Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

With the gearbox almost in final position the second challenge became apparent. The floor in the load area of the Thames is plywood from factory with U shaped metal cross braces that run at various intervals along the chassis ladder. As luck would have it there is one of these metal cross braces exactly where the top hung gearbox mount is located on the Toyota box. By lifting the gearbox into its final position the outer metal part of the standard mount just squeezes between the vertical metal surfaces of the upside down u shaped cross brace as shown in the first picture below, but on thinking this through I suspect it creates a second problem.

So, whilst it would be easy enough for me to fabricate up a metal insert that would fill the gap between the U and would accept the through bolt and whilst the circle of rubber between the through bolt and the outer metal of the mount would provide plenty of sideways give, the snugness of the mount outer in the U would prevent any back or front movement. Not good.

So, I'm wondering if it would be feasible to turn the gearbox mount 90 degrees on the gearbox as shown in picture 2. I could then run the mounting bolt from north to south and in this way I would gain plenty of movement in any direction.

Thoughts anyone ??

Thanks for reading.

[Flash]

With the gearbox up in its final position I took another look at where the gear selector levers will sit. Looks like I might be able to poke the upper lever through the chassis rail if I elongate the existing cut out further towards the front of the van. The lower lever should clear the bottom of the chassis rail if I massage it slightly. 

So at this stage there don't seem to be any gearbox related show stoppers.

[Flash]

My focus then moved to the front setup. I lifted the L300 front beam into position and the first bit of good news is that the beam works perfectly with the standard back bowl sump on the 4Y. 

The second bit of good news is that the standard 4Y engine mounts are about 60 mm rear of the L300 beam, so I should be able to fabricate some mounts that will allow me to mount them onto the L300 beam. The beam is pretty meaty, but I'll put extra plates across the top just for peace of mind.

This means that I will be able to replicate the setup that I had in the Bedford where I could drop the front end, engine and gearbox as a combined unit for maintenance purposes.

I'm currently using a 10 mm spacer between the top of the beam and the bottom of the sump to simulate the gap. I know it doesn't sound like much, but I have one major challenge that I will reveal shortly that is forcing me to get the engine as low as possible.

Picture from front with spacer currently in place.

Thanks for reading

[Flash]

We now move on to the biggest hurdle that I have encountered in the mock up phase so far.

Firstly a bit of background:

The engine box has a removable lip on either side in order to provide greater access for maintenance purposes. So before tackling any major engine work the process is to slide both seats forward on their runners and take them out. Then out come the removable box sides and you have an extra 80 mm of working space on either side of the engine.

Pics of the removable sides in position and removed below, just to give some context. (note the strip of gaffer tape to cover the greased up seat slides as I kept leaning in the muck LOL)

 

[Flash]

Okay, so what is the issue I hear you ask :

Well you may recall me mentioning in a previous post that the 4Y was around 5 mm wider at its widest point than the original Thames donk. However, being the genius that I am, I failed to notice that the widest point on the 4Y would include the position of the carbie and ....... yes you guessed it ..... the carbie will sit above the removable lip on the engine box ... DOH.

Now I know why those that have fitted standard Consul inlet manifolds to the Thames engine have had to moved the passenger seat so that it pushes up against the B post.

The issue doesn't look that bad in this pic as I don't have a carbie fitted to the mock up, but a quick measure of the carbie and air cleaner elbow on my complete HiAce indicates I need around 170 mm and I only have 100 mm as things currently stand.

Pics show things with the box lip removed. 

[Flash]

So what to do ....

OPTION 1 - Bulge the side of the removable lip plate enough to facilitate the carb and move the seat up against the B pillar like others running the Consul inlet manifold on the standard Thames engine have done. Only problem is my van has been fitted with modern inertia reel seat belts which just don't give me enough space to do this.

OPTION 2 - I could always chuck a set of Weber DCOE 40 sidies through the side of the box below floor level for maximum dort sounds. Quick measurements show that these will sit well above the chassis rail and will happily clear suspension movement. I'd need to fabricate an air snorkle setup to let them breathe. A Weber specialist down on the Sunny Coast happens to have  a set of brand new DCOEs on a 4Y manifold up for sale ... $1600 .... yikes . But putting performance carbs on the mighty 4Y would be a bit like putting lipstick on a pig.

OPTION 3 - Bulge the removable side lip plate upwards to provide the required headroom for the carbie / air snorkle combination. This would mean raising the passenger seat by around 80 mm. Would look weird with one seat higher than the other so I'd have to raise both seats to satisfy my OCD. I'm a tall bugger so I doubt I'd have enough head room to do this.

OPTION 4 - Create the bulge described in option 3, but then put a loop in the bottom seat frame so that I could run the seat at standard height. Would lose ability to slide seat, but they have very little adjustment anyway and the slide is mainly there just to make seat removal easier. I could live with having to unbolt the seat for maintenance purposes.

I'm going to spend a bit of time investigating option 4, but would appreciate any other suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

[Flash]

WARNING .... I'm about to Barry on about my carbie height clearance issues, so if you are already bored to tears with the subject, please move on.

For those still reading , I thought I'd take a fresh look at the carbie clearance issue this morning. Started off by pulling the standard Toyota carbie off my complete donor van to take some accurate measurements. Confirmed I need 185  mm to allow for carbie, the insulating spacer between inlet manifold and carbie, the standard HiAce snorkel intake plenum and about 5 mm of extra clearance.

Moving to the Thames I took an accurate measure of the space available and the shortfall is 87 mm. This is way more than I could achieve just by bulging the removable engine box side panel, so would also require a modification to the hinged engine cover lid.

Thinking that the Thames seat had a tubular base I was hoping that I may be able to put a loop in the frame to accommodate a bulge for the carbie, but on closer inspection the seat is a low profile affair with a formed solid metal base that won't accommodate an 87 mm bulge. Mrs Flash would be totally unimpressed with a hard lumpy bit in her seat.

I then lowered the 4Y mock up sufficiently to allow me to fit the carbie and I was able to confirm that due to the width of the carbie it would clash not only with the removable side panel, but I'd have to cut into the floor of the van by about 20 mm and that would still leave me with the seat base and engine cover lid issues. 

So in conclusion Option 4 on my previous post is a fail.

I then looked at lowering the engine, but as it stands I only have a 10 mm gap between the sump and the L300 beam which I reckon is pretty tight as it is. I could space the beam to the chassis, but 87 mm is a lot to ask for and I'm not really going for the gasser look.

I was always planning to replace the stock Toyota carbie with a Weber 32/36 downdraft as this is a popular conversion on the 2,3 and 4Y motors. It reduces the number of vacuum ports that the standard carbie is cursed with and is supposed to marginally improve performance. - not that you would really notice on a Y engine.

I'm now thinking of going back to Option 2 which entails fitting a side draft carbie. I'm a total noob when it comes to side drafts so I've started a separate tech discussion asking for some guidance.

Picture below shows the side of the engine box below floor level that I would need to modify in order to allow a side draft to poke through. Measuring from outer most point on the standard downdraft manifold to the outermost edge of the chassis rail gives me 160 mm to play with and a Weber 40 DCOE measures 118 mm without trumpets. I'm assuming for now that a side draft manifold would be about the same width as a downdraft manifold. 

I've also checked suspension travel and steering arc and can confirm that everything is well clear of the carbie position and I should have more than enough space to build a carbie enclosure with a snorkel type air intake. Would mean that I would have to remove the carbie before dropping the engine for maintenance purposes, but I could live with that.

I'd be keen to hear opinions on this option.  

Thanks heaps for reading. 

[Flash]

Knowing that I have a few options in order to resolve my carbie height issue, today I moved on to mocking up the new steering setup. 

The plan is to replace the original Thames drag link steering setup with the steering rack from my Express donor van. Took a few loose measurements and realised that the original Thames front cross member that provided the fixing point for the front pivots for the Thames suspension is in the way. Also noticed that this cross member is attached to the chassis ladder on either side using two bolts and four chassis rivets. 

Proceeded to drill out the centre of each rivet then smack the hollowed rivet head off with a dumpy hammer and a cold chisel. What a fun job. On the up side my arms got a free workout as I had to do all of this whilst lying on my back.

Pics or it didn't happen:

 

[Flash]

Next step is to cut the rack mounting lugs off the Express cross member and tack them onto the Starwagon cross member so that I can fix the rack into position. The Starwagon has drag link steering so no rack mounts on its cross member. The rack that I am using for the mock up is a powered one. I plan to run a manual rack that was a factory option, but I'm assuming that Mitsubishi would have used the same mounting lugs for both options. Surely they wouldn't have tooled up for different mounting lugs depending on the rack fitted.

Is anyone able to confirm that the lugs are the same for powered rack or manual ?

Pic of the Express rack in its mounting lugs

[Flash]

Today's exercise entailed cutting the steering rack mounting lugs off the Mitsi Express cross member. First I needed to remove the a/c condenser and radiator so that I could get at the top of the cross member with my angle grinder. The rack mounting lugs are offset and protrude forward quite a bit as shown in the following pics

 

[Flash]

With the radiator out of the way I attacked the Express cross member with an angle grinder. Left just enough cross member behind to allow me to move the Express around, but her road going days are now over.

Pic shows the left overs ( apologies for the pic quality)

[Flash]

Trimmed the excess metal off my cutout and offered it up to the Star wagon front beam. Just need to borrow my mates welder to glue the lugs on, but I was able to use some clamps to mock up the final position. Looks pretty good thus far.

Next comes a short steering rod that has a rag joint on one end and a universal joint on the opposite end. The rag joint bolts up to the rack and the universal to the steering angle box. From a brief look this steering rod (which is a standard Mitsi Express part) is too long for my purposes. If I'm not mistaken welding steering components is "verboten" so I'll probably end up cutting off one of the ends and then get a spline cut. Not sure what end to sacrifice just yet. A lot will depend on what I can find that is easily available .

I'm going to try to see if I can use something from another vehicle rather than having to buy a specialist part. From memory Beetles have a splined rag joint at the end of their steering column and the Land Rover Defenders have loose UJs that are splined on either end so I'll do a bit of homework on that front.

 When I did the Bedford I had to buy a Flaming River UJ from a hot rod place and it was pretty spendy for what it was, so I don't really want to go down that road again. 

Would be keen for alternative suggestions if anyone has any.

State of play at end of day shown in the pics below.

Thanks for reading

[Flash]

Today I thought I'd mock up the positioning of the strut rods for the front beam as well as the front stabiliser bar.

I have two possible options and I'll call this Option 1.

For this option I'm using the standard items that came off the Starwagon so these are a match for the suspension cross member that I am using in the Thames. Both units on the Starwagon are forward facing.

Started with the strut rods which appear to have been recently fitted with new Nolathane bushes. Position looks good and from the look of things it will be fairly straight forward to fabricate some brackets to mount onto the chassis. I think it will be much easier if I cut the mounting face complete with the beveled holes out of the original mounts on the Starwagon and just glue them to the new brackets Also looks like I could make use of the original chassis holes that held on the now defunct Thames front cross member to fix the new brackets if I don't want to weld them on. 

Pictured is the left side, but the right side is the same.

[Flash]

With the strut rods in place I then offered up the Option 1 stabiliser bar. First impression was pretty positive. Stabiliser upright in the standard Starwagon position could be fixed to a triangular plate that I could bolt in across the V in the chassis. The left hand side is depicted below, but the right hand side is exactly the same.

[Flash]

However when looking closely at the right hand side stabiliser bar upright we have an issue as it is smack bang in the middle of the steering rack rag joint. Bugger ! 

[Flash]

Only option would be to slide the stabiliser upright about 100 mm towards the centre of the main stabiliser bar thus clearing the rag joint. It would be easy enough to extend the upright brackets to this new position but I'm guessing that I would need to re position the left hand one to even things out. I'm a bit concerned about shifting these further inwards as to my way of thinking it could lead to more body roll.

Would appreciate some input on this from those more knowledgeable than I am.

Picture of the amended position. 

[Flash]

With both the strut rods and the stabiliser bar in position things are starting to look a bit busy at the front.

[Flash]

I then thought I'd bolt the steering rack rag joint complete with forward facing steering rod onto the rack to check the clearance between the rag joint and the main stabiliser bar.

It's pretty close as you can see in the pics below. There will be no movement in the rack and I can't imagine the stabiliser bar flexing to the point where I could run into an issue, but again I'd appreciate some input from those in the know.

[Flash]

In conclusion Option 1 looks pretty straight forward, the only possible issue being the compromising of the stabiliser effectiveness by moving the stabiliser uprights further towards the centre of the bar to clear the steering shaft rag joint.

I'll tackle Option 2 tomorrow which entails using the rear mounted strut rods and rear mounted stabiliser bar out of the Express.

Thanks for reading and as always I really appreciate the feedback and guidance that has been so generously provided thus far.

[Flash]

Climbed under the Mitsi Express van this morning to pull out the strut rods. Placed the Express rod next to the Starwagon equivalent for comparative purposes.

As you can see in the pic below the Express rod is much shorter and the mounting holes where it bolts up to the Express lower A arm are much closer together.  I could redrill one of the holes, so that isn't a major issue.