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

[Tamber]

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the pre-merge flexis in so there is gonna be the risk that the manifolds end up straining something and maybe cracking, but I did not have the room to make it work. If I were to do this again, I would just not. (Honestly, if I were asked to make another manifold for one of these, knowing what I know now, I'd definitely shorten up the runner length a good ways. A log style manifold is, in all honesty, just fine for these engines. I just wanted long runners because it's cool. )



Amazingly, I managed to weld all of this up without causing massive distortion, and the V-band flanges all lined back up again. And that brings the exhaust out here:


And that's the think-y part of Phase Two complete! \o/ I'm going to add a support (with rubber mount), a flexible section, and another V-band; that and the O2 bung will complete it.

Phase 3 will be silencer. Let's see how much I can overcomplicate that! (I already have plans here, don't worry~)

Edit to add:

[Tamber]

Flexi bit and V-band added. That's the "Phase Two" section 80% done; done enough for now.



And with a section of pipe, the exhaust is now piped back to about where the old silencer was, even using the previous exhaust mounting bracket.



Quite happy with that.

In addition, I've also repaired the strap around the bottom of the radiator, where it'd rusted through. Some black paint on that and you'd never know!
Still haven't found the bolts and rubber bobbins for the radiator support yet, but something will turn up. I can fit them from the underside, so putting the rad in isn't preventing that from happening; which means longer run-time (and hopefully less of a shower of slightly-rusty water!)

So, bolts, coolant, more bodywork, etc.

[generallee]

Looking real good, love the side markers.

Actually, love the whole thing!

[Tamber]

Just realised I forgot to attach the picture of the radiator repair. *facepalm*



Anyway. Here's what it looks like now; just know it got lashings of black paint before refitting.


Had to make a special emergency trip to get some additional hose-clamps, but it's holding quite nicely. Need to get some antifreeze, so I dumped the water back out of it again before I left tonight; but now that the cooling system's together and I can run the truck for longer, I should be able to start tidying up the ignition tune a little.

Things of note from today's running session:
* Exhaust manifold gaskets needed! (Well, we knew that one anyway... )
* Starter absolutely needs as much heat-shielding as I can get it.
* The engine cover is going to need some pretty serious insulation. The back panel, where the lid hinges from (or, would hinge from, if it were fitted), was unpleasantly hot to the touch by about ten minutes in; I know that the exhaust leaks will be making that worse, but yow.
* Sounds real good!
* Tach doesn't work. Investigation required.
* Plenty of room for adjustments yet!

Furthermore, I've started running air-lines around the truck and whatnot. I have the wrong size olives in the fittings on the 4-way valve, but that's an easy enough fix and isn't a big hold-up for anything yet. Still need a good few fittings yet!

In total, I think I've run in about 10 meters of 12mm pipe, so far; which is probably most of the system... It's not a complex air-system, even with my typical overcomplication. (Truck brakes circuit; trailer brakes circuit; and an auxiliary circuit for air tools, tyre inflation, etc. There's a couple of other bits n bats that will want air, too; like the horn, and the air cylinder for the winch clutch)

At some point I've got to make the little pushrod that goes to the footbrake valve, too... it's all in the big list!

[Tamber]

Minor update today! Didn't take any photos, though, just been putzing about.

Cooling system has antifreeze in it now. Which is good, because by the time I got around to plugging into the ECU and getting ready to start testing stuff, both the air-temp and coolant temp sensors were reading -1°C, and there was definitely a chill in the air. There certainly wasn't a few minutes after firing the engine up, though: Air temp sensor -- slung over the engine hump back panel, down by the gear lever, because there's nowhere in the carby manifold for it to go -- was reading 25°C in pretty short order. I suppose, much like the song goes: She's not too cold in winter, but she cooks me in the heat.

Checked my sensor offset and whatnot, it's still where it should be, so nothing's moved there which is good. Engine and ECU are on the same page; locked timing at 10 degrees puts me right on the 10 degree mark on the flywheel.

For some reason, the engine now loses rpm sync when the revs drop below about 700-800-ish. There also appears to be more runout on the front pulley (and the trigger wheel appears to be staying completely true with the pulley) than there was before, which is strange. I need to check on all of that, but it doesn't feel like anything's loose. Maybe it's always been like that, and the sensor's just been bumped further away while I've been wrestling radiator and pipes?

I'll have to get a proper datalog next time...

---

May have cured at least one of my oil leaks by, er... putting in some missing bolts. Whoops. Still need to get another tube of sealant, and go sort that pushrod cover out. And the rear main does appear to be wet, as well, but I'm not terribly surprised by that; I'm just telling myself it's because the truck is sat at such an angle without the rear wheels, and it'll not be as bad when it's level.

---

Made a little more progress on bodywork; continuing the rebuilding of the passenger footwell. Next step is moving my way on outwards from there and putting in the underside of the vent duct that runs just forward of the footwell; thankfully I have the driver's side to copy because that's in almost perfect shape. The most critical part is getting the holes for the vent actuating lever drilled in the correct spot.

I've also got to hoover out a load of rust-flakes from there, too, and slosh some rust-killer down into the space between the support structures and the outer skin; try and slow down the rot in the spots I can't easily get to, before I repair what I can and slather the lot of it with paint.

If I get fed up with that, I've still got other stuff to work on. Trying to avoid the temptation to get distracted by starting on other stuff; even though I already gave in to a big one, what with getting the radiator in and all that. It was a good box to tick, though, because having the engine in and running is a powerful motivator. (Amusingly, the google photos app has a little "7 Years Since..." box up, showing the pile of spark-plug boxes from when I first got the truck and changed all the spark-plugs. My, how time flies...)

Still, plenty of bodywork to do...

Did also manage to cover everything in the entire unit with dust and sprinkles of DBG paint cleaning up the passenger side floor-panel; where I've repaired the little access-door hinge, and painted it with that high-zinc primer. Next step for that piece is paint, and probably some riv-nuts installed in the floor, since I have a few of those knocking about...

Would quite like to have the passenger side of the cab finished up for Christmas, but not making any promises on that!

[Tamber]

Wasn't really in the mood for much today (so I thought), so I started stripping...





Paint, that is!



Two hours of peeling paint with a razor-blade...

And then I got to the section just behind the locker on the nearside and noticed a crusty-looking bit, so I tapped it with the hammer and it scrunched, not unexpectedly. So I thought I'll just cut that bit out and fix it; cue cutting off the heads of 9 bolts (In retrospect, I only needed to do 5, because it turns out the part I thought I could slide out extends past the point I thought it did, and thus does not slide out.)

And when I peeled it back, and realised just how much overlap there was over the locker, and how it was never painted before assembly, I had second thoughts. New plan, cut the panel off level with the back corner of the locker and eliminate the rust-trap.




Like so.


Begone!



The locker portion still carries some of its DBG service paint, but the other piece of panel? It's white primer and yellow over bare steel; so it's purely from the commercial life.



The body panel welded lovely, the locker utterly hated it. I don't know why, but even after thoroughly beating it with the wire wheel it still welded like utter curse word. As I said to friends at the time "not bad for a vertical stick weld on manky old sheet metal. Pity it's MIG."

Still, nothing a grinder and paint can't make disappear. I still have a little trimming and tidying up to do in that top left corner, but at least it's not packed full of rot now.


The panel isn't perfect, I managed to put an annoying wave in it while prying, and welding it certainly didn't help; some crude hammer & dolly work was done that hasn't got it perfect, but it's perfectly in keeping with the rest of the truck. The surplus bolt-holes will be plugged with bolts; they won't do anything but plug the hole, but at least it'll look sorta like it did before.

Oh, and I also painted the underside of the previously mentioned passenger floor panel. Debated painting the top-side, but it was already half six and getting distinctly chilly, so I passed on that.

[Sweetpea]

I've found some bits of steel weld very nicely and others (usually older stuff) turned out to be a right git to weld. It made no difference how much I cleaned it. I've always assumed it was due to the quality of the metal.
I was worried when I started welding bits off the bus (throttle linkage for example) but it turns out to be lovely stuff to work with.

James

[glenanderson]

I remember having a massive row years ago with the fitter where I was working. He had, literally, replaced the entire floor and arches on a Ford Cargo, which was the best part of a week’s work, using repair panels that had been really hard to track down and definitely not cheap, and he’d just thrown the mats back in, got it MoT’d and sent it out. No paint, no underside protection of any sort. His excuse was “it’s only got to last a year, I’ve already spent more time on it than it’s worth, I’m not wasting any more on it”. He was the kind of fitter that wouldn’t take the time to take the sharp edges off anything, deburr holes, or paint anything that couldn’t be seen; he used to drive me insane. The only person that I have physically come to blows with in forty years in the world of work. In the end, the boss would try and keep us in different countries.

My boss loved him though, because he always did the job quicker and cheaper than anyone else.

However when the boss needed something done on one of his own vehicles, he always got me or the other fitter to do it… “because I want it done right” 🤣

[metalshapes]

Oct 22, 2023 10:50:37 GMT glenanderson said:

I remember having a massive row years ago with the fitter where I was working. He had, literally, replaced the entire floor and arches on a Ford Cargo, which was the best part of a week’s work, using repair panels that had been really hard to track down and definitely not cheap, and he’d just thrown the mats back in, got it MoT’d and sent it out. No paint, no underside protection of any sort. His excuse was “it’s only got to last a year, I’ve already spent more time on it than it’s worth, I’m not wasting any more on it”. He was the kind of fitter that wouldn’t take the time to take the sharp edges off anything, deburr holes, or paint anything that couldn’t be seen; he used to drive me insane. The only person that I have physically come to blows with in forty years in the world of work. In the end, the boss would try and keep us in different countries.

My boss loved him though, because he always did the job quicker and cheaper than anyone else.

However when the boss needed something done on one of his own vehicles, he always got me or the other fitter to do it… “because I want it done right” 🤣

Yeah, having to work with disinterested/ incompetent coworkers is horrible.

And of course, those were the first ones to go to the office to ask for a raise.

And to my amazement, get it.

[Tamber]

*creaks in*

Not particularly *much* to report since last. I did some more rolling around on the floor, connecting air-pipes up, and ended up taking an hour-long nap while I was there.

Last weekend I couldn't really find the motivation to do some more bodywork, so instead I decided I'd take the front tow point off that ... crude crossmember.





This took a little doing, and a bit of heat; but everything did unbolt nicely in the end. Which revealed just how badly bent that crossmember is.




And, for scale...


While I had the torch out and the bottles on, I managed to extract the old fittings from the compressor.


The inlet from the unloader valve (top fitting) is a 3/4BSP to the weird fine thread unions that the original air-system used. The compressor's outlet port is 1/2BSP, again to the fine-thread thing. Both of those will be replaced with different fittings once I decide on the hard-line pipe I'm going to use to run to the air-dryer and unloader valve.

Having got my motivation warmed up, I gave the coupler a quick few coats of paint...


...and quickly made up the panel I need in order to reinstate the bottom of the passenger side vent.


Monday evening, I thought I'd get that nice painted floor panel in to see how everything fitted, and the door kept swinging shut and annoying me. Well, I have just the thing for that!



Only the inner end welded for now, because I have to tweak the step around a bit to get the door gap vaguely close to correct; but it works lovely!
Spurred on by that, I went and bunged some temporary bolts into the floor panel to see how everything fits.



Nice! Got the locations of the missing bolt-holes marked, so I can drill those out at some point. There was also a lot more grinding and cutting at the front of the cab, hunting out some rot just below the vent; but I didn't take any photos of that, because there's not much to see.

Tuesday evening -- on a roll, here! -- was a lot of paintbrush waggling. Couldn't work up the enthusiasm to do bodywork, again; so instead I put the best part of 3 litres of red primer on the boom. Another round of paintbrush waggling will be needed to turn those bits black; and there's still other bits I need to get to, but there's stuff in the way and I was getting rather cold.

---

So as far as the air-system goes, currently:

- Air dryer is connected to 4-way valve.
- 4-way valve is connected to the two main tanks.
- Relay valve has an incoming air-line that will go to a manifold block I haven't made yet.
- Handbrake quick-release valve has its incoming air-line run up into the cab, to roughly where the trailer park brake control will be. And there's another pipe running out from there, that will go to aforementioned manifold block.
- Compressor is sitting on my bench, awaiting refitting once it's not in the way of cab repairs, and new fittings & pipework.
- I've ordered the second batch of fittings and a roll of the other size of air-line I need.

One piece at a time

[Sweetpea]

Big red crane. Hmmmmm. What's not to like!

[Tamber]

🎶 I see a red crane and I want to paint it black~ 🎶

[Tamber]

Told you :3



It'll still want a second coat, at some point, but it's a lot better now than it was.

Other progress today was getting the bottom of the vent duct welded in, which has turned out quite nicely. I've also managed to mark the holes where I think the toggle lever goes, for controlling the vent.

And then, just for a giggle -- and because I was tripping over it a bunch while painting the crane -- I hung the nearside front wing back on the truck. Things line up pretty good, all things considered!



I also discovered that the belts I had carefully measured and ordered, for the compressor, are too short by about 100mm. I'm a bit annoyed at that, but at least I found out now. I'll add 'em to the list, I guess.

[Sweetpea]

Big red hooks. Hmmmmm. What's not to like!

(You going to paint them black too?)

[Tamber]

The hooks are probably going to stay red; so they're really obvious when I hit my head on them. Well, that's the plan for now. It might change later. Possibly.

Today's gentle fun:


Remove the old air-tank. I'll have to find my little borescope camera and check out the inside of it; maybe it's still okay enough to reuse, but the little tiny bit I can see doesn't inspire much confidence.

I only really need it for the dryer's purge tank anyway, and a replacement tank of that sort of size (or smaller, which is more appropriate) isn't terribly expensive.

Attack everything with the wire wheel, brushes, sandpaper, etc. Pause to admire the wheel scotch hooks...


Before spending some theraputic time with the paintbrush.


Plenty more to do, yet, but if I can get enough of this painted where it's easier to get at while the locker's out, the rest of it can be done later.


One thing's for sure, I need to give this truck a damn good wash. Full-on MOT wash level of cleaning required, because there is considerable amount of compacted oil & dirt skunge packed on stuff like the transfer case.

---

I've also made a tentative start on building tooling to try bend the tube I need to make the inlet manifold runners. It's either going to work, or be a total disaster; and there's not much in-between. I have alternate options if this doesn't work out, though.

I've already had to scale back my grand vision on this intake manifold -- much like I had to do with the exhaust! -- due to space constraints: The front-most intake runner has to do its thing in less than 8 inches from the mounting face on the head, to where it would hit the cab structure. Thankfully, this isn't a high-performance engine, so I don't have to have the mega long runners I was hoping for; it'll work just fine with whatever I can come up with.

[Tamber]

Wednesday, my air-pipe -- and some of my fittings -- arrived, so I put a bit of time into running more pipe, and connecting up a few more things.





That's one from the footbrake valve to the 'original' brake servo, and also one out to the trailer relay valve. Still waiting on my other fittings to turn up, probably going to chase the order up and see what's happening.

Flush with success from that, and having not crippled myself enough crawling around on the floor, I decided to tackle the offside side-marker lights. Two marker light brackets welded onto the side of the body... Oh, and welded the rear wing back on, while I was in the area; since I leant on it and reminded myself that it wasn't actually attached to anything other than its brace strut.

I didn't get any photos of the brackets in the fitting, because it was dark on that side of the truck and there's not much to see anyway; it's just taking the little Rubbolite brackets, and welding them to the body.

They're spaced exactly like the other side are, with one at each extreme end of the body, and two more in the middle. You'll notice I only mentioned welding on two of them; I only had three of those brackets available to begin with, and I wanted to use them for the 3 rearmost lights. And then I decided I didn't want to crawl into the tiny space available to weld on the last light, because I was getting cold n creaky.

I did, however, wire and build up all the lamps themselves so I could turn the lights on and see that comforting amber glow.



Nice!

---

And then Friday got a surprise extra 5 hours of overtime tacked on it, thanks to someone driving a loaded 8-wheeler off the road and nearly laying it on its side in a farmer's field; and I clocked off at a quarter to 11 at night, so there was no tinkering time that day. Saturday, I was very definitely feeling the wear n tear of the extended work-week; so there was no tinkering time then either, after I got back from work in the morning.

---

Sunday, however...



Yeah, it's good. But I think it's ... missing something.





I am a little put out by the two 'A's being different, but I will live with it for now and if I truly grow to hate it I'll just paint over it and try again.

Anyway, then I decided I needed just a little more...



Of course, this was a little more perilous to paint, and I'm even more put out by the end result of the smaller letters. But, again, if I truly decide I hate it, it's only paint and I can make it go away.



Extremely happy with how the numbers came out tho.

[Morris63]

I think you're being too hard on yourself - if you wanted perfection you'd have used transfers.

As it is now, it looks like a "local" job done by, say, a small garage or single operator, who looks after things properly.

[Tamber]

Thanks! I'm overall happy with it, but I keep looking at it through the lens of "what can I do better next time". It'll never be perfect, hand-painted signwriting never is and that's part of the charm of it, and I certainly don't have the decades of experience of the professionals.

(..."each wincn", though... )

In other items, my fittings arrived! Embarassingly, they turned up at home while I was at work, phoning the company to see whether they'd posted them yet or not. So here's hoping I can get a few more things piped up after work tomorrow!

[generallee]

Have a look at old pictures of 'proper' working lorries in period and you will see much worse signwriting than that!

I think it looks ace.

[Tamber]

Fittings & piping: relay valve is almost all hooked up, quick-release valve just loosely dangling in place until I make a bracket to fix it to; I've run the air-lines for the gauges up into the dash, so they're ready to be connected up, as soon as I make the air-tank manifolds.

Once again it comes down to waiting for a paycheck to land so I can buy material & parts to do the next steps. (Aluminium for tank manifolds, compressor belts, hard-line from compressor to dryer/regulator/unloader, etc.) I am somewhat anxious to see everything come together and -- hopefully -- work!

Also debating setting up a tripod and recording a time-lapse of me laying out & lettering the other side of the boom, at some point. Could be quite neat, I think. (But then that means editing video, ugh. (Might do it anyway though.))