Had a productive session this afternoon. Mike stripped, cleaned and fitted the fuel pump and associated pipework, secured the electric control box, battery cables and hydraulic resevoirs and also had a jolly good clen up in the front, including cleaning out all the blind holed where the hydraulic cylinders sit. He got to enjoy the nice weather outside. :-)
I on the other hand, spent most of the afternoon in the darkish workshop stripping and re-building the steering and brake hydraulic cylinders.
Anyone who has purchased vehicles, especially armour from Withams will know that due to being stored outside with hatches open, vehicles are generally full of water. This causes the hydraulic cylinders which sit under the floor in a CVRT to go rusty and sieze up. I had previously spent an afternoon stripping and cleaning the steering cylinders, which required honing out to smooth the bores. Fortunately they were good enough to re-use.
The 3 hydraulic cylinders used in a CVRT are identical (brakes + 2x steering), and the seals are the same as used in a Land Rover series 3 master cylinder. Unfortunately, the Land Rover items (at only 30p....) cannot be used as the material specification is different, as the CVRT application uses mineral oil and not brake fluid. I could not find any seal kits a while ago, so I had some made at a specialist seal manufacturers. I fitted new seals in all 3 cylinders.
The steering cylinder assembly can be tricky to set up as only one stick can be pulled at a time, unlike a 432. There is a detent between the steering cranks which prevents one from moving when the other is pulled, and the length of the master cylinder rod is critical as you need to have a minimal ammount of play in the cylinder. The difficulty is, there are back stops which are fitted to the vehicle floor, and I had to set up the whole assembly in a vice, while allowing for the backstops which are in the hull. If you get too much play in the steering cylinder, then when someone short (like me) drives with the seat in the forward position, the steering lever hits the seat when pulled and the vehicle does not steer! Fortunately I have set up several steering assemblies so am pretty good at it now, and it did not take too long.
After fitting the steering and brake assemblies, Mike and I had a quick go at bleeding the brakes, but could not get a firm pedal. This is probably due to air being trapped in one of the brake flexi pipes. Anyone who has experiance of CVRTs (or Land Rover 101s) will know that they can be a right (insert expletive here!) to bleed. Being as it was getting near tea time, we did the sencible thing and decided to call it a day.