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

[Tamber]

Well, so much for the long weekend, and getting stuff done.

Friday: Came down with the sickness.
Saturday: I was dead.
Sunday: [ugh]
Monday: I rose again, cursing profusely.

Still feeling pretty rough, but managed to get the intake a few steps closer. There's also time-lapse video, but I've not even looked at it never-mind pulled it off the camera and edited it down/discarded it all for being useless, yet.

3 or so hours in:


4 hours later:


The three knock-ins are to provide clearance for fitting and piping the fuel injectors. The additional block is drilled for 3 1/4BSP vacuum ports. Should be enough! (The material I've made the manifold out of is 4 or 5 mm thick, but I wanted a little bit more for threaded bosses and the like, just to prevent me damaging things if I do something horrible to a fitting.)

I do still need to debur them on the inside, though, which should only be a little bit fiddly.


But that brings us to this point, with a little fettling and clean-up to make the throttle body sit on there all nice and flush-like


Doesn't it look like such an itty-bitty little throttle body? It's still 10mm larger throat dia. than the carb that came on this engine from factory!

Some embellishment and additional fettling is in the works, along with ordering more material for things like injector hold-downs and the like. I've also got to grab a fitting to add in the port for the idle air control valve, but that shouldn't be too outrageous.


Also, during this I discovered that my tig pedal appears to have a dead spot that's right about the power level I need for this thickness of alu. Worked around it by setting up on a pulsed mode and going pedal to the metal, with the pulse duty cycle helping keep the tungsten alive (just barely) and the manifold from totally melting to slag.

[Tamber]

Figured I'd go do some welding today. Couldn't be bothered, though, so instead we get some rust and paint removal.

Starting with the gutter over the passenger door.


Chip and peel away some (remnants) of the spot-welded seam formed where the roof panel overlapped the door frame.


And cut away the teabag-like portion of the roof edge. Making sure to nick the wires running up into the roof for the beacon & interior light, of course. (That'll be easy enough to sort out, but it sure is annoying.)


Then, break out the razor-blade and get to scraping...

(1 hr in)

...then scrape a bit more, and a bit more, and a bit more...

(3 hrs in)

Peeling the paint with a razor-blade highlights that the roof skin is about as level and flat as something that's not very level or flat.


A quick first pass over with hammer and dolly vastly improves things, leaving only some fine-tuning to go. Thankfully, I'm not aiming for perfect, but that's a bowling green compared to what it was.


Thankfully, the bulk of the roof skin is in great condition, with only a few relatively small patches needed at the edge, and some minor pitted spots that need dealing with before they turn into holes. (Plus cleaning all the peeling paint from the inside, too. Which reminds me, I'd best get some drop-cloths before I get to that point...)

In addition, I've thrown more money at more material! Stuff to make injector hold-downs, an air-filter housing, and intake piping, mostly.

[Tamber]

Aforementioned material arrived, and it's almost all correct! Apparently, though, I decided to order a piece of 1/2" tube to make the port on the air-box for the air compressor's inlet, when I should've ordered 1". Guess I've just got myself a new lightweight racing peashooter.

An air-filter has been ordered, along with a filter housing lid, so I can get everything sized for it to fit properly. I'm also waiting on some fittings for the fuel filter and the pressure regulator, that are making their way through the postal system.

If I survive work tomorrow, and remember to bring my drill, I'm going to make a start on the injector hold-downs.
Maybe I'll even finish up the manifold welding (reinforcing pad for the idle-air valve fitting, dress-up pieces on top, and whatnot) and do a bit of clean-up work. I'd really like to get the manifold to the point I can call it finished, and ready to go on once the supporting stuff is there. (Leaving the carb on for as long as possible, so the truck's still mobile-ish until the changeover point.)

May also pick away at the roof a bit more, too. There's plenty to get on with, I just need to work up the energy and will to do it. The good news is, my joint pain seems to be subsiding for the most part, which is a tremendous help! I just need the empty bank account to heal itself, now... And to magically gain several more hours in the day to do stuff...

I do have some video from the manifold welding that I need to get edited up, too; it's not the most exciting stuff, but heyho

[Tamber]

Three of them.


And it looks like they'll work, despite not everything being lined up perfectly. (Which is why I decided to go this route, with effectively individual injectors, rather than a single solid fuel rail; much more tolerant of my wobbly work!)


Additional fettling required to clear the plug, though.

Then cue another hour and a half, trimming the ends of the injector bungs to length and dressing them in with the runner walls.

(Clearly obvious that I didn't get 100% penetration on the segments of the runners, particularly early on in the process. It'll either be fine, or it won't. (And if I have to make a 2nd version of the manifold, with the lessons learned from making this one, so be it.))

One of the injectors is going to be interesting to get the hardline to, due to not having as much clearance to the plenum, but I'm still confident I can make it.


At close of play, that leaves us at this point!


Didn't end up breaking the welder out, though. That whole process took quite some time -- far longer than expected -- and I decided I'd rather head home and put the kettle on, by the time I was done. I did, however, manage to wriggle my way in and free off the adjusters on the 4-way valve, so I know I can tweak now; and I've had fittings turn up for my fuel filter, so I'm getting closer and closer to having everything come together!

[Tamber]

Right, what have I done since then?

Mostly nothing! Just in a bit of a slump, this past week, but I'm sure it'll pass. Extremely active boss is going on holiday Sunday, so hopefully work should chill out a bit. (Not that it's been particularly bad, but I've been on my feet a lot and oh boy am I feeling it.) ((...that reminds me, I need to book some time off, too, before I get to the end of the year with a bunch of unused holiday days.))

I've ordered some bits n pieces to make new tank-straps; that's all supposed to arrive on Monday. And last week, I started on the airbox. I've not touched it since last week, mind, but I started it.

So, we start with an air-filter, and a filter housing lid.


Roll a sheet of aluminium into a cylinder, weld it up the side, flange one end, flare the other so the lid sits nicely, and we're now left with the bulk of a housing!



Then we discover that I screwed up a measurement somewhere.


This is fixable, however. I just need to trim the flange off the bottom, slice and fold the sides so that they form a base.
However, I screwed up again but hadn't realised it at this point. I should have accounted for the lip on the base of the air-filter, but didn't.


Trim the overlaps and weld up the base, roll a hoop out of 3mm flat bar that's welded into the base such that the lip of the air filter seats around it snugly (both for alignment, and sealing purposes) And that leaves us with a filter housing where the lid doesn't sit down properly.


Aaaaaand sulk a bit. (It's not the end of the world, I have enough material I can extend the housing upwards that little bit to fit the cap nicely. If I can do that without adding a third screw-up, I'll be grand.)

(edit to add:)
--

Also, I have my 2.5" intake tubing, and I'm going to bellmouth a section that will protrude into the air-filter itself by a few inches; so that should work out quite nicely! Still not 100% certain about mounting location for the airbox, but I am thinking that I'll use some of the intake tubing as a snorkel to draw air in from as high up in the cheek of the cab as possible.
--

So I followed that up by rolling around putting fittings together to connect up the fuel filter and pressure reg; which, of course, involved getting an armpit full of petrol once I cut the line. Lovely.


I need to roll back under there with a spanner and tighten up the mounting bolt that holds the pressure regulator on, at some point, and blank off the extra ports on the filter housing, but it's beginning to feel like I'm getting closer and closer to having a working fuel system!

[Tamber]

Right! What have I done today?

...


... what have I done today? Good grief.

- Made up some blanking plugs for the filter housing. (1/2UNF brake fittings welded shut.)

- Bolted the fuel pressure reg up to the chassis properly

- Drilled out the rivets that hold the tank-straps on, so now I'm ready for the material to turn up to make the replacements.

- Took a nap under the truck, because I was shattered and my back hurt and a board laid on concrete was surprisingly comfortable after all the effort I spent wiggling my way under there to get to the aforementioned items.

- Piddled about with the valve that I'm going to use for the air-horn. (#priorities)
Mostly just extending the little actuator arm with a little bit of bar, and starting to make the bracket to attach it to the inside of the cab. Annoyingly, the valve mounts using 3 M3 bolts; so I've got to find something I can use for that... And an 1/8 BSP blanking plug, too, unless I want to try and find a fitting I can weld shut for that too.

I keep looking at the roof and trying to will myself into cutting the metal for that. 's not that it's that particularly difficult a job, I'm just struggling to get my brain to engage with the task in the first place. (Story of my life...)

[Tamber]

Well, I'm still stuck in the slump. I think I need a holiday.

Despite that, over the course of ... far too long, I have managed to:
- Make a blanking plug for the unused port on the air-horn valve.
- Plumb said valve in such a way that it didn't need the plug anyway.
- Hunt down some M3 bolts & nuts, so I can bolt the valve to the bracket I have welded to the inside of the cab (for some reason, those welds look extra nasty, so I may have to revisit that.)
- Get a tin of white paint for the inside of the lockers.
- Weld the cracked engine-hump rear panel back to the floor
- Bolt the air-horn loosely to the roof
- Start patching the roof
- Run out of welding wire







Grommet definitely needed. Current plan for the horn lever is to rustle up a nice cord or light chain to go from the lever to the upper dash panel. Also, reinforcing plates are gonna be added around the holes for the horn mounting points.




...



...what, you thought I'd get that far and not let you hear how it sounds? (Video, obviously, taken before I welded the bracket in.)

Oh, yeah, and I managed to adjust the 4-way valve to where tank 2 is starting to build closer to where I'd like. Still some more adjusting to do, yet, and I've got to time it; but it's better.

[Tamber]

Really haven't got much done of late. So, what's easy and doesn't require me to go out and buy more stuff to make progress with?



You can see my previous attempt at brightening up the inside of this locker with a can of mystery white spraypaint. It didn't get very far. However, while I was grabbing some other bits n pieces the other week, I noticed they had a sale on the Leyland Trade white gloss, and I know that stuff's pretty decent because we use it at work. And it doesn't matter if it won't play nice with the Tekaloid paint, because they're never going to meet...



And so, in the space of half an hour, with a 3" brush, I got a first coat over most of the top half. It's an instant difference!





Black hole of Calcutta down in there, with the delightful combo of rust and Deep Bronze Green...



Lovely! Two hours in total. Still need to do another coat, but that's for another day; and it's already a massive improvement!

[glenanderson]

Hard to beat a bit of white paint in a locker like that. Makes finding stuff easier too.

[Tamber]

That's ... certainly something to discover when I get there. Looks to have been wind-blown, because -- as I discovered the hard way -- there was a mini sand-dune on every ridge of the roller shutter, which then poured into the unit as each slat rolled over the top.





I still haven't any idea where it all came from, but I've been gently dusting it off the paintwork with a clean brush.

Anywho! Picked up the pieces for the tank-straps again. Y'know, the ones I broke the taps off in? Carefully drilled them out a little bit and gave it another go with another M8 tap, but it wasn't having it. Thankfully, I didn't break this tap off in it, before I decided to drill it all the way through and sink a bolt into it.


That's one of those things that's harder than it first looks, because the drill-bit catches on the 2 high spots and wants to kick over to one side or the other. Probably worlds easier with a drill-press. Or, y'know, a mill. Anyway, hand-held cordless drill is what I have, so that's what I made it work with.

Once I'd completed those, and then modified the ends of the tank-straps to be able to allow the head of the bolt to sweep through, I scooted myself under the truck and focussed on the tank brackets. There's no photos of this because my phone was on music duties, and not that it'd be a thrilling update photo anyway, but I sat there and carefully filed the central rivet-hole on each tank bracket to a square that would accept a coach-bolt. Slightly theraputic.

Then, with an 8mm clearance hole drilled in the end of the tank-straps, I shuffled the tank under the truck (cursing the whole way), wiggled some rubber strip around it, and held the tank in place with my head while I juggled a tank-strap around it. Only to find out the strap was far too long.

So I left the tank balanced there on one strap, shuffled my way back out from under the truck, and decided I wasn't going to keep doing laps of drilling a hole a bit further, trying it, repeat. Oh, no, I was going to give myself options! And drilled a further 4 holes, spaced an inch apart!

Then I wiggled myself back under, hooked the tank-strap back up in the next hole along from the first, and ...

... it's just about perfect. So I didn't need to drill the other 3 holes. The only saving grace is that the rear strap on the tank needed to be in the third hole, for some reason.
(Don't mind the extra nut on the bolt. It was just a convenient place to put it for storage. )


Ee, lookit that, all professional-like!


Need to buy the right width of rubber to fit that fully, but the thin strip will do for now.

For the tail end of the day, I put this delightful piece together:



Managed to drag myself down today, too, eventually.

First order of business was a new gas regumalator for the welding set; gone for one of the upright tube style of flow meter, rather than the diaphragm type, because every time I look back at the gauge on the previous reg, the needle has pinged up to ridiculous flow-rates... and I'm not sure if it's actually wildly increasing flow-rate because of some internal fault, or it's an artifact of the flow being suddenly stopped when the solenoid closes.

(Of course, the upright tube runs straight into the protective guard on the cylinder, because the stem that goes into the bottle isn't quite long enough. I've managed to swap the slightly longer stem from the previous reg, and between that and very slightly angling the reg, it'll do 'til I can grab myself an extension.)

Next on the agenda: Now that the fuel tank is fitted to the truck, the fuel lines are nice and easy to connect as they just push-fit into the appropriate ports on the top of the pump sender. The wiring is a touch more annoying, as I've yet to get a connector for them (and it turns out the ground wire I'd put in for the previous pump setup is slightly too short to comfortably reach the new pump. Not the end of the world, though, I can swap that out next time.), but through the magic of electrical tape we have them joined temporarily. (The level sender connects nicely, because it's just a post that takes a ring terminal.)


And, well, with the pump wired and plumbed in, now would be the perfect time to try it, right? So, by using the Magic Cubic T-Piece of Justice made yesterday, I looped the supply and return lines, and fed the other outlet to the carb. It's a little bit janky, with rubber hose just pushed over -- and clamped onto -- the plastic line, but since any real pressure would just overwhelm the carb anyway it'll do fine for now. I've backed the fuel-pressure regulator right the way off so it's barely restricting the return.

Of course, I had to put some fuel in to try it, which was an exercise in frustration all on its own. I only had a 5 litre can with petrol in, and between the wall and the bed of the truck, I had to do some convoluted maneuvering to get fuel out of it and into the tank. I got about a gallon in, the shape of the can not really conducive to getting the rest transferred across in the room I had.

I still need to add a switch to the side of the fusebox to allow me to manually trigger the fuel-pump, so I had to cycle the key a few times, but:
- The fuel pump kicks on with a pleasingly quiet whirr
- A second or so later, the carb gurgled softly as it filled
- The carb did not overflow
- A second or two after that, I heard fuel squirting back through the return into the tank.
- I had one fuel leak, which turned out to be a hose-clamp that wasn't fully tight. Will definitely have to keep an eye out when it comes time to run at fuel-injection pressure ranges.

I did briefly fire the truck up just to check I actually had filled the carb, but only for a few seconds, considering the sheer bloody amount of fine sand everywhere and not yet having an air filter fitted. (Still need to finish the housing. )

Also, the other day I noticed an electrical enclosure thrown into a skip just across the unit, and couldn't help myself; yoinked it mostly to see if there was anything I could salvage from it. (Turns out to be a 400v 3-phase motor starter in a metal enclosure, that's got a damaged rotary isolator, and missing the stop push-button.)
Not sure if any of the rest of it is useful to me, but one part in particular caught my eye...

[Tamber]

Not much progress made, recently. I've been wrapped up in a body-building project at work that has been sapping my energy. (Also, it's getting cold this time of year!)



I do have a week off coming up, and though I'm not making any promises about progress, I'd like to get some stuff done.

But, anyway...


And that goes in the mystery extra dipstick hole on the side of the block.


I also checked the silicone reducer coupling fitted the throttle body, and it does. So that's good! Pity it's bright blue, but I'll not see it when the engine cover's closed, so I can live with that.


Spent some time fixing the pedal on my TIG welder, which turned out to be the most comically flimsy design. The 'pushrod' from the pedal down to the potentiometer is a flat piece of 0.8mm steel, and the switch that tells the welder to start welding is a microswitch with its little roller running on the thin edge of that 'pushrod'; so once that thin steel bent a little, the microswitch roller just kept running off the side of it and springing out enough to turn the welder off. Brutality occurred, and now it's fixed.

Which meant I could then do a little more work on the air filter housing. Mostly just extending the outer edge of the casing, so that the filter now fits within it; but I did also go in and smooth out the seam down the side. Unfortunately can't do much with the seams at the bottom, because they're quite difficult to get to from the inside.



Next step for the air filter housing is the outlet to the engine, which is a bellmouthed tube that will protrude into the centre of the filter.

Sort of like that, yeah.

And then I'll have to figure out the exact details of how I'm mounting the housing and where, make up the mounting points for it, figure out where I want the air inlet to be, and all that sort of stuff. I'd like the air-filter to be easily accessible from underneath the front of the truck, but drawing air from higher up. Oh, and I've got to come up with some method of retaining the lid, too.

The good news is, I've sold the bike (which was mouldering around the side of the house for the last few years), and that's put a few more pennies into the pot. (Naturally, the bloody thing refused to start and stay running when he came to pick it up, which I think was largely that the battery's not liked the colder weather of the last few days even despite me having it on charge previously; so I didn't get quite as much as I wanted, but still, it's better than nothing.)

[Tamber]

Well, the mystery of all the sand has been solved. Apparently the memorial masons like to clean certain headstones by lining them up in front of the doors to the units, and sandblasting them. Yes, blasting the sand right *at* the unit doors. Yes, they're using actual sand.

Anyway, I am chipping away at getting the air filter housing built, and it's coming along quite nicely. I have made it slightly awkward to change the bulb in the nearside headlight, but such is life.


"Look ma! I'm a real auto engineer!"


That's bolted, conveniently, to the brace in front of the door. Though, that's only a relatively thin piece of sheet metal, so it will require additional supports in order to prevent it cracking over time. Conveniently(?), the bolts that attach it can be undone through the vent-hole in the footwell; though whether that remains so, after I go and refit the little door that's supposed to go there is a different matter.

It does look like I'll have no problem dropping the filter out downwards, past the inner wheel arch/splash-guard, though; so that's nice. I will have to go back through my photos and double-check that I'm putting this in the right place, because it doesn't quite want to sit in place properly and I'm not entirely sure if I'm just not fitting it at the correct angle, or whether I've (re)moved some of the places it bolts to.


A couple more silicone hose elbows have been ordered, one for the inlet to the air compressor, the other to take the inlet tubing and point it at the manifold.


Still haven't completely come up with a solution for retaining the lid of the filter housing yet, though. And I've run out of argon again; though the bottle was at less than a quarter of full pressure by the time I'd swapped the regulator to the current one that I'm more convinced isn't doing silly things. So once I've taken my pills and gotten dressed, I'll head out to get a new bottle (and cry at the price, again) while I've got the time available.

[jayj83]

some work going to this, Enjoyed reading this

[Tamber]

Went and got myself a fresh bottle of argon.

That should do for a while!

Also took advantage of the brief warmth while the sun still cleared the pallet mountain, to have the door open and not freeze to death while I tidied up some wiring, vacuumed up all the rust and paint flakes piled up behind the dashboard, and measured up for a washer bottle to go in the driver's side behind the dash. During which, I also took a head-on pic of where the air-filter housing sits, which I couldn't do with the shutter in the way.


The main thing I decided to tackle was clearancing the intake manifold to fit the longer injectors. This is the rearmost injector, which has the least room; so if I can make this work, the others will be a doddle.


What it revealed was there was no chance of me getting that to happen! Just not quite enough room. So, drastic measures were needed!


I think I have enough room under the engine cover to extend each runner by about half an inch, which will give me the little extra bit of wiggle-room I need (I hope). One upside of this is it does let me weld up the underside of the runners, which I couldn't get to before, for a little bit of extra strength.



--

I did also fiddle about with some tubing I got with the intent of using it for the fuel injector feeds, but it turns out to be very heavy wall and an absolute nightmare to bend. (Also only available in 600mm lengths for shipping reasons, which rather constrains where the fuel distribution block/manifold would have to go.

Of course, now I can find coils of stainless brake hard-line no problem. Well, other than apparently it ships from the US and search isn't unearthing anyone with it in stock this side of the pond. Ah well, just means more delay before I can get the injector stuff all set up, but I have plenty to get on with.

[Tamber]

It only goes n bloody fits!



Not quite sure why one of those studs is shorter than the other, but ho-hum. I'll just shorten the other to match, then make the rest like that. It tightens down nicely, so we should be golden.

'course, then I had to go and weld it all back together.



It will still be tight around the 5&6 inlet runner, but it should go.