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Flash's 1965 Ford Thames


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I've done as much as I can on the front bracket for the gate selector cable. I've left it extra long and have just temporarily clamped it to the chassis leg. I'll only be able to work out the final bracket length once the bobbin on the column shift rod end has been fabricated and mounted so I'll leave the final trimming of the bracket and positioning of the mounting bolts until then.

Gave it a quick test by moving the pivot lever by hand and the gate selection works like a charm.

I'll start on the gear shift cable tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

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It's gear selector cable day here at Rough & Ready Restos.

I'm still a novice at this sort of thing and geometry was never my strong point, so I decided to move forward in baby steps. 

I started off by double checking the orientation and throw of the gear selector arm on the 5 speed HiAce gearbox. I was able to confirm that the arm moves 30 mm forward from neutral for gears 1,3 and 5 and 30 mm backward for gears 2, 4 and reverse so total movement required on the gearbox arm is 60 mm.

I then dug out the "cotton reel" / pivot arm combo that I hacked off the end of the Starwagon column shift a few months back as this is the bit that I am already using for the gate selector mechanism. The aim of the game was to check the movement available. I grabbed a bit of cardboard and mocked up the pivot to take a few measurements. This arm moves in an arc so with the cable in a fixed position there is only so much movement available before I exceed the cable tolerance. Took a few measurements   and I've got a maximum of 50 mm movement on this end.

50 mm at the front and 60 mm needed at the back means its not going to be as straight forward as I was hoping. 

So on to the next step while I contemplate this little challenge.

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Next I grabbed the two remaining cables that I have in my stash.

The top one is out of the older Starwagon and the bottom one is out of the newer Express.

Since the movement of the column pivot lever and the gearbox selector lever are at odds with each other I'll need to loop this cable around the back of the gearbox so I get a "push" on the box to match the "pull" on the column and vice versa.

Neither cable is long enough in its natural state, so I'll need to get a longer one made up, but I've still got a way to go on sorting this out before I need to worry about that.

First off I needed to check the movement available in each of the cables, so took a few measurements and was able to confirm that the Starwagon cable has a total movement of 48 mm and the Express cable 40 mm.

So I now know that I need 60 mm of travel on the gearbox, I've only got 50 mm max available on the column lever and my cables will only give me 48 mm or 40 mm respectively.

Yikes, that's not good ...

So I'm thinking I'll definitely need a longer cable with different fittings made up that will give me a greater deal of travel.

There is also one important piece of the puzzle that is missing in that my Thames column shift is currently sitting at my local engineering shop, so I can't check how much rotation on the column the shift column actually gives me. So I'll need to get that back to check it. 

This stuff is doing my head in.

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Looking at what fittings I will need on the new cable I'm leaning towards a small ball joint on the gearbox side.

On the column side my first thoughts were  to go for a loop as this would be the smoothest way to get the arc motion that I need, so I mocked this up quickly by fixing the loop on the Express cable to the Starwagon pivot lever using an old seat belt bolt that I had lying around as its the perfect diameter for both the cable and the lever. The shank was the perfect length to allow rotation too.

Whilst this setup will work for the gear selector I don't think its going to cut the mustard for the "up and down" movement that will be occurring at the same time for the gate selector.

Another ball joint may be the way to go.

Getting back to the mismatch between the gear selector (60mm) and column selector (50mm) movement, I'm thinking the easiest way to solve this issue would be to shorten the length of the gearbox lever to get it to match the 50mm column movement, but a shorter lever will result in more force being required and I just don't know how that will behave once everything is together. I won't really know until I try.

So in conclusion :

  • I have a mismatch in throw required on both the gearbox and column side
  • The amount of movement available on the column stalk is unknown until I get the column back from the engineering shop
  • I have a cable that is too short
  • That same cable has insufficient movement to get me where I need to be
  • Further work is needed on the cable end requirements

It's time for a lie down.

Thanks for reading.

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I had a cup of tea with an extra spoon of sugar as my cable related findings had caused a bit of a shock, and I then went for a quick lie down under the Thames.

Now my old Mum used to have a saying that she would often wheel out during my youth. I can still hear her saying in her broad Scots accent "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".

Lying on my back I figured now was as good a time as any to put that saying into practice.

So I quickly pulled the gear shift arm off my mock up gearbox and made up a rough little chart depicting the swing of the arm on some cardboard. Rough as guts but you get the idea. I figured I would try to work out the ideal cable mounting point that would give me sufficient travel to match what I think I can achieve at the column. Did some quick calcs and then poked a hole closer to the pivot point. Chucked on the Starwagon cable with the little ball joint. Even the bracket on the Starwagon cable looked promising.

I refitted the gearbox arm and temporarily clamped the little bracket in place and gave the loose end of the cable a quick tug. Lo and behold the selector moved. I had to tweak the position of the bracket a little, but I quickly managed to get the lever moving forward and backward perfectly. The force needed on the cable doesn't feel excessive, so I may be in with a good chance here. I did a quick measurement on the cable and I've managed to reduce the throw to 20 mm either way. A total of 40mm is well within the movement specs of the Starwagon cable and should work for the front lever too. I just hope that the shift pattern won't be too short up at the column stalk. I'll need to confirm that early in the new week when I get the column back.

So all in all not a bad result for a quick bodge job.

 

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Thought I'd make a start on the handbrake setup today. The loose plan is to use the front portion of the original Thames setup and somehow mate it to the rear portion from the HiAce.

I crawled under the Thames for a look see and then checked out the underside of the HiAce. First thing I noticed is that both setups use a single pull point with a cable splitter setup on the back axle. This makes things a lot more straight forward than if I was trying to mate the Thames to the L300 setup which uses a separate cable to each back wheel. 

First step was to strip the rear cables and axle brackets off the HiAce.

Apologies for the crappy pic, but you get the idea.

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The main cable for the HiAce setup fixes to a chassis mounted lever about half way towards the front and a thinner cable then travels from this lever to the handbrake handle mounted under the dash. First thing I did was separate the main cable from the lever. Easily done as its just an adjustment nut on the threaded end of the cable. There is a neat little holding bracket for the outer sheath that is welded to the HiAce chassis.

I cut the little bracket off, heated up the ends and bent them flat. The mounting plates are all on the piss, but I figured I would trim them as best as I can and them poke a few holes for mounting under the Thames.

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A bit of a trim and a few holes later and it was ready for fitting. There is a chassis cross brace under the Thames which is in the perfect spot and it even had one mounting hole already in the correct position so I only needed to drill one more hole in the brace. Mounted it up and clamped in the cable. The brackets not that pretty, but it will do the job.

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All that remains is to mate the HiAce cable to the solid Thames rod. Originally the Thames had a turnbuckle with a little ear for a return spring. The challenge is that the rod is too long for the HiAce cable, so I'll need to shorten the rod. Also the turnbuckle is an imperial thread which doesn't match the metric thread on the HiAce cable.

Then I remembered that I had a stainless turnbuckle left over when I put up a shade sail a while back. Grabbed it from my stash and as luck would have it the thread matches the HiAce cable. These turnbuckles can handle some serious force so I'm fairly confident it will hold up to the task. Time will tell I guess.

The thread on the other end of the turnbuckle is a reverse one so that is another wee challenge, but I'm thinking the easiest option might be to cut the hook off the reverse threaded part and  then weld it onto the Thames rod once I've shortened the Thames rod to the correct length.

So that's the plan. Hopefully it works out.

Thanks for reading.

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I got a call this morning from my local engineering works to say that my gearshift bushes were ready so I headed through to town and picked these puppies up. I got them made longer than I need so I can trim them to suit.

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Then I trimmed the acetyl bush to the correct length and fitted it to my steering / gearshift mounting plate and temporarily bolted the steering column outer in place so that I could mount the gear shift column. Cleaned up the end of the gearshifter so that my gubbins slides on nicely.

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I bolted the gate lever to my plywood mock up and held it in position for another quick test. Works as anticipated so I'm happy with that. I have already cut the plate for the gate lever, so tomorrow I'll poke a few holes in it and I can then glue it to the main mount. I'm going to make up some shims that will go between the gate lever and its mounting plate so that I can fine tune how much the barrel engages with the cotton reel in case any of the welding is on the piss.

 

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I picked up the handbrake rod from my mate Brenton this morning. He was able to glue the stainless steel reverse threaded rod to the original mild steel Thames rod for me, so I'm a really happy camper.

I'll give it a lick of satin black when I paint the chassis so it doesn't look so blingy, but for now I'll tick the handbrake off the "to do" list.

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I spent the rest of this morning fine tuning the position of my column shift mechanism.

With the gearshift mechanism and steering components in such close proximity to each other its looking like a pretty busy little office, but everything works and I'm getting enough movement on both planes with a teeny bit of breathing space, so I'm happy to knock up the rest of the mount.

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This morning I poked a few holes in the bracket that holds the gate selector pivot arm, then glued it all together. I made up some 1 mm shims so that I can adjust how much the barrel on the gate lever engages with the "cotton reel" on the gear shift column. Test assembled it with three shims in place and the lever moves nice and smoothly,  I had to shave a bit off the gear selection arm as it was helluva close to hitting the gate selector pivot at full throw, but it's now got plenty of clearance.

I'm very happy happy with the result.

Next step is to mount everything back in the van so I can get a final measurement for the modified steering column. I've already measured it twice, but I'm keen to measure it one more time just to make sure. With a bit of luck on Monday I should be able to drop the steering column off at the engineering works for a cut and graft job.

Things are starting to come together nicely.

Thanks for reading.

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Yesterday I triple checked the required length of my modified steering column so I'll drop that off with Brenton tomorrow morning so he can do a cut and paste job on it. It needs to go for crack testing afterwards, so I figured rather get a pro to do it.

Hopefully the pic below is the last one of the steering column in two pieces. I also spent a bit of time working out the route for my gearshift cable so I could confirm the length it needs to be. I've got a lead on someone local who may be able to make the cable up for me, so I'll give him a buzz in the morning to see if I can drop by his place.

 

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Following some prompting from @cletus a few weeks ago, I provided my local certifier with a drawing depicting the mk 2 version of my brake booster setup. The concern at the time was the complexity of the three piece push rod that would be needed to activate the master cylinder attached to the booster and the intention was to get the nod before I started on the fabrication. 

Early last week I got notification back that the positioning of the booster in the front wheel well is a no go. Apparently the risk of damage to the brake system by the front wheel should something fail on the front suspension is the stumbling block. I was told that not even a protection plate would negate the risk. This not only rules out this setup but also effectively rules out my mk 1 setup which had a remote booster located in the same spot.

The only option I'm left with is to go back to my mk 1 setup but instead of locating the remote booster in the wheel arch I'll move it further towards the back under the floor of the van. So this morning I hunted around for a suitable space and found a few factory holes in one of the chassis cross members that will provide a neat place to attach a mounting bracket for the booster.

 

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