Flash

Took the van for a quick squirt around the neighbourhood to test the manual steering. As I turned into our driveway she suddenly died. Pulled a plug lead to check for spark ... nada.

Pulled the dizzy cap off to check spark at points. Turned the engine over and the rotor wasn't rotating .... WTF.

Pulled the dizzy apart and the shaft is broken. That will teach me for buying one off fleabay. 

I'm going to head into town on Monday to visit our local Toyota Parts Depot to see if I can source a reputable dizzy from them.

Oh......  and in other news manual steering is pants compared to my power steering, so guess what I am refitting tomorrow ?

https://youtu.be/l6S6nJY7t68

On 31/07/2023 at 18:06, Jeffs_Emporium said:

Query #1

My 1989 YH51G hiace has had the aircon stripped out of it and I would like to reinstate it.

There's the same model van at pickapart with all of its aircon still attached, for $137 I can get all of it. 

The compressor says r12 on the back and I vaguely remember it's no longer available in NZ or some other yarn similar. 

Basically I don't know what I'm doing and would like to learn if this is the best method to refit aircon. 

The other spanner in the works is that I plan to change the engine which would have the compressor on the other side, is it costly to have lines made up for this and to de-gas and re-gas when the swap happens?

@Jeffs_Emporium I'm putting some thought into my a/c install for my Toyota 3Y powered Thames van and in the small hours of this morning while I was doing some thinking I suddenly remembered your a/c related post. Checked it out this morning and thought I'd hit you up with a few questions as you are the only person I know who has seen a 3Y factory a/c setup in the flesh. Hope you don't mind. First question is looking at the schematics in your post it looks like the a/c compressor sits on the driver's side of the engine. Am I right ? Secondly it looks like the setup runs a little idler / belt tensioner pulley. Is that correct ?

Yep Alex, I know exactly what you mean about the conflicting float level info out there on the interwebs.

I ended up going with the 38.5mm from bottom of float to gasket surface measurement that seems to be a popular choice amongst those running plastic floats. Mine was about 3mm out from this measurement at the start of the exercise. I've still got the carby off while I finish off my fibreglass hat, but it's going to be interesting to see if my tweak has made any positive difference.

Now that our dog has a comfy wee seat, earlier today we headed out for our longest cruise in the Thames thus far. The dog absolutely loves her new spot. The cushion is a perfect height so she can look out of her own little side windows and the sliding glass in the front doors means she is in the sweet spot in terms of catching good air smells as we cruise about.

Talking about smells there is still a distinct fuel smell every now and again. At first I thought it was maybe because I'm still not running an air filter, but the other day @yoeddynz mentioned that he was experiencing a similar issue with a customer's HiAce that has had the same carby conversion done and he suspected it was due to a poorly adjusted float level. Well, Alex was bang on the money.

After pulling out my passenger seat and the side of the engine box, I was able to shine a torch down onto the little carby drip tray and there are definite signs of some leakage.

And that's the dog box done. I've split the lid into unequal lengths. The two batteries will live in the smaller box behind the driver's seat.

A few more brackets and stuff to fit tomorrow and I'll crack into the cushions after that.

I think I'm going to outsource the upholstery work as it's a focal point and needs to be perfect. 

Thanks @Otodat. I'm pretty happy with how it's coming together. Got a few more hold down brackets to fit and also got to figure out a way of holding the couch backs in position so it doesn't fold down by itself or rattle about while driving around. I've got a plan in my head that I'll try tomorrow.

If all goes well tomorrow, I'll start cutting the cushions to the correct length. I've got a 150mm thick foam queen size mattress that I'm planning to slice up.

If that works out okay, then it's off to see the upholsterer later in the week. I haven't had any work done for a good few years, but I'm expecting to have to hand over a kidney to get the covers made.

Well, that's the storage box completed, and the floor chucked back in.

Dog shelf next.

After three days of cloud and gusty winds we woke up to an absolute pearl of a day. Great weather to be outside putting the Thames sleeper couch together.

I set up a little work bench and spent a few hours carving some mounting brackets out of some aluminium angle.

With those done it was time to fix the various wooden components together.

I made short work of the base frame and then fixed the first three hinged panels in place.

I've still got to fit the lid on the front dog shelf and the back box side, so that is the plan for tomorrow.

Thanks Alex. I'm keen to hear what you discover.

Yep, she is pretty tight. Mine will be about the same in terms of overall height (45mm), but the only way to get it to mount up is if I split the bottom and sides into two halves. The top needs a funky cut so I can get at the bolts that fix the housing to the carby, so the plan is to use the top cover from my performance filter with two hold down studs to seal up the top.

Thanks for the heads up re the float levels @yoeddynz. I got my kit from Procarb in OZ who also claimed that it had been setup by them before shipping. Mine was marked 3Y with a sharpie. Runs okay but does smell a bit fuely so I suspect I might need to make some final adjustments.

@tortron, yep typical brit look. I bet that Morrie smells of fish and chips or maybe mushy peas.

Only issue with mine is that I keep sitting on my white driver's seat while I'm wearing my dirty work jeans. Gives me the mutters I tell ya.

Interior - Chapter 5

On Friday nights we usually go for a cruise in the Mustang followed by a burger and chips down at the beach. But this Friday we decided to take the Bongo for a run into town to fetch some extra floor tiles and the timber we need to build the sleeper couch. Burgers and chips in the Macca's carpark aren't a patch on the beach, but sometimes you just have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Anyway, the plan is to use 17mm form ply for the floorboards and also for the bed base as its much smoother than standard ply. For the structure I'm using standard interior framing timber. So that's what we loaded up with at Bunnings together with some batten screws and a handful of hinges.

First step on Saturday morning after unloading the Bongo was to create a cardboard template for the floor which I then replicated in formply. I've started off with a single 2.4m x 1.2m board which is a bit cumbersome, but I'll eventually cut this in two once I know exactly where the couch will start. I'll then slide the portion under the storage box to the left and fill in the gap on the right. The reason for going modular is easier removal of the structure in future if needed.

Next step was to begin planning the layout of the supporting timber for the bed base / storage boxes. The cross braces are temporarily clamped in place. Their final positions will be fine-tuned as the couch takes shape.

Today I started cutting the rest of the formply sheets into the required sizes and I finished off the morning by fixing the two backrests together. I've used 3 fairly meaty butt hinges which should be up to the task.

More tomorrow.

Thanks heaps for sharing @yoeddynz. Great job Alex !

I'll take function over fashion any day of the week.

Please make my day and tell me that the new carby hat has got rid of the fuel fumes that those performance air filters seem to suffer from on the HiAces.

The advantage of the HiAce is that with the engine cover raised you have clear access to the top of the carby, so it's easy enough to drop your newly fabricated hat onto the base plate that you have made. Unfortunately, with the Thames I have a portion of the cabin floor in the way that gives me a paltry 35mm gap between the top of the venturis and the floor so I have to make the box in two halves and slide them in on either side.

Hey @igor, clearly your daughter has impeccable taste. 

Thanks heaps for the feedback. We took a drive into town late yesterday and picked up the timber and the rest of the floor tiles that we need. I was wide awake by 5 am and spent an hour plotting and scheming. It looks good in my head. Hopefully it will look just as good in practice. Stay tuned.

Interior - Chapter 4

Expanding on the overall colour scheme and style as outlined above, we are thinking of incorporating some touches from a typical mid last century American diner and with that in mind you can't really go past the typical checked vinyl floor.

Trolling around on the net we couldn't find anyone who supplies the white and black floor tiles in anything smaller than about 300mm x 300mm. At these dimensions our concern was that the checkered pattern would make the inside look absolutely cramped.

Then yesterday while I was in Bunnings getting some more resin for the carby hat I happened to stroll down their flooring aisle and stumbled upon nirvana.

Its 305mm x 305mm sticky backed vinyl tile but each tile consists of 4 smaller black and white checks. I immediately grabbed one to take home to show Mrs Flash.

This morning we laid the sample tile loose in the back of the Thames, just to get the feel.

Much excite!

So, it's off to Bunnings to grab two dozen more.