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

[Tamber]

Aug 27, 2019 19:20:13 GMT Dánáidh said:

I would love to do something like this, just don't have the bravey to do so........well done nd hats off to you, will be keeping an eye on further progress

Thanks! Bravery/stupidity is a big part of it. The rest is just the "more luck than judgement" method.

Got a chance to look at the truck the first time after saturday's shenanigans, and it turns out there's a bit more damage than was first apparent.



Broke the bumper mount off the towing eye/bumper mount/not-quite-a-dumb-iron-but-whatever. Not the end of the world, I'll just weld it back on. Hoping it's cast steel, but it very well may be cast iron just to spite me. No matter, it'll get fixed. Just glad I hadn't put the front spots on yet, or I'd be replacing both of them!

If it's any consolation, it's made a nice dent in the crane where it hit, so it dealt it back...

[Frankenhealey]

Aug 27, 2019 20:17:39 GMT Tamber said:

Aug 27, 2019 19:20:13 GMT Dánáidh said:

I would love to do something like this, just don't have the bravey to do so........well done nd hats off to you, will be keeping an eye on further progress

Thanks! Bravery/stupidity is a big part of it. The rest is just the "more luck than judgement" method.

Got a chance to look at the truck the first time after saturday's shenanigans, and it turns out there's a bit more damage than was first apparent.



Broke the bumper mount off the towing eye/bumper mount/not-quite-a-dumb-iron-but-whatever. Not the end of the world, I'll just weld it back on. Hoping it's cast steel, but it very well may be cast iron just to spite me. No matter, it'll get fixed. Just glad I hadn't put the front spots on yet, or I'd be replacing both of them!

If it's any consolation, it's made a nice dent in the crane where it hit, so it dealt it back...

I have a pair of these I think you can have. I'll check tomorrow.

[Frankenhealey]

Is it this one?

[urbanaw]

Great thread, I love old trucks. One day.. I will look into project like this.

Shame to lose all that patina, it looks great, I am guessing there is far too much rust underneath.

Good luck with it!

[Tamber]

Aug 28, 2019 12:59:02 GMT Frankenhealey said:

Is it this one?

That looks like the one! Well, the opposite side, but it's the right shape.

[Tamber]

Aug 28, 2019 15:53:19 GMT urbanaw said:

Great thread, I love old trucks. One day.. I will look into project like this.

Shame to lose all that patina, it looks great, I am guessing there is far too much rust underneath.

Good luck with it!

'Patina' I can take or leave. British Patina is just tree-slime and moss anyway...

The cab's quite rotten, structurally it's a disaster looking for a time and place to happen. The floor isn't really attached to anything, and the cab mounts are attached to yr typical "plate over rust" repairs, which are the majority of the previous work done to it; so the priority when it comes to the cab is of stabilisation. I've already started rebuilding with the rear cab mount, but that's only lightly tied in to the existing cab structure. (Just enough to stop the cab from falling right off.)

She'll carry as many of the scars and scrapes from a lifetime of work, as I can manage to save, though. I did want to keep the previous repair at the back of the offside of the cab, but as soon as I touched it with the wire wheel and discovered how bad it was, it had to come out.

[Tamber]

Right! Progress?

...er, not a lot, honestly. She's still parked up at work, next to a pair of stacked parts trucks. (Probably having the vehicular equivalent of flashbacks to the breaker's yard!)
I've started moving bits and pieces into the rented unit, but the truck itself will get there when the winds will it, and all that.

I've finally managed to get enough bits in proximity of each-other to tentatively say I might have a solution for the broken piston ring in the air-compressor. Some assembly required in order to confirm whether or not this solution works, because it may be slightly thinner than the original.
If it does work, then I should be able to start getting the compressor built back up again. Besides that, and some tiny springs for the little oil pump pressure relief valve, it should be pretty much all complete.

I've decided I'm going to not worry too much about the slightly increased oil clearances, just so long as all the high spots are knocked down. Just gonna try it and see how things go.

The new wiper arms and little adapter drums are in, and sat on my desk, so I need to take one in to work and mock it up on the truck just to see how it looks. I know how the usual line goes, regarding Britpart, but they seem solid enough.

I also discovered that I managed to break the lid on the junction box I'd made up for the trailer sockets, too, while it was stashed on the truck. Managed to drop something on it, I think, and it landed on the fuseblock... shoving it down through the plastic. Might be fixable. If not, then I'll have to get a new lid for it. (The idea is that the trailer sockets themselves are isolated from the truck's lighting circuits, so that if something goes wrong with the trailer lights, it blows a fuse at the junction box rather than take out the lights on the truck. How useful it'll be, considering I'm not licensed to tow a trailer, I don't know; but the truck's got the capability, so I might as well set it up so it can!)

[Tamber]

So, my tentative solution turned out to be a bust. The compressor's a 54mm bore, and for some reason I bought 56mm diameter rings.

And besides that, they were much too thin anyway. However, I managed to find someone on ebay selling oil-control rings of the right type, by size rather than by what model engine it fits. So I've ordered a couple of them, and we'll see how well things go when they turn up. (From Greece, because of course! They're due Tuesday.)

I did, however, build up one of the pistons & rods, and fit it into the compressor; it pulls an almost painful amount of vacuum if I put my hand over the cylinder while it's at TDC, then wind it down to BDC, which is promising. Waiting on those rings and some circlips (I've lost one of the gudgeon-pin spring-clips somewhere, too, because they're just a tiny bit of wire. ) before I can continue building the compressor up.

Then, the sticking points for finishing up the compressor are:

• Oil pump check-valve appears to be stuck open, will need disassembly and freeing off. It's just a check-ball, though, so it might be a bit of debris that's caused it.
• Oil pump pressure relief springs need replacing.

I'm sure I'll find other things when I start building it up, as is usually the way.

In other news...

This weekend, I broke out the welder at work, stripped the bumper off, and got the broken bumper mount welded back together. (It's cast steel, rather than cast iron, thankfully.)


Then, we loaded up, and I drove the whole mess on up to the unit. (First time I've loaded a slide-bed by myself, and it didn't fall off again, so I count that as a success! I also managed the whole drive up there without breaking anything!)


Straightened the bumper a little, but didn't want to try push it any further, because the existing cracks at the bend points were already spreading; and it's easier to fix it if it doesn't snap completely. It should straighten better with some heat on it, and then I'll weld and reinforce it.


I've also got yet more other little bits and pieces ordered (in particularly, a brake light switch, some new headlight mounting rings because the old ones are a nasty rusty mess that don't want to adjust very nicely, and a trailer indicator warning widget that I'm going to fit in the trailer fuse & relay box when I repair that.)

...but for now, I should probably get back to replacing the radiator in the Skoda, then I can resume using it to lug tools & parts around. (Yet another casualty of the broken motor mount, it seems.)

[Sweetpea]

Sept 15, 2019 15:03:42 GMT Tamber said:

...but for now, I should probably get back to replacing the radiator in the Skoda, then I can resume using it to lug tools & parts around. (Yet another casualty of the broken motor mount, it seems.)

I misread that for a moment and thought you'd broken the bumper of the truck by hitting the Skoda which escaped with just a busted rad. I was mighty impressed with the Skoda for a moment.
Anyway, I've got it straight in my head now so not to worry.

Good luck with the compressor rings. Sounds promising if it's sucking your hand down the bore though.

James

[Tamber]

Sept 15, 2019 16:59:17 GMT Sweetpea said:

I misread that for a moment and thought you'd broken the bumper of the truck by hitting the Skoda which escaped with just a busted rad. I was mighty impressed with the Skoda for a moment.
Anyway, I've got it straight in my head now so not to worry.

I'd be bloody impressed, too!

For further hilarity, I unbolted the radiator and lifted it out; the grip of the rubber bungs it sits on at the bottom, was apparently stronger than the metal of the radiator itself, and it left the bottom of the radiator in the car. I'd say it was a bit past due for changing. Not a bad run for a part from a country that doesn't exist any more, though.
I'd be done with it, for now, except I seem to have misplaced the tube of instant-gasket that I've been moving around my desk for the last month or so, so I still have a leak at the thermostat housing.

[Deleted]

Have you a particular goal with this other than the restoration work being fun?
I'd love to see the Red Goddess and this together one day.

[Tamber]

Sept 15, 2019 20:51:07 GMT @quickrack1 said:

Have you a particular goal with this other than the restoration work being fun?
I'd love to see the Red Goddess and this together one day.

It would be good to see them stood next to eachother someday!

No goals, no plans, just winging it and seeing what I can do with it. More than anything, I wanted something that'd be a challenge and would really push me to do things I otherwise might not. And this is certainly a challenge...

[Frankenhealey]

Sept 15, 2019 21:23:40 GMT Tamber said:

Sept 15, 2019 20:51:07 GMT @quickrack1 said:

Have you a particular goal with this other than the restoration work being fun?
I'd love to see the Red Goddess and this together one day.

It would be good to see them stood next to eachother someday!

No goals, no plans, just winging it and seeing what I can do with it. More than anything, I wanted something that'd be a challenge and would really push me to do things I otherwise might not. And this is certainly a challenge...

So that's the Goddess, glenanderson 's Austin and Tamber 's RL on the line at the Weekender at some time in the future. We have a grid forming. I wonder who bought this at the revival? It could be another candidate,

[PhilA]

re compressor; if all else fails get in touch with these folks

www.deves.com/

If they can make a set of custom rings for an 80's Renault they can manage a couple for a compressor



--PHil

[Tamber]

Right, so, those rings! Well, they arrived, and they're -- as expected -- a quarter of a millimetre too thick for the ring groove.

Options are:

1. Try thin a ring down. Very slow going, and at one point my finger slipped and the ring dug in, taking a chunk out of my thumb. It bled profusely, and left me with the joys of trying to keep it clean while swapping an engine in a bus at work.
2. Send the piston and ring out to someone with a lathe, so they can gently tickle a little bit out of the piston ring groove. This is the best bet, just got to get a sufficiently circular tuit.

Anyhow, in other news:


New big black shaft.


8 new bolts. I know they should really have an unthreaded shank, like the originals, but this is what I could get, so it's what I'm using.


And fitted!

Well, I couldn't resist trying it; but she really didn't want to start. When she did, I drove about three feet forward, and she conked out then didn't have enough battery power to re-start.

So I took the battery home, left it on charge overnight, then went down again after work tonight; whereupon she started with little trouble, and drove back and forth just fine on the rears only. Cracking!



Not sure what'll be next on the list, but I really should start setting up for surgery on that engine... (Especially since a big part of the cab repairs will be easier with the engine out...)

[Sweetpea]

Is your prop new new or the old one reconditioned? Can't imagine where you'd get a new prop for an old truck, but then I don't really move in old commercial circles. Slowly working on it though.

What's the doofer to the right of the prop? Winch drum?

James

[Tamber]

Oct 12, 2019 15:52:48 GMT Sweetpea said:

Is your prop new new or the old one reconditioned? Can't imagine where you'd get a new prop for an old truck, but then I don't really move in old commercial circles. Slowly working on it though.

Took the old, bent prop in to NorthWestProps in Chorley; they re-tubed in, and put new UJs in it. So, to directly answer the question, more of the latter but 75% of the way to the former.
I'll let them deal with putting new UJs in the other props, when the time comes for that, too.

Oct 12, 2019 15:52:48 GMT Sweetpea said:

What's the doofer to the right of the prop? Winch drum?

Yup. The drum for the 5-ton chassis-mounted Turner winch. Which I will need to get a new winch cable for, but that's way down the list of priorities.

[gtviva]

Looking in the parts book this should be the correct piston, old part number was 7106096 and it then changed to 6347505

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254356181608

Looks like its complete with rings and circlips

[Deleted]

They made a nice job of your shaft!!

[Tamber]

Oct 13, 2019 11:43:39 GMT gtviva said:

Looking in the parts book this should be the correct piston, old part number was 7106096 and it then changed to 6347505

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/254356181608

Looks like its complete with rings and circlips

Wow! Now there's a find! Thank-you very much.