mount because it runs right into the dipstick...

[Tamber]

In the meantime!




Can ya tell what it is yet?





That's right! It's a ...n unfinished widget, because my brother borrowed the drill from the unit, and I forgot to grab mine from work.

Oh, right, yes, sorry, it's a cable tube; to neatly (hopefully...) run wires from the starter solenoid and whatnot, behind the headers and protect them (hopefully...) from the heat a bit. It does occur to me that I might not actually have all that many wires to run through there and it will be a little silly if there's only one, but look, that's not the point and I've already made it by this point.

...


Anyway! My replacement exhaust tube has arrived and looks to be the right size, so that's something else I have no more excuse to put off (but will anyway)

[Sweetpea]

That's really nice. Properly period stuff.
The bus has a few of them on it. I might go off them when we get to the bit where we pull cables through them.

[Tamber]

(Yes, I know the LPM on that is way high! Apparently I bumped the reg and never noticed. Thought I was going through gas a bit quick! Ah well, learning curve!)

[Frankenhealey]

I had a thought that might turn into a cunning plan See them inlets?



You remember my reminiscence of the Bedford twin carb manifold? Well I hunted out these stripped out SU's from an abandoned project



It's relatively trivial to fit a couple of big injectors in these 2 inch carbs to make throttle bodies, add a Microsquirt, bit of wiring, bit of plumbing and you have EFI and extra performance.

They're yours if you want them.

[Tamber]

*weldy weld weld*

*bashing with a hammer*



Could've sworn I had a slightly later on photo where that tread/stiffening bead wasn't quite so rough, but I can't seem to find it, so you'll just have to take my word on that. It would've been easier and better to put that bead in before welding the panel in place; but it was an afterthought, so I'm using a little forming block and a hammer in a fairly uncomfortable position due to obstructions.


Cable run tube thing in place! 's turned out quite nicely, I think!


But it did look a bit silly with only two wires running through it...


So why not run even more wires through it! That'll justify it alright!


All the stuff from the top of the engine dives down and goes in here, alongside the trigger wire for the starter...


And then all the engine wiring comes out nice and neat behind the alternator, in one convenient location. All on multi-plugs.


The third sensor now connected!

And, Frankenhealey : Oooooh, shiny! Not sure I could make a 2-into-3 look even halfway decent, mind, but the offer is appreciated! There will definitely be a bit of wiring, and a bit of plumbing, and three... THREE! whole injectors, though!

I have an idea in my head for what I'm aiming for technically, as far as as the inlet manifold goes; I just need to translate it into something aesthetically ... not appalling, at least. (And ideally something "vaguely factory-ish (prototype?) if you squinted, while holding a half-empty bottle of social lubrication in one hand")

For giggles, I did some noodling about with an online calculator, which claims that the ideal length for my intake runners is about 3 meters, which I'm not entirely sure I could realistically package in a sane way, but it's funny to imagine! How's that for a hi-ram?

More noodling to ensue.

[Sweetpea]

Tamber old thing,
You've lost the gas shroud off your welding torch which is probably why your welds look splattery and porous. I normally do welds like that and then kick myself in the bum (which is an impressive thing to do if you've not tried it) because I've forgotten to turn the gas bottle on.
To be fair welding onto old steel can also do it too as it wasn't always the best quality stuff.

That engine looks absolutely gorgeous. If you'll forgive me getting in touch with my female side, it's a lovely colour. I have a Gardner in Maidstone that looks like it needs all the bolts tightening if you fancy a change?

Oh and I need to ask, your little cable pipe, how did you flair the ends? Heat it up and bash a cunning tool down the end?

James