Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

Bit of fine tuning and a few nuts and bolts later and she was ready for mounting.

Bolted my handiwork into position and chucked on an old rubber boot from the L300 donor van just to get the feel.

Once I've plated over the ruddy great hole in the tunnel and sourced a "period correct" gear stick boot and knob it should end up looking fairly okay.

Next step is to work out the best way to connect the remote stick to the main selector mechanism, but that's tomorrow's headache.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Righto, so the last version of the gear shifter that featured the remote gearstick failed the test as the sideways throw for gate selection turned out to be excessive resulting in a shifting motion akin to stirring porridge.

So, I pulled the mechanism out and banished it to the naughty corner with the rest of the debris from previous failed attempts.

[Flash]

With another spectacular failure under my belt, I spent a bit of time in front of the computer trolling back through my build thread to refresh my memory on each shifter option I've trialled so far. Looks like the Mitsi Express floor shifter was one of the more successful attempts albeit with a revered shift pattern.

So, I gave it a dust off and crawled under the van with it to see what I could do.

[Flash]

The base of the Express shifter has been hacked to buggery, but at least it's still functional so my latest plan was to see if I could mount it in the tunnel and then somehow reverse the shift pattern on the gearbox side.

Managed to get it temporarily mounted up inside the tunnel. 

Looks like a dog's breakfast, but nothing I can't tidy up if it turns out to be a functional solution.

[Flash]

With the shifter bolted in place I hopped into the cab to see how bad it looked above the floor. The gear stick angle needed tweaking, so I cut that off and welded it back at a different angle.

It's not really the smooth look I was hoping for with just a dust boot covering the stick, but hey if it works, I can live with having to make a little cover to hide the nastiness.

I made myself feel a bit better about the whole thing by quickly fitting an old tractor gear knob that I had sourced a while ago.

[Flash]

The Express mechanism works beautifully with a nice smooth motion, and it consistently springs back into the neutral position when slapped out of gear which is something that all of my other attempts had failed to do. As mentioned earlier the only issue is the reversed shift pattern which unfortunately, I'm not prepared to live with.

So, my attention turned to the gearbox side of things to see what I could do to rectify the shift pattern.

The gear selection was easy to resolve by installing a longer morse cable that I already had in stock and looping it around to the rear of the gearbox so that it would pull on the lever rather than pushing. Worked perfectly with only slightly more force needed on the gearstick, but definitely something that I can live with.

The gate selection was slightly trickier. I tried the same solution using a longer morse cable, but the latency in the longer sheath causes the drop out to neutral to be a bit hit and miss. So definitely a shorter cable is needed.

I then turned to my junk pile and discovered this little gem that came out of my HiAce donor van:

 

 

 

[Flash]

A little bit of cutting, bending and the poking of a few extra holes in the swivel and I had the makings of a solution.

Chucked in a bit of threaded rod at the swivel to create an intermediate pushrod and hey presto... I now have a perfectly functional gear selector with a conventional selector pattern.

After spending days and days on this and subjecting all of you to lengthy explanations of each failed attempt, I actually can't believe that the issue is finally resolved.

I'll probably end up grabbing an "unhacked" Express shifter from my local wreckers just to feed my OCD and with a few licks of paint and a nice cover plate and rubber boot I should be good to go.

I bet all of you are pretty relieved too that you won't be subjected to any more gear shift updates from me.

Next up I'm going to revisit my brakes as I'm not altogether happy with the current solution.

Thanks again for reading.

[Flash]

A while back I installed a dual circuit master cylinder that I had harvested from my donor L300 van. My concern at the time was that I had to rotate the m/c 90 degrees in order to get it to bolt up to the chassis leg. I asked for some advice on the tech forum and got a lot of valuable feedback with most of the opinion that I might face some bleeding challenges. At the time I decided to take a chance with the setup, but those feelings of doubt have always lurked in the back of my mind.

Then about 6 months ago I spotted a Thames van listed for sale on the Book of Faces and noticed in one of the posted photos that the van had been fitted with a dual m/c that was the correct orientation. I messaged the seller and he confirmed that the m/c was out of a mid 80s Nissan Homer. Managed to track one down on the interweb and it has been langushing in my parts pile ever since.

This morning I decided to do the swap out. First photo is of the old L300 unit. Second and third photos are of the new Nissan unit.

I'll need to source some larger diameter reservoir hoses and make up some new hard brake lines, but it's worth the effort for the extra peace of mind.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

While I was in the hydraulics zone, I thought that I would revisit the clutch master cylinder.

For those who can remember that far back I'm using a Toyota HiAce YH53 clutch slave cylinder which I am currently driving with a standard 11/16" Thames clutch master cylinder. This is a poor substitute for the original 5/8" HiAce clutch master cylinder.

This didn't sit well with my OCD, so I decided to do a bit of research and it turns out that a Hillman Imp runs a 5/8" master cylinder and the Imp unit is identical to the original Thames unit from an exterior dimension and mounting point of view.

So, a while back I sourced a Hillman unit and this morning, I thought I'd do the swap.

First photo is of the Thames unit in place and the second photo is of the two units sitting side by side for comparison purposes. The Imp unit is the bottom one in the photo.

All that I needed to do was to swap over the pipe fittings and push rods and the Imp unit was good to go.

And that's another small job ticked off the list.

 

 

[Flash]

Finally got my reservoir hoses for the new brake master cylinder sorted out. I had to use barbed fittings in order to sort out the different diameter fittings on both sides, but it looks neat enough, I reckon. Just need to pick up some appropriately sized hose clamps on my next town run.

Also fitted the custom fabricated stainless steel push rod that I had made up a while back. Needed this to connect the Thames brake pedal to the Nissan master cylinder.

Next step brakes wise is to fabricate a new set of hard brake lines throughout. 

[Flash]

I was going great guns on fabricating my new hard brake lines until the little flare nut die self-destructed on me.

Being in a bit of a holding pattern while I waited for a replacement to be delivered, I thought I'd crack into a few non-essential tasks that have been lurking around on the "to do" list for a while now.

First up I thought I'd give the rather crusty windscreen demister nozzles a bit of a birthday. I sourced these from a chap in the UK who was wrecking a van a while back. Although all of the vans had the demister openings factory pressed into the all-metal dashboard only those vans that were equipped with the optional heater got the actual nozzles mounted to the back of the dash, so they are a pretty rare item.

Anyway after a quick tickle with a flapper disc followed by a few days in a vinegar bath they didn't look half bad. Chucked some satin paint on both the inside and outside and then fixed them in place with some fresh stainless steel self-tappers.

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do from a demister point of view, but at least the nozzles are in place for now.

 

[Flash]

Next up I decided to fit the new door handles that have been languishing on the shelf since mid 2020. The base plate on the original driver's side door handle was broken resulting in a wobbly handle and an ugly crack that you can't help but notice every time you open the door. Another of the handles had been replaced at some stage resulting in a set of 3 mismatched keys, so not ideal.

Replacing the two front handles and the rear "T" handle was a doddle, just needed to trim down the square shafts to suit. 

Chucked in a new set of gaskets while I was at it.

Locks match on all 3 doors now.

Thanks for looking.

[Flash]

Now that I've got a single key working all of my new door locks, I thought I'd try to match the ignition to the same key.

My replacement set of door handles came with an extra handle for those vans fitted with a side door, so my first thought was to see if I could swap the key barrel in the ignition for the one from the spare door handle. Pulled both barrels out for comparison, but yeah, nah ... barrels don't match. 

Next thought was to swap the little brass thingies between lock barrels. Watched a few youtube "how to" videos that demonstrated pulling the brass bits out with a set of long nose pliers while dodging a bunch of small springs flying all over the place. Looked simple enough so I tried my luck with both barrels, but the buggers wouldn't budge so in true "Rough & Ready Restos" fashion I moved on Plan C which entailed using some brute force and ignorance. 

Shoving the new key into the original ignition barrel I noticed that only two of the brass plates were sitting slightly proud on the one side of the barrel and a single plate on the opposite side. Some light work with a metal file sorted that out and I now have a single key that fits all three door locks as well as the ignition switch.

Ignition barrel on the right and spare door lock barrel on the left in this photo shows the difference.

[Flash]

My good mate Grant donated an old Cortina MK1 gearstick complete with factory knob and rubber boot to the Thames project. To say that I was chuffed would be an understatement. The longer and thinner gearstick really looks the part compared to the existing short and chunky L300 one.

Quickly took to the selector with my grinder of angles to get the L300 stick off and then welded the Cortina unit in place. Much better.

This inspired me to start working on a gear selector cover and I managed to whip up a mock-up using some old plywood and cardboard. Doesn't look too out of place.

I'll ask my mate Cameron to guillotine some of his aluminium off-cuts to match the panel shapes. I'm not setup for aluminium welding, but it doesn't need to be that strong so I'm thinking about using some aluminium angle glued to the inside of the panels to hold the box together. Some of that body panel glue should do the trick. It's worth a try, I reckon.

[Flash]

Yesterday my new brake pipe flaring tool pitched up and I've got to say that this tool is a vast improvement over my old one. My old tool was the one with the small push in flare die that uses the horseshoe shaped screw press. The new tool is a hollowed-out block style with the double ended screw in die. 

I always found the old tool a bit "hit or miss" but with the new tool I'm consistently getting perfect flares so it's obviously idiot proof.

AAA+++ would happily trade again.

Old tool is the one in the black box:

 

 

[Flash]

Some candid shots of my new hard brake lines that I whipped up earlier today.

Should finish off the rest tomorrow.

 

[Flash]

The Captain's Log tells me its day 410 on the Thames van here at Rough & Ready Restos and the engine, gearbox and front suspension are out once again for a few final tweaks.

My power steering pump pulley is not running perfectly true, so my fabricated mounting bracket needs a bit of tweaking. At the same time I want to fab up some mounting brackets for a 140-amp alternator as I'm going to need heaps of extra power for the 12-volt air-conditioning compressor that I'm planning to run. The little engine box is pretty cozy so it's a lot easier to work on things out in the floor.

The front suspension needs final welding before I can pretty everything up with a lick of paint, but I can't do that until I've had the van on a wheel alignment machine to double check that the front is true, so that's going to need dropping again after the first road test.

[Flash]

As previously mentioned, I want to replace the standard Toyota 3Y alternator with a higher amperage unit that I can use to power a 12-volt a/c compressor as I don't have enough real estate around the mighty 3Y to run a belt driven a/c compressor.

I've just recently upgraded the Mustang to a 140-amp single wire unit and I'm very happy with how that alternator is performing. It was also a fairly decent price, so I thought I'd see what I could do in terms of fitting the same alternator to the Thames.

I grabbed my old Mustang unit and sat it next to the Toyota one for a quick eyeball.

Comparing the outer dimensions of both units they look pretty close so that is something positive. All that I need to bear in mind is that the new 140-amp unit is slightly longer than the mock up one, but I've checked that out already and I should have plenty of clearance.

Next thing to address is the pulley. The Mustang pulley is a single V whereas the Toyota unit is a multi V. Scrounged around in my spare parts pile and found a spare alternator with the correct pulley. It's a bit crusty but nothing a little quality time in my vinegar bath won't sort out.

Quickly, swapped the pulleys over and I'm all ready for a test fit.

First photo below is of the existing Toyota alternator all bolted up.

Second photo is of the Mustang and Toyota units before the pulley swap. The Mustang unit is the top one.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

With the alternator pulleys swapped around, I moseyed on over to the 3Y and quickly pulled off its alternator.

Offered the Mustang unit up to the Toyota mounting bracket and yeah, nah ..... alignment is way out.

Didn't fancy having to fabricate a new mounting bracket so thought I'd take a punt at spinning the Toyota bracket around.

First photo is of the bracket in its standard position.

Second photo is of the bracket mounted backwards.

[Flash]

Offered up the Muzzy alternator to my backwards mounting bracket and the alignment looked good.

Quickly chucked on a belt and turned the engine over with a socket wrench and as luck would have it the bloody belt runs true.

How often does that happen. What a jammy bastard!

All I need to do is scratch around for some appropriate length bolts for the final fit.

I've stripped off the pulley and chucked it into the vinegar bath for a bit of a soak and I'll order the new 140amp unit tomorrow.

The new unit will be internally regulated, which saves me from having to wire in the external regulator that I originally scavenged from my donor HiAce, so that's another win.

Thanks for reading.