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It's here! (Bedford RL)


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Camera poked down plug-holes has come up inconclusive. I don't have any horrible noises when I crank the engine over, though, so I'm not going to bump "engine tear-down" up the list of priorities just yet.

For the time being, I'll plan on towing the truck to the workshop with the forklift when I need to work on it.

 

Today also saw some more rot removal.

 

0jipXM5.jpg

The repair/reinforcement around the nearside end of the rear cab crossmember, which was full of rust-flakes.

(A healthy, iron-rich way to start the day; best enjoyed as part of a balanced diet, etc.)

 

Surprisingly, the battery-box didn't drop out of the truck when I removed that bit.

Pnvz0PO.jpg

 

Still a little overwhelming, but I'm building a picture in my head of how it's supposed to go back together, as I strip the layers back. One piece at a time... :D

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You are a braver man than I am, cranking the engine with a known foreign object somewhere in there, horrible noises or not. The clunk you heard when the engine stopped dead was probably a piston making contact with an inlet valve that had been jammed open by the screw, or maybe the screw becoming trapped between a piston and an open valve. If so, it was exteremely fortunate that it happened while you were turning the engine by hand and not cranking on the starter or, even worse, with the engine running. Sad to say, I fear that your options are either to do whatever is necessary to locate and remove the screw, even if it means taking the head and manifolds off, or playing Russian roulette every time you start the engine. :-(

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You are a braver man than I am, cranking the engine with a known foreign object somewhere in there, horrible noises or not.

 

Braver, or dafter, one of the two.

 

The clunk you heard when the engine stopped dead was probably a piston making contact with an inlet valve that had been jammed open by the screw, or maybe the screw becoming trapped between a piston and an open valve.

 

That's always a possibility.

 

Sad to say, I fear that your options are either to do whatever is necessary to locate and remove the screw, even if it means taking the head and manifolds off, or playing Russian roulette every time you start the engine. :-(

 

I don't plan on starting it until I'm confident I don't have any chunky bits inside it. Even if that means I'm towing it around the industrial estate with a forklift for the next year or two. :-D (With my luck, now I've said that, someone will have had a tidy-up and thrown my tow-bar out... :rotfl:)

 

I know I will need to tear that engine all apart at some point, since -- even without the screw that it has ingested -- it sat so long with the carburettor open to the elements that at least one bore is going to look a bit ugly; but, right now, I have enough on my plate -- and the looming threat of a workshop move potentially within a few months -- that I don't really want to add that as well.

 

However, I am going to try my luck with a small, powerful magnet and see what I fish out of the plug-holes. If I don't get something from there; then I'll take the inlet manifold off and try my luck there. (But I don't plan on taking the head off, unless the engine's out of the truck and I'm going for "full rebuild/recondition".)

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

Looks very similar to the one I have, though perhaps it's a little skinnier. (Mine's got a 7mm diameter body) It can be a very useful tool, if you can just manage to get it to reach where you need and point in the right direction, which is easier said than done. :D

 

I've not managed to get much done over the last we... fortnight or so. It's been a bit hectic with work, etc; and it's all just a bit of a blur. Doesn't help that my work week is out of sync with the calendar week, so I'm never really sure what day it is.

 

Anyway!

 

The screw that's missing from the carburettor is a little oddball, it appears to be M4x0.75; which is a non-standard (but formerly popular apparently in French stuff) metric screw that's apparently made of unobtanium. (Yes. Metric. I was highly surprised, too. I had to do the "check it four times, remove glasses and hold it up to the light and a bit closer just to make sure" dance. Started with the UNF/UNC thread pitch gauges; they fit the thread profile, but not the thread pitch. Whitform is the wrong angle, so it wasn't that. And the 0.75mm metric gauge dropped in perfectly. Go figure.)

 

I've solved this problem the slightly rough way (Retapped the hole for a screw that I actually had: a standard M4x0.70. :red:) and applied a dab of thread-locker to all of them.

 

Continuing on the theme of hackery, I've undone the rear cab mount and jacked the cab up very slightly to sit it on a length of 1-1/4" box section laid across the chassis rails; taking the weight off the rear mount and the hollow section it's attached to, so that I can cut out that rusted section and replace it with new metal without the cab falling off. Hopefully. I'll have the camera rolling when I make those cuts, so you'll have something good to laugh at afterwards, if it does go wrong. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, it appears I didn't get as lucky as I'd hoped. (I should note, I've not run it since discovering that screw fell out.) I have one unhappy-looking exhaust valve. (Also, the oil was as diluted as expected. I got 20+ litres out, it stunk like petrol so badly that you could smell it six feet away.)

 

i7oW57p.jpg

 

Off comes the manifolds, starting with the two studs that hold the downpipe onto the manifold. Naturally, one nut came off as if it were still factory fresh, and the other just instantly sheared flush with the casting.

 

Vhiod5h.jpg

 

Some more finagling and cussing got the carburettor off... (Note the studs holding the manifolds together have also been removed, I was hoping to remove just the one; but that's not how it works and, besides, the other would've just been in the way anyway.)

 

YXjLgQz.jpg

 

 

And, thankfully, all the nuts came off the studs/bolts came sweetly out of the head to allow me to remove the manifold.

 

J563j7o.jpg

 

Not as heavy as I'd expected, honestly.

4NEkgZG.jpg

 

Unfortunately, it gets a bit worse from there. Some careful checking with a length of TIG rod around the diameter of the valve revealed no simple obstruction pinched between valve and seat, so either the valve is bent, or just seized in the valve-guide.

 

I did get the valve to move slightly upwards via the very careful application of a little force, to nearly bring it close to its rest position, but it felt pretty horrible. There was a scraping/dragging sensation that comes from something being far too tight in a bore; I suspect that, at the very least, it's going to require a new valve and valve guide.

 

*sighing a-plenty*

 

An engine rebuild was already on the TODO list, but I was hoping to be able to carry on limping it across to the workshop under its own power so that I could do welding work. The engine is a project in and of itself, and I want to leave it until at least after the brakes are done before taking that on.

 

And just to rub it in, I've been blocked in the compound by a heavily-vandalised & immobilised truck, so I can't even simply tow it across to the workshop to do any welding. :(

 

I'll manage, somehow.

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Have to try and see the positive in these situations, that valve needed something doing wherever the screw has gone. All that has happened, really, is the engine rebuild has moved a few places up the todo list

 

I'm not even moving it up the list, it can stay where it is until it gets it right. :D (Trying to keep the collection of loose parts down; so I really want to focus on getting the brakes back together, for now. Otherwise I'll have a heap of bits that I'll lose...)

 

It's not a catastrophe, just a minor inconvenience along the way.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Time for another little twitch of life, I think. Honestly, I've not gotten a great deal done; but little bits, here and there.

 

I've made up some brackets to hold lights (tail, brake, and indicator) at the top of the jib. In that vein, the old smashed lights and brackets have been removed; and I've run the cabling for both those lights, and the O/S light cluster. (Plus, bulbs have been fitted!)

 

Since it was also buried in the yard behind a(nother :D) crippled wagon, I also went and hunted down a generator so I can run power-tools and my little welder (Which it does; I can't go for crazy power, but I'm not exactly welding massive steel plates together...) since I wouldn't be able to move it over to the workshop. Naturally, three days after I get the genny, the wagon blocking me in... gets dragged into the workshop to have the transporter gear stripped from it. Typical!

 

Still, here's hoping that I should be able to get more done, with power available over on the far side of the compound. I've measured up -- yet again -- for steel to start on putting metal back into the cab, so I should start getting material midweek, funds permitting.

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The scene of today's antics. :-D

 

acQaOCu.jpg

(Welder has a length of light chain wrapped through the handle, and a cable-tie to lock the chain off. I really need to get myself some longer welding leads than the ones that came with it...)

 

Edit: When I said antics, I meant it! :-D

 

1CGJXLo.jpg?1

 

I didn't get any pictures of the original brackets, or how they were welded. But here's a nice close in shot of where one used to be, now with the lump of weld ground off.

Nc424Bf.jpg

 

New brackets stuck on slightly lower down on the jib. The new location protects the lights a bit better, since they're now sat behind the top section of the jib, and the brackets themselves help shield the lights a little from the rear, just in case. :)

zyxaG1u.jpg

 

The original ones were mounted on top of that double-thickness flange in the foreground. (Thankfully, they were easy enough to remove, because they were only welded on one side. Sufficient enough for a light-bracket, though, but I like to overbuild a little...)

 

Not the prettiest weld I've ever done, but not too shabby for being done while standing on the A-frame. It's still more than enough for a light-bracket. It should be able to withstand some abuse... :-D

HAnMQnt.jpg

 

A productive-enough couple of hours, all in all.

Edited by Tamber
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Get the head off, do all the valves and seats. They are the sweetest motor when the gaps are set with a dti. When a young mechanic we did dozens of RLs for Field Repair. We had competitions between ourselves to see how quickly some operations could be done.

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I took advantage of the nice weather this afternoon to get some more little bits and pieces done. For starters, I evicted the brake master cylinder from my toolbox locker and mounted that back on the chassis; it's still got all its protective blanks and cap on, and is filled up with fluid to hopefully absorb any moisture that might end up inside (It should reduce the likelihood of water building up at low-spots, and I can flush that fluid out as needed.)

 

Depending on how my brake re-fit goes, I might end up fitting the brake servo without the air assist, just to provide the linkages to give me at least manual brakes. (Since it should only be one air-line, and the mounting bolts, to take it back off when I figure out how I'm attacking the assist valve.) I won't really need to fit it until I get the rear brake cylinders on and that rear circuit piped up, though.

 

I've also been doing a bunch of measuring of fittings and pipe (It appears that it's pretty much all 1/2-20UNF and 5/16" pipe.) for new brake lines; as well as stripping out old brake and air lines. Not much that leads to many pretty pictures, unfortunately; though I have discovered that the thread on the air lines is mildly interesting. It appears to be a BSC thread: 7/8-26 with a 60° thread angle.

 

Not sure that information is really useful to anyone, but there we go. :)

 

Also, I certainly won't be winning any competitions for speed on getting this thing done. :D

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  • 1 month later...

More little bits and pieces :)

 

 

Some indicators, for one. Waiting on the switch, which hopefully might be delivered some time tomorrow.

 

Keen-eyed viewers may also notice the front hub is mostly off (Just clamped by the brake shoes on the inside of the drum); this is to extract the front brake cylinder, which is turning into a little more of an ordeal than first expected. There's a strange valve type of thing on the port, that appears to also be fastened to one of the mounting bolts for the cylinder and is restricting access just a little. I'll have to get some pictures of it next time I'm down at the yard.

 

While I'm in there, I'm also going to change the hub seal and clean out the marmite that may have at one point been grease. Yuck!

 

Then I can put the hub, spacer, and wheel back on... so I can retrieve my axle stand and go fit the rear brake cylinders, which paves the way for some fluid plumbing.

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  • 2 weeks later...

vR78GXU.jpg

 

Indicator switch fitted, but not yet wired, since I forgot just how easily the outer part of the column rotates; might have to come up with some other solution for mounting the indicator switch where I want it to be. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. :D

 

I also managed to put last weekend, and this bank holiday Monday, to good use; extracting the wheel cylinder from the front, and temporarily reassembling everything on that corner so I could pinch my axle stand for doing the rears.

 

First little job of the day, separate the drum from the hub, to make it easier to work on the hub.

vkFdJcQ.jpg

 

I believe the marketing phrase to use here is "* Some sequences shortened." Plenty of use of the 2-1/2 lb hammer involved shifting that.

Ddd5TSx.jpg

 

Drum stowed in a side-locker, along with the others. All going according to plan so far.

 

Some finagling with sockets, and spanners, and a little use of the small hammer of precision adjustment managed to extract the banjo bolt feed into the brake cylinder; and that funny valve-looking thing...

 

UkNrXag.jpg

 

Turns out to be just some sort of offset adaptor to go from the 1/2-20 flexible line, to the banjo bolt.

 

PGItaDR.jpg

 

And it has a hollow socket type of arrangement that sits over one of the studs holding the brake cylinder on.

 

ajN1TNx.jpg

 

Anyway, moving on... bits 'fell off'. Once again taking some persuading to do so. It's almost like these parts haven't been removed in quite some time!

RFXeFUK.jpg

 

The whole arrangement sits like so:

yFoz1RQ.jpg

 

No pictures of the rest of the day, but it was mostly slinging the hub back on and refitting the bearing lock-nuts, then hefting the wheel and spacer into place; so I could take the jack and stand out from under the front, lift the rear, and remove those wheels.

 

And around rolled the bank holiday Monday, whereupon I didn't get a great deal of pictures, but there wasn't much to take a picture of; other than my frustrated tongue-stuck-out-in-concentration expression while I tried to juggle the expander and brake cylinder together on the axle, and hold them against spring pressure, while trying to rotate the bolt (it was originally a pair of studs with nuts, but I figured bolts would be easier. More fool me.) with a spare finger.

 

...Obviously, I was already short of hands enough as it was, so there are no pictures of my expression. Which is probably for the best.

 

However, I did get this nice snap of the results of a few hours' progress in the morning.

 

g1w1IPA.jpg

 

Some cleaning of the axle required! :wow:

 

Then I went to re-fit the offside wheels to do the little jackstand shuffle across to the nearside and repeat the process; and broke my shovel trying to lift the outer wheel on. :mad:

However, someone was smiling on me (for some reason. Maybe because they were laughing so hard at me hitting myself in the face with the handle of the shovel as it snapped off? :undecided: ), because there turned out to be a length of beat up aluminium tube laying around that was the perfect size to hammer over the socket on the shovel.

 

Ht3q9LU.jpg

 

It's now a lightweight racing shovel. :D

 

The other side was very much like the first, but the other way around. Also, since I had discovered that I didn't need to take the hub off to fit the expander, I didn't jack it anywhere near as high, so I should have a lot less trouble refitting the wheels. Of course, now I've said that... :blush:

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Original jack handle was in 2 pieces if I recall correctly - trick in getting a wheel on was to take each piece and put it under the wheel either side of the contact point and lift on them. If solo then push on with your head, if with a co-driver he pushed the wheel on, and then whack a couple of wheel nuts on 2 or 3 turns. If you didn't have the right jack and jack handle (don't ask!!) then the pick axe helve and shovel handle could be used the same way.

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  • 3 months later...

Not a great deal to report, since my last post, unfortunately. Work has been causing me a lot of stress, which significantly reduces my desire to be anywhere near the damn place to work on it... ("You can't be stressed, you only work five days a week!")

And it's not helped that we've moved to a different unit on the estate while the old one is being demolished, with the easy route (300 ft or so) blocked off by demolition-company fencing, turning it into about a third of a mile walk between toolbox and truck. (Which isn't so bad, except for when you're on your twentieth trip after forgetting something...)

However, I've also spent the last two weeks on holiday in Canada, which has done wonders for stress reduction. ^_^ It's not exactly done wonders for my wallet, though, but I have enough bits to be getting on with while the balance recovers somewhat.

Between my last post, and my leaving for my jaunt across the ocean:

  • I took the driver's door off and started repairs of where the mirror arm was torn off.

    Still some tweaking to do to take a dip out where the spreader plate I added on the inside (so that the load where that mirror mounts to the door-skin, is spread across a bit more area.) has pulled the sheet metal in somewhat; and a little at the top of the patch-piece where the return has gotten a little misshapen. Nothing some quality time with a hammer and some implements of leverage can't fix.

    I also need to de-rust/treat, and paint, the inside of the door; as well as finish up the repairs to where the bottom edge was rotted away. It's getting closer to where it should be, though.
     
  • The Bedford got towed to a different yard, which brings it a bit closer to the workshop. Downside -- because of course there's one -- being that the yard is smaller, so it'll be buried behind more stuff.

    Got quite a bit of attention, rolling slowly around the front of the industrial estate with hazards flashing, which was nice. My brother, normally stuck on 2-wheels, was properly chuffed with himself after parking the truck in the given space considering the biggest thing he'd driven previously (only for a short duration... and off the public highway, of course, yer 'onour) was a VW Beetle.
     
  • I got some wire-brushing and painting (well, primer, but it counts) done around the vicinity of the rear towing hitch. I was planning on continuing that when I got back, but the snow is making me reconsider. 9_9
    I also uncovered a grease nipple while wire-wheeling the towing hitch, which was nice. Furthermore, I have discovered that someone who previously owned the truck does not appear to believe in the holding power of bolts...

    ciLvXnL.jpg

    Yup, welded round! There's also a few nuts that have been welded, and a few spots where the Harvey Frost gear has been welded to the chassis.

    7KPrd7S.jpg
    A couple of hours of wire-brushing and painting later, and it's starting to look a lot better. Surprising how long these things seem to take when the wind is determined to blow through you, rather than around you. Oh, and when someone keeps cutting your extension lead powering the battery charger for the cordless tools... (I swear, if someone made a TV documentary about my workplace, nobody would believe it wasn't all made up for the cameras.)

    Another fun discovery was that the hitch appears to have perhaps gotten rather worn out at one point, and repaired
    Q90oQZx.jpg

    Something tells me this truck may not have lived an easy life.
     
  • I've gotten a 25ft length of cupro-nickel brake pipe in, and some 1/2-20 brake pipe nuts, so I can start on making up brake pipes. It remains to be seen whether or not my flaring tool will handle this stuff, or whether or not I'll have to upgrade to a better one. (I, of course, love an excuse to buy new tools, but...)
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  • 3 weeks later...

For a giggle, some more progress on the door:

Gg5Pw3j.jpg

MIG'd by the tack-tack-tack method. There were a few blow-throughs. :D

sxm1OYd.jpg

Done with stick. A few holes were where I was using 1.6mm rods that are mostly flux and spite, which meant longer arc times to deposit metal; turned out to be easier to use 2.5mm rods on the same power setting... probably because they were putting more metal down so could actually build it up quicker, and reduce the amount of heat I put in.

While welding with MIG is quicker, it's the set-up time that gets me. Sometimes it's just easier to set up my little suitcase stick set than it is to hunt down a working MIG welder that isn't in use, chase down a 3-phase extension (or two... or three... depending on how far away the nearest socket is) and perhaps a Y-splitter, and get it all hooked up before someone runs away with the welder.

c59Qv6B.jpg


AOaTqfB.jpg

Not the prettiest, especially where trying to build up gaps, but it's solid now. Once again putting the age-old phrase to work: A grinder and paint, makes me the welder I ain't.

s7jdl89.jpg

Primed up to stop it rusting away while I figure out how best to attack cleaning out & treating the innards. Fine tuning and filling to come when I know it's all back in shape enough that it won't require any prying or persuasion that would crack the filler out.

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  • 1 month later...

Alrighty then! Since I'm doing my best to power on through burn-out at work sapping my will to live work on this hulk, I've dragged myself back onto the forum!

The driver's door has been re-re-welded in places (Apparently, my inner reinforcement bar was not stuck where I thought it had stuck, so broke free and pulled a few little holes in the door skin in the process. Sigh.), and the tab for the bottom of the mirror arm has been welded on.

I've also treated half of the inner surfaces of the door with rust converter, so I have to follow that up to the other side, and then go back in with some paint. Then I can put that back together, and re-fit it to the truck, which looks a little silly without it.

L...ast week, I think? (It all blurs together), I did some more chopping and hacking of the rotten cab structure.
Decided to do a video in a different style, a sort of faux time-lapse method; involving videoing it, then speeding up all the tedious bits to make them marginally less tedious. It did not work very well.

Nevertheless, here it is:

I don't think I'll continue that style of video, it's just too mind-numbing to edit and watch.

Currently, the plan is -- weather, light, and mood permitting -- to roll my generator out to the old gal and finish removing that rotted-out section with a full-size angle grinder. Then I'll do my best to clean out & apply rust converter and paint to the inside of the other section where it doesn't appear to be as bad, before cutting a length of replacement box section to length and welding it in.

It's just too cold and wet to be rolling around underneath the truck, in all the puddles, bending brake line.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So! I did indeed get to roll my generator and grinders out; I got what I could with the 7", but it turned out to be too bulky and I switched to the 4"... which turned out to still be too tricky to get in at some parts.

And that resulted in me finally collecting a sufficiently circular Tuit, then heading up to the local hobbyweld supplier for a bottle of oxygen. (I have had a small set of burning gear for *years*, but never gotten around to heading out and picking up the oxy cylinder. 9_9)

This is where I left off after last week:
VrDBM4D.jpg
O04xNJK.jpg

Today, however, there was fire; and progress happened.
ZChm2E0.jpg

I'm now getting much closer to having sufficient grot removed that I can start putting metal back in, which will be an amazing feeling; because as it is, I feel more like the scrap-man, I'm doing that much cutting!

hHiByGY.jpg

And the pile of scrap from these last two outings:

SYiTxKv.jpg

I'm getting closer and closer to having that new bit of box section welded in place; whereupon I can see what space I have left to wiggle a rubber body-mount into, in place of the original, and will have a place to start building the floor back out from. Thankfully, the floor is pretty solid for the most part; around the rear and side of the passenger seat is where it's the worst, but there's enough of it left that I can work back from.

I'll claw this back, one piece at a time! Might not be quick, nor particularly pretty; but it'll be solid. I can always come back and re-do the uglier parts in the future, when I've gotten better at the job and improved my skill. But, for now, "ugly & solid" is better than "gaping hole"

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