Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

While the carby hat beautification project is steadily taking place in the background I thought I'd share the next item on the "to do" list with you.

So, as I've mentioned before due to limited real estate in my engine box I'm only able to bless the mighty 3Y engine with one belt driven ancillary and at the moment that is the Mitsi Express belt driven power steering pump. However, the intention is to flick on our modern Bongo van and substitute the Thames as our everyday driver, and before this can happen, I need to fit a/c to the Thames. Now as I've mentioned before my initial plan was to run a 12-volt a/c compressor, but in talking to my local a/c guru I soon realised that whilst these little 21cc compressors work fine in compact hot rods they ain't going to cut the mustard in a relatively spacious Thames van. This leaves me with only one option being a beefy belt driven compressor, so the belt driven power steering pump needs to go.

My first thought was to convert back to manual steering which I posted about a few weeks back and to be honest it absolutely sucked. I then turned to the OS tech forum for some guidance and those in the know suggested I look for a Holden Astra electric power steering pump as these would be relatively plentiful here in Straya.

So, armed with a downloaded photo of an Astra TS which is the model required I headed over to my local wreckers. Turns out they had only one TS in stock and so I moseyed on over for a quick gander. The car looked absolutely mint. No accident damage and all that was missing was the front grill and exhaust manifold. Winner, I thought and proceeded to remove the pump which is a bitch of a job as those who have done this before will confirm. Anyway, the last step in the process was to cut the hydraulic lines and this is where things got interesting. Cutting into the pressure line resulted in not a drop of fluid leaking out. Hullo, I thought. Got it out into the sunlight and the reservoir was dry as a bone. Checked under the car and sure enough the steering rack and associated kit was still all intact. So how come this thing has no fluid I wondered. Anyway at $150 asking price and no guarantee as its classed as an electrical component I decided to walk away. Back at base camp I searched the web for another but prices for second hand units in the bigger towns over here run in the $200 plus figures. Eventually I decided to take the plunge on a new aftermarket unit which costs about double the going rate for a second hand one but comes with a 3-year replacement warranty.

And then a few days later a friendly courier dropped this off:

First thing I noticed was this funky looking electrical plug which I couldn't identify. I toyed with the idea of cutting off the plug, but the seller confirmed that this was likely to void the warranty. So I reached out to OS with a photo of the plug and luckily @tortron came to the rescue with a link to one which is now making its way from the other side of the world.

While I'm waiting for the plug, I started poking around the van to figure out a suitable location for the pump. I was going to tuck it under the driver's side front fender, but the issue is access to the incorporated fluid reservoir for top ups, so I then focused on the back corner of the engine box where my existing Mitsi Express fluid reservoir is mounted. Pulled it out to clear some space and yep, this looks like it will work perfectly:

 Next step was to trim the redundant mounting tabs off the Astra mounting bracket:

I'm just waiting for the touch up paint to dry and I can then puzzle out some kind of angled bracket to attach the Astra bracket to the rear wall of my engine box.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Only had a few hours in the shed today so spritzed the final coats on the carby hat. I should be able to present it to you in glorious technicolour tomorrow.

In other news I've been fine tuning the Astra pump bracket. It had a little angled section that was quite close to the engine and didn't seem to be serving any purpose.

So, I pulled a bit of a van Gogh move and the little ear is no more. Have replaced it with a straight piece since taking this photo:

I then tackled a bit of CAD and I now have this pattern for the bracket that will bolt up to the rear wall of the engine box:

I've run out of welding wire and I don't have a big enough piece of steel plate to create my bracket, so it's off to town I go tomorrow for some extra supplies.

[Flash]

Well, that's the carby hat ready to rock and roll.

It took a bit of time to grind down all of my crappy welds. I cheated a bit and used some JB Weld to smooth out some of the really grotty looking bits. Also used a ripple coat which has masked some of the ugliness.

Final step was to add two stainless steel washers and matching nipple caps for that extra bit of bling.

[Flash]

Finally fitted the new carby hat and bolted the removable engine box side back into position. 

Looks almost like a bought one.

[Flash]

Took a trip into town yesterday to pick up a fresh roll of welding wire and grabbed a bit of 5mm plate from my local scrappy. It's a bit crusty but nothing I can't sort out.

Did a bit of cutting, did a bit of welding, poked a few holes and we have the rough makings of a mounting base for the Astra power steering pump.

 

More tomorrow.

[Flash]

Poked some more holes that allowed me to bolt the original Astra mounting bracket to my newly fabricated bracket. Took a few goes before I managed to get everything in place with just a smidge of clearance all around.

Closed the engine lid and the top of the reservoir just clears.

Sheesh, she's a tight one as the bishop said to the actress.

Tomorrow I'll pull the brackets out for a bit of beautification.

 

[Flash]

Gave my rough looking Astra pump base bracket a bit of shaping followed by a light spanking with a flapper disc and lastly a little spritz of satin black.

Will let it dry overnight and I can then slap it all back together tomorrow.

[Flash]

A few weeks back I was swapping a few yarns with Sandy who until recently headed up the UK based Thames 400E Owner's Club. Somehow, we got onto the subject of engine cooling and in passing Sandy mentioned a U shaped lower air deflector plate that was fitted from factory to all of the 400Es with the flat upper deflector plate only being fitted to vans exported to hotter climates. He immediately had my attention as my van has only ever sported the upper deflector plate.

Sandy shared this image with me:

Back in the day the UK boys used to run a standard Thames radiator to cool their mid mounted V8 conversions with many of them running no helper fan at all and never experienced cooling issues. Granted the UK is a lot cooler than Straya, but I've noticed that my van runs a little warmer than I was expecting and I'm thinking that its likely due to the missing air deflector.

So while I'm in a bit of a holding pattern while the paint on my Astra pump brackets dries, I figured I'd make a start on my air deflector.

Started off with some rough looking CAD work:

 

CAD is a bit floppy, so the plan for tomorrow is to create a copy in plywood as a rigid mock-up.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Created a second air deflector mock-up using an old piece of plywood which made it rigid enough to create accurate side profiles in cardboard.

The funky shaped cutout on the driver's side upright is needed to clear the floor mounted high beam switch. A test fit proved successful, so I rummaged around in my sheet metal bin, but sadly I didn't have a piece of flat plate big enough, so yesterday we did a trip into town and I picked up this 1.5mm thick beauty:

Had to figure out a cunning way to fold up the main shape. After a bit of head scratching, I decided to use one of the steel posts that hold up the roof for our back carport. Gave the plate a bit of a score and then clamped it to the post with an old bit of angle iron attached for leverage.

My two big pipe wrenches and a handy piece of thick-walled steel pipe for extra leverage and my bender was ready to go.

 

And then there was this:

Gave the sides a bit of a trim and then carved the little notch to clear the high beam switch and she is almost ready for a test fit.

Tomorrow I'll poke a few holes for mounting up front and then I need to create some mounting brackets to attach the rear of the duct to the chassis.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Today's focus was on the fixings for my newly fabricated air deflector.

Bolting up the front of the deflector was easy as my plan was to use the factory mounting points on the valance where the original deflector was fixed.

The rear fixings for the factory deflector were on the original Thames cross member, which is no longer, so I had to get creative. Luckily two of the chassis based mounting holes for the original cross member looked to be positioned perfectly for the task.

All I had to do was fabricate two little mounting tabs. Started off with some CAD work:

Which I replicated in steel.

And the test fit went off without a hitch.

Tomorrow I'll run a bead of weld along each fold just to beef things up where I scribed the plate. Then a quick clean up followed by a spritz of paint and that will be another item ticked off the list.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Flash]

Started off the day by chucking a bit of weld to strengthen up the folds. Hit it with a flapper disk to mask my ugliness.

Then a quick spritz of satin black.

Looks half decent.

[Flash]

I'm back in a holding pattern while I wait for the hydraulic man to slot me in for my new power steering hose, so I thought I'd make a start on the next item on the list namely the fitting of extra gauges.

My current thinking is to fit four extra 2 inch gauges if I can. These being a water temp gauge, a voltmeter, an oil pressure gauge and lastly a rev counter.

Looking at what other Thames owners have done, there are a few options.

This image shows an instrument cluster that has been attached to the factory option heater box:

Whilst I currently don't have a heater box one of my future plans is to fabricate a similar looking box to house my a/c evaporator, so fitting a gauge pod like this could be an option, but in my case I now have the floor mounted gearshift which would clash with this. So, for this reason I've excluded this as an option.

The next option is quite a popular one and involves replacing the open glove box with a flat panel that allows for the fitting of extra gauges, switches and the like. Just like so:

I'm currently leaning towards this setup. The only thing that I don't like about it is that it looks homemade.

I'd prefer something that looks like it could have been a factory option.

I then remembered that the old Cortina MK1 GTs had a nice setup, that looked like so:

 

It just so happens that my mate Grant has a couple of Cortinas and he had a spare GT cluster that he lent me.

However, on closer inspection the GT gauge pod has an angle built into it which wouldn't suit a flat panel.

There is no way that I was going to hack up a rare GT cluster just to make it fit, so I came up with a plan B which involves using 4 cheap plastic gauge pods that I will poke through a flat mounting panel to create a similar look to the GT cluster.

eBay delivered up 4 of these beauties earlier in the week, so it's time for me to make a start.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Continued working on my gauge cluster setup.

The outer diameter of the plastic gauge pod is 60mm and it just so happens that I have a 60mm hole saw left over from our house reno.

 

Played around with a few offcuts. First up was a bit of 3mm aluminium plate, but the poor old hole saw took a bit of strain, so I'm thinking of using something softer.

Next up was an old scrap of plywood. Much easier to cut, but I'm not so keen on the woodgrain. Cut one anyway and set it up with the pod to get the feel.

So, ignoring the woodgrain issue for the moment, I focused on the rest of the look.

The hole saw leaves a slight gap which will need filling. Not that easy to achieve when the distance between gauge pods will be around 10mm. But I'm thinking that if I was to find a bit of PVC pipe that the gauge pod could slip into, then I'd be able to create some slip rings that I could push over the pods from the front. This would fill up the gap and also if I made the slip rings long enough, they would give the gauge the "countersunk" look that I am aiming for ala the Cortina GT gauge panel. I'll scratch around the Bunnings plumbing aisle to see what I can find next time we are in town.

In terms of dealing with the woodgrain I'm thinking that a piece of veneered ply might do the trick.

I'll rummage through my wood pile tomorrow to see what I can find.

 

  

[Flash]

I'm hopping about between jobs at the moment.

The paint was dry on my new air duct so I quickly fitted that with some fresh stainless nuts and bolts.

Next small job was to figure out a way of mounting my "yet to be fabricated" gauge panel in place.

Here is a close up of the opening that the panel will sit in.

The easiest thing in the world would be to drill a few holes in the dash and chuck some self-tappers in, but my OCD couldn't cope with that, so I've come up with an alternate plan that involves these two countersunk headed bolts:

I mixed up a bit of JB Weld and smeared it all over the head of each bolt, then used a small clamp to fix them to the back of the metal dash until the glue goes off.

I'll then make the inner panel longer than the opening with holes drilled to pick up the bolt positions. Hopefully they will be strong enough to hold the panel in place.

I'll then cut a second panel in the shape of the actual opening which I will bond to the inner panel thus bringing the actual face panel in line with the rest of the dashboard.

It looks okay in my head at the moment, so hopefully it will turn out just as good when I've actually made it.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Because I lead such a sad life, the smallest of things cause much excitement and I've just got to share this one with my oldschooler mates.

So, a few posts back I was talking about my gauge panel and the fact that I wanted to try and find some slip rings to finish off the 2-inch gauges and my plan was to check out the Bunnings plumbing aisle on our next town trip.

Anyway, I'm a self-confessed hoarder of note and earlier this morning I thought I'd rummage through my own stash of plumbing related bits and pieces. Started off by unpacking my two plumbing boxes but didn't find anything suitable. Then I spotted another box that contains left over bits from when we had our pool installed. At the time I remember the pool installers rolling their eyes as I scurried about gathering up all of their discarded bits and pieces, but to me this stuff is gold.

So anyway, I dragged the pool storage container out into the sunlight.

Popped the lid. Wow, not much of a choice I'm afraid.

 

But, then old eagle eye spotted a few bits of interest. Dug them out for a closer look and couldn't believe my luck. Exactly 4 of these puppies:

 

Rushed back to the garage and grabbed my mock up gauge. Bloody perfect !

 

And each of them has a magic little side profile that will give me exactly the look that I am aiming for.

See, I told you that my life was sad.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

I've asked my mate Cameron to dig around his aluminium offcuts for a long enough piece to make my gauge plate, so I've put that job to one side for now.

Turned my focus to the next big-ticket item being the installation of an a/c system.

First thing to work out is what I'm going to do for the dash unit.

I briefly toyed with the idea of fabricating my own loosely based on the factory option heater unit that was a popular option in colder countries. It's quite agricultural looking and reports are that their operation was piss poor. Looks like so:

My plan was to substitute the heater core with an a/c evaporator. I even went as far as to build a grotty looking working mock-up in typical Rough & Ready Restos fashion.

I used an old "hamster wheel" type blower motor that came out of the Mustang. It was noisy as hell, but still worked okay. Warm air gets sucked in through some openings down low on each side.

The air then passes through the evaporator and cold air exits through the top holes.

Here is an image of the evaporator that I was planning to mount horizontally across the box:

The cold air would then exit the holes in the top of the box where it would be routed via some slinky pipe to ball type outlets that I was going to fit to the metal dashboard.

Even went as far as to place it in position inside the cab.

Actual testing of the mock up confirmed that air flow was pretty poor and that was even before fitting a restrictive evaporator coil. I could probably have tried a more powerful / efficient fan to up the flow, but at that point I took my medication and decided to go down a more conventional path.

So, allow me to introduce the next option, being an off the shelf under dash unit. Something along the lines of this:

The good thing about these units is that they are relatively cheap and work really well. The one fitted to our 66 Mustang is colder than the a/c in our modern Bongo van.

However, fitting one of these units is not without its challenges. As per the photo below the unit would be mounted to the underside of the dashboard just below my planned gauge panel and between the taped marks in this photo :

The eagle eyed amongst you will immediately notice that the bloody handbrake lever is in the way of the proposed unit. I could offset the unit towards the passenger side thus clearing the handbrake but leaving poor Mrs Flash to freeze her tits off while I swelter on the other side of the cab. Not an option Mrs Flash told me in no uncertain terms. Also, my OCD couldn't cope with that look, so I needed to come up with plan B.

Toyed briefly with the idea of fitting an umbrella style handbrake lever out of my mid 80s HiAce donor. Would have been a pain in the butt to adapt and wouldn't have looked half as good as the original Thames unit. So, I discarded that idea too. Then thought about a foot activated mechanism or maybe something hydraulic, but again I stuffed these ideas into the "too hard" basket pretty promptly.

Then in the wee hours of the morning I came up with a cunning idea, as you do.

So with an extra spring in my step, I skipped off to the shed bright and early this morning.

Quickly whipped out the steering column bracket that incorporates the current handbrake lever for a closer look see.

Yike, I thought ... I wonder if I can unpick the internal bracket that holds the handbrake lever and flip it 180 degrees. Worth a go I reckoned, so put on my big boy pants and took to it with my grinder of angles and end up with these::

Fizzed them back together and ended up with this:

And my handbrake lever now sits on the right hand side of the column. Connected it all up and the handbrake works perfectly. Only issue is that the handle is too long so I can't close the door which is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Seriously though, I'd taken some measurements beforehand, so I knew this starting out, but I wanted to prove the concept before going as far as hacking up the handle.

So, the next step is to do a bit of a "cut and shut" so I end up with a shorter handle that still has the factory rounded end.

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Yesterday I did a town trip to source a new hydraulic hose for my latest power steering setup, but more about that later.

This morning I circumcised my handbrake lever.

Kept the little "jerry helmet" tip.

Fizzed it back on then hit it with a flapper disc and spritzed it with a bit of satin black.

Just waiting for the paint to dry.

Looks hilarious but works a treat.

 

[Flash]

WARNING - I'M ABOUT TO BARRY ON ABOUT A/C COMPRESSORS .... you have been warned.

After hours and hours of research I now know far more than anyone should about mounting an a/c compressor to a Toyota 3Y engine.

The first thing that I learnt thanks to some info shared by @Jeffs_Emporium is that Toyota used two options of factory a/c compressor brackets. 

The next thing that I learnt after getting someone on the Book of Faces to chuck a tape measure on the mounting bracket featured in the image below is that using this bracket the a/c compressor will not clear the chassis rail on my Thames van:

However, the second more compact option shown in the image below might just allow the compressor to clear my chassis rail with literally millimetres to spare :

So armed with this info I began searching for just such a bracket. Now one would think that here in sunny old Queensland there would be heaps of a/c equipped old Toyotas sitting in wrecking yards. But checking in with my two local wreckers and about half a dozen others spread through Queensland proved fruitless. 

I then spent every day watching FB Marketplace and pinged everyone who was stripping a Y powered Toyota with no luck. Eventually about two weeks ago a guy located about an hour from me listed an early 90s YR20 Torago that he was parting out, so I flicked off the usual query. Turned out his van was equipped with a/c and he sent a few photos which revealed it was the correct bracket. FB message trail went like this:

Me - Hey mate, how much for the bracket and second crankshaft pulley?

Him - $250 if you come through and strip it yourself or $395 if I have to strip it.

Me - Yikes, mate I don't want to buy the whole van, just the a/c bracket.

Him - Oh if you want the whole van I'll let it go for $1000.

Me - Foxtrot Oscar mate.

Him - silence.

Then yesterday I had to head into town to pick up my new power steering hose and I thought I'd wheel by the two wrecker yards to see if anything fresh had come in. It just so happened that Luke was behind the counter at the second wreckers and he is a lot more chatty than his monosyllabic mates. Was sharing my tales of fruitless searches with him and he mentioned an old LiteAce wreck that was languishing in the bush in a part of the yard that I hadn't noticed before. "Watch out for snakes up there matey" was his parting shot as I headed up the hill .... yikes Ozzie is not for the feint hearted.

Anyhoo sitting in the bush was this pretty:

Scuffed the ground a bit to scare way any monsters then timidly peered inside and eureka!

 

Scampered back down the hill. "Luke matey, how much for the bracket and the second crank pulley ?" 

"$35 if you strip it yourself mate"

Jeez, I couldn't get the folding out my pocket quick enough. 

Back up the hill armed with a 12mm and 14mm spanner and then there was this:

Got back home, gave them a bath and chucked them onto my mock up engine:

Looks promising.

Called my mate Jeremy who is the local a/c parts supplier, and the good news is that he stocks the appropriate compressor. The bad news is that his one comes without the manifold for the a/c lines, so looks like I'll need to source the shagged compressor out of Luke's wreck just to get the manifold.

So I'll wheel by Luke's place when I'm next in town.

If you have made it this far thanks for reading.

 

[Flash]

In order to get the handbrake mechanism out to switch the handle over to the right I had to unbolt the instrument cluster, so I figured that while I had access to the rear of the cluster I would remove the defunct water temperature gauge. It doesn't work and is going to be replaced with an aftermarket 2 inch jobbie shortly, so best to get rid of it.

After pulling out the temp gauge I made up a little blanking plate to cover the hole. The paint is not that great a match but it will do.

At the same time I extended the wire so that it will reach the new gauge pod and fitted some new LED globes for instrument illumination..

The jury is still out on whether I'm going to keep the factory fuel gauge as its bloody inaccurate.

I then fitted the modified handbrake mechanism and shortened lever and buttoned everything up again.

The shorter handle now located on the right-hand side of the steering column looks factory I reckon.

 

Thanks for looking.

 

 

[Flash]

In a previous life I used to be a Project Manager (which I guess explains my OCD tendencies) and back then the term "scope creep" were the filthiest words in my dictionary. These days I seem to embrace the practice which I guess supports the argument that I should really get back on my medication.

Anyway, allow me to elaborate:

So earlier in the week I had my new power steering hose made.

Once I'd chucked the hose on, all that was left to do was to run a few wires and this is where things started to get out of control.

The loose plan was to run the high amperage positive wire directly to the battery via one of those self-resetting circuit breakers and to then use a relay to switch the ignition feed. Should have been a few hours work at best, but then old mate Flash decides that whilst he is running a wire from the battery box up to the new ignition fed fuse box located under the dash he may as well run a power feed for the proposed roof console as well as another wire for the windscreen washer bottle.

Sounds like a plan I thought, but first off, I need to finalise exactly where I'm going to mount the washer bottle. So, I moseyed on down to the back shed and grabbed my collection of grubby old windscreen washer bottles in order to make a final selection.

The one on the right immediately took my fancy as its nice and slim. From memory it's the rear screen washer bottle out of the Starwagon.

Gave it a bit of a bath and it already looked heaps better.

I was wise enough to keep its mounting plate, so after slotting the bottle back into the plate I headed over to the Thames to work out a suitable mounting location.

And here is my first choice, tucked up inside the front passenger wheel well just above the front suspension. The bracket mounts from the front so should protect the bottle from any stones that might get thrown up. The plan is to fabricate a little intermediate bracket that will attach to the existing angled bracket on my chassis leg. This image is a bit dark, but hopefully it will give you an idea of the proposed location:

I was about to start fabricating the new mounting bracket which would have taken me off on a whole new tangent. Luckily, I managed to put on the brakes, but not before I'd filled up the bottle and given the works some temporary power just to check that the little pump would have enough steam to push the water jet all the way from the chassis leg up to the windscreen, which it did, thankfully. With the pump position sorted I now knew where its power wire needed to go.

Okay so now onto the power wire for the future roof console. This will run from the house battery located in the new battery cupboard via a fuse block, then along the chassis leg, up behind the dashboard and then inside the A pillar and up into the ceiling. So, first step was to remove the front most ceiling panel which revealed that the upholsterer had actually gone above and beyond and fitted some insulation material which was good of him.

My initial plan was to run the new wire up the passenger side A pillar, but it turns out that there isn't an opening at the top of the pillar which is strange. I then headed around to the driver's side and immediately spotted an old wire that I'm guessing was for the overhead cab light when the van still had one. The factory had kindly drilled a tiny hole in the top of the pillar for this wire, so I was able to use it as a draw wire to pull through the new feed.

At this point I had all three new wires (roof console feed, steering pump ignition feed and windscreen washer power feed) loosely routed and bundled together, so it was time to crack out the old cloth tape. After a goodly time spent on my back under the van, I had the new loom all taped up.

Chucked in a few holding clamps to keep it snug against the chassis rail.

And with a bit of luck and a tailwind I should be able to make the final connections tomorrow.

Thanks for looking.