HOW TO:- build a budget hotrod- on the road.

Now that ^^^ makes me smile.

It is awesome when anyone discovers they like something new or have an aptitude for something previously untried.

When it is your partner....... Well, what more can I say than, Great pic and progress.

thats awesome news mate..

Wendy, my other half, has her own overalls now and is keen to 'supervise' - its such a nice feeling when you get help from the other half

And a bonus she enjoyed it and has a knack too..

so, I hacked out some of my lovely bead rolled and rivetted floor (As you can see above), and started to mock up the clutch setup.

I figured if I cut the clutch relase arm down and made up a bracket to fit my box to hold it, I should be able to use a 'normal' master/slave cyl setup of the same bore as the plastic one used on the newer ivecos, as all the ratios would be right. so I took my mates old knackered setup and hacksawed both cyls on half to find out what bore they were-


giving me some numbers to work with-


22.2mm is 7/8", which is easy as its the aforementioned land rover. 18.25 is harder, closest is 3/4" which is 19mm, so I went with that, which was also conveniently land rover, hence me buying what I did back up there. there also the benefit of them being mega cheap and easy to get, and if the bore sizes are wrong, the girling cyls are available in other bore sizes so some part swappage can be done to improve things without having to remave all the bracketry and lines.

so, I set to and started to make up a bracket out of some 1/4"x1-1/2" angle-


I then cut out a bit of 1/4" plate to accept the land rover cyl, and welderised it to it, with an extra rib on the back just to make sure it don't flex. the way it works the force of the cyl presses the plate against the gearbox, so it cant move.




ive just got to stick this bit back on here now ive cut it down (i keot the old end with the swivel ball to stop bind)-

and make up a pushrod, and this end is done.

at the other end, ive started to put together my pedal assembly. I always spend ages agonising over things like this, as they make or break a car- a car can look cool as f-k, but its the driver interfaces that make it what it is to drive.
that, and it obviously anything I make has to look good as well

its based around a couple of pedal assembles from a humber hawk (i think- theyve been in the stash for a good while!) which just so hapeened to be about the right size, shape, length, and mounted the master cyls in the right place.
this is that the original, individual frames looked like-


I replicated most of the shape, to keep the ratios the same, and cos that angled bit at the top fitted the firewall well. I just needed to slim two of these down a bit, so I opted to remake them as one unit.
so I took my two new M/Cs-


made a plate to fit em to that fitted in between the tunnel/firewall bulge and the steering box (just!)-


then copied the side profile of the original brackets, but combined them so instead of having two sideplates in the centre 3/4" apart (as close together as they could go because of how the pivot pins fitted) I simplified it down to one, so 3 plates in total. I jazzed em up a bit with some holes and that, then fitted it all together with the original pedal arms but rebent one so it was more or less a mirror image of what they both were originally. I used the original brass washers between each component, and replaced the two short pivot pins with one long one made up out of a old drift!






I'm now more or less ready to weld it all together , then start adding bracketry/captive fixings to it to mount it up. I need to do some more machine work to the pivot shaft too so its locked out and cant turn, and has a pre-load nut on the end. its coming together nicely though, and I'm pretty happy with how it looks (not that youll ever be able to see it!)

Always a pleasure to see an update on this.

Looking good mate, glad the boss has got involved (Denise is the same, in fact she often sees a solution when I'm bashing my head against something (usually the wall) which can be annoying She also has much thinner fingers than me which is an advantage for the fiddly bits ;D ) Definitely have to pop over soon to catch up on the projects.

some more of ze pedal assemblage.

first, put a collar on one end of the pivot shaft. I had what I think was a motorbike axle spacer in the box of 'useful round bits' that lives above the lathe. the centrebore was the right size anyway, so I cut a slice off it, ground a good chamfer on the end of the shaft to allow somewhere for the weld to sit, then stuck it on. I then flapwheeled the end flat, and chucked it in the lathe and skimmed it up a bit and put some chamfers on the end to make it all look nice-




I then totally neglected to take any more pics of making it, but I machined down one end and threaded it for a 1/2" unf nylock nut, which can be used to set the free-play on the shaft, in conjuction with another slice of the aforementioned axle spacer which sits under the nut. I then assembled all 3 sideplates, all 4 brass washers (on each side of each pedal) and both pedals onto the shaft and fitted the spacer and nut and tightened it down so there was no play but it could still just move under its own weight. I then welded the 3 sideplates to the backplate, tweaking the side ones a little as I did so they stepped out to the edges of the plate.
with it bolted up into the car it looks something like this.

you can see the threaded end, nut and spacer there too. I still need to put a flat on the collar and weld an anti-rotation tab to the right hand sideplate, so the shaft cant turn, cos it shouldnt.

on the other side of the firewall, I had to hack a bit out as there was a swage right in the way thats gunna have to go, and I had to reshape the corner where the firewall meets the tunnel a bit to allow it to sit flat. here it is after I started to fill up the holes again, ive put in the big square plate that covers the majority of it, only smaller gaps to do now but I could really do with the engine out to do em as its a bit of a tight space between firewall and the head to get the grinder in.




you will notice the master cyls are stepped slightly to each other, this is because of space constraints the caps more or less touch, and this allows em not to. it also actually increases available pedal travel on the clutch pedal, which I think it will need otherwise the pedal will have to start too high up. its jsut a land rover ally master cyl spacer chucked on there-


I'm waiting for another 5/16" clevis to turn up that ive ordered for the brake master cos I only had one, but then apart for filling up the holes I cut in the firewall and a bit of plumbing, its about don, so i really am very close ot having brakes and a clutch. view from the inside-


I need to get the rest of the floor in around it next I recon

ooh look, ive done some more. well, actually ive done loads of little bits, sorted out loads of stuff for it, and bought some tat for it too. thats all for future updates updates though

todays update is brought to you by-

'removing eyebrows since 1953'. or something.
not hard to guess what were doing today kids- we're gunna try to start it!

i really am lost as to how much of this i have and havent covered now, but a while ago i fitted all new fuel lines., so the motor was already plumbed in.
so first, me and choppy set about the wiring to get it ready to start. i measured and prepped up the big fat cables for the main feed and earth, whilst he soldered the ends on em with the gas torch. we then did the same for the heavier weight wires- main alt feed, starter sol. wire, thermostarter feed, etc. leaving just the small gauge stuff for me to finish off with the soldering iron. we also had to lengthen some of the original loom wires, as i re-routed them all so they all run together as one loom. i wired it through a bus-bar(will probly get another so ive got one for switched lives and one for perm. lives) and a single position lucas ignition switch. it may look like a mess, but its reasonably methodical, and theres even a bit of colour coding going on!-


so next, we did some of this-


annoyingly close!! it was found after much arsing around checking for leaks, checking fuel level, etc. that fuel wasnt getting through as it should be. we narrowed it down to-


the lift pump. on disassembly, one of the 'valves' just fell out. they're basically small umbrella shaped rubber bits, with a knobble halfway down the shaft of the umbrella to keep them in place, which the fuel flares out under pressure as the diaphragm draws it in, then as the pressure drops as the diaphragm meets the end of its stroke, they fall shut so the fuel cant flow back. a pretty simple design, except the inlet one had snapped off on the shaft at the retaining knobble, allowing it to fall out, meaning no pump pressure. it looks as though someone had been here before me too, as the fuel pump bolts were only finger tight, the diaphragm bolts were all cheesed up, and the inlet fuel pipe threads were very iffy, and stripped out when undone.



after some thought, the best way around this was deem to be fit an electric fuel pump to act as a lift pump until i fould find a suitable replacement/service kit.
cue this. its not a lash-up, honest.-

ok maybe it is. but its purely a test to see if it was the lift pump causing the problems.
the tank and jerry can were later omitted and a bucket full of derv out in their place so we could see what was going in with the feed/return properly.

after this, and a bit(lot) of fiddling about point-bleeding the fuel system we got it going!

well, we did for two (quite loud/smoky) minutes. that combination of turbo whistle and exhaust roar two foot in front of your head is just perfect.
it ran perfectly, the smoke quickly cleared, and it ran nicely. i then turned it off to sort out some bits of wiring as they were jumping about a bit and letting some sparks out(it moves/rattles/shakes the WHOLE truck, a LOT!).
and now, it absolutely refuses to play ball. theres fuel at the injectors it seems, but it simply will not start. ive cracked all 4 injectors in turn, point bled it through the lift pump inlet>outlet>bleed screw on top of filter>injector pump inlet>injectors, but it still wont catch. its not chuffing out any smoke like youd expect it to either though. yet slap some sniff down it and it runs on it fine. to get it to start before i had to choke it with my hand over the turbo to get it to catch whilst cracking the injectors in turn, then hold the throttle a fraction open for it to idle, but it then did so for a couple of mins no probs.

Nice one Dez!!!! Soo close!!