Flash

Did a supply run to town this morning and when I got back to the van it had done a little wee. Stuck my head underneath for a nosey and it looked suspiciously like it had originated from the radiator overflow pipe. I keep an almost constant eye on my temp gauge, so I knew that she hadn't run any hotter than usual. Grabbed a rag and popped the radiator cap off and he didn't spew his guts, so I figured that was a good sign. Cap spring felt pretty weak to the touch and on closer inspection it looks pretty crusty: Luckily Repco was just a block away, so I strolled on down and grabbed a new one. The new cap is the same 0.9 bar rating, but I could definitely feel the difference in the spring resistance compared to the old one. Made a few extra stops before heading back home and no more piddles, so looks like that's another win.

What an amazing outcome Alex. Well done mate ! I can't wait to see the video of your first hoon in the Imp with his new heart.

Tiny step forward today. Sorted out a hiding place for the bottle jack and associated bits. The bottle jack slides under the wooden side panel in my front storage box and jacking it up a notch to press against the underside of the side panel holds it firmly in place. I wedged the wooden block between the back of the jack and the side of the van so she ain't going anywhere either. I then fitted two little plastic clips that I found amongst my stash, and they hold my spare wheel crank in place. I've rolled up a thin piece of marine carpet that I've also stored in the same compartment just in case I ever need to crawl under the van for a roadside repair. While I was mucking about in the two front storage bins, I figured it was time to fit some kind of stay for each of the lids as I'm a bit over them closing on my fingers all the time. Scratched around in the shed and found some more leftovers from our kitchen reno: Chucked in a few wood screws and the lids now stay open all by themselves. I did think about fitting my new voltage sensitive relay to add the house battery to the charging loop, but it's so bloody hot here at the moment that I packed up and went to wallow in the pool instead.

Okay, so having a spare wheel doesn't really help if you haven't got a jack ... duh. So today I thought I'd remedy that situation. Rummaged through the pile of leftovers from my donor vans and I have a choice of two scissor jacks and a bottle jack. I'm not a fan of scissor jacks so the bottle jack got the nod. Pulled it out into the light of day. Looks a bit crusty but it does come with a crank handle that looks just as crusty: First step was to check that the jack still functions and that it has enough bottle to lift the Thames (did you see what I just did there .... absolute howls of derisive laughter Bruce) Grovelled under the van and it will lift either of the back wheels perfectly. Tried the fronts. Bottle is too tall to use under the front beam. Bugger. Scratched my head a bit then decided to try using my strut rod mounts as the lifting point and she lifts a wheel, but it's just on the borderline and I doubt that she is high enough to get my commercial profile spare on. So I grabbed a bit of timber which will make a solid base for roadside lifts as well as giving enough lift for the front. Perfect. With the functionality box ticked I then focused on the aesthetics. Took to the jack and the handle with my wire wheel of death and it started looking a bit better: Quick wipe down and a spritz of the usual satin black. I even fed my OCD by giving the wooden block a few coats of flat black fence paint. Tomorrow I'll work out a nifty way to store everything, so it doesn't rattle around in my storage compartment. Thanks for looking.

And that's the spare wheel crank handle done and dusted. Works like a charm.

Well according to the Captain's Log it's day 656 on the Thames build and I thought I'd celebrate the fact by adding a spare wheel. When we bought the van it had no spare, but the factory wheel carrier and lifting mechanism was still in situ. The original mechanism was pretty complex, so I suspect that the Dagenham based propellor head responsible for the design was on an hourly rate and decided that it was time to milk the system for everything it was worth. Schematic of the system looks like so: Unfortunately, the threaded rod, ... ahem ... I mean the trunnion spindle, was seized solid and no amount of lubrication would free it up, so I ended up taking to said spindle with my grinder of angles way back when I refurbished the underside, and the van has been going commando ever since. So as part of my Christmas present, Santa popped one of these fine marvels of modern engineering into my stocking: And as previously mentioned today was the day to figure out how I was going to mount the thing. So I grabbed the bull by the balls and headed under the arse end of the van for a look see. Turns out there is a perfectly placed chassis cross brace that looked like it might do the trick. The first part of the exercise was to try and make the new mechanism line up so that the crank handle hole in the rear Thames badge would still work. So, I started off by poking an appropriately sized steel rod through the hole in the badge and then through the corresponding hole in the chassis cross brace. The rod was able to temporarily hold the new lifting mechanism in place. Next step was to prop the spare wheel up on a few blocks of wood and then drop the lifting chain to make sure that it lined up with the centre of the spare wheel. As luck would have it things lined up perfectly, so it looked like I was off to a good start. Slapped some white paint on a spare bolt and poked it through the threaded nuts attached to the mechanism and I now had a good guide for the mounting holes: The flooring in the load area is still the original ply that was rubber lined by the previous owner, so I figured the easiest thing to do was to lift out my false chequer tiled floor and then drill some pilot holes through the chassis cross brace and then up through the ply. Eventually ended up with the correct diameter holes and bolted the mechanism up. Worked perfectly and I ended up with these countersunk beauties: Next step was to attach the spare and winch it up into position. These vans were offered from factory with two wheel options, option 1 being 13-inch diameter and option 2 being 15-inch. Again, the forward-thinking engineers had allowed for both options when it comes to the spacing of the abutment plates which is achieved by moving the captive nut thingies to the appropriate holes: Unfortunately, my spare is a 14-inch wheel so I had to mix and match the spacings to get the wheel to sit snuggly, but it's all good now. Tomorrow exercise is to turn these little bits of scrap into a crank handle for the mechanism: Thanks for looking.

It's a toasty 32 degrees Celsius in our part of the world today, so a perfect time to visit this place: To get this done: And I then enjoyed a cool ride home. My DIY a/c hoses are holding up so far. Time will tell how long that lasts. I'm getting a bit of a/c belt slip, so some adjustment is called for, but apart from that all seems good.

We are deep in the rainy season here and I'm a bit over getting sprinkled with liquid sunshine, so while in town today I wheeled by my mate Ben's place, and he worked his magic.

Yesterday I finished off the last of the a/c wiring being a pair of relays for the condenser thermo fans. I poked a few mounting holes in the RHS chassis leg and the relays are now tucked up in a sheltered spot. I ran out of single wire sheathing, but I'll grab some on my next town run just to neaten things up a bit more. I then spent a bit of time carving up an old HiAce roof rib to create a matching cover for the main wiring loom. Ended up with this: I need to get some paint colour matched, but in the meantime I've just chucked on a few coats of primer followed by some appliance white. Apart from the colour difference the two cover panels match up fairly okay.

Yesterday arvo my favourite courier pitched up with a parcel of goodness so today I took a break from a/c related wiring to fit said goodness. But first a bit of background and I'm afraid it's another longwinded tale of woe, so grab a drink or snack and settle in while Uncle Flash tells you a story. Now those of you who have been following along will recall our spark related breakdown in early December where we ended up getting the Thames transported home. At the time I suspected either an ignition coil or condenser failure and ended up replacing the condenser which solved the issue. Then on the last Friday night of 2023 we headed off in the Thames for our usual burger cruise and a couple of k's from home the engine started to stumble, not badly but just enough to make my arse pucker. Foolishly I pressed on and things got worse to the point where the engine would idle but would not rev cleanly. At that point we turned around and started to limp home. Nek minnit a loud backfire and it was good night nurse. Managed to coast to the side of the road and broke out my emergency kit which included a working ignition coil. Swapped over the coil, but still no spark. By this stage it was starting to get dark,so I gave Steve the local towie a quick call and he came to our rescue once again. The next morning, I started tracing voltage to see where things were going wrong and the fault appeared to be somewhere in the distributor itself. By this stage I'm well over dodgy distributors as this is the third spark related breakdown that we have suffered since getting the van on the road. The message from the long-suffering Mrs Flash was "Just get rid of that bloody distributor" so I decided to make it so. After my awful experience with an eBay sourced one that resulted in the first breakdown you can appreciate how keen I was not to repeat the same mistake, so my first call was to the Toyota dealership in town. The parts guys there are helpful as, and after making a call to the centralised parts warehouse in Brisbane, the message came back that the points-based factory distributor is no longer available. "What about the later electronic distributor that came out in the late 80s?" I asked. "Sorry mate also no longer available". Yikes !! So, at this point I put a call out to my fellow oldschoolers hoping that someone would be able to recommend a reputable supplier of an aftermarket distributor and @AllTorque comes to the rescue by introducing me to his parts supplier. They turned out to be good guys too and put me in direct contact with their supplier who just so happens to be OZ based. For those of you who are still awake at this point, here are a few images of distributor related goodness: Full of electronic goodness including a built in coil. Lovely. Yep, I know another Chinesium part, but @AllTorque's NZ supplier has sold around 20 of these units over the past 2 years and hasn't had one return. On top of this the OZ based import agents are a company called Goss Automotive who have been in the aftermarket parts business for over 80 years, so that gives me some additional reassurance. Anyhoo, that brings me to this morning's exercise which included the installation of a fresh 12-volt source wire directly from the ignition switch. And here she is in all her glory: Thanks so much to everyone who has made it to the end of this update. Your staying power is amazing.

And that's the a/c pipework all done. Not that easy to photograph but I've done what I can to show you the final results. The driver's side front fender well is looking a bit like spaghetti junction. The radiator tunnel looks slightly neater. I've put a bit of spiral bind at strategic places to give the pipes additional protection against possible rubbing due to road and engine vibration. Inside the cab things look slightly neater with everything tucked behind my relocated cover panel. In the above photo you can see the exposed main wiring harness that stands out like balls on a greyhound, but I've got a cunning plan to create a cover panel using an old roof rib from one of my Toyota donor vans. It currently looks a bit shabby, but the profile looks pretty close to what I need and with a bit of effort it should tidy up okay. In conclusion all that is left to do on the a/c front before the big gas up is to wire up the relays for the thermo fans and to fit the condensate drain. The thin-walled condensate pipe supplied with the evaporator kit is for a standard car installation so isn't long enough to poke through the floor on the Thames, so I'll need to see if I can source some more pipe when I'm next in town.

First thing this morning I fitted the freshly painted mounting bracket for the panel that will hide the a/c hoses inside the cab. I then scratched around under the dash trying to figure out how I was going to fix the cover panel at the top. Luckily one of the bolts that holds the Ford badge on the front panel is perfectly positioned for the task. I found one of those multi holed mounting strips in amongst my stash. Looked a bit manky but nothing that a little loving wont fix. Gave it a trim and a quick bend followed by a test fit. Works like a charm. Gave it a tickle with my flapper disc then a few coats of the usual satin black. I needed to bend the upper mounting tab on the cover panel itself which was easy enough: Can't mount it till the paint dries on the new bracket, so I carried on making up a/c hoses. These are the two hose ends that run from the under-dash unit to the compressor and drier bottle respectively: Spent the rest of the morning routing these hoses under the dash, through the floor and then under the front of the van. I'll post some photos of the pipes in position tomorrow.

Yep, got to be honest when I say that I had my doubts about the hose joints being up to the task, but in talking to a mate of mine who used the same system on his Mk2 Capri a few years back, he reassured me that they actually work and haven't let him down so far. I guess the final proof will be when I get it gassed up.

Spent the morning entertaining my neighbours with the sweet tune of my angle grinder and ended up with this: Gave it a quick test fit followed by a spot of satin black: Looked around for another noisy Sunday job, but eventually had to settle for something a bit quieter. Decided it was time to make up the first a/c hose. Picked the compressor discharge hose as my first victim. The process is pretty straight forward and goes like so: 1. Test fit and trim hose to final length. 2. Slip the clips over the hose. 3. Slide the hose coupling into the hose. 4. Line up the clips with the green o rings using a spare coupling as a guide. 5. Crimp the hell out of the clips using these state-of-the-art crimping pliers: And, that's the first hose ready to rock 'n roll.

And that's the strengthening plate fitted: And whilst I've still got my big boy pants on I thought I'd do some more butchering. This time some holes in the cabin floor for the a/c pipes. My plan is to mirror the placement of the main wiring harness that looks like so: Started by making a little cardboard guide to assist me with the placement: Then drilled my first pilot hole: Then opened the pilot hole up with a series of drill bits before taking it up to the final 30mm diameter using my step drill bit. I needed to get the two a/c hoses and the condensate drain fairly tightly bunched together but with enough room between them to accommodate all three rubber grommets, for reasons that will become apparent later in this update. Chucked a bit of paint on the raw steel to give things a fighting chance against rust, then once the paint was dry in went the 3 grommets like so: Luckily the second a/c pipe and condensate drain were a smaller diameter. Quickly test fitted the hoses to get the feel. Yep, functional but looks nasty. So, my cunning plan to hide the fuggliness is to create a cover plate to hide the pipework similar to the original that covers the main wiring harness. Cover looks like so: Now it just so happens that the wiring cover needs modifying in order to clear my TX valve and hose ends, so I figured rather than butcher the existing cover I'll just move it across to the left-hand side and then fabricate a new cut down cover for the right-hand side. Moved the cover across to the left to get the feel and pipes be gone: All ugliness hidden away and my OCD is back in equilibrium. Perfect. Now all I need to do is make a holding bracket for the cover. Out came some repurposed cereal box and after a bit of fiddling about I came up with this: Which in position looks like this: So, the plan for tomorrow is to create this mounting bracket in something a bit more robust than cardboard. Thanks for looking.

Yep, here in tropical Queensland life without a/c in summer is not worth living LOL.

A bit more butchering this morning. The service port on the #8 fitting no longer clashes with the engine box side wall and I reckon there is enough clearance for a/c man to fit his pressure gauges when he gasses up the system. I then created a reinforcing plate to strengthen the side wall back up. Looks like so: Gave it a few coats of the usual satin black and it looks almost passable: I'm letting the paint go off overnight and I'll bolt it in tomorrow. Thanks for looking.

Made a start on my a/c pipework today. First step was to test fit each of the hose ends on their associated components. This uncovered two minor challenges. The first being the #10 fitting on the evaporator unit. With the TX valve already fitted to the other outlet there isn't enough clearance between the little protrusion at the top of the TX valve to tighten the nut on the neighbouring #10 fitting. The photo above was with the TX valve joint backed off. I was able to rectify this by completely removing the TX valve and then fitting the #10 fitting first before refitting the TX valve. The next challenge was the #8 fitting on the compressor. The 90 degree bend works okay but the incorporated service port is clashing with the side of the engine box which will result in a less than optimum angle once I've crimped on the hose: I've bitten the bullet and started trimming back the offending part of the engine box side. To do this I had to remove my clutch reservoir and hardline, ignition coil and newly mounted a/c receiver drier bottle. I got half of the job done before lunch stopped play, so more butchery planned for tomorrow.

With the wipers all sorted the next job on the list was to re-instate the glove box. Chucked it in for a quick test fit to make sure it cleared my new wiper mechanism, and the good news is that it does. The not so good news is that while I was mucking around with it, I noticed that the almost 60 year old cardboard material was crumbling with just a light touch. Scratched my head for a bit, then decided to chuck on a few thick coats of water based paint as a binder. Left it in the sun till the paint went off and no more flaking so I'll take the win. To give it a fighting chance I thought I'd line the bottom of the interior with something. Rummaged amongst my stash of junk and found a roll of that PVC based drawer liner stuff left over from our kitchen reno. Shaped a bit to line the bottom and chucked the box back in. Looks pretty good and the drawer liner stuff stops things from sliding around, so double bonus. A bit hard to get a decent photo with my potato camera, but here you go:

In my last update I mentioned that whilst I was messing around with a new wiper setup, I was going to attempt to get the park function working. Whilst I got some really good advice from a number of oldschoolers, it turns out that whilst most wiper motors have a "normally closed" park switch the one that I am using has a "normally open" park switch which makes things slightly more complicated for someone with my barely adequate wiring skills. I even tried stripping the wiper circuitry and components from the donor van that the wiper motor came from. But upon testing the system it appears as though this little Mitsubishi box of tricks has given up on life: To be fair to it, the label specifically states "don't drop" and since it's been kicking around the shed floor for a few years I can't blame it for packing a sad. I do have another wiper motor with a "normally closed" park switch in stock, but unfortunately it is bigger than the Mitsi unit and just won't fit into the available space, so the long-term plan is to source a smaller unit that has a normally closed park switch, but for now I'm just going to live without the park function. So with that episode behind me for now, I cracked into completing the rest of the wiper setup. On Boxing Day I headed into town to grab some car related stuff at the usual less 25% sale and grabbed this set of 12 inch wiper blades that suit the Mitsi arms: Next step was to nip and tuck the wiper arms as the Mitsi units are about 15mm longer than the Thames ones: The extra length on the arms caused the blades to hit the windscreen seal at the very top of the stroke. So,after a quick bit of surgery and a few coats of the usual satin black, I was able to fit everything up. My hackery isn't too noticeable: The Mitsi arms originally had those little plastic covers for the spindle nuts, but one was missing, and the other was sun bleached and really brittle: So, I ended up fitting a stainless-steel dome nut which looks pretty cool and is kinda in keeping with the vintage: With the drive shaft disconnected I did some test sweeps which looked really good, so I slapped in the modified driveshaft: Chucked some water on the screen and gave it a whirl. I'm stoked with the result. Way smoother than the original Thames setup. I'm looking forward to working on something other than wipers now. Thanks for reading.

Now "fun me" wanted to crack straight into the a/c hoses, but "serious me" decided that since we are now deep in our rainy season getting the wipers working again should be top priority - not to mention getting the windscreen sealed properly.... but that is another story. So those of you playing along at home would have likely spotted the shocking condition of my under-dash wiring: Yep, not pretty at all. The plan has always been to get all of the additional wiring for the mod cons in and then do a final tidy up, but with just the two a/c related wires left to run there is no time like the present to tackle the rat's nest. First order of business was to get everything out of the way of the new wiper mechanism, so I scratched around in my parts bin and came up with two little metal brackets that came from one of my donor vans. Gave them a quick clean and a spritz of satin black and they now look like so: I then grovelled under the dash one more time and managed to poke two more holes in the front panel lip. Threw two self tappers at the brackets and wrapped a bit of spiral bind around the wires and she looks much better now: Once I've added the two a/c wires into the spiral bind I'll use some cable ties to secure the loom to the holding brackets. Anyway, with the wiring loom now safely out of reach of the wiper mechanism I was finally able to mount the wiper motor in position. The last wiper related mechanical step was to shorten the length of this drive shaft to suit the new motor position: So out came my grinder of angles and I ended up with this pair: Scratching around in my pipe stash yielded a piece of aluminium tube that slips over each of the cut ends perfectly. I spent a bit of time fine tuning the length of the aluminium joiner till I got the movement spot on. Gave everything a test run and it works brilliantly. Unlike the Thames mechanism which was quite jerky the L300 setup is silky smooth. Flushed with success I'm now attempting to get the park function working as up to now I've had to time my switching to get the wipers to stop in the correct position. The wiring for the park function is currently doing my head in so I've shouted out for help on the General Car Chat page and I've already received some good info from a number of old schoolers. So hopefully I can get this sorted too. Some more work on the wiring tomorrow and with a bit of luck I can get on to the a/c hoses later in the weekend. Thanks for looking.

Couldn't wait to unpack my a/c hose fittings. I've gone for the DIY Air-O-Crimp option. It's the first time that I'm going to be making up my own a/c hoses, so I reckon I'm in for an interesting time.

By yesterday morning my freshly painted a/c mounting brackets were dry. Quickly mounted the under-dash a/c unit for what is hopefully the final time and then set about working out my hose requirements so I can get my order in with Jeremy the a/c man before he closes up for the festive period. As mentioned in one of my previous updates I was hoping to bring the hoses up into the cabin behind the false panel that covers the wiring loom, but on looking underneath the van a portion of the underside of the floor is made up of a hollow structural brace that I'm loath to drill through. So, the only option is to bring the hose up on the LHS and loop them around to the right behind the unit. I'm thinking I'll replicate the false panel to hide it all. Anyhoo that has increased the length of the hoses by a good meter each so it's good that I discovered it now. The rest of the pipework looks fairly straight forward although I am a bit worried about the compressor lines as the 90 degree ends that I have ordered may not suffice. But I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. With the hose components all on order, I thought I'd tackle the wiper motor mounting bracket today. So first up I took a look at the original Starwagon factory mount: Yeah nah, that helps me "sweet fanny adams", so looks like I'm up for some metal carving. Started off with a little cardboard aided design and came up with this beauty: "Why so complex Flash?" I hear you asking. Well, the driving spindle needs to face the front of the van and the only mounting point that I have available is the lip on the underside of the dashboard located behind the wiper motor, hence this U-shaped monstrosity. Next step was to replicate the bracket in something more solid than an old cereal box: After a bit of the old cutty, cutty, followed by the poking of a few holes and here she is in all her glory: Had to play around with the angle on the mounting tab to get things to line up properly: Temporarily clamped it in place. The good news is that it just fits between the fuse box and the glove box opening. I then offered up the little drive shaft, but it's way too long, so that is going to need a bit of nip and tuck surgery. That will probably have to wait for a few days as I've just received notification that my a/c hose components are ready for pickup, so I'll head through to town tomorrow. Thanks for looking.

And that's the holes drilled so that my a/c mounting brackets bolt up to the glove box bracket. I wasn't happy with the puny looking rear mounting bracket that came in the a/c kit. So, I spent a bit of time making up my own rear bracket in true "Rough & Ready Restos" fashion. With all of the mounts completed I slapped the glove box bracket back in position and then bolted in the a/c unit. I'm pretty chuffed with the result. It doesn't look too out of place. The other good news is that the gas lines are located on the RHS of the unit which means that I can hopefully hide them behind this panel: The panel currently hides the main wiring loom and a few additional circuits that I have recently added. I whipped it out to see how much space is left behind the panel. Looks like I should be able to squeeze the a/c pipes in between the wiring loom and the front panel. I've still got a few additional circuits to add (including some a/c related wiring) before I can wrap my extra wiring loom, but hopefully that will neaten things up too. Thanks for looking.

Next step from a windscreen wiper perspective would be to fabricate a mounting bracket for the L300 wiper motor. Now I'm thinking that I can fine tune the positioning of the motor by either shortening or lengthening this intermediate drive shaft. And hopefully that shouldn't affect the sweep in any way. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. I figured it would be better to finalise the glove box and under dash a/c unit installation and I can then position the wiper motor in the space left over. So the first step was to retrieve the dusty old glove box for closer inspection. It's a bit grubby but still looks functional. The underside of the glove box has a nifty mounting bracket that looks like so: The pointy end of the triangular bracket mounts up to a little bracket welded to the inside of the front panel with the longer side resting up under the lip on the dashboard, like so: Now I'm thinking that refitting the glovebox has the added advantage of allowing me to use the same mounting bracket to support the under-dash a/c unit. But in order to do that I need to add some fixings to the dash lip to make the bracket more rigid for the additional weight. I poked two extra holes in the dash lip and added some stainless-steel self-tappers and it's nice and solid now. Next step was to take a closer look at the mounting brackets supplied with the a/c unit: Those definitely aren't going to work for me, so I spent a bit of time doing some CAD and came up with these: Grabbed some 3mm plate that I had in stock. Did a bit of cutting, did a bit of bending, poked a few holes to replicate the mounting slot and I ended up with two of these: And the plan is to bolt my newly fabricate brackets to the factory glove box bracket in more or less this configuration: So, the plan for tomorrow is to mount the glove box bracket back in the van and then offer up the a/c unit so I can work out exactly where the holes for my mounting bolts need to go. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.