Flash

When I climbed under the Thames to remove the radiator, I noticed a slight weep right where my two portions of lower hose meet. I was surprised as the engineering shop that had turned me up the aluminium joiner piece had done a really good job. Once I had it all apart and on closer inspection, I suspect that the issue is the placement of the clamps. I'm thinking I've got them too close to the transition point on the adapter, so I've now spaced them further apart. Took the van for a squirt around town to get the temp up then crawled under for a look see. So far it looks good, but I'll keep an eye on things just to make sure.

Those following along on my journey will recall that I managed to track down an a/c compressor bracket for my 3Y engine back in September. At the time I mentioned that I'd need to grab the compressor from the same wreck as I needed the pipe manifold. Anyway, after that update I wheeled past the wreckers on my next trip into town and grabbed the compressor. The good news is that it may not be as shagged as I'd originally thought as the system was still pressurised when I pulled the compressor off. And this grubby puppy has been patiently sitting in the corner of my shed for the past six weeks: So this weekend I thought I'd pull my finger out and get the damn thing fitted. First step was to mock up the bracket and compressor on my spare engine. All fitted good, but when trying to fit the drive belt I noticed that the adjusting mechanism on the idler pulley had seized up. Used some heat, a few dabs of WD40, a piece of crusty old flat bar and a through bolt and managed to eventually free the thing up by using the threads on the bolt to force it one way and then the other. This way to wind the pulley all the way down: Then this way to wind it all the way up: Repeat half a dozen times with liberal squirts of lube and she was good to go. Next step was to work out how I was going to squeeze everything in between the side of the mighty 3Y and the right hand chassis rail. After a quick look about I realised that this was going to be a radiator out job, so out she came. For my first attempt I bolted the compressor to the bracket and then tried to slide the combined unit in from the front while trying to squeeze past the power steering pipework. Instant fail. The a/c hose tails were in the way. So those came off and I tried again. And .... another fail. The combined width of the bracket and compressor just wouldn't squeeze through the small gap available. Scratched my head a bit and then decided to try sliding the compressor in first from underneath and then slipping the bracket down between the compressor and the engine block from above. Worked okay, but when I came to bolt up the bracket to the engine I could only get three of the four mounting bolts to line up. Couldn't see past the compressor to figure out what was wrong, so I ended up pulling the bracket and compressor out for a look see. Tried mounting the bracket on its own and I immediately spotted the issue. The back bolt tab on the bracket is clashing with my home fabricated engine mount. Bugger. Had to drag out the engine crane to take up the strain while I whipped the engine mount out for a little nip and tuck: Pulled the offending engine mount out and you can see the witness marks in the paint where the mounting bolt hole is clashing. Gave the engine mount a little tickle with my grinder of angles and then mounted everything up to the test donk. Perfect Gave the engine mount a quick spritz of paint then chucked it back in the Thames. Squeezed the compressor and bracket back in the gap, then realised that I didn't have enough room to get the compressor through bolts in. Out came the compressor one more time and I chucked the through bolts into their sleeves like so: Back in went the compressor and after a bit of double-jointed spanner work, I managed to get everything bolted into place. The front lower bolt was the easiest of the lot: Well, it's all in with about 20mm to spare between the compressor and the chassis leg. What a relief as this was the part of the puzzle that was causing me the most angst. Some photos of the final position for your viewing pleasure: Now that I know it fits, I'll go ahead and order a new drive belt. I also need to replace the existing hoses on the compressor as they are facing the wrong way for my application. It looks like my local a/c parts supplier stocks the required pad to o'ring adapter for my Denso compressor, so I'll order a set of those too. Then it's just a matter of buying a new under dash unit, condenser setup, drier and a hose kit and a few other small bits and pieces. I'll take a punt on the existing compressor, but at least I know that I can get a replacement from my local supplier if needed. But all of that will have to wait until we have gained some funds from the sale of our Bongo van. In summary the rest looks pretty straight forward, I think...... famous last words. Thanks for looking.

Apart from the usual small bits and pieces that still need to be completed, there are two high ticket items left on the Thames "to do" list, these being the air-conditioning system and getting the rock n' roll bed professionally upholstered. In order to free up some cash Mrs Flash and I have taken the decision to sell our current daily which is a 2004 Mazda E2000i. It will be sad to see her go, but the plan was always for the Thames to take over daily driving duties and we are now at that stage. So, although this update isn't strictly about the Thames, it still has a part to play in the overall project, so I'm hoping everyone will allow me some latitude. The poor old Bongo has spent the last few years living out in the elements, so she needs a bit of TLC before she goes on the market. The biggest job is resolving some rust that has crept into the edges of both side panels, so this morning I cracked into the first panel. A while back I replaced the panel in the sliding door with a window, so I was able to cut some patches from the spare which made the job a whole lot easier. Cutty, cutty, weldy, weldy, grindy, grindy and I'm almost there. Just needs a bit of bog and a lick of paint and she'll be good to go.

Seeking advice - any input would be greatly appreciated. Checking out the engine specs for the mighty Toyota 3Y engine, the factory thermostat opens at 85 degrees Celsius and they state that normal operating temps are anywhere between 85 and 100 degrees C. Using a laser temp gun, I've been able to ascertain that at operating temp out on the open road the van runs a top of 97C measured at the thermostat housing (the last engine point before the cooling system). Idling in my driveway all day long I'm also measuring a top of 97C. I don't know enough about Toyota engines to determine whether my current temps are too high, but it does make me nervous that I seem to be fairly close to the maximum temp stated by Toyota.

Yesterday arvo I took the Thames through to town for its hot date with the wheel alignment machine. As luck would have it the workshop was unusually quiet, so the whole crew gathered around for a bit of a nosey and the swapping of a few yarns. I had visions of them telling me that everything was skewwhiff as I had used some pretty rudimentary methods to line up the front and rear units before welding them in. But by some miracle everything was straight and all that was needed were a few extra shims to get the LHS camber spot on and a bit of adjustment on the strut rods to get the caster where we needed it. What a relief to have that job behind me.

Mate, I am so chuffed for you. What a well-deserved outcome to an epic build. Happy motoring.

Jeez, the mesh in my little fresh air flap was a real bugger to paint. Even although I was applying really thin coats, I still managed to clog up a few of the gaps in the mesh. Was able to clear the holes with my thinnest bradawl, but it kept chipping the paint, so it took a few iterations of poking and painting before I was happy. Doesn't look too shabby. Popped it back in with some fresh stainless fixings and it should be good for another few years. Oh, almost forgot to say that I found a perfect looking rubber seal in my stash to replace the sad looking cork original. Unfortunately, I don't have enough to complete the job, so I'll grab some more from my local rubber place when I'm next in town.

The mesh covered bit of my fresh air flap has been in the vinegar bath for a few days, but is still looking a bit grotty. The mesh looks a bit delicate so I'm loath to hit the thing with a flapper disk, but I did give it a light sand and then chucked some rust converter on the parts that look a bit dodgy. While I wait for that to dry, I thought I'd move on to the next item on my snag list. So, from day dot I've had issues with my left-hand headlight. At first I attributed the issue to a blown sealed beam - the one on the right in this photo. A while back I fitted a new set of H4 units with LED globes, but was still having issues with both lights staying on high beam no matter what position the dip switch was in. So, first thing this morning I dusted off my copy of the factory wiring diagram and cracked straight into tracing the issue. Thought I'd start off by looking at the dip switch. This is a new unit that I fitted a while back. Popped both headlights out and did a continuity test on the wires running from the dip switch to each headlight. Quickly found an issue with the low beam wire on the left-hand headlight. No power getting through. Grovelled under the dash and discovered that someone had swapped the earth and low beam wires around on the little inline connector. I suspect this happened when the painters re-installed the headlights after the bare metal restoration. Easy enough to do especially with all the overspray that the mucky buggers had got on the main wiring loom. Anyway, with that sorted I've ticked another item off the "to do" list. Thanks for looking.

Yesterday I took the Thames through to my mate Grant's place. I've been having a problem selecting 5th gear and figuring out what is wrong is a two person job, so Grant being the GC that he is stuck his hand up to help. We chucked the thing on his 4 poster and I worked the gear shift while he checked out what was going on. Turns out that the angle on one of my morse cable holding brackets was slightly off thus causing the inner cable to snag up when trying to select 5th. I elongated one of the mounting holes on the bracket to change the angle whilst Grant painted the fender on a customer's Holden and we then headed out for a test run. Learnt a few things during that drive. Firstly, my new Speco temp gauge is reading high by about 7 degrees C according to Grant's laser temp gun. Secondly my fuel gauge is pretty accurate in that when the needle is on empty the tank is actually empty. Oops. Luckily another mate of ours saved us from a long walk home by riding to the rescue with a can of fuel. I certainly won't be making that mistake again. Anyway, today I thought I'd turn my attention to my much-neglected fresh air flap. Originally this was going to be replaced with my home-made a/c evaporator unit, but since that plan has been shelved, I thought I'd give the flap a birthday. The flap mechanism is made up of two components. The underside is a meshed insect / stone guard that was looking pretty second hand. The top is covered in overspray and the bottom is sporting a mixture of surface rust and freshish chassis black from when I did the underside. Started off by dropping it into a vinegar bath where it will languish for a day or two. The actual flap door looks really good on the cabin side, but not so good underneath. The cork seal was far gone so I scraped that out and then sanded down the surface rust. A bit of primer and a few coats of satin black and it's looking a bit better. More tomorrow.

Managed to centralise the gauge cluster in the opening by moving the mounting holes in the side brackets. Then I turned my attention to each individual gauge pod and how exactly I'm going to fix the gauges in them. Since the back of each pod is completely sealed the usual U shaped fixing brackets that come with most 2-inch gauges won't work. A set of instructions would have been nice, but I guess I bought the economy version so no such luck. At first I thought that the gauges might just be a press fit, but upon sliding one into the pod the gauge is loose as, so that can't be the answer. Going through the bits that came with each pod there seems to be a few strips of double-sided tape. Surely, they aren't expecting me to fix the gauge into the tube with that are they? Asked my mate Google, but couldn't find anything useful, so figured I'd just do my own thing. So first up I poked a hole in the rounded end of the pod. The little factory dimple made it such that even a rough bastard like me managed to get the hole centralised. Then I trimmed a little metal offcut to size, poked a few holes in it and made this little doohickie: Slapped it onto the back of the gauge like so: A quick test fit and I even went as far as fitting a lush looking stainless steel domed nut. Next step is to tidy up the little bracket and give it a spritz of paint. Repeat times three and I'm home and hosed.

It's Thames day 601 according to the Captain's Log and I thought I'd spend it by building another iteration of the gauge panel. As mentioned yesterday, the current angle of the gauges makes them very difficult to read from the driving position, so I figured that a little angle was called for. First step was to banish the aluminium filler panel to the naughty corner and figure a way to angle the gauges. Started by blowing the dust off the cheapie individual gauge pods that I bought a while back: Stripped the mounting feet off the buggers and attached them together with a bit of threaded rod, some nuts and washers like so: Whipped up some dodgy looking templates for a set of mounting brackets that will attach the threaded rod to the bolts that I glued to the back of the dash to hold my original gauge panel. Carved some replicas out of some angled aluminium off-cuts, poked a few holes and bolted things into position. Doesn't look so great in the above photo, but the gauge visibilty is perfect from the driving position. The next photo shows a side view and clearly shows the angle of the new setup. As you can see in the above photo, I'm still using the slip collars to give the gauges that countersunk look. I want to drop the pods slightly to get things more centralised in the opening, so I'll fine tune the mounting brackets tomorrow. Then all I need to do is figure out how I'm going to build a backing plate to neaten things up. Thanks for looking.

Next step on my gauge panel is to trim my plastic surround rings down to the correct length. Scratched around my tool collection for something appropriate but I figured that using a cut off wheel or hack saw just wasn't going to give me the finish that I am looking for, so time to call in some professional help. My "go to" general engineering shop in town closed down a while ago so I've been asking around to see if anyone could recommend another crowd. Then a mate of mine suggested that I head along to see the Barrys that hang out at the local Men's Shed. It's only about 5km from home so first thing this morning I hopped in the Moke and headed on down. Gotta say that I was really blown away by the equipment that these old blokes have at their disposal. Hooked up with a really nice bloke called Stuart who chucked the rings on a wood lathe and in next to no time I had these perfect specimens: And all for the cost of the equivalent of a few beers. AAA+++ would happily trade again. So, from a gauge perspective I'm going with Speco units cause cheap and cheerful. Their Street Series have the black face that I am looking for and they also supply chrome snap on trim rings for those wanting that old school look. A few weeks back I ordered one of their water temp gauges as a starter for ten. Now with the surround rings ready to go I clipped on the trim ring and mounted the gauge on the panel just to get the feel. Noice ! Flushed with success I headed over to the Thames and quickly chucked the panel in. And, whilst I'm happy with the overall look the jury is still out on whether this is going to work as well as I envisaged. Reason being that the angle that the gauges sit at in the panel makes them quite hard to read from the standard driving position. If they were tilted a bit up like the factory speedo is they would be perfect. So, I need to come up with some kind of wedged shape intermediate panel that will provide me with the angle that I need. Gonna have to give some more thought to how I'm going to achieve this.

It's time to build the new gauge panel that I was talking about a few weeks back. My mate Cameron kindly supplied me with 3 aluminium offcuts thus giving me an opportunity to make 2 cock ups before I get things right. First step was to make a cardboard template. I needed to join two cereal box sides together to make a piece long enough hence the dodgy looking tape joint. The next step was to work out the gauge spacing. First time I used a spacing of 86mm between gauge centres, but it looked a bit odd, so I reduced the spacing to 80mm which I am much happier with. I had to create a little crescent shaped notch in the top of the template in order to clear the steel tab in the dash for the latch on the hinged glove box lid that were factory fitted to the bus versions. I've had to slot the mounting hole on the right hand side as there is only a thin gap between the back of the dashboard panel and the wiper motor. Carved up my first piece of aluminium and chucked it in for a test fit. Then took to it with my hole saw: Had to pace myself with the drilling as I didn't want to overtax my little Ozito battery drill. Eventually ended up with this: Gave it a quick test fit. Not bad, but I'll need to put some shape in it as the dashboard has a slight curve. More tomorrow.

Finally finished off the wiring yesterday and took the van for its first drive with the new Astra power steering pump. I'm chuffed to report that it works really well. We ended up taking the van for our usual Friday night burger cruise which highlighted a few extra items that needed adding to the snag list. The most urgent one being an intermittent belt squeal. To be honest this has been lurking around since day one and up to now I've just been masking the issue with liberal applications of soap. I was hoping that the belt driving my original power steering pump was the culprit, but now that this is no longer, the squeal persists, so must be the alternator belt. So, first thing this morning I took a closer look. Belt tension looked good, but focusing closer on the belt alignment I noticed that the alternator was sitting a smidge too far forward. Things are so tight in the engine box that to get the alternator out you need to drain the radiator and remove the lower radiator hose, which leaves just enough room to turn the alternator on its head and wrestle the bloody thing out. I'm using a reverse mounted 3Y alternator bracket with a piece of threaded rod that acts as the through bolt. A standard nut and spring washer on either end fix the threaded rod in place, so the simplest way to sit the alternator further back without modifying the bracket is to reduce the thickness of the front nut. Scratched around in my box of spare nuts and was lucky enough to find a narrower nut with the correct thread. Chucked the alternator back in, but it was still a fraction too far forward so I ended up ditching the front spring washer, which made things perfect. Should be okay as I still have a spring washer on the rear nut. Before re-filling the coolant, I took the opportunity to replace the factory temp gauge sender unit with the new sender for my aftermarket gauge. Old: New one with correct adapter: All sorted and ready for the fitting of the gauge. Thanks for looking.

It's almost two weeks since my last Thames update and I'm embarrassed to say that I am still mucking about with wiring. Whilst grovelling around under the dash wiring up my power steering pump it dawned on me that now that I have changed direction in terms of the style of the internal aircon unit that I am planning to fit, I'm no longer going to be able to access the new fuse blocks that I mounted earlier in the piece. So with no choice but to re-do the job, I disconnected the wiring and removed the fuse panel. Luckily, I hadn't yet re-wrapped the harness. Looked around for an alternative location for the fuse panel that will be well out of the way and decided to tuck it up under the dashboard on the passenger side. Found two existing mounting holes in the dash lip and figured I might be able to attach the opposite side of the panel to one of the metal cable holder tabs that is welded in place. After some fiddling about with a cardboard template, I bent up some metal plate, poked a few holes in it and gave it a spritz of the usual satin black. Let things dry off overnight, then transferred the fuse blocks and relays across from the old panel. I had to replace the wires for the main fuse as the originals were too short, but with that done I was able to mount the panel in his new home. A bit tricky wedging myself under the dashboard to take a photo for you, so apologies for the quality, but you get the idea. And now I'm so looking forward to extending the rest of the wires to the new panel location. Not.

Apart from the occasional bath, the poor old Mustang hasn't seen much loving since late Feb. We still use it heaps and every now and then I play around with some of the EFI settings mainly to see if I can improve things from an exhaust fumes perspective. Just before winter I disabled the settings that add extra fuel on startup and cold running and this has solved the excess fumes that we were experiencing on startup. It did result in some extra cranking needed on really cold mornings, but I reckon that is a small price to pay. When the engine is warm we are still experiencing excess fumes at idle, so I thought I'd play around with the idle air controller. But before tackling that I thought I'd sort out some kind of mounting bracket for the little hand held controller. The system is supplied with one of those long flexible holders with a suction cap for windscreen mounting, but it looked cheap and nasty and way out of place in the old Muzzy so I binned that a while ago. Since then the touch screen has been floating around the cabin and just generally making a nuisance of itself, so I eventually banished it to the glove box. After giving it some thought I figured I would mount the LCD to the front of the centre console which is missing its end plate anyway. So first up I grabbed an aluminium plate offcut, gave it a little bend and trimmed it to size. Cut a little slot to hold the cable, cleaned up the edges, spritzed it with some satin black and then test mounted it. Chucked a bit of velcro on the mounting plate and the back of the handheld and it is now nice and secure. Doesn't look too out of place. Celebrated by giving it a quick bath.

In a previous life I used to be a Project Manager (which I guess explains my OCD tendencies) and back then the term "scope creep" were the filthiest words in my dictionary. These days I seem to embrace the practice which I guess supports the argument that I should really get back on my medication. Anyway, allow me to elaborate: So earlier in the week I had my new power steering hose made. Once I'd chucked the hose on, all that was left to do was to run a few wires and this is where things started to get out of control. The loose plan was to run the high amperage positive wire directly to the battery via one of those self-resetting circuit breakers and to then use a relay to switch the ignition feed. Should have been a few hours work at best, but then old mate Flash decides that whilst he is running a wire from the battery box up to the new ignition fed fuse box located under the dash he may as well run a power feed for the proposed roof console as well as another wire for the windscreen washer bottle. Sounds like a plan I thought, but first off, I need to finalise exactly where I'm going to mount the washer bottle. So, I moseyed on down to the back shed and grabbed my collection of grubby old windscreen washer bottles in order to make a final selection. The one on the right immediately took my fancy as its nice and slim. From memory it's the rear screen washer bottle out of the Starwagon. Gave it a bit of a bath and it already looked heaps better. I was wise enough to keep its mounting plate, so after slotting the bottle back into the plate I headed over to the Thames to work out a suitable mounting location. And here is my first choice, tucked up inside the front passenger wheel well just above the front suspension. The bracket mounts from the front so should protect the bottle from any stones that might get thrown up. The plan is to fabricate a little intermediate bracket that will attach to the existing angled bracket on my chassis leg. This image is a bit dark, but hopefully it will give you an idea of the proposed location: I was about to start fabricating the new mounting bracket which would have taken me off on a whole new tangent. Luckily, I managed to put on the brakes, but not before I'd filled up the bottle and given the works some temporary power just to check that the little pump would have enough steam to push the water jet all the way from the chassis leg up to the windscreen, which it did, thankfully. With the pump position sorted I now knew where its power wire needed to go. Okay so now onto the power wire for the future roof console. This will run from the house battery located in the new battery cupboard via a fuse block, then along the chassis leg, up behind the dashboard and then inside the A pillar and up into the ceiling. So, first step was to remove the front most ceiling panel which revealed that the upholsterer had actually gone above and beyond and fitted some insulation material which was good of him. My initial plan was to run the new wire up the passenger side A pillar, but it turns out that there isn't an opening at the top of the pillar which is strange. I then headed around to the driver's side and immediately spotted an old wire that I'm guessing was for the overhead cab light when the van still had one. The factory had kindly drilled a tiny hole in the top of the pillar for this wire, so I was able to use it as a draw wire to pull through the new feed. At this point I had all three new wires (roof console feed, steering pump ignition feed and windscreen washer power feed) loosely routed and bundled together, so it was time to crack out the old cloth tape. After a goodly time spent on my back under the van, I had the new loom all taped up. Chucked in a few holding clamps to keep it snug against the chassis rail. And with a bit of luck and a tailwind I should be able to make the final connections tomorrow. Thanks for looking.

In order to get the handbrake mechanism out to switch the handle over to the right I had to unbolt the instrument cluster, so I figured that while I had access to the rear of the cluster I would remove the defunct water temperature gauge. It doesn't work and is going to be replaced with an aftermarket 2 inch jobbie shortly, so best to get rid of it. After pulling out the temp gauge I made up a little blanking plate to cover the hole. The paint is not that great a match but it will do. At the same time I extended the wire so that it will reach the new gauge pod and fitted some new LED globes for instrument illumination.. The jury is still out on whether I'm going to keep the factory fuel gauge as its bloody inaccurate. I then fitted the modified handbrake mechanism and shortened lever and buttoned everything up again. The shorter handle now located on the right-hand side of the steering column looks factory I reckon. Thanks for looking.

WARNING - I'M ABOUT TO BARRY ON ABOUT A/C COMPRESSORS .... you have been warned. After hours and hours of research I now know far more than anyone should about mounting an a/c compressor to a Toyota 3Y engine. The first thing that I learnt thanks to some info shared by @Jeffs_Emporium is that Toyota used two options of factory a/c compressor brackets. The next thing that I learnt after getting someone on the Book of Faces to chuck a tape measure on the mounting bracket featured in the image below is that using this bracket the a/c compressor will not clear the chassis rail on my Thames van: However, the second more compact option shown in the image below might just allow the compressor to clear my chassis rail with literally millimetres to spare : So armed with this info I began searching for just such a bracket. Now one would think that here in sunny old Queensland there would be heaps of a/c equipped old Toyotas sitting in wrecking yards. But checking in with my two local wreckers and about half a dozen others spread through Queensland proved fruitless. I then spent every day watching FB Marketplace and pinged everyone who was stripping a Y powered Toyota with no luck. Eventually about two weeks ago a guy located about an hour from me listed an early 90s YR20 Torago that he was parting out, so I flicked off the usual query. Turned out his van was equipped with a/c and he sent a few photos which revealed it was the correct bracket. FB message trail went like this: Me - Hey mate, how much for the bracket and second crankshaft pulley? Him - $250 if you come through and strip it yourself or $395 if I have to strip it. Me - Yikes, mate I don't want to buy the whole van, just the a/c bracket. Him - Oh if you want the whole van I'll let it go for $1000. Me - Foxtrot Oscar mate. Him - silence. Then yesterday I had to head into town to pick up my new power steering hose and I thought I'd wheel by the two wrecker yards to see if anything fresh had come in. It just so happened that Luke was behind the counter at the second wreckers and he is a lot more chatty than his monosyllabic mates. Was sharing my tales of fruitless searches with him and he mentioned an old LiteAce wreck that was languishing in the bush in a part of the yard that I hadn't noticed before. "Watch out for snakes up there matey" was his parting shot as I headed up the hill .... yikes Ozzie is not for the feint hearted. Anyhoo sitting in the bush was this pretty: Scuffed the ground a bit to scare way any monsters then timidly peered inside and eureka! Scampered back down the hill. "Luke matey, how much for the bracket and the second crank pulley ?" "$35 if you strip it yourself mate" Jeez, I couldn't get the folding out my pocket quick enough. Back up the hill armed with a 12mm and 14mm spanner and then there was this: Got back home, gave them a bath and chucked them onto my mock up engine: Looks promising. Called my mate Jeremy who is the local a/c parts supplier, and the good news is that he stocks the appropriate compressor. The bad news is that his one comes without the manifold for the a/c lines, so looks like I'll need to source the shagged compressor out of Luke's wreck just to get the manifold. So I'll wheel by Luke's place when I'm next in town. If you have made it this far thanks for reading.

Yesterday I did a town trip to source a new hydraulic hose for my latest power steering setup, but more about that later. This morning I circumcised my handbrake lever. Kept the little "jerry helmet" tip. Fizzed it back on then hit it with a flapper disc and spritzed it with a bit of satin black. Just waiting for the paint to dry. Looks hilarious but works a treat.

I've asked my mate Cameron to dig around his aluminium offcuts for a long enough piece to make my gauge plate, so I've put that job to one side for now. Turned my focus to the next big-ticket item being the installation of an a/c system. First thing to work out is what I'm going to do for the dash unit. I briefly toyed with the idea of fabricating my own loosely based on the factory option heater unit that was a popular option in colder countries. It's quite agricultural looking and reports are that their operation was piss poor. Looks like so: My plan was to substitute the heater core with an a/c evaporator. I even went as far as to build a grotty looking working mock-up in typical Rough & Ready Restos fashion. I used an old "hamster wheel" type blower motor that came out of the Mustang. It was noisy as hell, but still worked okay. Warm air gets sucked in through some openings down low on each side. The air then passes through the evaporator and cold air exits through the top holes. Here is an image of the evaporator that I was planning to mount horizontally across the box: The cold air would then exit the holes in the top of the box where it would be routed via some slinky pipe to ball type outlets that I was going to fit to the metal dashboard. Even went as far as to place it in position inside the cab. Actual testing of the mock up confirmed that air flow was pretty poor and that was even before fitting a restrictive evaporator coil. I could probably have tried a more powerful / efficient fan to up the flow, but at that point I took my medication and decided to go down a more conventional path. So, allow me to introduce the next option, being an off the shelf under dash unit. Something along the lines of this: The good thing about these units is that they are relatively cheap and work really well. The one fitted to our 66 Mustang is colder than the a/c in our modern Bongo van. However, fitting one of these units is not without its challenges. As per the photo below the unit would be mounted to the underside of the dashboard just below my planned gauge panel and between the taped marks in this photo : The eagle eyed amongst you will immediately notice that the bloody handbrake lever is in the way of the proposed unit. I could offset the unit towards the passenger side thus clearing the handbrake but leaving poor Mrs Flash to freeze her tits off while I swelter on the other side of the cab. Not an option Mrs Flash told me in no uncertain terms. Also, my OCD couldn't cope with that look, so I needed to come up with plan B. Toyed briefly with the idea of fitting an umbrella style handbrake lever out of my mid 80s HiAce donor. Would have been a pain in the butt to adapt and wouldn't have looked half as good as the original Thames unit. So, I discarded that idea too. Then thought about a foot activated mechanism or maybe something hydraulic, but again I stuffed these ideas into the "too hard" basket pretty promptly. Then in the wee hours of the morning I came up with a cunning idea, as you do. So with an extra spring in my step, I skipped off to the shed bright and early this morning. Quickly whipped out the steering column bracket that incorporates the current handbrake lever for a closer look see. Yike, I thought ... I wonder if I can unpick the internal bracket that holds the handbrake lever and flip it 180 degrees. Worth a go I reckoned, so put on my big boy pants and took to it with my grinder of angles and end up with these:: Fizzed them back together and ended up with this: And my handbrake lever now sits on the right hand side of the column. Connected it all up and the handbrake works perfectly. Only issue is that the handle is too long so I can't close the door which is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Seriously though, I'd taken some measurements beforehand, so I knew this starting out, but I wanted to prove the concept before going as far as hacking up the handle. So, the next step is to do a bit of a "cut and shut" so I end up with a shorter handle that still has the factory rounded end. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode. Thanks for reading.

Because I lead such a sad life, the smallest of things cause much excitement and I've just got to share this one with my oldschooler mates. So, a few posts back I was talking about my gauge panel and the fact that I wanted to try and find some slip rings to finish off the 2-inch gauges and my plan was to check out the Bunnings plumbing aisle on our next town trip. Anyway, I'm a self-confessed hoarder of note and earlier this morning I thought I'd rummage through my own stash of plumbing related bits and pieces. Started off by unpacking my two plumbing boxes but didn't find anything suitable. Then I spotted another box that contains left over bits from when we had our pool installed. At the time I remember the pool installers rolling their eyes as I scurried about gathering up all of their discarded bits and pieces, but to me this stuff is gold. So anyway, I dragged the pool storage container out into the sunlight. Popped the lid. Wow, not much of a choice I'm afraid. But, then old eagle eye spotted a few bits of interest. Dug them out for a closer look and couldn't believe my luck. Exactly 4 of these puppies: Rushed back to the garage and grabbed my mock up gauge. Bloody perfect ! And each of them has a magic little side profile that will give me exactly the look that I am aiming for. See, I told you that my life was sad.

I'm hopping about between jobs at the moment. The paint was dry on my new air duct so I quickly fitted that with some fresh stainless nuts and bolts. Next small job was to figure out a way of mounting my "yet to be fabricated" gauge panel in place. Here is a close up of the opening that the panel will sit in. The easiest thing in the world would be to drill a few holes in the dash and chuck some self-tappers in, but my OCD couldn't cope with that, so I've come up with an alternate plan that involves these two countersunk headed bolts: I mixed up a bit of JB Weld and smeared it all over the head of each bolt, then used a small clamp to fix them to the back of the metal dash until the glue goes off. I'll then make the inner panel longer than the opening with holes drilled to pick up the bolt positions. Hopefully they will be strong enough to hold the panel in place. I'll then cut a second panel in the shape of the actual opening which I will bond to the inner panel thus bringing the actual face panel in line with the rest of the dashboard. It looks okay in my head at the moment, so hopefully it will turn out just as good when I've actually made it.

Thanks for posting the photo Bryan. If you didn't know any different you would think that was a factory "GT" option. Doesn't look out of place at all.

That looks bloody good.