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

Just remember, its not leaking oil its just marking its spot :-)

Another vaguely productive evening: The other tracta housing filled with oil, and the nearside still appears to be leak free so I'll call that a resounding success! (It remains to be seen how well that lasts once I start driving it again...)

I also pickled my head with wheel dimensions again, this time going as far as to mark it all out in full-scale on a piece of wood, with the end result being... the same numbers as I had the last three times.

I keep doing this; I've worked it out, I'm satisfied with the answer, and it's very close to the number in the manual (but not the same, this is expected. The new wheels will be very slightly wider.) And then time passes, and I look at the truck again, realise it's got 9.00-20s on it, and panic over whether or not my planned 295/80R22.5 will fit.

The truck's meant to have 11.00-20s on it, ffs; 295mm is a little over 11-1/2 inches. It'll fit, width-wise, no problem.

Definitely worth considering! We'll see what happens, if the oil continues falling out too quickly then that might just happen...

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In other news, a fit of productivity was brought on by painkillers, resulting in:


That's right. I've finished welding the passenger's side door-step! ...Well, the top face of it, anyway. Underneath still needs trimming and whatnot, and the floor isn't totally complete yet. (And then I've still got loads to do elsewhere, and...)



Welds ground up on the inside, and a quick squirt of etch primer (As opposed to/on top of my usual zinc weld-through primer.), at least until I ran out of etch primer.
You can still clearly see that little patch at the edge of the wheel-well, where it's a bit thin, that I need to tackle but I don't wanna right now.

The welds on the underside haven't yet been touched, but all of that will get done too, in time. I'm trying to hit the high spots that are holding up other things, but I still haven't gotten a good plan for what's 'blocking' what, yet. I want to get all the repair-work around the engine-bay done in time to have the engine back in this year, ideally by summer, but we'll see how that goes. (As per usual, it's health & time permitting.)

Flush with success on that, I decided to tackle ... headlights. Because why not! I bought myself some new headlight mounting rings a couple of years back because one of my original ones has dissolved away to nothing; and it does appear that they should fit to my original headlight buckets, which I want to do for reasons, even though the plastic mounting rings give much more convenient access for changing the bulbs.

However, the new mounting rings are fiddly enough to fit onto the original 3 spring-loaded screw adjusters setup of the original headlight buckets that it would no longer be fun trying to change bulbs by removing the headlight. (The original is just a twist & pop out sort of affair.)

Which means... a hole needs to happen! And, half an hour or so later, sure enough:


And in comparison to an unbothered one:



I can neaten the edge up on that a bit more yet and make it a bit more finished, but it was nearly 9pm at this point and despite the best efforts of my painkillers from earlier my knees were starting to buzz at me.

And it works out quite nicely, I think! Sufficient room to manipulate the clip, wiggle the bulb out/in, and fit the plug. I've worked on modern stuff with much worse access!
(You can go right to hell, Mercedes, with that stupid upwards-hinging access panel on the Atego that can't hinge up far enough to release, unless you tilt the cab.)


Process here starts with a hole-saw to draw around, like so:


Pictures will follow of the rest of the process but it goes a bit like so:

• Slice off the back of the bucket, across the line
• Neaten up the hole with files, to take off the burrs and make it more consistently round
• Flare the edges of the cut outward, gradually working around until a lip stands up
• Roll the newly-created lip down over itself, gradually working around until there's a nice rolled edge that won't chew your fingers off the next time you want to change a headlight bulb.
  

With a little care, and finish-work to neaten it up, you'd never know it didn't come from factory like that! It'll be our secret!

Oh, and after all that, all three of the adjusting screws snapped off when I tried to loosen them.
But fear not, I have a cunning plan (That will just have to wait until the relevant parts arrive.)

I had leather gaiters on my series 2 landrover swivels, they worked a treat the seeping oil keeping the leater nice and supple.

Why can't you just unscrew the three screws holding the inner trim ring and remove the light like you do on a normal sealed beam headlight?

Now that there is no back on the bowl will you make something to cover this so the light doesn't fill up with water?

...hmmm. Either I never received the rivnuts and screws to go with 'em, or I have an unopened envelope somewhere that I can't find.

I might find 'em the next time I have a big tidy-up. If not, then I'll order more and that'll make the buggers turn up.

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Since last time:

Discovered an annoying bit of corrosion on the radiator:


Thankfully, this shouldn't cause any leaks, it's just a structural concern, but I'm confident I can fix it. Radiator is currently sitting in the back of the workshop for now, swaddled in cardboard.

Spotted why this tool locker likes to fill up with water:


Another thing that shouldn't be too hard to fix. Also low priority for the time being, but I would like to have it sorted before the truck next has to start living outside.

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Found my tin of black paint! ...And fought one hell of a paint skin:


Paint skin battle won, the brush-waggling can get underway.






I've set myself the goal of having the engine back in the truck before September, which gives me a clear list of priority items, mostly prep-work in and around the engine-bay. Generally, stuff that will be significantly more awkward to do with the engine in the way.

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While I was in there, and with some extra working room thanks to the removal of the radiator, I thought I'd pick away at the wiring a little more; tidy up some of that horrible temporary stuff that was accumulating behind the dash. (Rotten, rained-on choc-block terminal strip...)



And that vantage point really shows off how varied the corrosion is in the truck...

Top of the driver's side footwell, and cheek vent:


I think this should be relatively painless to clean up, paint, and call good.

Top of the passenger's side footwell, and where the cheek vent used to go:


This side, however, is going to involve some CAD work and a grinder.

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I also spent some more money (ow) and got a nice big length of battery cable to run to the rear of the truck, to supply power to my trailer relay box.

That's mostly complete now, though I still need to fit the little load-sensing trailer indicator warning thing. I also don't want to fit it as is, because it's supposedly designed to be wired inline with the feed out to the socket, yet they've chosen to build it with hair-thin wires. Not the most confidence inspiring. (It's a Ryder TF1152.)



Shown here, the relay box hiding in the back of the chassis, and the oil leak from the winch that I am currently ignoring because fixing it will be a nightmare of a job.



*shudder*

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In better items, the main distribution block is coming in quite handy. I've got a little bag of midi fuses for it, and also a length of copper bar to make up the tiny little bus-bars that connect the bottom terminal of the fuse, to the post where the cable connects.



This distribution block is from a BMW X5, and if you decide you're going to grab one for power distribution purposes, make sure you get the little dog-bone bus-bars because they are not built in, like I assumed they were.

So that's why that cable jumps right to the centre of the block, onto the same terminal as the fuse, for now.

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Moving right along, next is the removal of the radiator support & front crossmember, for the dual purposes of both improved access (no more trying to fold myself in through the rad support opening), and painting aforementioned items.
Of special interest -- and I don't recall if I mentioned it last time I took it apart, but if so then here we go again -- are the nuts that hold the front crossmember in:





They're a strange thing: double-height, conical seat, 9/16UNF nylocs. The crossmember has little chamfers to accept, and locate on, the conical bits of the nuts.



Painting ensued. Naturally, it kept sprinkling with rain as the day wore on, but I managed to get enough done to call it a productive day. Radiator frame fully painted, front crossmember fully primed and half painted.

Additional thanks go out to the kind gentleman from a couple of units down, who donated a tin of UPol Zinc-182 primer. It's all the small things, that make a big difference.

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And that brings us to today, where I once again get overly excited and stuff wiring in before being totally finished with everything else! I do like a good bit of wiring.



That's the ECU loom stuffed through its grommet (mostly so I can stop tripping over it in the workshop), and the funky little relay setup that will provide power to the ECU, wideband controller, ignition coil, and injectors. Thanks to a quirk of the MS2-like controller, I have to make sure I don't provide power to those latter two items until the ECU is fully booted and the engine is ready to start, which is achieved through a pair of relays set up to self-latch at the appropriate time.

I am going to have a fun time drawing up schematics for all of this...



The first relay is triggered by ignition power, providing 12v to the ECU & wideband controller, as well as forwarding the power feed to the second relay's terminal 30. The second relay is triggered by the starter switch (terminal 50, if you will) and latches itself on, providing power to the injectors and ignition coil. The whole mess releases itself upon the ignition being turned off, and there are diodes to prevent it backfeeding & holding the starter engaged.

If you're thinking that's an awful lot of wire, you're not wrong! Enough for various sensors, an idle control valve, 3 injectors, and the 3 coils (with capacity to convert to individual per-cylinder coils if desired later.)
Good job I like wiring!

Having come to a stopping point on that, the next item on my priority list is that offside cab crossmember. So up comes the cab...





I remember lifting the nearside with the farm-jack, but for some reason I couldn't manage it this time without hitting everything, so instead I settled on this... uh. work of art



Thankfully, the driver's side floor is less teabagged than the passenger's side was; but it's still going to be a good bit of work!



And the only way to make progress, is to find a bit to start with...





That's better!

Right. Bus-bars.




Dimensions for same:


They fit in here like so:


And at this point I dropped everything and hurtled off to troubleshoot wiring for a customer. (I built 'em a wiring loom for a fuel pump, for an Audi 1.8t swap into a Mk2 Golf GTI, and it wasn't working. Turned out not to be entirely my wiring at fault (other than the impact switch was wired backwards in the pigtail, so you had to crash the car for the fuel-pump to work. ), but the wrong type of crazy VW relay in the fusebox that was looking for the wrong switching. Swapped that out, fuel pump works (along with their ignition feed to the ECU.) Swap a wire on a different relay, and ignition coils work properly. Grand stuff, but that took the rest of the day.)

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Well, as they say, tomorrow is a different day. And today sure was.



Feeds in and out, with diodes, to kick in the relay at the appropriate time, and let it self-latch.


With that productivity out of the way, time for the soothing sound of an angle grinder, for several hours!


Some bonus flap-disk action~


Uncovered some previous repairs underneath the green paint.


Covered up the floor underneath a growing mountain of filth.


Stuffed the previously-built new cab crossmember underneath


Mark and trim to the existing framework angle.


Do the typical mechanic thing and curse the fool who designed this, 'cause they clearly don't know anything, and have never worked on anything before...


(...and no, my socket does not fit through the nice convenient hole I made for the socket to go through. Augh.)

Marvellous!




I also ended up stripping both pedals out, and took the clutch pedal lever off to grease the pivot point. Turns out it's supposed to be oiled regularly, with a little oil dropper hole, and it hasn't actually seen any lubrication in a long time judging by the build-up of fretting rust.

A grease nipple would probably be better. The shopping list continues to grow. More to come, later. Probably next weekend. I'm exhausted. Time for another week of work.

Well, then. Let's get caught up, shall we?

Are you sitting comfortably? No? That's fine, neither am I. My knees and hips are killing me... half-tempted to drill and tap them for grease-nipples.







Can you tell what it is yet?

...

That's right! It's a...



Wiper spindle. Don't mind the wonkiness, the trial/test version was a misaligned loose mess for an assortment of reasons but it proved the concept enough that I decided to go ahead with it. There's some o-rings, washers, and a bit of grease involved as well in the final assembly.

The shaft will have a flat filed on it so that I can fit the land-rover adapter bobbins; now if only I could find the wiper arms and the other adapter bobbin. The adapter that I know where it is, is stuck on the other (original) spindle and refuses to come off; and the arms have disappeared into the aether. Thankfully, they're not too expensive and at least this way I'll have spares if the first set I bought ever turn up again.

(They're probably in the lockers that I can't get to, on the other side of the truck. )

Crunching on forwards... Noodle wrangling, and painting.








Taking a break from noodle-wrangling for a little bit, I decided to tackle something else. I'm a fan of using modern production parts where they make my life easier, but I also have Weird-Brain where there's just stuff I don't want to make permanent modifications to.

So! I want nice grippy rubber pedal pads on the brake and clutch, but I also don't want to trash the original pedals because they're worn from hundreds of thousands of applications of size eleven boot, and that tells a story of its own, yeah?

Well...







And, as they say, wollah!



(Can you tell what they're off? )

There's still some adjustment and tweaking to be made to line them up perfectly, but they're functional as they are. They were made to the same dimensions as the factory originals, other than the metal pedal itself. The brake pedal maybe needs a stronger return helper spring, because it doesn't quite fully return every time.

But, of course, to fit that clutch pedal I had to clean and paint the clutch pedal arm, and refit it with some grease in place of the powdery rust on the pivot shaft.



And then I had to temporarily move the return spring to give a much heavier return pull on the pedal, because it turns out that having grease in place of rust means the pedal moves that much easier now. It'll probably be fine once there's a clutch pivot there.

Oh, yeah, and a bit more painting happened.


And a little bit more noodle-wrangling.


Which brings our engine bay to looking like this!


I've started P-clipping brake lines and whatnot, but that's stalled out on needing some more appropriately sized bolts. (Or I could just get happy with the countersink tool and use a bunch of those nice countersunk stainless screws I have. Hmmmm.)

I've also managed to get the floor panel between the seats screwed down into place, so that makes me feel better. But that did let me notice that I don't quite have clearance for the transfer case levers to go all the way back without hitting my floor mounting bracket.

I'm chipping away at the priority "blocking items" for getting the engine back in, with the intent of having ... well, the engine back in, before September. From memory, I have...

• Clean & paint the chassis and crossmember behind the engine
• Clearance the bracket at the back of the cab, so the transfer-case levers clear
• Finish cleaning, priming, and painting the engine bay.
• Clean, prime, and paint, the inside of the dash! ...which probably means I have to weld up all those extra drilled holes, too.
  
• Secure brake pipes & wiring properly
• Passenger footwell welding nearest the engine. (and maybe take out that shoddy attempt at a hammer-formed bead)
• Maybe clean and paint the front axle, while I have the room? ...hmmm, the bottom of the diff cover is leaking a touch too, so maybe I should sort that out as well!
  

On the note of all the extra holes in the dash, I'm still scratching my head over how many of them I'm going to need to fill, and what else I might need to add in.

Oh, yeah, and I need to fix the remote trigger for my tig welder, because a wire broke off that the other week and as I went to fix it I discovered my soldering iron had run out of gas, and when I went to fix that I discovered that my refill can is empty.

More to come as it happens. I had a productive Saturday this time around, with several hours of tinkering; and paid for it this Sunday. Unfortunately, work on the truck is constantly plagued by a lack of time, lack of money, and a lack of health; but as long as I keep chipping away at it when I can, it will become something nice! (...or it'll kill me. One or the other. )

Remember these things?



They go here.



And with a bit of jiggery-pokery the linkage attaches like so. And when the wiper motor is powered, it wiggles them! And when my new wiper arms turn up -- because I still haven't found the previous set I bought -- I can find out just how wrong I got the geometry.

Now, I did some maths to work out how long these needed to be, but it's very difficult to measure the arm on the wiper motor and I've clearly gotten the length wrong because the sweep looks very narrow indeed. That's easy enough to rectify, with another hole drilled in the new spindle arm and relocate the bolt; but I'm loathe to do that until I have the wiper arms on and know how far I can push things.

Quite pleased with that, I set about attaching things like brake pipes and the speedo cable with P-clips, and bolts that aren't a foot long. And when I trundled my way through that, I thought I might as well scrub up and paint some primer on the last bits of the inner chassis legs where I won't be able to get to them after the engine's in!

And after that I figured, I've already got the paintbrush out... how about doing an interior panel in that nice grey that it's supposed to be?



Yeah, like that. That's quite pleasing. That'll get another coat or two, and some sanding, and it'll be quite good.

I have just discovered, though, that I have made a major miscalculation; my car's MOT runs out at the end of this month, so I have ... two weeks to fix my car and get a pass. And I have an exhaust to make! ...so that's going to take priority! No pressure!