keltik

I sang your song to the tune of 'your dad's best friend' by the rubber bandits. It worked fairly well but the missus is concerned

Also willing to carry any heavy awkward stuff for anyone that would appreciate it

Push started the GN after a year of it sitting on the battery tender. Took it on a trail ride then decided I really cant be fucked riding it to Gisborne again - Its just too reliable and drama free. So this year I'll drive my 300,000km piece of shit outback in support for you fine chaps. Will drag along some crates of piss, a tool-box, a few go-pros to bolt to various peoples bikes and maybe a bbq for some sausage-in-a-bread on the move.

Time to get the speed signal from wheel speed sensors

Made up some seat adaptors Then put on some John Denver and headed out to the lake. Engine temp was pretty easy to regulate, just setting the dump valve to bleed a bit off kept the gauge showing about 70 degrees. If i slowed down, the temp crept up until the thermostat opened. So i think if i can get a colder thermostat - we'll be onto a winner. On the whole, everything went well. No major leaks, no big faults, just a smooth half hour of boating in some bloody cold water. Did have a small fire scare when the paint I'd used on the exhausts decided it didn't like being hot.

I did consider a mixing tank but was having trouble visualizing how the flow would work. What restricts the outlet of the mixing tank to keep the feed water at a reasonable temp? Perhaps a MS paint diagram of the current setup will help All of the mixing happens in the water pump housing at the moment. If I added an external tank, it would be after the thermostat so I'm not sure how I would control the flow out of it.

They appear to be bigger on the gnx. I believe the commy ones measure 44mm OD

Ran the boat up to temp on the trailer tonight much to my neighbours delight. Water temp gets up to 95 before the thermostat opens. Then it falls to 80, thermostat shuts and the cycle repeats. So yup, definitely need to find a colder thermostat. Also noticed with the thermostat open and the relatively low flow from the garden hose - the port side exhaust water stopped flowing until the thermostat shut again. I think this means I need to chuck a restrictor pill in the exhaust water feeds to reduce the amount of flow wasted out of the system. Or maybe the jet unit produces such a vast amount of water flow it won't be an issue. More testing required before I sign off on the cooling system as finished.

The boat never had a thermostat housing and instead came with a plate with a 5/8 double hose outlet on it. This flowed directly into the exhaust manifolds with no restriction. I had blocked off one hose and tried running the other down to the lower radiator hose but that was no good since the water flowed backwards to my intention due to the pressure difference between the cold side and hot. So off to pick a part! Standard commodore thermostat housing cut down and tapped for 3/4 bsp. The 90 degree bend puts the water hose nicely over the coil packs so it fits under the engine cover. This then dumps overboard behind the driver seat just out of reach to avoid accidental burns. Couldn't get a 60 degree thermostat so the plan is to run at 80 in fresh water with the thermostat regulating the temp, then in salt or nasty water I can just open the manual dump valve from the heater hose outlet which bypasses the thermostat to keep the engine temp below 60. Or if anyone knows where I can get a lower temp 44mm thermostat -let me know. Was wondering what latches to use for the engine cover when a Ute came into work needing a new canopy door... Also added a flushing port to the cooling system using a dishwasher tap and a valve to stop the flushing water just going back out the sand trap. The valve handle is oriented so you cannot close the engine cover with the cooling system shut off. Next mission is to mount the seats and bolt a couple new rollers to the trailer

Put some new exhaust studs in, a new set of plugs, gave the manifolds a lick of paint and reassembled everything. Got the front firewall brace tig welded up so now I can finish the engine cover. My new cooling loop involves running a line on a tap to bleed hot water off from the heater pipes. The rest of the hot water recirculates into the water pump as normal where it mixes with the cold water introduced from the jet pump via the lower radiator hose. I also ran a hose from the thermostat housing down to the lower radiator hose hoping this would temper the cold water coming in. This doesn't seem to be working great as the hose doesn't warm up. The hot side works fine and running full flow through the engine would have me in a similar situation to where it was before. Perhaps it's time to buy a mixer and do it properly. On the bright side, my wiring must have been right. Engine runs nicely but won't idle with the flywheel off once it warms up.

Got the local exhaust shop to bend some pipe for me so I could replace the crusty exhaust. Couldn't find a ball & socket joint to match the manifolds so decided to just weld the new pipes directly to the manifolds. One less flange to leak is a good thing. Pulled the manifolds off to weld everything up after tacking it in place and discovered one spark plug was mega loose. I unscrewed it and saw this.... Now those plugs were new.... maybe 10 hours of running. I'm not 100% sure if I blew it to bits by running mega lean with those crappy injectors or if there's other things going on here. Had a look at the piston which seemed to be ok. Did a compression test to make sure there were no bits missing and all the other cylinders were around 190-200psi. This one was down to 100. Put the leak-down tester onto it and sure enough, the valves weren't sealing very well at all. So I think I've either burned up a valve seat or since the back side of the exhaust valve is pretty crusty, perhaps this one has been sat open the last few months and got some crap on it. After careful consideration, the plan is to reassemble everything and carry out another compression check once it's been run for a while. Then I can decide if it's worth fitting my spare head.

Got the floor sorted and the seat mounts are nearly done. To make the new ECU enclosure fit nicely, I decided to move the firewall forward by a couple of inches. This also gives me room to get a drive belt on the engine in place. To accommodate the larger engine bay, I was trying to think of a good way to make the engine cover 2 inches longer. I tried showing it photos of the queen but when that didn't work, the only solution was to make a new cover. I measured the width at 1200mm which was super convenient being the width of a standard sheet of ply. So I popped down to Bunnings and got them to cut a sheet in half so it would fit in the car easier. Later at home, I popped the new sheet of ply into place and discovered the engine cover isn't square and is only 1200 at one end. The other being closer to 1240. So now I had 2 completely useless 1200 square sheets of ply. Back to Bunnings for another and this time cut it a bit bigger.

Holy-o fuck this took a lot longer than it was supposed to. Mostly from me looking at what I'd done, hating it then, then trying something different. But the wiring is finally complete! ECU engine harness is able to be removed with the motor by unplugging a few plugs stolen off the VS donor wiring harness. Started from scratch on the hull side of the wiring. I'd like to remind everyone I'm not an electrician so most of this is guess work. All 'mission-critical' wires have been crimped, soldered then heat shrinked. The bilge pumps and 12v outlets on the dash are on a separate circuit to everything else so can be powered with the engine ignition off. I added a couple dummy lights to the dash, got check engine light and an exhaust overheat warning light. The black coolant temp gauge will soon be replaced by a tachometer, I've already run the tacho signal up to it but haven't found a gauge I like yet. One bilge pump can run in manual or auto mode on a float switch, the second is just on a toggle. The ECU and fuse panel are now housed inside this ip56 waterproof box thingy. It took many many many attempts doing it the cheap way using cereal click clack boxes and other stupid ideas before I caved and bought something more appropriate. Next up, modify the floor and seat mounts. After that, cooling system. Getting closer.

A couple of the dash gauges fell to bits from my hammering on the hull. So put a set of save barns finest in there. Added a USB and cigarette lighter outlet I'd had lying around the shed for a while. The carpet is just there for my comfort while I'm contorted up under that dash trying to wire all this stuff in. Kept the old coolant temp gauge to use for exhaust temp. Ditched the ignition key switch and will just be using a rocker switch.

Put the hull right side up, got it back on the trailer, painted the inside and put the engine back in. First job was to move the fuel pump. It was previously a few inches above the highest part of the fuel tank so I can't imagine it self primed very well. So I mounted it down near the bottom of the tank, moved the filter and tidied up the fuel lines a lot. Installed a new bilge pump in the port side, put new wiring and hose to the existing pump on the other side and shortened the discharge hoses a lot. Started figuring out the slightly bananas wiring for the engine. It's become a much bigger job than I was expecting. I'd strip some wiring back then find a bunch of bullet crimps with a wire falling out.