A quick build.........

Have I become Neo and can see everything in code?
Or are those pic uploads messed up?

Back again, had an afternoon out on the Van, been doing loads of silly bits.
Many months ago I located the battery in the false floor below the load floor, its quite low, and I managed to find a low Gel Battery that fitted in the space, great, took the battery out a few months ago and put it on the bench, 30 seconds later, it was laying broken on the floor, big hairy gonads, or words to that effect, ok, I will order one, sorry, thats obsolete, days of trying drew a blank, so typical of my luck at the moment I was Gifted a pair of Batteries by the lovely Mr Bravo, which happily fitted in a old box I was going to use for another job, now located on the floor hiding the battery.
The floors in these vans are built with bolt in floors, a bit crappy really, but thats what it came with, and its only half length, it dosent go past the middle of the wheel arches, the rest is ply. the steel floor was pretty dented and distorted, I was fortunate to find another straight abiet Rusty, and disposed of the old one when I moved, made a new ply one for the front end, and Hated it, not sure what to do with this, so it has been left in the van for ages, Imagine my surprise when I found the old steel floor, ... in my new Garage. ? Plan B, chopped the trailing edge of the old floor and dropped it over the other floor where the ply would have been, Think this plan is a go'er,





I do much prefer the the all metal floor.

Not sure what's going on with me, Normally, as soon as it gets cold, I go and hibernate, at the moment I'm out there 8 hours a day, revisiting lots of things I have already done, but not quite happy with, hence the remodelling of the the load floor, another one thats been bugging me is my ECU, my preference is to mount it in the cab, and using MIl spec 20 pin plug and socket bulkhead mounted, I originally bought a MIL spec plug, found the plug I had acquired from EBAY made the loom to fit, went back to fit the plug, and the pins were falling apart as soon as the crimp pliers were used, got to be a knock off, Souriau is generally spot on kit, new plug and socket ordered,
So, I'm now looking for something else to play with, as I'm in a wiring mood. I thought I would re check the new battery wiring, and turn the engine over, the engine is a bit of a mystery to be, I bought it as rebuilt and run , but found a shed load of end float in the crank, fitted new thrust washers, and its seemed OK, crank and rod bearings were good too, but never run it, I spent ages cleaning out the spark plug holes before actually removing the plugs, , the holes were full of crud, once done,I pulled the plugs, WD 40 down the bores, needed to make up a capillary pipe for the Oil Gauge, bit fiddly, as I had to un braze the nipple off the old pipe, and fit to the new pipe., its a pain to fit the block as its behind the exhaust down pipe, all done, I crank over the engine sans plugs, hoping for oil pressure, after 30 secs the cranking speed drops slightly and a dribble comes out the end of the pipe, screw the gauge on and I have got 75lbs of pressure at cranking speed, YIPPIEE I'm not complaining at that, its going to be hight as I have 20/50 in the engine, it should be 10/40,

Can you use open barrel splice crimps onto the tails?

These type , although you'd need to get the right size.

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/10-x-Wire-Splice-AMPLIVAR-Series-Crimp-12-AWG-9-AWG-Open-Barrel-Splice-/143926230202?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292

I've found them good on the escort loom. A little bit of heat shrink over the top seals nicely.

Today has been productive, I needed to fit a power switch and 300A mega fuse in the main supply for the car, not the easiest of places to fit adjacent to the battery They were all mounted under the floor untilI had my battery incident, I have made a small box that fits right in the rear corner, this made a strong suitable mount for the switch and fuse, I will mount a fuse and relay for the fuel pump in there too, accessible via a small door should I need to change either fuse or relay, linking the main switch to the Mega Fuse was going to be a problem as they were very close together, too close to crimp a cable together, rummaging thru the box of oleshite turned up a old bus bar from a switch room we dismantled 50 x 6 copper bar was cut up to make a link, at least I know I wont melt this

I finally got around to trial fitting the front suspension, its going to be tight around the arch lip,
So, not being a a lover of rolling lips, and the arch not being round, but oval, do not lend themselves to using rollers. so, 10 mins with a grinder, cleaning and cutting the lip back, a length of 3mm gas welding filler wire, a deft bit of closing with grips and some dolly work resulted in this, I had to go back to the days of my apprenticeship, I should have gone bigger than 2.5 x 3mm lip for the roll over, so its a bit less rolled than I would have liked, but the wire is secure, a bead of sikkaflex, will, I am sure seal and possibly stiffen too, next time I will go with a 10mm lip before rolling, I forgot to add the thickness of the rolled metal in the formula,

Time to remove the jacking point.

Problem solved...

Do we get an outside shot as it does look rather wonderful back on all 4.

P.

Today has been a bit of a bitza day (how did I end up cutting the grass? ) But I did manage to get a look at the N/S front suspension, something in my mind did not add up as to why it was lower on one side and not the other, all revealed its self when I jacked up the front, I had the wrong set of pan spacers in there, I had 30mm in there, its now 18mm and it sits a touch better, I know its going to be an up and down adventure while the springs settle, then its off to the Barbers....... I was looking a bit like a cross between Grizzly Adams and Chewbacca, came home, and faffed about reassembling the front upright, put the van on the floor and pushed it outside just to prove to the doubters it has a front end.

That looks rather wonderful Ian.

P.