Dez' 'fleet' thread. Another bl00dy transit!

[vitesseefi]

Mar 13, 2023 18:51:49 GMT melle said:

Mar 11, 2023 18:31:16 GMT Dez said:

engineering is about using what is appropriate and available, not ridiculously over-speccing things as people seem to think it has come to mean

You're welcome to come explain that to my Mech Eng students, many of whom are convinced they can't finish their models if there is no laser cutter available when they need a square piece of MDF with a few holes. Some are even prepared to wait hours for a 3D-printer to produce the flat and square pieces they could have cut out and drilled manually in five minutes. 🙄

This is all too true unfortunately. But not entirely new. I remember a fairly lively exchange of views with a certain drag racer, tuner, and all round fine engineer, who was giving me a bit of a bollocking for making some parts (possibly bits of a gearbox mounting) using a drill and an angle grinder. He considered them agricultural in appearance and reckoned he could make some much nicer looking ones with his Bridgeport. “But Dennis, I made these in less time than it would take you to set the mill up”
“My boy, they are just ugly” (they weren’t that ugly!) “It doesn’t matter, they are going to be tucked away under the car never to be seen!” “Arrrgh! We’ll never make a precision engineer out of you!” He was quite right about that 🙂

I also wondered about the EGR valve… but I’m sure there is reason… this is a Dez thread 🙂

[melle]

Mar 13, 2023 19:45:30 GMT legend said:

Far too much reliance on fancy kit

Don't get me wrong, I love fancy kit and there certainly is a place and time for it.

[Dez]

I had a pretty heated discussion with the guys who ran our course at Hallam 20 years ago. I was one of 2 or 3 out of a year of 60 or so students who had any form of practical skill, on an automotive engineering degree.
They were always pushing us to use autocad/solidworks to design, prototype, test and build stupidly simple things. They said it was to instil a level of process in us that we would need in industry. I pointed out they were teaching us to be idiots, because any rational engineer would go ‘this is too simple a task to need this’ and just knock one up in the workshop, test fit, and sign off the design in 1/4 of the time. But no, we had to do it the stupid hard way, and that’s why nobody in the industry is capable of simple tasks anymore.

The critical thinking to apply the correct, application appropriate procedure should have more emphasis placed on it.

[Dez]

Mar 13, 2023 7:50:54 GMT Rich said:

Unsure why you are seemingly keeping the EGR when ‘deleting’ the main feature of the engine management on the engine. Surely, that could, you know, disappear 😆
Otherwise top mechanical pump conversion. That’s a nice solution to the EDC pump. 👌🏻

There is a reason 😉

Well, sort of two reasons. The inlet manifold is plastic, and as such not something I really want to be modifying. The EGR body is an ally casting, so nice and thick for drilling and tapping for a fitting for a manifold pressure line.
Like this-


The other reason is you have to remove the manifold to do any adjustments on the pump, as you can’t access any of the screws or locknuts with it in place. The manifold is actually a reasonable design with all captive bolts and integral rubber gaskets, so being able to undo it and lift it out the way to access the pump by just spinning a few bolts out is preferable to having to undo some hoses as well. The EGR pipe holds the other bits in place with makes removal and refit dead easy.

[mylittletony]

Mar 13, 2023 21:47:43 GMT Dez said:

I had a pretty heated discussion with the guys who ran our course at Hallam 20 years ago. I was one of 2 or 3 out of a year of 60 or so students who had any form of practical skill, on an automotive engineering degree.
They were always pushing us to use autocad/solidworks to design, prototype, test and build stupidly simple things. They said it was to instil a level of process in us that we would need in industry. I pointed out they were teaching us to be idiots, because any rational engineer would go ‘this is too simple a task to need this’ and just knock one up in the workshop, test fit, and sign off the design in 1/4 of the time. But no, we had to do it the stupid hard way, and that’s why nobody in the industry is capable of simple tasks anymore.

The critical thinking to apply the correct, application appropriate procedure should have more emphasis placed on it.

I agree and disagree with this in equal measures.

I also studied automotive engineering and was extremely disappointed to find that most of the class didn't know a spanner from a socket, let alone how to make anything. I can only imagine this was a shortcoming from school/home. Not knowing how stuff goes together and comes apart doesn't equip you with the skills to design stuff.

However, almost all commercial engineering is designed on CAD, then converted to drawings and manufactured by someone other than the designer.
Even if you made something by hand, you would have to create a CAD model so it's included in the electronic design history. Unless you're making one-off stuff...

Also, there are a large proportion of engineers who DO know how to make stuff, test fit, modify and assemble. And, as a specific example, I have a young woman working for me who joined us as a grad without a jot of hands on experience and got fully stuck in asking for opportunities to get her hands dirty.

So all hope is not lost

[kevins]

In the modern mass production motor industry you won't have anything to fit it to or any way of pysicaly testing it because every part of the vehicle is modelled then simulated and tested in the virtual world long before any physical parts are made.

And yes plenty of us are perfectly capable of simple tasks when it's needed.

[Dez]

So after the weather went batshit-


That was 9am, by midday it was all gone, and warm and sunny. But that’s the British weather for you.

I carried on.
I did the bit posted above to the EGR to allow for the boost reference vac line to connect, then I knocked up an EGR blank and fitted that. I reassembled all that lot, then I ran a temporary wire in for the fuel shutoff solenoid, and after a lot of f-king about (and two flat batteries) getting the damn thing to bleed up- transits are notorious for this- I eventually got it running. It would idle ok but it wasnt getting enough fuel and would cut out as soon as it boosted. I removed and cleaned the shutoff solenoid and blew all the lines through, and that sorted it. Some messing with the pump settings to get it idling nicely, and here we go.



Not many transits start like that I can assure you!

[Dez]

Mar 13, 2023 22:07:18 GMT mylittletony said:

Mar 13, 2023 21:47:43 GMT Dez said:

I had a pretty heated discussion with the guys who ran our course at Hallam 20 years ago. I was one of 2 or 3 out of a year of 60 or so students who had any form of practical skill, on an automotive engineering degree.
They were always pushing us to use autocad/solidworks to design, prototype, test and build stupidly simple things. They said it was to instil a level of process in us that we would need in industry. I pointed out they were teaching us to be idiots, because any rational engineer would go ‘this is too simple a task to need this’ and just knock one up in the workshop, test fit, and sign off the design in 1/4 of the time. But no, we had to do it the stupid hard way, and that’s why nobody in the industry is capable of simple tasks anymore.

The critical thinking to apply the correct, application appropriate procedure should have more emphasis placed on it.

I agree and disagree with this in equal measures.

I also studied automotive engineering and was extremely disappointed to find that most of the class didn't know a spanner from a socket, let alone how to make anything. I can only imagine this was a shortcoming from school/home. Not knowing how stuff goes together and comes apart doesn't equip you with the skills to design stuff.

However, almost all commercial engineering is designed on CAD, then converted to drawings and manufactured by someone other than the designer.
Even if you made something by hand, you would have to create a CAD model so it's included in the electronic design history. Unless you're making one-off stuff...

Also, there are a large proportion of engineers who DO know how to make stuff, test fit, modify and assemble. And, as a specific example, I have a young woman working for me who joined us as a grad without a jot of hands on experience and got fully stuck in asking for opportunities to get her hands dirty.

So all hope is not lost

Mar 13, 2023 22:10:11 GMT kevins said:

In the modern mass production motor industry you won't have anything to fit it to or any way of pysicaly testing it because every part of the vehicle is modelled then simulated and tested in the virtual world long before any physical parts are made.

And yes plenty of us are perfectly capable of simple tasks when it's needed.

I should have said, they were specifically getting us to design one off parts, mostly for the formula student race cars. We literally had all the parts and materials in front of us on a bench in a workshop. and we’re making one or maybe a pair of something. The obvious, sensible way to do it was to design the thing as you went to fit the things in front of you together. Instead they were advocating spending hours taking loads of measurements of the parts, going away to the design suite and ‘designing’ simple flat plate or bent up brackets, then coming back with a blueprint to then make them, inevitably find out they were wrong because you’d missed something that would be obvious if you were working with the actual parts, then have to do it all again. To do that is stupid.
Yes I fully agree in other applications it makes sense to be totally cad based, but for what we were doing it actually made the process inefficient, yet no one questioned it. It was that lack of acknowledgement of the incorrect process being used that annoyed me.

The first question I always ask someone when they talk to me about making something is ‘how many do you want?’.
If it’s less than half a dozen or so I make em. If it’s more I design them then sun it out to a lazercutter or whatever. That’s practical engineering.

[Paul H]

Sounds like they were trying to teach how to CAD etc, but without thinking about also teaching suitable application. That could actually have been a very valid teaching point to ensure that their students learnt that ability to know when to use CAD & when to just work hands on, before then creating the CAD data etc for further production, should it be needed or simply future reference.

CAD etc has its place, but it is not a subsitute to a hands-on approach too. Whilst it is true that much of industry now does everything via computer simulations, not everywhere does, and the over reliance on CAD and also CAM means that the ability to design for manufacture has also suffered.

I do all the CAD work for a friend whenever he needs complex castings done, as his main pattern maker prefers a 3D CAD model, and this has ncluded several cylinder heads & other associated engine castings.  CAD can be a massive timesaver - I used it at home the other year to design a massive wall unit, since then all my cutting etc was purely making a kit of parts, rather than lots of test fitting, modifying & wasted materials. There are plenty of occasions though when messing around surveying everything & then going via CAD would take far longer than just getting stuck in & letting things fall into place.

Fulltime, I'm a DT teacher, and whilst we do teach 3D CAD, and have 3D printers & a laser cutter (acrylic / thin ply or mdf only - sadly!), much of what the students make for GCSE & A Level coursework projects is very much hands on, and includes physical modelling too, to help them get a better spatial awareness of what they are designing & building. It can often be very difficult to understand the scale of an item when simply on a screen, whereas a physical item is much more useful. In that respect, 3D printing can be helpful sometimes, but not always...  It is easy to fall into the trap of creating an impressive CAD model, when the reality is that it becomes very difficult to produce.  It's certainly something that really winds up my brother, who is a mechanical engineer.

One of my engineering lecturers at uni (I'm originally an industrial designer, rather than an engineer) would lament that very few of us students were fixing cars ourselves, or going down the breakers, which he reckoned explained why so many didn't have the practical understanding of how cars are designed & what happens under the skin (my course was car styling), and it's always something that has stuck in my mind. I was one of the few who was fixing & repairing my own car (many had small hatchbacks on finance), so had a healthy respect for the need for a design to work, which no doubt explained why he & I got on well!

[braaap]

Mar 13, 2023 22:33:32 GMT Dez said:

I should have said, they were specifically getting us to design one off parts, mostly for the formula student race cars. We literally had all the parts and materials in front of us on a bench in a workshop. and we’re making one or maybe a pair of something. The obvious, sensible way to do it was to design the thing as you went to fit the things in front of you together. Instead they were advocating spending hours taking loads of measurements of the parts, going away to the design suite and ‘designing’ simple flat plate or bent up brackets, then coming back with a blueprint to then make them, inevitably find out they were wrong because you’d missed something that would be obvious if you were working with the actual parts, then have to do it all again. To do that is stupid.

Well, in some situations You can learn from mistakes too.
But it has become common practice that young people do no longer learn a hands on job before studying. They just go on learning theory, just on a higher level, only to learn some other aspects "the hard way" in the "real world" later.
Wrong approach, but that's how it works today (mainly).

Mar 13, 2023 22:59:29 GMT Paul H said:

Sounds like they were trying to teach how to CAD etc, but without thinking about also teaching suitable application. That could actually have been a very valid teaching point to ensure that their students learnt that ability to know when to use CAD & when to just work hands on, before then creating the CAD data etc for further production, should it be needed or simply future reference.

This!

[welshpug]

sounds like that Pump has given it the old MK5 clatter ! are the injector pressures between the Banana and the TDDI close enough?

[kevins]

The later ones had lift pumps, avoids all the issues with air being drawn in and priming.

[legend]

I'm a product designer in an engineering school currently [don't worry i had real jobs before, Boeing, Princess Yachts, etc] and the engineers insist on drawings, sign off etc before any prototypes, whereas i'm just straight in on the tools. I teach Solidworks and we have all the kit, but sometimes a quick lash up is the answer, then do a Rolls Royce job once you have worked out the basics

Paul H we have probably talked before but where di you study ID?

[Dez]

With it up and running I sealed up the timing cover. Mucho scraping of old goop off with a razor blade, a good clean down, then fitted the new crank seal stealthstylz supplied.


Block side was given the same treatment-


And a new gasket for the water neck bit also.


All bolted up and a few ancillaries chucked back on-


I then ran into the first unforeseen issue with it. That being this hose fitting here-


It’s off the back of the water pump, and carried a hose that goes up the the back side of the thermostat housing. Except theres now a throttle linkage where it was.


I figured with the discussion about some markets getting manual pumps there must be a way around this, but I was drawing a blank on an alternative water flange thing without that outlet.

This was until I happened across these pics of what Ford actually did to get round it-



They just capped it off, and from what I’ve managed to find, rerouted the hose and teed it into one of the others. So that’s what I did. The hose it tees into is the feed down from the header tank, so has a head of water above the height of the thermostat housing, so from what i can see it won’t airlock.




The weather then did more ‘normal for Britain’ things. A nice dose of hail this time…


Then with it all back together except for the rad and grille, I washed off all the excess oil and diesel from everything before final reassembly.


I also ran the shutoff solenoid wire through into the cab and tapped into an ignition switched live feed in the fusebox, so it’s all on the key now.

That should be the actual conversion side of things done now, although the pump needs tuning to suit the motor. It starts and idles nicely though.

[legend]

Great job as ever. Any news on the Scimitar?

[Dez]

A slightly longer vid of it running now reassembled.



Some further pump tuning has improved it somewhat so I’ve now got rid of all the smoke. I did have to take it all apart again and bump the crank round one tooth as it turns out the external timing kit isn’t right for this engine and I was maxing the adjustment out to get it to run. With it bumped a tooth it puts it back in the middle of the adjustment range again on the pump and cams. and it runs much cleaner. A bit annoying but that’s how you learn stuff, especially on modified stuff like this.


And I’ve now added the finest boost gauge twelve whole pounds can buy to aid with further tuning.


The alternator is now telling me it’s not alternating though, even though it is. I suspect I’ve disturbed some fragile wiring. As it’s putting out 14.4v at the terminal I’ll ignore it for now til I do some other wiring stuff. I want to run new starter motor wiring that bypasses everything so I can remove the ECU and immobiliser altogether. It will also get rid of the flashy glow plug light.


The. I went on a short trip to collect some timber.

The results were favourable. It now seems to have burnt off all excess fuel and clag so it runs fairly clean. No smoke at idle and only a small puff when letting off at full load, as you’d expect. It feels livelier at the low to mid range, top end it still feels like a 90ps transit, in that it starts to plateau somewhat. It’ll do 75 though, and It’s only boosting to 7-8psi which is very conservative so I think there’s more top end available with more tweaks.
Ultimately I’m not looking for megapowerz, I just want it reliable, reasonably ecomical, not smokey as f-k so the law don’t give me hassle in an old truck, and any power gains are a bonus.

[Dez]

Mar 16, 2023 11:51:49 GMT legend said:

Great job as ever. Any news on the Scimitar?

It makes a nice garden ornament 😬

Nothing yet, got a few other things on before I get round to it.

[kevins]

Is the alternator a smart one that is controlled by the ECU if it is the Ecu probably needs the speed signal from the pump, best option I would think is replace it with a conventional one.

[welshpug]

wont be a smart alternator on an old Di, that's Euro 5 stuff so after 2012 or so.

[Dez]

Nah I don’t expect it to be a smart alternator. But it does have more wires coming out than expected. it has the main feed cable then a multiplug with 2 or 3 wires. They’ll be my first port of call to see why it’s doing what it is.

The tacho has stopped working but I knew it would. I’m assuming that was pump driven.
The majority of the engine bay wiring loom is now redundant, apart from the alt and starter wiring and coolant and oil sensors I don’t need any of it so it’ll probably get thinned out when I tidy up and diagnose the alternator.