yoeddynz

Hannahs 330 diesel one weighed 6.5 ton and managed average 15 MPG which aint too bad given the mountains we travelled over all around Europe...

So over the last few days we have been tinkering away. Its neat sized truck that fits into the workshop nicely. Will be good when it comes to building the new deck and then the steel framework for the house later on. Our hoist is rated to lift 4 tonne so technically it could lift this truck. However I see that 4 tonne as a Chinese 4 tonne and don't really trust its actually a proper 4 tonne. I think I'll pass .. Anyway- old truck in workshop = nice... The first job to do was pull out all of the interior. Rats had obviously found it a nice cosy place to stay in so it all needed to go. Plus Wayne had to fit another seat to get it through a cof because the old one was so shot and had metal showing- now a test failure. But the Marina seat he fitted sat me too high. Luckily there was a good seat in the spares truck. I think Wayne must have had a go at removing that from the spares truck but two seized bolts had stopped him. We however had luckily brought out our cordless angle grinder on the day of pick up- always a handy tool to have about. So we managed to cut the bolts and free the seat. It cleaned up nicely and sat much lower. Next item was the throttle pedal assembly. The original beford item of rods and linkages was horrid and like mentioned earlier meant your foot had to stand almost upright and was really uncomfortable. We popped to the local wreckers and looked through the toyota vans there- I knew that one like in our hiace van could work a treat. We nabbed a setup from a super custom hiace and also grabbed a rubber gear lever boot from a mazda ute (because the bedford one was an old ripped vinyl thing that needed to be replaced). Plus a brake servo from the same ute for a future job on the TK. Hannah then removed all of the throttle pedal and linkage assembly. Youu can see the difference between the hiace item vs the bedford stuff below... I made a plate bolt the hiace pedal to and welded it onto the A piller.. The cable was luckily just long enough. The bracket to take the cable outer was in the wrong place so that I adapted... And all in place working... While I was finishing this Hannah set to removing the old dog box. It had to go because I wanted to move the batteries. The truck was converted to 24v to suit the Nissan engine. They added another battery and cradle to suit but it all takes up space right where you want to stand to have access on the passenger side of the engine bay... So Hannah ended up on the ground having fun with old seized bolts and rusty steel... I started dealing to the seating arrangement on the passenger side. The KM cab was designed around a much taller engine I think. There was no double seat, instead a removable access hatch I guess so you could adjust the front most tappets etc. This meant our double seat taken from the parts truck wouldnt fit. So I cut out the tunnel bit and altered things... Made a new lid to suit, keeping it removable because access there could always be handy... Made a new bit to suit the new gear stick rubber gaitor too. Painted it all... Fitted it back in complete with a nice old gear knob that originally came from a 60s Foden truck in the UK and then found a place in my V6 Viva. I kept it when I sold that Viva and now its got a home in the Bedford. I had to tap the threads out to suit. Spot the gear knob that was fitted previously - I guess a safari item? Could be anything but I think the new one looks more in keeping... While I was playing with my knob Hannah set to work on her rim (of the cab..) She dug out all the lifting seam sealer and can up some light surface rust and then painted the lot with Por 15. This will hold it until full paint later on. Luckily as the truck had mainly been stored inside it was in great condition around the roofline. I welded up the hole left when we removed the aerial. No room for an aerial sticking up there when there will soon be a bedroom floor residing there instead... Sort of up to date now. Thanks to the powers of social media I got this lovely response from a fella on the book of faces NZ Bedford group about our new project... "This truck is very special to us and loved driving this ole girl a few times during the hay making season.It originally belonged to my late father in law Cyril Higgins. Since his passing my brother in law Wayne has taken over the grand ole girl. If only she could talk. This truck has many happy memories for both my wife Jen ( Wayne's sis) and I on the farm. Loved seeing it go up Spooner range driven by my brother with pedal to the metal lol then cruze thru the Motupiko/Korere valley to feed out / check stock on the back country farm etc as they would do on a very regular basis. Would hope you get as much fun and enjoyment out it as we have. Would love to become part of your progress trail blog if you would be kind enough to include us please. Will post some photos up of the ole girl for as we come across them . Those were great days for us as we are sure they will be great days and memories ahead for you and your family..... Jen & Den " Den also posted up some cool pics of the truck in action... This is super cool and really made our day when we got that message. Den is now following the build here on Oldschool so we better do a worthy job I'm just loving the bit of history you can get with an old truck like this- makes it all the more fun to restore.

Yeah initially we both figured they were added by the owner and we planned to swap back to original singles. Then once we found out they are factory fitted they started to seem ok. Now I have sussed a way to make them tie in nicer I think they are staying put. Yeah certainly could be added. Could just nick the setup from @ThePog dynafari once he gets bored and starts another awesome project... The engine on the truck in the field is still a goer- but I'd only wish it upon an enemy so when it breaks down they lose. Its a horrid 214 petrol thing. Your reply on the design disasters thread about the old dispondent barrys in the bedford foundry had me pissing myself laughing! I see only good things happening when something British gets a Jappa diesel. Hannah's bedford 330 did work really well and never let us down. But it should have been good- it had been fully reconditioned by the BBC workshops with tax payers money and low mileage when she got it. But to rebuild a fucked one of those engines these days- it aint bloody worth it. Hence a nissan engine makes so much sense. That Barry on the bedford facebook group just ... well... idiot. yep- its a cool history alright! There's more to post up about that soon. I'm already pretty familiar with the brake setup- although Hannahs 330 powered TK in the UK was air over hydraulic with a fairly complex unit on the side. This one has the usual slop in the pedal bush where it mounts on the steering box. I'll be sorting that out soon. This one has also been altered and now has a different remote servo/master like what's on a bloody hillman hunter so single circuit brakes. I hate the idea of single circuit so I'll be swapping it back to original- I have a plan. House ideas are already quite well planned out and it should be a really neat use of the space. Very excited to get into building that! We will be building a new deck first though.

Hannah and I have been looking for a suitable truck to build another house on since selling the Hino. We wanted something a bit smaller than the 5 m wheelbase we had been used to. A bit more of a manageable size for little holidays plus the new house is to be removable so the truck can be used for work/play. We'd been looking at a variety of different trucks- some ex-fire service, some at a local wreckers. We'd been offered another Hino at an OK price and it was a 4m wheelbase. Then a couple of weeks ago Damian @dmulally asked me if I could look over a Bedford TK listed on the book of faces that was local to us. No worries. I like looking at old trucks and it was a good excuse to go for a hoon in the Imp. Here's a couple of pics I took that morning of the viewing.. Upon viewing we promptly fell in love with it and since Damian wanted a tipper, which this wasn't, he very kindly let us have first refusal on his find. But we did had to have a little think about it... At 3m the wheelbase was far shorter than what I have been planning the next house build on. I re-did some drawings and we sussed out some ideas. Deciding that with our mezzanine build giving us a huge amount of living space we realised we didn't need a massive housetruck. Also the idea of utilising some decent sized pop outs excited my designing itch. Other bonus points for the fact the little truck would be so easy to move about the yard plus in and out from under the planned 'house on stilts' , the fact it was a proper classic, a model Hannah had owned for many years and we both lived in while in the UK. Its rated at 6.5 ton with a current tare weight of 2.8. Ample allowance for a small house build plus its in a cheaper RUC bracket! The fact the truck had a really neat bit of history and was a one family owned truck from new with the seller, Wayne, being a very friendly bloke who really loved his old truck. It had been bought new by his Grandad and then his dad used it eventually being passed onto Wayne when his Dad died. It was still being used to run out the hay etc and is pretty much always kept road legal. The cab had been swapped in the 90s after an electrical fire had damaged the old cab beyond repair. The new cab was off a larger engined bigger KM model Bedford- hence the different grill and lights as fitted at the factory for those models. They had the Nissan safari/civilian engine fitted in the early 2000s after the 4 cylinder Isuzu went pop. They wanted a much smoother 6 and loved this conversion. A rust free cab, decent history and fitted with a 4.2 Nissan Diesel engine, all road legal for 5k. Bugger it- lets just do it! Last weekend we went back to collect the truck. It has been garaged most of its life... Currently sharing a shed with a very cool old tractor.. While we were there we got a nice tour from Wayne of the old seed thrashing machines his Dad had installed in around 1965 or thereabouts. They all still work and he showed us some of them running... While we were out there Wayne let us nab a few spares from the old TK he had in a field. Some seats in better condition and some standard TK single headlights in case we decide to swap it back that style (although growing to like the twins..) Said our goodbyes and promised to stay in touch as Wayne is interested in what becomes of his little truck. I drove it home, soon remembering how low the windscreen top is for tall folk. The seat that Wayne had fitted to see it through more recent cofs is from a Morris marina and sits too high. That will be fixed asap I thought. The throttle pedal was an awful design and sat almost vertical at idle. Tricky to moderate and my ankle had to contort heaps making the drive uncomfortable. But otherwise it all went well. The engine seemed fine and pulled well up the hills on the way home, even seeming a bit faster than our van. No doubt things will slow down with a house on board - but folk should never race about in their houses now should they... That evening we popped down to the beach and the doc carpark so Hannah could take it for a hoon. I took some pics... Once home again we parked it in front of the shed and started planning out a few tidy up jobs and modifications to make it nicer to drive. More on that soon

Those Naki druggos with their rose tinted glasses eh?

I was chatting to some visitors from the naki a couple of weeks ago and they too claimed that they have about the same sunshine hours as Nelson! I thought to myself 'hmmmmm- I always thought it rained heaps there'

Another great starion thread to read. I'm enjoying your writing style too. Fun. What are the chances that two starion owners on oldschool have identical cats. Your cat does indeed look like Oscar - @ProZac cat!

This is great. I love threads like this! Subscribed. I remember driving this car at nats way back. Glad you are back into it! Oh a and $200 purse!!! Fuck. A mint momo boss is a much better spend said all the ocd blokes....

Ideal for removing the anodizing on some race face cranks I have that are a horrid green?

good turnout peoples!!

Yeah what the geoffman said. plus one for getting nolothane bushes on the castor arms. Under really heavy braking the standard old squidgy bushes can flex quite a bit so allowing that arm to move backwards - in turn leads to less castor right when you need it most and you'll get a 'squirrelly' * front end with less stability. It can be really quite bad in a Viva if you brake fucking hard for a corner from high speed and the front end can wander a little right when all you want is directness. This might not be so bad in a lighter car but its still worth changing them. The ones I got listed for Toranas needed machining in the lathe to suit the cup it locates in. The company claimed they have sorted this now but do check. * maybe not the right terminology I just like the idea of lots of squirrels appearing under heavy braking..

Isn't it a type of angular bearing? Its much like a oldschool wheel bearing in a pushbike. So if you machine up or find a thin shim to go between the end of the column tube and the bearing flange you'll squeeze the bearing that bit tighter to take up the slack.

Yeah bugger spending $80 on a bearing like that. Ask about on the vauxhall viva facebook group or the nz vauxhall group. Someone will have a spare i bet.

Well the last few days has been a bit emotional and busy. Did the last few tidy up jobs on the housetruck and added a few little features we had always intended to but never got around to (typical..) Main thing we added was a bit of decking on the roof. This serves a few purposes. The black butynol roofing gets fucking hot in summer, too hot to stand on. Not ideal for insulation or bare feet. It also gets a bit grubby = messy feet or shoes marking the floor or carpets. Plus the plywood roof is 12mm which is strong but still springy to walk on between the rafters. The decking is sat on runners above the rafters so now feels solid as. We got rid of the ugly old temporary pop out roof sheets of alloy that we'd put up after fixing the roofs and fitted new thicker shiny alloy with proper edgings. Also added gutters so now the rain wont run down the side of the popouts. So the last few days we emptied out all our stuff and moved it into the mezzanine or the cabin. Quite amazed at how much stuff we had collected and stashed away in the truck! Then a final clean up and moved the truck down into the yard. Ran it up hot and did an oil change. Took a few more pics of it. Here's one with Minky the Micra for scale... Then drove it to its new home. Luckily only 10 minutes away! We had to cut back loads of trees to get it down their driveway. The owners taking heaps of photos as we went. Finally parked it up... It wont stay in this spot for good. The young family that will be moving in are in isolation having just got back to NZ. In two weeks time I'll be popping round to run them through the ins and outs, packing it up for travel and setting it up etc. We'll go for a brief drive too so they can have a feel of what its like to drive. Then we'll set it up in its new home spot proper. But for now that's where it is. Hannah and I had a cup of tea and said bye bye to our reliable, comfortable, safe and cosy home of almost the last 9 years or so... Yes we are sad to see it go because its our home that we built. But also really excited because its another step in life. We can finish the mezzanine now, build a garage, do some other little projects but most exciting is we also get to build another housetruck! We left the truck went to the local cafe/bar and had a pint with local friends - where word throughout the village that we had sold the housetruck was already well out there. Suitably fizzed up on beer we walked home on a warm evening and discussed our next housetruck build... So that is this thread finished. Its been a great journey and I'm sure its entertained a fair few. I'm hoping its inspired many to try out this housing and lifestyle and also been a useful source of ideas, tips, designs and lessons for those who were already building or about to build a housetruck. I'll be back with another thread soon for what will be our 4th housetruck build (excluding a few vans along the way) As always we've learned loads of things and look forward to using the lessons learned and ideas gained for the next build We have both already been checking out the usual places for a suitable truck. Fun times! Alex

Really? Wow. I never realised that. Yet I have never heard of a catastrophic incident involving an old caravan. I guess another aspect as to why they specify toughened is stopping shards of glass being around at an accident scene eh.

Your housetruck or a friends? Our housetruck goes to its new home tomorrow if the weather is nice. I'll do a little update.

Heya- the only requirement is that the glass is either toughened or covered with Lexan (not perspex/acrylic) - or just shuttered over for travel/cof test. This is so joe blogs doesn't get a huge shard of house window pane slicing through him if a window was to get smashed etc etc. We did a mixture of lexan on most of the leadlight windows, which happens to nicely act as a double glazing, or toughened glass made to size. For the latest cof, after we had added a large window, we made a shutter to fit over the window for travelling. Its not pretty but works. Cof man was super chilled and really didn't give a shit about the house part. He just wanted to know the truck was safe. (house is considered a load) Different story for buses or any vehicle where occupants can legally be seated in the rear while vehicle is moving- in that case windows must be toughened or covered in lexan on BOTH sides- again due to risks from shards of glass in an accident. EDit- just saw your pm but will keep answer up on here for advice for others eh. Oh and yeah- rego as motor home. Cant remember the benefits . Might be cheaper rego plus not needing a TSL etc

The size of that crane in the layby where you parked up to fix ya auto linkage- wow!!!!

How were they to deal with at Vinz? Deon has left and I have heard from a couple of people that the place has gone a bit 'mean and grumpy' since.

Fuck this is so cool- I know your feeling when its all one the road cert'd etc. It looks choice! So cool to see a rego plate on it- its the little things eh but they mean so much. Now please go park it next to some fellas 'big' ford ranger and laugh at him I might have to steal our hino firetruck and meet up with you for some cool proper 4wd truck photos!

Yep- decision made! Chosen by cat!

So a quick update. Moved some cars about the yard a few days ago so I could get @Tumeke Triumph wagon onto our hoist. It was quite fun lining up the little cars and snapping some pics.. Still not sure which of the 1.3 engines we'll keep as yet to do compression tests. Once we know we can then work out the order of parts swapping. But more importantly - we have pretty much decided on the names.. Milly is the light blue one- the first. Seems to have the peppiest of the 1.3 , most likely due to having been trashed the most by various previous owners inc one who used it for food deliveries. Molly is the 2nd one- the dark green one with the full fat list of options. I think her heart is a little bit of an oil burner and this is still a common excuse I'll stick to when arguing my case in the economy run we did. Plus her tyres are wider and were flat.. The new one, the darling of the bunch in striking yellow has been named Minky. She is such a clean wee car, low mileage and gives her best when trashed- which is all you can do when faced with our local hill because that little 1.0 with slushbox combination requires it. So other than driving them we have not yet done any work or swaps. It will wait until after xmas time probably because we are behind on paid work etc. But still buying bits- stuff that we don't need but couldn't resist. I bought this from Ebay... I love car brochures and this one has not disappointed.. Must get some driving gloves for our sports march we are building... I think that Molly is a G# going by the spec sheets etc.... But possibly a mixture of G# and Autostrada. Looks like the Autostrada but they dont list them with the LSD or rear discs that Molly has. Certainly has the Autostrada seats though... I'll be looking to change my wardrobe attire to more in order fit in with the upper society levels of Micra ownership... Millies magic crystal that Hannah loves so much is an optional extra... And with such fantastic things like that crystal and all the other great features that a Nissan K11 micra/march offers its no wonder that passengers are obviously fucking thrilled to take a seat in one!... So back to our collection Big storm rolled through yesterday morning. Very heavy period of rain. Discovered today that both Milly and molly have got leaks into the passenger side floor. FFS- I thought we'd avoid all this sort of shit with the British cars but alas no. It appears that the Japanese can make cars just as leaky as the poms. I have looked into it and apparently there's a seal for the air intake under the scuttle panel that can shrink/perish. Not been an issue for us until this huge deluge. So ow Molly and Milly have their passenger carpets lifted up on blocks of wood and I'll have to pull Mollies carpet out I think- such is the Japanese efficiency of its carpets at sucking up water. Meanwhile Minky sat there, dry as a bone- pulling cheeky little facelifted smirks at the other two. Another tick for her while the others are in the dog box. Drove Molly inside this even so I can pull the seats out. Noticed a puddle of coolant on the workshop floor. Jacked her up and looked around to discover a weeping water pump - dripping from its drain hole... Grrrrrrr !!!! Oh Molly. Here's another nail for your coffin. A distant snigger was heard emanating from Minkys direction.

I've been eyeing up that. However would like to find/buy the earlier discontinued fujimi pfl kitset but they sell for heaps! I was watching one on yahoo and it went beyond my budget. pft...

You've built your Morris v8 subframe and mounts already. I'm impressed! Some black paint and you're done.

Ooooh its been over two months since I updated this thread. I have not touched this engine since stashing all the bits under the bench out of harms way, throwing a blanket over the main block on the bench and spending most of my time since then buying up many Micras, working on the housetruck and building the mezzanine floor in the shed. Oh and some of that paid work thing too because we do have a mortgage to pay. However - I still have a little bit of progress up my sleeve to report before we get up to real time. So I can do an update and hopefully soon I'll be back into working on the engine. I'm very much looking forward to moving in upstairs because I can whittle away on the project even easier. Well at least I think it'll work out like that? There's still a load of sawdust to create yet before we can move in though. So where I left off last time was in making the start of the adaptor plate/engine side of the bellhousing. I needed a flywheel to work out its depth, due in part because I am intending on using a concentric slave cylinder, one that was left over from the Ford Mundano that we had robbed ages ago for its engine to fit into the Viva wagon. I had a Subaru Leone 1800 ring gear to suit the gearbox. I needed a clutch setup to suit and started hunting a variety of places. I found a brand new subaru Leone clutch disc going cheap on trade me so I snapped that up pronto. Now a suitable pressure plate. I was just going to buy a Subaru item but had realised that it wouldn't have worked - hence my question to you all in the last update - but no one on here came forward. Someone on retro rides forum won the prize though and guessed the issue. Whilst out on a run, my head clear and thinking of things it suddenly dawned on me that the pressure plate tension straps would now be in compression due to the Hondas anti-clockwise rotation (or clockwise when looking at the pressure plate). Luckily there's loads of clutch components available for early Hondas with their anti clockwise engines and I ended up sourcing a new pressure plate from a mid 80s Honda accord/prelude that would fit the bill and suited the new subaru leone clutch disc I'd already bought. The pressure plate was cheap from Rockauto - turning up only 5 days after ordering. They always amaze me! Clutch sorted and sitting on the bench. I could now measure up and start on a flywheel. I had Dylan @ThePog draw up a cad file of what I wanted- the right diameter and pilot holes for the adaptor bolts. He suggested that I get them to leaser cut pilot holes for the pressure plate bolts while at it and this saved some time. Got my plate cut and picked it up from Dylan's - giving me another chance to marvel at his Dynafari. I first set it up and bored it out a 1/4 way through to fit perfectly onto my flywheel hub I had previously made (this hub also has the surface that the rear main seal run against)... I could then seat the flywheel onto the hub, clamp them down and drill right through into the hub. Drill out to tapping size, tap the hub holes, clearance the flywheel holes and finally countersink and spot face the flywheel holes to suit some fancy bolts I bought - these need to sit near flush with the flywheel surface to clear the clutch disc damper springs. Pics... Flywheel now bolted to its hub I set it up in the lathe for machining... Then gave it a skim. Checked it again, double checked it and then triple checked it. All good. I then machined the required step onto the face to suit the factory specs for the clutch. Next thing was to add the ring gear I add. Now this was a bit tricky because my lovely old Mitutoyo vernier calipers (one of the first tools I bought when starting my apprenticeship) were not big enough to measure that diameter. My old work place I did my time at had some lovely 600mm Mitutoyo calipers in a lovely wooden case. They were one of the treasured items of the tool room and I used to love using them. I had priced up some 600mm items from a variety of other brands but wayyyyy too expensive for me. I'll still keep looking because they'd be handy for many jobs. Might find some second hand. But that didn't help me when I wanted to do this flywheel now So I made an extension from some stainless I tigged together, replicating the end of my calipers. Taped in place securely and hey presto- I had a new updated tool. Never perfect like the real thing so I had to really triple check my measurements but managed to turn the flywheel down to give me just the right amount of interference fit I wanted from a shrink fit. Into the bench top oven the ring gear went, heated up and it dropped on to my machined step nicely. Cooled down and its not going anywhere. With that in place I rechecked it all and got the throw out on the flywheel down to about 3 or 4 thou. Super happy with that. My clutch kit now bolted on in place and I have something I can set my bellhousing depth to suit... I have added the required dowels and its all done. I'll get the flywheel, clutch and crank balanced together before assembly of the engine. So that will be the next update I think. Machining the spacers that will become part of the engine side of the bellhousing adaptor. Then I need to finish off making some chain tensioners to suit the oil pump drive chains. However I still have plenty of other jobs to do on the housetruck and the mezzanine. Those are a priority whereas this is just a fun little project. But I must mention that today whilst out on a bicycle ride we had about 50 various motorbikes pass us on part of a charity run. I spotted a bright metallic blue Goldwing 1500 go past and as it accelerated up the hill we were on it had that distinctive flat six exhaust note and just sounded superb! It certainly got me tingling and all I thought of was that sound coming from my Imp A good incentive!