Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

Many moons have passed since my last Thames related catch up, so I guess it's time that I updated you all on the latest happenings.

Over the past few months we have been driving the van heaps, but to take full advantage of the cooler months all of our spare time has been focused on getting some things done around the house and garden. The result has been no time to tinker on the van, but I have been adding a few items to my "to do" list. Now that the days are starting to warm up, it's time to start executing some automotive related activities.

First major thing on the list is to deal with cabin temps and some of you who spotted my posting under the tech forum a few months back will have already heard this story, but for those who haven't here is a repeat:

The short story goes as follows. On hot starts I would need to crank the engine for a good 20 to 30 seconds before the engine would fire. After eventually firing into life the engine would stumble along for a few minutes before settling down. I suspected that we were experiencing fuel vaporization and started a tech topic to gather suggestions on possible cures. As is always the case a number of wise old schoolers provided some suggested solutions which I gave due consideration. At the end of the day I took the lazy way out and have now wired the main thermo fan switch to permanent power. The result is a thermo fan that now runs independent of ignition power. Not only has this solved our fuel vaporization issue but it has also decreased the air temperature in the cabin when parked up after a long run and the strong aroma of "hot engine" inside the cabin has also gone. I'm thinking that the mighty 3Y and its mechanical fuel pump was unhappy with the coziness created by the miniscule engine box that the Thames is blessed with. This fix has been in place for a few months now and is working well so I'm going to leave well alone for now.

The next major item is to sort out our a/c related issues and this is getting critical now that the weather is warming up. So when I last talked about the a/c I was experiencing excessive drag on the drive belt which was shedding rubber flakes like confetti and was needing adjusted after almost every drive. I eventually ended up removing the drive belt and we have been without a/c through the winter. I suspect I've either got an issue with the tensioner pulley or the pulley on my second hand compressor. I did ask the opinion of my a/c guy and he immediately said a/c compressor but I'm hoping this isn't the case as that is an expensive fix. Anyhoo the only way to get to the pulleys is to remove the radiator so I made a start on that today. With the wind deflector under the engine removed I started off by draining the radiator and while that was happening  I took the opportunity to unbolt the gear shift cover which can only be done from underneath with the wind deflector removed. The reason I wanted to remove this is to solve another irritating issue which is a creaking sound that comes from the rubber gear shift gator which is especially bad in colder weather. The gator is an old Cortina MK1 that my mate Grant donated to the cause, but the rubber is pretty hard and I suspect that is half the problem. Did a bit of googling and a NOS rubber goes for over $300.... yikes, so I started looking up some old wive's cures and one suggestion is to soak the rubber in WD40 to soften it up. So after pulling it off I popped it in one of those zip lock sandwich bags and sprayed a whole heap of WD40 into the bag. Google says to remove as much air as possible from the bag and to then let the rubber marinade for a few days, so I was able to squeeze out quite a bit air before sealing the bag.  Looks like so:

Over the weekend I'll get some time on the a/c and will keep you all updated on my findings.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

Today I managed to make a start on the a/c repair. First order of business was to remove the radiator to gain access to the a/c compressor and belt tensioner. The good news is that the idler pulley for the tensioner runs true and is pretty smooth. The bad news is that there is heaps of sideways play on the compressor pulley and it feels pretty rough when spinning it. So in summary I reckon my a/c guy was correct with his diagnosis. The Toyota Landruiser HZJ series use the same compressor so luckily my local a/c parts supplier has a replacement compressor on his shelf. With a bit of luck I can pick it up from him early in the new week. I'll replace the receiver/drier at the same time.

While I have the radiator out I thought I'd remove the defunct power feed for the thermo fan. Some of you may recall that I ran a new feed earlier this year, but recovering the old feed meant unwrapping the wiring loom which is a helluva lot easier with the radiator out. Spent the rest of the morning removing the power lead and rewrapping the wiring harness, just to appease my OCD tendencies.

And now ready for the bin:

 

 

 

[Flash]

Those of you that have been following along on my journey may have noticed that my van has an insatiable appetite for distributors. So just to refresh everyone's memory here is a brief history:

Distributor 1 - a conventional points based distributor sourced off eBay for around $100 which lasted less than 50km before the shaft disintegrated. Who would ever have thought.

Distributor 2 - an original Toyota points based distributor that I fitted all the eBay distributor's internals to and that lasted 440km before dying a sudden roadside death. Again no surprises there.

Distributor 3 - distributor 2 fitted with Repco's finest replacement condensor which managed an incredible 87km before giving up.

Distributor 4 - an aftermarket Chinese manufactured electronic distributor sourced earlier this year from a reputable Australian based supplier that managed an impressive 1106km before calling it a day.

And that pretty much brings us up to date. So a little more detail about distributor 4. When I fitted it the van ran okayish, but seemed a little down on power and quite a bit heavier on fuel. I also noticed a slight hesitation at low revs which got progressively worse towards the end. Then about a month ago while out enjoying our usual Friday night burger run the van wouldn't start. A quick diagnosis and no spark at the plugs. Luckily we were close to home so I left Mrs Flash and our wee dog in the van and walked back home to fetch the Moke. Got back to the van just as the sun was setting and phoned my mate Steve the towie. Steve was attending a BBQ and I felt bad disturbing him so told him I'd make another plan. I had a towing strap with me and considered using the Moke to pull the van home, but something prompted me to give the van another go and she fired straight up. Mrs Flash climbed in the Moke while I nursed the van home. Although running the engine was behaving rather badly with a misfire and she wouldn't rev at all. We stumbled along and finally made it home. Next morning the van fired straight up and rev'ed cleanly ... WTF. Next day ... wouldn't start and again no spark at the plugs. So at that point you can imagine I'm cursing like a sailor while trying to figure out my next move.

Knowing that new Toyota units are no longer available, I figured that the next best thing would be to get my hands on an original Toyota unit that I could have professionally rebuilt. Now it just so happens that I have this little puppy in my stash of parts:

Looks well used and the shaft was almost completely seized on it, but it is a factory original and I figured that someone more knowledgeable than myself could bring it back to life. My first stop was the auto sparkie in town. Bruce is old school so I figured he was a good bet. Sadly he informed me that he no longer dabbles with distributors. Bugger...

Back home I hopped on the Google and discovered a place called Performance Ignition Services based down in Victoria. Dropped them an email with a few photos including this candid shot of the dizzy with its pants off:

Got a friendly call back from one of their technicians to confirm that they could rebuild it for me, so I popped it in a box and dropped it in the mail. And that brings us to this Friday when a parcel arrived containing one much healtheir looking factory distributor.

So after removing my faulty a/c compressor in anticipation of the arrival of it's new replacement I cracked straight into the fitting of the dizzy. It fitted easily enough and the van fired straight up, but when I came to set the timing with my light I discovered that for some reason I didn't have full adjustment. Moving the distributor housing clockwise was causing something to jamb up despite there being plenty of travel left on the slotted mounting hole. WTF....

On closer inspection I discovered that the outer corner of the integrated coil pack was snagging on the hard fuel line. Pulled the dizzy out again for a closer look at the fuel line and ......

Some numpty had mounted the fuel line too high up by using the incorrect hole on the arrowed mounting tab resulting in the circled portion of the hard line being higher than it should be. That line has been like that forever, so it's funny that this didn't cause any hasstles with the aftermarket dizzy. Anyhoo, pulled off the nut, wiggled the bracket down into the correct position and reattached the nut:

And now the hardline no longer clashes with the dizzy.

Slapped her back in the hole, tweaked the angle till my timing light was happy and she runs like a champ again.

Couldn't run it for too long as I still have the radiator out, but I'm hoping that my dizzy woes are finally over.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

[Flash]

While I'm awaiting the arrival of my new a/c compressor, I thought I'd tackle another a/c related issue.

My underdash unit is fed from a 30 amp fuse. If I turn the blower fan off and on using the switch on the unit everything is hunky-dory, but if I leave the blower running and switch off the ignition key, the fuse sometimes blows when I switch the ignition back on. I'm guessing that the inrush current is just too much for the blade fuse. It's bloody irritating.

So a few weeks back I sourced a 30 amp auto reset circuit breaker and I decided today was the day for fitting it.

Didn't fancy working upside down under the dash, so started off by unwrapping about 8 inches of wiring loom right at the fuse panel in order to free up enough slack then unbolted the whole panel and let it hang down for a closer look.

Not much space left on the front of the panel to mount the circuit breaker, so I ended up fixing it to the back lip like so:

Refitted the panel, reinstated the spiral bind and then put the ignition switch through a good few cycles with the blower on high. Oh, the absolute joy.

And that's another item knocked off my snag list.

 

 

[Flash]

Just before morning smoko I got a message from Jeremy to say that my new a/c compressor was ready for pickup, so after a quick cuppa I saddled up the Moke and moseyed on through to his place. Returned home with this pack of goodness:

Much bling:

 

[Flash]

This morning I cracked into the fitting of the replacement a/c compressor.

First step was to remove the manifold from the old compressor. 

It looked a bit manky, so I gave it a quick spritz of degreaser followed by a light dose of sandpaper before fitting it to the new unit. It's not mint, but it looks better than it did.

There is limited space between the engine and the chassis rail as can be seen here:

So the process for refitting goes as follows:

Step 1 - Stick the 4 mounting bolts through the compressor (there is not enough room to fit these bolts later)

Step 2 - Reverse the compressor into the gap and push it hard against the chassis leg like so:

Step 3 - Reverse the mounting bracket into the gap between the compressor and the engine like so:

Step 4 - install the 4 bolts that hold the bracket to the side of the engine.

Step 5 - Tighten down the 4 previously inserted compressor through bolts.

I then chucked on a fresh drive belt, connected the hoses to the manifold and connected up the clutch engagement wire. And that's the compressor done and dusted.

She's a pretty tight one as can be seen in this photo:

With that done, all that remained was to replace the reciever/drier bottle with a fresh one:

Last step was to reinstall the radiator, engine box lid and side panels and the air deflector plate and she is back on the road.

I'm booked in for a re-gas at 10am on Friday, so hopefully that goes well.

 

 

 

 

[Flash]

My usual a/c guy has raised his regas price by 33% so I voted with my feet and found a different place further along the road that is still charging the old price.  Really nice guys and the service was way more professional so they will be getting my business from now on.

And that's hopefully the last of my a/c related issues.

[Flash]

No matter how small or insignificant the job seems, it's always a good day when you get to tick an item off the snagging list.

Some of you may recall that I fitted a Mitsi L300 wiper setup to the old Thames earlier in the year. As part of that task I had to cut and shut the wiper arms to suit and I ended up using small 3mm diameter nuts and bolts to fix the Thames ends to the Mitsi arms like so:

Well suffice to say that every so often I've had to retighten the nuts as things worked themselves loose. I've had visions of a wiper blade parting company mid stroke and the remaining part of the arm gouging a nice track in my unobtainium windscreen, so earlier this month I ordered in a pack of the smallest diameter pop rivets that I could find. Even better was that they were coated black so no need for me to faff about with a rattle can. Picture of the win:

I had to ease the holes open an extra 1/2mm to accomodate the new pop rivets, but it's all done now.

The snag list is now down to 24 items.

 

 

[Flash]

The old Thames has clocked up another 560 km this month. Fuel consumption and overall engine performance are back to normal since I fitted the remanufactured electronic distributor, so that is a bit of a relief. The a/c is also working like a charm, but I had noticed a bit of sideways play in the idler pulley when I replaced the compressor a month back, and rather than faffing about with a new bearing I decided to replace the whole pulley. Splashed out on a genuine Dayco unit which set me back a cool $39.50 including postage.

Part number for my records:

Quickly whipped out the old unit and sat it next to the new one for a quick comparison.

The housing on the new unit on the left has a bit more shape to it, but the pulley diameter and the position of the bearing are identical.

Chucked the new jobbie back on the van, adjusted the belt and fired it up for a look see.

Belt runs perfectly true so I'll take the win. 

 

[Flash]

I've clocked up another 125km on the old Thames in the past two weeks and she is purring along like a kitten.

Gave her a good wash and a polish last week and noticed that when I hose her off I'm still getting a bit of water ingress along the tops of the front doors which sprinkles the seats and wets the floor mats. Bloody irritating.

A closer look at the current pinch weld seals that am using around the door openings revealed a slight gap along the top of the doors. I could replace the seal with a fatter profile, but that will be too much down each side meaning the doors will be a bugger to shut properly. 

I probably could fit the fatter seal along the top edge only, but my OCD would battle to come to terms with mismatched seal profiles and nasty looking joints, so something more cunning was required. Scratched my head for a bit and then decided that a neater looking option might be to fit a second seal to the top section of each door.

So while we were in town yesterday I wheeled past my local rubber place and picked up 1.2 meters of my favourite half moon rubber seal.

Gave it a quick trim, peeled off the backing and stuck a piece along the top of each door like so:

Profile shot:

And with a bit of luck that should improve the situation. I'll know for sure next time I give her a bath.

 

[Flash]

Okay, so today was bath day for the Thames and there were some mixed results in terms of the effectiveness of the new rubber strips that I fitted to the top of each door last Friday. The good news is that the door tops are now perfecly sealed. The bad news is that we are still experiencing water ingress down each side of the door.

So I'm thinking that I need to run the same seal down each side of the door just to where the window ends as depicted by the red lines in these photos:

 

Running 3 separate sections of seal on each door with tatty looking corner joints will send my OCD into overdrive, so I'm going to experiment with a few leftover offcuts to see if I can make a decent looking piecut for each of the 90 degree bends. If I can achieve that I'll bin the existing bits and stock up on some fresh lengths next time we do a town run.

However, it's not all doom and gloom as yesterday we did a fairly long drive at speed and both Mrs Flash and I noticed that we have lost an annoying whistling wind sound that I had always assumed was coming from the sliding glass door windows. Turns out it was air coming in the top door gap that the new seal has solved. So one more for the win column.

In other news I've been searching for a while for a new nose badge to replace my current one which as you will see in this image is looking a bit crusty:

It's the only badge on the entire van that hasn't been replaced with a new one.

This particular badge is pretty rare as they were only fitted to the vans assembled outside of Dagenham, in other words those vans supplied as "knocked down" kits to other countries.

This image shows my badge and the 3 other nose badges that were fitted to the UK assembled vans:

 

Sharing some useless information with you all - the badges depicting the 10/12 and the 15 refer to the CWT (hundredweight) loading capacities and the 800 was another derivative of the van. I have encountered a few NOS examples of the "15" badge on eBay UK, but as I said my badge is rare as. A few months ago I put the word out on the Thames 400e FB page that I was looking for a good nose badge, but have had no luck tracking one down thus far, so today I broke down and asked Mrs Flash to give my existing badge a bit of a birthday with some enamel model paint that I bought a while back.

It's not perfect, but it looks way better than it did:

And it looks even better from a few feet away:

Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Flash]

Okay, so the old Thames is still trucking along. I've been doing a heap of town runs to pickup building supplies for a few house related projects that we have on the go at the moment and because the weather is getting really toasty here I've been running the a/c almost constantly which has improved life no end.

But, there is something a/c related that is really bugging me at the moment. From day one of the a/c install I've been battling with the compressor drive belt. I keep having to adjust the bloody thing every couple of hundred k's of driving. I'm going to put up a post under general car chat in the hope that I can get some much needed advice on the issue, so I won't bore you with all of the details in this post, but suffice to say the belt usually decides it's time to squeel at the worst possible times meaning I have to drive the rest of the way in sweltering heat. I know that I should just shut up and take a cement pill, but here in the tropics a/c is a must.

Anyhoo, photo of the old girl loaded up with timber. Who says you can't fit 4.5 meter long decking planks in a Thames van hey.

 

[Flash]

In my last update I mentioned that I was battling with my a/c belts which seem to stretch to the point where I run out of adjustment. I popped one of my usual "advice needed" posts under general car chat and @440bbm suggested that I replace the notched belts that I have been using with a solid belt. I've got one on order which will hopefully pitch up sometime over the next few days. Hopefully that will solve my issue.

In other news I've just sold the last of my HiAce automatic gearboxes to a guy in Tassie. Gave it a clean before I wrapped and strapped it and I'll be dropping it off at my local courier depot tomorrow morning. I originally had two autos in stock in case I wanted to go down that path, but I'm happy with my 5 speed manual and these were just taking up valuable storage space. The last one went to Western Australia, so looks like these boxes are sought after items.

 

 

[Flash]

A few weeks ago I ordered a roll of sound deadening so that I can make a start on lining the old Thames. I'm hoping that it will make the van feel less "tinny". Anyway I had good success when I used this stuff to line the Mustang, so I figured I'd give it a go:

Made a start today by doing both back doors.

Pulled the door cards off to reveal loads of nothing:

Slapped on a bit like so:

 

While I had the panels off I  gave the rest of the cavities a liberal dose of fish oil to keep old man rust at bay.

Each side has 3 separate panels. I pulled the first one off for a look see and discovered that someone has been here before, but with some really cheap and nasty stuff:

I'm thinking I'm going to have to remove that before replacing it with the quality stuff, but I'm just not sure how I'm going to deal with the old adhesive, so I'm going to give that some more thought before I proceed, but at least I've made a start.

Thanks for looking.

 

 

 

[Flash]

Gave the Thames his weekly bath today and while he was clean I added some bling.

Before:

After:

 

[Flash]

Thought it was about time I posted an update on the old Thames. Well, to say that she has been working hard to earn her keep would be an understatement. As part of our back garden renovation we lifted an old concrete slab and ended up carting it to the tip in the van. I was a bit worried about the factory plywood floor in the load area so I ended up putting down a layer of old fence planks that were due to be dumped and it worked like a charm. 

Photos or it didn't happen:

 

I've also done a few Bunnings runs and can confirm that if I fold the rock n roll bed flat and remove the passenger seat I can fit in 3.6 meter long planks:

In other news a few weeks back a fellow Thames owner travelled up from Brisbane to visit the area and dropped in to check out my van. He has owned an original Dormobile camper for almost 27 years and has recently bought a ute which is under restoration so he really knows his 400es. I was expecting a bit of flak from him about my modifications, but after taking my van for a drive he was very complimentary about the way it drives and handles, so I was stoked to get that feedback.

Just before Christmas a Canadian 400e owner sent through this photo of some sliding window latches that he was having fabricated in polished stainless steel:

Although my existing window latches are in good working order, the factory chrome is pitted and showing its age, so I splashed out and got the Thames a Chrissy prezzie. I've still got to get around to fitting them, but here is a photo of the new bling which arrived in late December:

Hats off to Ian who not only went to all of the trouble of having these fabricated but also ended up having to travel from Vancouver across the border into the USA to post out 50 parcels of window latches to all corners of the globe. Apparently the Canadian Postal Service were on strike and he didn't want to let us down. What a champ.

In other news my a/c has been behaving itsself lately, so looks like I am over the belt related issues that I was experiencing. I've dropped a belt size which has given me more adjustment and so far so good.

And lastly in early December I noticed that my battery was staring to get a bit lazy on occasion. Opened up the battery compartment for a look see and realised that it was the second hand unit from our Mustang that I had fitted as a temporary solution 18 months ago and had promptly forgotten about. Talk about "out of sight, out of mind". Anyhoo I ended up taking advantage of the less 25% Boxing Day sale at our local spares and treated the old girl to a fresh 650CCA maintenance free jobbie.

And that's about it for now. Hopefully my next update will be a little more exciting.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Flash]

Got a bit of a gap today so decided to chuck in the new set of front shockies that I got for the Thames about a month ago.

I went for a set of Monroe gas ones as that is what the L300 donor van was running when I pillaged its front end for the Thames.

Out with the old:

And in with the new:

 

There is a noticeable difference in the ride quality with the new shockies in place, so I'll take that as a win.

While I had the front wheels off I took the opportunity to fit longer bolts to the upper control arms as my wheel alignment guy gave me the heads up that we were running out of thread length when I last had the alignment done.

Last week I did a 130 mile round trip to a place called Bamboo Land to pickup some bamboo panels for our latest landscaping project, so I thought I'd share a photo of the old Thames absolutely dwarfed by the bamboo growing alongside the carpark.

And that's pretty much it for now.

 

[Flash]

While I was grovelling around under the Thames fitting those front shocks I noticed quite a bit of uneven tread wear on my front tyres, so while I was in town today I dropped in for a wheel alignment check. Thought I'd try somewhere else as I wasn't overly impressed with the last place.

Turns out the toe in was sitting at +11.20 degrees overall .... WTF.

How did the last guy get it so wrong and how did I not notice the issue earlier ?

I've done just 4.500km on those tires and the left hand one is absolutely rooted, so next week Mamma is going to need some new shoes.

Seeing the Thames next to modern day utes always gives me a laugh. The thing looks absolutely tiny.

 

[Flash]

Finally managed to get a gap to replace the front tyres today.

[Flash]

The old Thames is still going strong with no major issues at the moment, but the other day while driving into town I had a close shave with a little hatchback that was tucked into my blind spot. It left me a bit rattled so I figured a remedy was required.

My first thought was to add one of those small blind spot stick on jobbies to each of the mirrors, but I soon realised that I didn't have enough real estate due to the factory mirrors being pretty dainty by modern standards, so a more cunning plan was needed.

Upon browsing the shelves at my local parts place I came across a 95mm diameter blind spot mirror, which was just a few mm shy of the size of my existing mirrors. Figured I'd give it a try, so I grabbed one.

 

Did a quick peel and stick job in their carpark. What an improvement.

So, I immediately ran back in and grabbed another. 

By this stage it had started to rain so I held off fitting the second mirror until I was back home and the van had dried out.

Photo of the final result: 

Hopefully near encounters with small hatch backs are a thing of the past for me.