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Thanks from another night shift engineer!
It’s the reason a lot of my posts appear in the early hours of the morning. 😁

The piggy backed ARB was always an option but I’m only looking for a relatively small increase in size 1/8”-1/4”.
I don’t know what that increase in bar size works out cross sectional area wise into its own bar?
But then does the bar have different tension characteristics because of the extra material being at 1 1/4” or 1/2” diameter for example?
There are a lot of variables in ARB characteristics and I don’t think you can ever truly work it out, same with brake master cylinder size!

Returning back to the belt.
After making many improvements to the setup I still wasn’t 100% with it.



It was suggested by jimi and TessierAshpool that an idler may improve the situation which is of course correct and the idea had crossed my mind in the past but had gone no further.
Two reasons inspired me to expand on the idea.
First the turbo mount I fabricated gave me a large flat area to work off that was also pretty much in the middle of that long belt run and the second was that I realised that the turbo outlet actually clashed with the belt.
The outlet might not end up here but it would mean one less area it can’t be positioned in.



To find an idler.
I remembered that the Pinto had a simple idler mounted to a backing plate.
Looking these up for reference brought up another option which was even better.
A Duretec idler.
So…



The weren’t much money but cheapest I found was direct from Ford via EBay.

A quick mock up showed it was perfect in every way, even the spacing!



The mounting holes were drilled and tapped straight into the turbo bracket.



All mounted up.
The long run has been reduced, the turbo clears and the belt is gripping the alternator pulley tighter now as well.
I didn’t even need a longer belt!



Trying to keep the progress going between the bigger jobs a nice filler was fitting the water paraphernalia.



What I had was the water temp gauge sender, blanking plugs for the redundant holes and the thermostats all, again, robbed from the previous engine. A Haltech water temp sender for the engine management was also added to the set.

I discovered a long time ago that Pinto/CVH thermostats were a good replacement for the expensive and very poor quality reproduction Flathead ones.
The only downside is there is no way to hold them.
99% of the time just the top hose clamping around them is enough to hold them in place but they can come loose and spin in the top hose.



As a belt and braces I wire then in place.
The thermostats are already pre-drilled from being previously wired but the water necks on the heads need drilling for the lock wire.



The wired thermostat and the gauge sender and blanking plug in place on the passenger side.
This position is pretty much set as that’s where the wiring is run to.



The driver side has the same with the added Haltech sender. This worked out well as most of the senders will end up in the area helping with loom runs.



The turbo needed its clocking finalised so I could start thinking about plumbing pressure lines and drain backs.
I dug out the “fitting kit” which had come with this £145 Chinese turbo.
Up until now I hadn’t paid much attention.
Here’s what I had from the top…😆



1/2 meter of -10 braided hose - it’s short length making it completely useless.

A selection of -10 fittings - I maybe missing something with these but I see no means of them actually clamping a hose.

A random selection of gaskets.

A -10 weld on bung

A drain back adapter and a restricted feed adapter

A 4-way adapter with one male/male adapter and a blanking plug - these items do not mate up with any other items in the kit.

Some fixing bolts

Two steel shim gaskets

And my favourite,

A -4 braided pressure line that, again, doesn’t fit anything in the kit!

So, most of that will be going in the bin!

This was identified as the drain back port.



Which the drain back adapter didn’t fit.



The restricted one fitted perfect it. 🤦‍♂️



Apart from the mounting holes not lining up the rest of it was fine (kind of) so I slotted the mounting holes to make it fit.



The centre hole was smaller compared to the turbos one so this got a heavy chamfer and then blended to remove any restrictions in the flow of oil.



The inlet manifold had been torqued down for while when one night I woke up in a cold sweat.
The reason being I didn’t remember blocking up the now disused PCV holes on the underside of the inlet.
The next day I still couldn’t remember so had no choice but to take it back up again.



Luckily I did because, yep, they had been left open.
That could have got messy.

As mentioned, Torques UK. They only trade on EBay as far as I’m aware.



Thanks.

Me too!



Yes, it’s odd they chose this style of fitting as the “standard” with aftermarket fuel parts seems to be NPT. Which is what all the other parts are and the other in tank pumps I looked at.

Clutch disc is still stuck.If that is the problem, of course.

Can't do much about it till the engine is running.




Sounds sticky.

Thanks.



Its a chinese GT35/GT3582 copy.

Not sure on the bearings, I think journal.

Thats answers my next question! I could, if I had to, plumb for water but don't want the extra plumbing and faff.

While I was, literally, waiting for for paint to dry I thought I’d get on with a little job to keep things moving forward.

That ‘little’ job was the rear lights.

You may remember that last journey last year I managed to crunch the rear light, because no bumper life.



My initial thoughts were I could maybe get away with a replacement glass and bezel. These are original lights, so in the background I’ve been trying to find original replacements but not having much luck.
I think the ‘36 lights are one year only.
Having to buy new was looming ever closer and the final push to buying a new pair would mean that I could finally get rid of the drivers side unit with the built-in number plate light that’s been redundant forever.



The new lamps duly arrived and they were pretty nice for repro items.
There were some issues though which didn’t make them a bolt on.



First was the insides were jet black. Useless for helping to emit the light.



The wire tails were too short to meet up with the existing loom.



And finally the earths.
These new units are meant to earth through the housings.
So, that’s a fully painted light unit fixed to a painted stand sitting on a rubber gasket that’s on a painted wing that has two rusty studs nipping up on a stone chipped underside.
Perfect earth path then. 😆
The old ones had an earth neatly soldered onto the lamp holders. Not sure if that was factory or not but it worked.

The housings got painted white and while they were drying I started stripping the old unit.
I was pleasantly surprised to find the glass hadn’t been broken.



Just for the hell of it I started pulling the mounting tab back into position from where it had been pushed back.
I stopped at the bezel because thats beyond my skill level but it’s definitely saveable.
Almost fully fixed.



Anyway, I had the new ones now.

The light stalk came off as I suspected this had been ‘tweaked’.



Hello old friend. More sand up inside the stalks.
I have literally been from one end of the car to the other now. Hopefully this is the last of the sand but I doubt it.



The stalk got squeezed in the vice which got it back into shape without marking the paint.



The state of the wings under the rubber gaskets. These have never been off since they were first fitted.



The painted white housings.



I drilled a hole in the rear of each housing and fitted a grommet.



I could then feed a wire through from the back and crimp a ring terminal on which will sit under the mounting screw.
The housing has had the paint removed for a clean contact.



The original wire tails got extended.
The change in wire colours is to bring them inline with the colours of the wire loom.



With the now 3 wires correct they could be bundled together and loom wrapped.



The housings reattached to the stalks and the wiring fed through.



The stalks back on, everything looking straight and square again.



A rubbish picture of the finished lights.



Tidying up I noticed something.
The light housing hadn’t quite escaped injury as I first thought.
They should be completely flat across the back.



Proper, original English Ford (ENFO) ‘36 taillights. ☹️

Stripping the old engine of the Powergen and assorted hardware brought a problem to the forefront that I had been avoiding as I didn’t really know what do with it.



So, way, way back when the car was first put on the road it had this frustrating fault of destroying fan belts. I’m talking shredded to bits in 25 miles type of deal.
The Powergen pulley was always prime suspect as being at fault.
An old dynamo was dug out and the pulley robbed and fitted to the Powergen.
The problem disappeared.

Fast forward nearly 15 years and a potential issue comes to light.
When I shortened the Powergen case, covered way back in this thread, I threw a volt meter on it and realised it doesn’t actually charge at idle!
Bringing the revs up off idle brought the voltage output straight back to normal values.

Now this had never been an issue but swapping over to the electronics could open myself up to issues if they fail to receive a consistent 12v.

The replacement pulley was much larger than the original which is where the problem came from as the Powergen was spinning too slow at idle.



I found the original pulley but on fitting it was missing a spacer of some sort.



This may have a blessing as one of the things I wanted to check was pulley alignment.
With the pulley mounted in a position guesstimated of where it originally sat I had this.



Not good.
The pulley was slid out to a position that put the belt in alignment.



But that left me with the pulley here.
No way was it in this position originally. Maybe this was the reason for the belt destruction? 🤔



Likely the original nut was shouldered and the pulley solid so I could bore a recess into the pulley to allow for full nut engagement with the pulley in its new position.



All that was left was to remount the pulley in its new position and mark the shaft for spacer length.



And the spacer made.



With the Powergen back together and mounted on the car I could check the belt grip on the pulley.
The instructions say that you should be almost able to turn the engine over from the alternator pulley.
I thought this was a little excessive but took from that it should be fairly tight!

The pulley still seemed loose inside the belt.
So there I am levering away, trying to get the belt tighter and tighter and the casting broke. 🤦‍♂️



It was inevitable that this was going to happen at some point I suppose.
The aftermarket relocation dynamo bracket should put the dynamo /alternator perpendicular to the head. This never worked for me as it put the Powergen to far out to the side which put it out beyond the bonnet side.
Fun fact: ‘36 Fords have the smallest engine bays of all the pre-war V8’s.
What I did was file the original bracket guides so the Powergen could stand more upright and use a bolt head to put some guide and support back in.
All this left reduced material in localised areas.



It now needed something more substantial.

The guide slot was 5/8”ish and I found some 5/8” square stock which was a nice fit.



Drilled a hole the same size as the mounting stud.



This was then halved.



This gave me one fixed end that I could rotate into any position.



I wanted to use the tapped hole that was already in the bracket from the previous locating bolt head but it was a little on the large side for the 5/8” stock and assuming it was UNC or possibly Metric, it was neither.
I can only assume it was Witworth that I used!

Deciding on a new fixing I went with a much more sensible 1/4” UNC.
The new guide was positioned and drilled through with the 1/4” tapping drill size and then the new guide was opened up to a clearance size.



I had a cap head screw to use which would be much neater if I sank it into the guide.
The guide was drilled for clearance for the screw head at a depth just shy of what I wanted.
I then used a drill bit ground to achieve a flat bottom.





Mounted up.



Trimmed and finished.



All mounted back on the engine I could really lean on it now and still couldn’t get the pulley to grip the pulley.
I started looking at the belt which was looking tired I went off to order a new one.
I noticed I could get toothed belts in the same size so started looking at these.
I’d always run standard ‘B’ sized Vee belts.



Apparently these can only go so far down in radius size hence toothed belts which can bend to a tighter radius.
Another potential problem area maybe?

Anyway, here’s where I’m at. I hope it doesn’t slip.

With the heads on I could now bolt the hot side of the turbo on as it sits over the head.

Before that I thought I should sort out the power cable to the starter as this would also be buried behind the hot side.
The previous run of cable was a shortie straight from the solenoid to the starter motor terminal which now wouldn’t be possible.
It needed to loop back under the firewall and around to the starter.



I made a small aluminium tab that goes behind the mounting bolt to keep the cable neat and tight to the starter.



The starter has its own inbuilt solenoid so this got looped out as per the instructions because I’m already running an external starter solenoid.



Hit the starter button to test it because why not and… nothing… Just a solenoid clicking away.

Tried moving wires around, loop off, loop on. Nothing helped.
Consulted Googlefoo which led me down a path of more and more bizarre wiring options which I tried a few of but still no joy.

Completely frustrated I thought to myself that I need to stop with all this nonsense and just go back to basics.

Starter motor off, two jump leads and a battery.

Power to the solenoid terminal, gear throws out.

Power to the main stud, nothing.

Power to the solenoid and the motor. Gear throws out and motor spins.
Great, at least I know the starter works.



Jumper wire put back on as per the instructions. Starter still working.

Put wiring on the car all back to how it was at the start of this saga.
Connected back up to starter but starter still off the car at this point.
Press starter button and all working!



Hot side proven good just leaves the earth path.
Battery grounded to the chassis as well as the engine also being grounded to the chassis on a separate strap. No painted surfaces from starter to chassis ground.
All untouched from the start.

Put the starter motor back on.
Works perfect from the starter button!

WTF?
That’s 2 hours of my life I won’t get back.

With that out the way I now could bolt the exhaust on.
Easy, 2 bolts.

Wound the second bolt in which promptly locked up solid half way in. Unwound it and so did the thread in the exhaust manifold. 😔



A quick heli-coil repair sees the manifold back in action.
I know it’s going to bite me in the only doing the one. 😆



Finally, hot side on.

Now I’d cut a large hole in the boot floor for access to the fuel pump I was going to need a lid to cover it.

Starting off with some CAD to get the initial shape.



I used a compass opened up to 1/2” to allow me to trace the outline 1/2” bigger all around to create what will become the flange.



Check for fit…



… transfer to metal creating a lovely arched window into my soul.



And the dog leg added to match the step in the floor.



The original plan was a flat plate to cover the hole, like the fuel sender cover next to it hence the shape.
The pump ended up sitting above the floor so I would now have to box it in.
My initial thoughts where a lift of 10-15mm to clear the fuel pump but on mockup it was obvious I needed more like 30mm to comfortably clear the fittings but this was going to be a relatively localised area.
A carefully positioned curved lid seemed a more aesthetic and better use of space than to just square it all off.



The shape I’d created wasn’t the easiest to work into a curve but with some more CAD it was possible.



This was rolled and tacked into position so a template could be made of the side sections.
The same side template could be transferred to the other side which is always a good sign!



Sides tacked in and a test to confirm fit.



Fit all good it was fully welded and finished.



How it fits in the boot.



The sender cover hooks in one end and just has the single fixing holding it in place.
I like this feature.



A right angle was cut from a scrap piece of box section.



This was clamped into position with some random junk to pack it up to the correct height as it would also need space for a seal.



Trimmed and shaped to finish.



I decided to add two fixings in the opposite two corners.
These were drilled and transferred to the boot floor after lining up the lid up with the hole.



Counter sunk screws were used to centre the nuts mounted on the backside for welding.





Fully mounted just leaving paint.



A very black thing in a very black space.



It’s not directly in the boot space so not too encroaching. I might be able to lose some of the height as I have about 10mm of underlay and then the carpet over that so with some clever trimming it should all but disappear.