Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

Spent the morning fine tuning the pulley alignment on the Mitsi Express power steering pump. I'd previously used a dirty old flat plate off-cut to create an adapter between the Express mounting bracket and the mounting holes on the mighty 3Y engine block, but the pulleys were slightly out of alignment. So, I figured while the engine was out I'd see if I could improve things.

Chucked the plate in the vice and gave it a tentative tap with my BFH. Reassembled everything for a look see, but still not perfect. Took three goes before I got the angle perfect.

Once I was happy that the belt now runs true, I trimmed the plate a wee bit and hit it with a splash of paint just to make it look less out of place.

And that's another item ticked off the list.

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I'm always amazed by how well the old vinegar bath works.

I chucked the manky looking alternator pulley in for a soak and a day later a crusty donut had formed on the surface of the vinegar right above the pulley.... yummy.

Gave it a quick scrub but it still had a few rust patches so I chucked it back in for another soak.

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In other news I've triple checked all of my front suspension measurements, so it's time to fully weld the new mounts.

Stripped it down to the bare beam yesterday and I'll give it a quick fizz today.

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Bit of a lazy day yesterday.

I've been painting the front suspension beam which is now fully welded up and in between coats I carved up some aluminium angle to make two little mounting brackets for the radiator thermo fan.

 

 

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Thought I'd spend a bit of time tidying up some wiring.

Since my planned replacement alternator is internally regulated, I'm able to send the original external regulator to the parts bin. Pulled the unit out and spent a bit of time working through the Thames wiring diagram to figure out what is what. Bridged the A1 and A wires together and put things through a bit of a test. Ignition switch, starter, indicators, headlights, tail lights, dash lights and hooter all working as expected. Coil wire is getting power when the ignition switch is on so that also looks positive .... excuse the pun.

Brake lights are staying on which seems a bit strange as they are activated by a pressure switch located in the front brake line and the brake lines are empty at the moment. So, I may have a dicky switch. I'll need to check that out.

 

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Yesterday I took a drive to my good mate Grant's place and used his hydraulic press to swap in a pair of fresh upper control arm ball joints. 

I'll give the arms a rub and spritz on a bit of satin black before I call them done.

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Thought I'd give the lower control arms a bit of loving at the same time, so stripped them down and gave them a quick spank with the "wire wheel of death"

Pushed the Moke out of its nest, strung up my washing line and spritzed a bit of primer about the place.

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While I had a gun full of primer I decided to give the old steering wheel a birthday as she was looking pretty grot.

Tickled her down with some 600 grit and gave her a shot of undercoat too.

Next up is a few coats of satin black.

Thanks for looking.

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Well it was a toasty 33 degrees Celsius under the shade of the back carport today. The perfect weather for donning my onesy and face mask so I could fling a bit of 2K satin black about the place.

Came out noice.

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I spent the morning putting in the freshly painted steering column and wheel for the very last time. Fitted my NOS indicator mechanism at the same time so everything is nice and fresh.

With the column firmly bolted in place I was finally able to connect up the handbrake mechanism and give it a go for the very first time.

Works like an absolute charm which is a relief as it's a real mishmash of Thames and Toyota bits, so I had my doubts about it.

Anyhoo, pictures of the fresh install looking rather bling:

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Okay, so back on to the electrical system. There isn't heaps of real estate under the Thames dash, but I decided to fill the little space where I'd previously removed the defunct voltage regulator with a fuse box or two. From factory the Thames comes with only a single inline fuse which is less than ideal if you are planning to add a few modern creature comforts.

I have two new slimline 6-way fuse boxes in stock, but I really hate this style as they don't have a common input pole so you end up having to loop the input wire from one fuse to the next. Looks bloody ugly. So after a bit of head scratching, I decided to try an alternative power feed method. Ended up opening up the existing holes in each terminal and threading through a pair of long self-tapping screws that create a common power bus.

Looks like so:

 

 

[Flash]

Carved up a little aluminium backing plate for the fuse boxes that bolts over where the voltage regulator used to live. Slapped a bit of satin black on it and made a little cover for the power bus strip out of a piece of black plastic. The relay will feed the ignition powered fuse box with the relay trigger wire being activated by the ignition switch.

Doesn't look too bad.

[Flash]

Wipers - Chapter 1

I've been procrastinating over the wiper setup for the Thames for a really long time. As I've previously mentioned the Thames came from factory with a vacuum operated wiper setup. For cert here in Straya the minimum requirement is a two-speed wiper system, so something needed to be done.

Earlier this week I was swapping a few yarns with Sandy who up until recently headed up the Thames 400E Owners Club in the UK. Sandy has been restoring and modifying 400Es for over 40 years and is an absolute wealth of information.

In passing I happened to mention that I was considering using the early Mini cable driven wiper setup on my van and was advised by Sandy that the wiper sweep angles would be wrong. It turns out that the right-hand wiper on a Thames sweeps around 90 degrees whilst the left-hand wiper sweeps around 120 degrees. This is achieved through the length of the pivot arm on each wiper spindle being different, something that can't easily be adjusted on the Mini setup.

So it was at this point that I realised I needed to address the elephant in the room.

Now it just so happens that Sandy has done countless wiper conversions over the years. In the early days it was easy enough to source the wiper mechanism out of a diesel powered 400E as these were factory equipped with electrical wipers, but as you can imagine in later years these setups became as common as rocking horse poo, so Sandy started adapting MK3 Capri wiper motors to fit the existing Thames mechanisms. 

The marked up photo below (kindly provided by Sandy) compares the 3 setups:

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Wipers - Chapter 2

Sandy kindly offered to source a MK3 Capri wiper motor in the UK for me, but as you can imagine they are also starting to get thin on the ground and as a result prices have crept up considerably. I am also worried about finding a replacement in the future should the motor fail, so for now I'm going to attempt to replicate what Sandy has done using a more readily available wiper motor.

I currently have two HiAce and one L300 wiper motors that I pulled from my donor vans, so I dusted them off for a quick look and I've set my sights on the L300 one as it is the more compact of the two. I still have the front panel that I cut from the L300 so it was easy enough to setup a little test bed with the L300 wiper motor and mechanism, just so that I could work out the wiring and it also gave me an opportunity to observe exactly how the L300 mechanism works. Reason for this is that the Thames vacuum unit only moves a total of around 170 degrees whilst modern electric wiper motors rotate a full 360 degrees and I needed to get my head around how this is achieved.

Anyway, photo of the selected wiper motor below as well as a candid shot of the L300 front panel complete with wiper mechanism attached to my little test bench:

 

 

[Flash]

Wipers - Chapter 3

With the L300 wiper motor now being the weapon of choice, I started to work through the detail of the conversion. And again, the information provided by Sandy has been absolute gold.

Sandy usually harvests the little pivot arm off the original Thames motor as this matches the rest of the Thames wiper mechanism. According to Sandy this little arm measures 28.75mm from pivot centre to centre. I cuddled down with my vacuum wiper and vernier and sure enough Sandy is 100% correct.

First order of business was to harvest this little pivot arm.

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Wipers - Chapter 4

Next step was to remove the pivot arm from the L300 wiper motor as the ball joint is no longer required. 

This was a lot easier as it sits on a spline so just loosen the holding nut and hey presto:

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Wipers - Chapter 5

Sandy pointed out to me that the mounting angle for the new wiper motor is critical.

Straight down and the wiper motor sticks out below the dash line.

Too far angled one way and the glove box inner will no longer fit. 

Too far angled the other way and the wiper motor clashes with the back of the instrument cluster.

It's going to take a bit of working out.

Pity I hadn't thought of doing this before I reinstalled the steering column and handbrake mechanism earlier this week. 

Anyhoo, onward and upward so I set about stripping everything out one more time, including the instrument cluster.

Oh, and just to add insult to injury it looks like my newly fabricated fuse and relay panel will also be in the way...... ho humm...... so that came out too.

Blank canvas once again:

 

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Wipers - Chapter 6

Thought I'd perform a little "proof of concept" with my harvested wiper bits.

First order of business was to mate the Thames pivot arm to the L300 one. The centre to centre measurement provided by Sandy is 24.5mm. First challenge was the bend in the L300 arm which happens to be right where the Thames pivot pin needs to be located, so I ended up bending up a L300 replacement pivot arm with an offset bend. Figured I'd use aluminium for the test as it was soft enough to cut its own little spline to match the motor's output shaft. Then I reversed the Thames arm and temporarily bolted the two arms together.

Last step was to modify the L300 wiper motor mounting plate and bolt it to the Thames mechanism. It took a bit of fine tuning to get the position perfect. The trick is not to overdrive either of the end swivels otherwise you get a jamb up. Used some extra nuts on the bolts to get the spacing between the output shaft and the mechanism spot on.

Bolted the whole lot back into the van, chucked the wiper arms on and gave it a whirl. Sweep angles are spot on, instrument cluster fits perfectly and for the extra bonus I'm able to retain my recently fabricated fuse boxes.

Only snag is the glove box inner which needs the uppermost corner tweaked to clear the wiper motor, but the jury is still out on whether I plan to retain the factory glove box, so I'm not too fussed about that.

Next step is to try to figure out how I wire up the wiper park feature, but I'll ask Uncle Google to help me with that one.

A few photos for your viewing pleasure:

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Alternator upgrade - Step 1

Earlier this week my 140-amp alternator pitched up which is pretty exciting as fitting this is the last step before the engine and gearbox go back in.

First step was to swap out the single V pulley for the multi-v that I harvested from the standard Toyota alternator earlier in the piece.

 

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Alternator upgrade - Step 2

Next step was to widen the curved groove in the adjustment arm as the fixing bolt on the Ford alternator is a bigger diameter than the original Toyota one.

Gave it a tickle with my dremel and then quickly slapped on a bit of satin black to disguise my butchery.