Tamber

At a guess, it's so you don't need two of every spanner to be able to undo everything; which is always an exercise in frustration when you're out in the middle of a field somewhere, and it's always something you can't get a socket on either end of...

Bit of a brain-dump to start with... Not had much in the way of motivation to work on the truck recently, aside from some fiddling about with the replacement fuse-box. Changed my mind on some implementation details, which is making some things a little harder before they get easier; but no matter, it's only money and time. :undecided: On an only-mildly interesting note, I've been doing a little fiddling around with the brake servo. Some prodding and poking has ascertained that the valve that allows air into the booster cylinder is a bit stuck; which makes sense... seeing as that end of the servo is the most corroded. I've tried gently -- and not so gently -- to see if I can drive the pin out of all those arms at that end, and get some better access; but it doesn't look like it's going to be coming out with any measure of reasonable force. Next step involved pulling the circlip, washer, little plastic plug, and spring that holds the valve closed while at rest. Or, rather, pulling the circlip, trying to lift the washer; and having the rest of it undergo RUD right past my ear. I've got all but one of the bits, at least. Interestingly, the plunger of the valve appears to be hollow right through. I'll have to do a little more exploring and try to figure out what's supposed to be going on there. Now, for the interesting part... While trying to find out some more info about the servo, I stumbled across a post on this very board from 2013, whereupon someone was trying to sell a very familiar-looking type of servo, apparently for a TK/MJ. Bedford TK/MJ brake servo for sale So this has me wondering whether the reason that it doesn't look like diagrams given in the RL service manual, is because it was -- at some point in the truck's life -- swapped out for a later model servo for some reason. (Had it on the shelf, perhaps? :-D ) I've also ordered a rebuild/reseal kit that's supposedly for the master cylinder I have; and I'll tear into that when the kit arrives. Hoping that it doesn't have any corrosion in the bore, or -- if it does -- that it'll clean up with a very gentle honing. Other news Water pump: is still at the machine shop. I'm getting a little bit grumpy about not having it; but they're trying to fit it in around their other jobs, it's understandably a low priority, not helped by it being an awkward size shaft in the rebuild kit, and thus involves boring out to dimension rather than drilling and reaming. Such is life. Half considering making a blanking plate with the appropriate fittings to fit an electric water pump; but that then results in needing an electric fan, etc. All doable, but I'd rather not, at this point; it adds yet more complexity and points of failure. Still, it's a back-up plan in case the mechanical pump still leaks after I did the rebuild... :-D Fuel tank: surprisingly clean inside. Looks to have been galvanised from the factory, and there are only a few very small patches that look even slightly iffy; I have had to shake some lumps of lead out of it, which I suspect are from a past repair that I can see evidence of on the outside. Planning to strip the outside down with a wire wheel, and repaint it, because it looks a bit tatty. No major problem, really. Biggest issue -- and it's only a little one, at that -- is likely to be sorting out the filler cap. I suspect I should be able to just (there's that magic word again) get it re-keyed, and reassemble the filler in the reverse order of removal. (I'll also need to re-make the tank straps, but that shouldn't be a major problem. Just a chain of minor ones, knowing how these things go. :-D) Fuse panel: There are a few more wires in there, I think, than the last time I showed it. So many more, that I had to change my plan on how I was going to route them. Still needs a little untangling, but getting more managable. Of course, I didn't really want to splice a great big bundle of wires going into the fuse/relay box; so a connector was needed. I'm rather partial to TE's products; since I use a lot of them at work. These are 18-position connectors out of the MCP 1.5 series; each terminal pin is rated up to 24 amps (supposedly!), so should be ample, as everything's fused at 15A in my fuse-box, aside from a couple of 5A fuses. Ta-da! Only a couple more wires (that I know are missing) need to go into that, the ones that connect to the indicators. I also have two extra spare positions just in case I need to run anything else that I forgot about. Any more than that, and I'll use the other set of connectors. (Needed 1, so bought 2; just in case!) I also decided to mount it all in a waterproof enclosure; which does fit, just about. Might have to relocate it all to the back wall of the cab, where it's more accessible for when fuses blow. On the bright side, I've not actually started the permanent wiring for everything; everything's all still flexible. (*cough* bodged *cough*) "When you're flying by the seat of your pants, nothing sounds more official than a Plan B"

It'd also be possible to do them without a bead-roller; but it's a little more work to do it neatly. Basically, you'd be looking at a block of hardwood with a groove of the appropriate profile cut in it; and a rounded bit of bar (a cold chisel rounded over and smoothed would be about right) that's a bit narrower than the profile of the groove. Clamp the pan firmly to the block of wood, with the groove lined up with where you want to put the bead, and start pounding the metal down into the groove, using the rounded bar and a hammer. Definitely more work, though. (Do some practise pieces first, too; unless you're like me, and just jump straight into the thick of it to see how it goes. )

A few extras, yeah. :wow: Interesting work on the shock mounts; certainly looks like it'd be a bit of a rough ride even with those monster things on... he's not hanging about, is he?

Dearie me, the auto-generated subtitles really have struggled a little bit, haven't they? I'll have to see if I can fix that, if it's a problem for anyone? EDIT: Subtitles added and sorted.

I have to keep telling myself over and over "I'll get there eventually. Take it one battle at a time, it's a long war"

You ever have one of those days where you step back and say to yourself "What the hell have I done?!" Today was one of those days. Let's rewind a little bit, and start from the beginning. * Wibbly wobbly rewinding effect * Got myself a new toy; cordless grinder. This did not bode well for the truck. :cool2: Today was meant to mostly be a recon mission; figure out where the rotten bits are, and work out a plan of attack. So on went the wire wheel, and I started whizzing off all the filler. Some bits turned out not to be so bad under all the filler. And some of the bits that were bad, didn't appear so bad after all. (Remember that remark. We'll be back here later.) However, there are definite signs of advanced rot at the back edges of the cab. Signs of previous repairs, too. (It's a bit hard to see, but it becomes a lot more obvious later on.) And, of course, the rotten cab floor. Naturally, I exposed the full rotten-ness of the driver's door while stripping all the body-filler; of which there was a not-inconsiderable amount. This all had to be chopped out. I've seen teabags with fewer holes! Some tin-bashing later... I should note, my hand-held joggler tool will just about move that 1mm, but not by enough; so that's all been joggled by hand. It's not the prettiest job, but it'll do. I don't think it's too bad for someone who has never done sheet metal work before. (I have an NVQ2 in fabrication & welding... platework, that is!) Some fettling required. Now, as I didn't have a long enough lead to reach all the way across the car-park to run my welder, I've given that patch panel a quick blast of primer, and left it with the other panel I have (for the roof) to deal with later; when I can either throw an extension lead over into the next unit, or tow the truck over to the workshop to do the welding. So! Onward and, er, downwards, really. Remember that bit I said didn't seem too bad, earlier? Yeah, well... AAAAAAAAA... ...AAAAAAA... ...AAAAAAA... ...RGH! And that's when that whole corner fell off. :-D All of that fuzzy bit looks to be a repair to the structure of the cab; there's a bit of box-section, and then a patch over the top of it. None of which was painted prior to becoming sealed away, so it's all instantly rotted again. The inside of the box section feels to be full of flakes; and I'm still deciding how much more I need to chop at. My plan of attack for the box section, at the moment, is to wire wheel the snot out of it until I can figure out where everything's joined together and how much I'll need to remove. I'm also thinking of taking a small hole-saw to the box section to allow me to clean it out, inspect how bad it is on the inside, and also apply Waxoyl to the inside of it. (I have a pressure-can with a spray hose for reaching in and splattering the sludge everywhere...)

Well, hopefully it doesn't get to that point. It's mostly good, but the bits that are bad are on their way to being properly bad. I remain, so far, optimistic that I can fix the holes. And, if not, at least I learn something along the way. Even if that's "How far can I throw my hammer when the whole cab disintegrates before my eyes." Well, I might get away with not joggling some of the parts; I've usually done just that, butted them up together, very carefully tack-tack-tack'd at the edges, and then ground it 'smooth' again. But I figure that joggling the edge might give me a bit of an edge (ha!) in the battle, particularly where it might be getting a bit thin. There'll be a bit more thermal mass there, so a bit more of a fighting chance rather than chasing the gap around adding metal one side and blowing it away on the other, which is my usual experience in dealing with rusty sheet metal. What might help this time around, is that the metal on the old cab is also a bit thicker than the more modern stuff I'm used to poking the wire through. (Work's welders are a bit overpowered for sheet metal. They do a treat for sticking tipper bodies together, though.) I have a method in mind, so far; but want to try it before opening my big mouth and making more of a fool of myself than I already have. (And, if that method doesn't work, I have a potential backup method to try.) Oo-er. Yeah, 1.2mm might be a bit thick for most of the hand-held joggler tools. 1.0mm is right at the upper end of their capabilities, as far as I can tell. At least if it does a nice neat hole for plug welding, then it's not a total loss. We'll see how well the process goes when I start getting stuck into it. Improvisation and adaptation are the biggest parts of the game plan, such as there is one. I've got it easy compared to the people who start with a spring, a wheel, and a bit of twisted plate; and build a tank outwards from there.

And, continuing on from the previous post... In slightly better news... While deciding to go primer the strange square patch on the front of the truck where all the paint had peeled, I started scraping, and uncovered something. Spotted a patch of paint that looked a little too red to be primer, and then spotted some blue while I was in mid-scrape... It's the remnants of a flash. Red over blue would be Royal Artillery, which matches nicely with the "field artillery" fixtures and fittings that are there. But there's also some other little bits that look like remnants from perhaps an earlier marking; though there was so little there, it's hard to say what came first and what's over-painted with what. Bottom of a torch, perhaps? It would have been nice if it were in better condition, then I might be able to see more of it; but as it was, most of it was falling away in a stiff breeze, it'd curled and flaked off that badly. And, in the interests of avoiding it rusting again, I've painted as much of the bare metal as I can.

It just fell off! Honest! I was quite surprised at how easily the four bolts holding that rack on, undid. I was expecting to really have to fight them; but they just... unscrewed. Not used to that. That's all been set aside for cleaning up later, and I started poking and prodding around in the area that freed up. Front of the body is a bit tatty, but shouldn't be too complicated to fix. Moving forwards, the back of the cab has some... er... I'll politely call them repairs, for now. Judging by how the back of the cab is eaten away -- that skin, and the floor -- in those corners; I suspect they've just been slapped on over the top of rust-holes. Then I climbed up to inspect the known rust on the roof; and in doing so, leant on the back of the roof. scrunch Oo-er. It looks more and more like a teabag the further I hit it with the wire brush! Then, on to the ominous sections of the roof. Now, there was a Large tub of P38 in one of the storage lockers when I first investigated the truck; and I think I've discovered where most of it has been used. Some hammering and prying la... is that bloody newspaper?! Why, yes, it is! Yet more hammering, scraping, prying, and sanding... Let's see what's behind door number 38 (You can tell what's coming, can't you?) Ha! Good grief. Mmm, crunchy! Cleaned up as best as I could, and slapped some primer on it -- like I did with all the other spots I've brushed and sanded -- in the hope of delaying the rust a little longer so I still have something to attach repair panels to when I've made them. I forsee lots of cutting, joggling, welding, and fettling.

...and now I've found the pictures I took of what I've done to the bed floor. Some of the planks felt good until I pried up the metal stripping between them, and discovered the edges were soft and squishy. And, of course, all of the bolts are seized solid or merely unidentifiable blobs of rust. As luck would have it, though, I've had plenty of practise fitting planks for a bed, over this weekend gone; so it shouldn't prove too tricky to sort this mess out, right? :-D That's the worst of the rotten wood out; I'd already fallen through one of those planks as it was. And there's definitely something to be said for the resilience of good ol' red lead. A wire brush and scraper has started to clean this up nicely, and then I can start prepping for re-painting. This side will need a little more clean-up, but should turn out fine. I had wondered why those cross-members flexed so much while I was prying on the boards! :shocked: Yup, Vass gas-axed the C section so they could run the sub-frame for the jib through. And the end of the subframe that's hidden under the body is a nice wobbly torch cut, too. I'd be getting a shouting at for being too rough, if I did that. :-D

It'd be nice if I had more progress to post about, right now. Pulley ...flange... bit is still in the machine-shop; they've turned it up, but weren't sure on the diameter of the shaft so hadn't drilled it yet. Dropped the pump off Monday for them to measure it, and apparently it's an obnoxious size that they don't have a reamer for. (It was quite amusing as he mic'd it up, frowned at it, mic'd it again, got the calculator out, mic'd it again, went over to the conversion chart... And pronounced it to be 35/64ths, so it'll have to be bored out rather than simply drilled and reamed. There's always something, isn't there?) I've also started pulling the rotten boards from the bed floor, to give me better access to the inside of the chassis (Scraping and painting ahoy!); and I've gotten a sheet of 1mm steel to start making repairs to the bodywork, in particular the cab floor. (The sheet metal repairs would be easier if I could drive the big yellow hulk over to the workshop to do the welding. I shall, however, perspire and persevere.) Also, check out my knob! :cool2: Different to the old one, which was a flat mushroom sort of shape (and disintegrated anyway); but infinitely preferable to trying to shift by grabbing the sharp metal nut at the top of the lever. While I was down at the unit, to do my car's annual oil-change, I thought I'd fit it and make a few brum-brum noises. Definitely going to need an elbow-pad for those changes into 2nd, it seems. :-D Also definitely need to hoover up inside the cab, somehow; the mass of rust and paint flakes make it very difficult to see what needs urgent attention and what's just cosmetic.

Despite not being able to move it around under its own power, I've cracked on with some little bits today; mostly changing grease-nipples for modern ones that my grease-gun will actually stick to, and getting fresh grease shoved places. The Harvey Frost recovery gear now runs nice and smoothly, and all the cables for the lifting hooks are wound back onto the drums a little bit more properly, rather than the tangled mess they were before. (Cleaned up the plates a little with a greasy rag, which brought them up quite nicely, I think.) I've also gotten a little further with cleaning, wire-brushing, and painting the chassis with thick gloopy undercoat. And, looking at a section I've not got to yet, for comparison... It's nothing magic: Hammerite (Yeah, yeah, I know. :pfrt: ) Underbody seal with Waxoyl; I've had pretty good luck with it so far, probably since it stays somewhat flexible, so isn't as likely to crack and let water in to sit against the metal. Plus, it brushes on pretty easy, and -- being a nice thick gloopy stuff -- all the brush-strokes settle out quite nicely. You may also have noticed I've not hit the tank mountings with it; that's because I'm not quite sure whether or not I'll be keeping those mounting brackets, yet. I'm also still faffing about with thoughts for the paintwork, if I get around to that. Colours are roughly decided: the yellow bodywork will be going BS 381C Golden Yellow, including the roof that's currently brown. (I did want to make the roof black; but I suspect that it'll be hot enough in the cab without turning it into a solar cooker. It's bad enough in full sun with it in brown!) The recovery jib, in black; with some yellow at the top to make the height of it visible, so I have a chance of not accidentally hitting things with it. Wheels; probably black. Maybe. Oh, the choices! Maybe I should just do it all in DBG instead, saves me having to think too much.

I'll get somewhere with it eventually. Even if I don't manage to get it on the road, I'm hoping to at least leave it in better shape than when I started. It's looking like that flange won't be done any time this week; the machine shop is swamped with work, as usual. The biggest problem this causes me, is not being able to fire the truck up for a while and move her. I would like to get cracking on with patching the holes in the bodywork -- particularly the roof -- but that requires access to a welder, and I don't have a long enough extension lead to reach from the workshop.

Well, I've rebuilt the water pump as best as I could figure out how to, and have a bag of screws freshly delivered this afternoon; so after I get the backplate put back on, I'm only a flange, some gaskets, and rubber hose away from reassembly! If it still leaks after this, I'm going to be quite annoyed.

After the debacle with the brakes/bearings, I decided to tackle something a little easier; well, and it needed sorting before I could do much else with it. The leaking water-pump. Got a NOS pump rebuild kit (Quinton Hazell QW907) that's supposedly for that pump; and when that turned up... ...started removing the pump. Well, I pulled the radiator cap off... and water gushed out of the weep-holes on the bottom, as well as turning into a tiny fountain from the weep-hole on the top. :shocked: Well, that answers the question of just how badly shot the seals are. So out it came, with surprisingly little struggle; I only cut and/or bashed myself three times. The denuded block needed a little cleaning up, but most of the gunk came off via some gentle scraping with a screwdriver. Then, into the workshop with the patient. A quick buzz with the paint-stripper disk (Those things are expensive, but oh so nice. Hits all the rust and remaining paint off while barely touching the metal.) revealed that this isn't her first go around the block... ...those screws have seen some action. And, try as I might, I could only get two of them to come out with anything resembling reasonable force; and even that left them in no fit state to be re-used in good conscience, so I welded nuts onto the other two... I'm kicking myself for not doing it to the first two, because they came out like they were brand new. A mere fraction of the time I spent with screwdriver and impact driver trying to get the others out. :n00b: New screws have been ordered; we'll see if I managed to get the right ones, when they turn up. Of course, while I had them out, I also just had to clean up and paint the pulley and fan; they were in such a dire state... No reasoning behind the colour of the fan other than that's what I had, other than red oxide, and black. (...well, I also have a tin of a sandy yellow, but it's hideous ) That's where I left it, Wednesday, as I needed to go out and get a gear-puller. Which I did. Then today, I applied said gear puller to the flange... and promptly busted the flange. :argh: I don't seem to have pictures of the cast-iron jigsaw puzzle that remained of it, but I've glued them together and dropped them off with the machinist next door to have a copy made in steel, as a no-rush project. On the bright side, that freed up the rest of the water pump for disassembly; and oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. The bearings were on their way to becoming a breakfast cereal, crunching as they were... Reassembly with new bits will continue when I figure out which bits need to go in which order; because the rebuild kit didn't come with instructions, and I'm trying to figure out which new bits match up with what old bits.

Not being picky at all! Yeah, it's a bit dodgy, I'll admit to that. I also had the jack under it most of the time, and the wheels set where they'd arrest any potential fall. (And positioning myself away from direction of fall as much as possible...) I do need to get a proper stand, I know... :blush: The Health and Safety regulations are written in blood, as they say.

Thanks! It doesn't feel much like there's much progress. Doesn't help that, so far, it's mostly things being taken off... Having to keep reminding myself it's a process; things have to come off and make things look worse, before it gets better.

And now, for the latest painful instalment of ego meets metal... I decided, over the bank holiday weekend, to jack one corner up, pull the wheels off, yank the drum and at least have a look at the condition of the brake internals. Someone who knows the manual better than I did at the time will now be chuckling and shaking their head. Because I was at this point, and trying to gently tap the drum free with no luck... ...before I decided I'd have to check the manual, and made the frustrating discovery that the drums are mounted on the wrong side of the hub for them to come off without removing the hub! :mad: Don't I feel a right idiot, now. Why couldn't it have been clamped on the outside of the hub, with the wheels?! This is not the first, nor will it likely be the last, reminder to RTFM that I'm sure I'll skate happily past. :rolleyes: On the bright side, the threads on the wheel-nuts for that corner have de-gunged quite nicely and aren't as unpleasantly tight as they were; so I can rationalise the whole exercise as some sort of progress, however small. In hopefully smarter news, I've snagged a water-pump rebuild kit from the bay of E, so I can hopefully solve that coolant leak. We shall see.

That's what the battery-fed aux fuse is for! In other news, I managed to open the tin of black magick today... Accelerator pump was stuck right the way down in its bore, but -- with a little fettling -- now works marvellously! The 300 seems a lot more lively when the loud pedal is pressed. Very tempted to take the big yellow beastie on a lap of the industrial estate to celebrate; but decided against it... (I really really don't want to cause trouble by being 6 tonnes of metal at 10+mph without brakes, which really should be next on my list now.) Decided I'd spend some fuel to bring her up to temperature and see what else leaks, dribbles, or seeps. Water pump leak has gotten a little worse, by the looks of it; the makeshift gasket for the float bowl gently seeps fuel out; and I have a bit of an oil-seep from the rocker cover at the back of the engine. I'll get there, slowly.

A thing happened today! Work had a bloke over to change some tyres out, so I asked if he'd crack the nuts off, since he had all the right gear (Big compressor, inch impact, proper hoses). Even that big impact struggled a little bit, but now they're cracked off, I can start cleaning the gunge out of the threads in preparation for pulling the wheels off to get at the brakes. And this greatly helpful service was performed for the princely sum of... him having a sit in the cab while it burbled away, and some pictures; I did offer drink tokens, but he turned them down. What a nice bloke. I've also gotten a little bit further with the new relay & fuse box; though had a minor set-back. Got a little bit carried away TIG-ing the brackets for the relay holders, put waaaaaay too much heat into the ally plate it's all on, and melted one of my bus-bars. I was only planning on tacking the damn things on; but was having too much fun with the TIG. :blush: However, the new electrical centre is coming along quite nicely, other than that; I'll just have to order another bus-bar along with the rest of the stuff I need. Relay holders only temporarily held in, until I can get all the wires in the bottom of them; then I'll bolt them all up neatly. Perhaps I'm overdoing the electrics, but it'll be pretty fancy when it's all done. A far cry from the days of 4 fuses and a jar of magic smoke... I think it might be obvious I spend too much time doing vehicle electrics. :red: Current list for fuses is: 15A Cab switches 15A Ignition coil, ignition & oil pressure warning, starter solenoid 15A Fuel pump 5A Interior lighting 5A Horn 15A Dip beam N/S 15A Dip beam O/S 15A High beam N/S 15A High beam O/S 15A Sidelights N/S 15A Sidelights O/S 15A Brake lights 15A Indicators 15A Fog lights 5A Panel Illumination 15A Washers/wipers 15A Worklamps (rear) 15A Spotlamps (front) 15A Aux (battery) 15A Aux (ignition) -- will probably be swapped for 5A and used for the reverse camera. (...well, my day job involves fitting reverse/blindspot cameras to stuff with better visibility from the cab, I may as well fit one here. ) 15A Aux (ignition) Relays, of which there are a few, will be: (maxi-relay, 70A) Ignition switching Sidelights -- with additional micro-relay for switching the panel illumination. Dip headlights High beam Brake lights Fog lights Worklamps Spotlamps Beacons Windscreen washer pump Indicator flasher unit Interior light delay unit (Never had one of these before! 's gonna be fancy!)

That's the worst bit about rust repairs; it feels never-ending, especially when you start trying to build out to somewhere solid, and that turns out to be not quite as solid as desired... :undecided: The feeling of triumph when it's all sorted will be worth it, though.

I'll try a little bit of heat, though I do need to be very gentle with it; and I'll keep putting penetrating oil on whenever I can. Might still have to get my hands on a proper impact gun at some point, though. Completely un-relatedly, I've spotted something interesting in the WSM. Supplement #5, "BODY, TRACTOR, 3 TON, FIELD ARTILLERY, 4x4 BEDFORD"... I had wondered about the latch on the left-hand door and it definitely has the grab-handle above that door, too. Also, there's this nice illustration... ...that looks very very close... Although the truck has definitely been shortened, presumably by Vass when they modified it as it went into civilian life; which is probably where the doors in the side of the body have gone... Neat! And, just for giggles...

Thanks for that Sean; I'll keep that offer in mind, just in case. I was planning to send the master cylinder off to Past Parts at the same time as the wheel cylinders, but it's probably better to send the master some time sooner; because it's going to be some time before I manage to get the wheels off to even get to the brakes. (Probably be more manageable financially, too. ) I've managed to have all of the front offside nuts off one by one, and went to start on the other side. (Plan being to clean the threads off with a wire wheel, and make sure I could actually remove them easily when it came to jacking that corner up and removing the wheel & brakes.) I've twisted the old wheel-nut bar thing a good 1/8 of a turn as well as bending it. (And yes, I was aware they're left-hand thread... ) Got two of them broken loose; but the rest are incredibly tight. I resorted to desperate measures after reminding myself that my 3/4" drive impact isn't really strong enough, and managed to warp my 3/4"F-1"M adapter into another dimension by trying to use the truck's weight to loosen them off. (Breaker bar, adapter, socket; brace the breaker bar against the floor, and drive the truck forward... there was a lurch, followed by a clang. The breaker bar is undamaged, the socket was still on the wheel-nut, and the adapter has gone. *sigh*) Speaking of clangers, I've also managed to damage the oil pressure switch by connecting the wrong wire to the battery while I was hooking up a brief test. Shorted the battery to ground via the switch, which has cooked something inside the switch, and now it doesn't work. Gotten a new one ordered via LMS Lichfield (Thanks to the guys at ASL for finding that; even though they'd already done their best to find a switch in their system.), and I'll be more careful next time. I've also taken the opportunity to get the bits I need for Stage 2 of my Grand Rewiring ordered, as well as a nice little tachometer. All in all, progress is still glacial. It should hopefully speed up a little now that the weather is a little better, though. (I would like to get the cab floor patched up and the battery box fixed in properly, but since it involves access to power and a welder, it's really only something I can do on Saturday/Sunday evenings after work. Oh! And also involves not having the truck puke all its oil out of that open hole that normally holds an oil pressure switch... Part of the reason I've kept the old one.) I also have to fix the coolant leak at the water pump, but I'm struggling to work up the enthusiasm to attack that. Kicking myself for not pulling it out to check/replace seals while I had the radiator out; but hey, that's just how it goes. Just making up a list of all the stuff I need to do, hoping that when I can see the project as a list of jobs that can be attacked in isolation, it'll feel less like an insurmountable challenge. Eating an elephant one bite at a time, and all that. :cheesy:

Well then, that's entirely not what I expected. Might explain why I can't find much reference to 5/16" BSP... I'll probably have much better luck finding an appropriate switch now. Thanks.