Flash's 1965 Ford Thames

[Flash]

I managed to find a few crappy old bits of PVC pipe that I figured would make good mock up material. Used a bit of 90mm storm water pipe to represent the SU. Marked out the spindle height and used that as a datum. Then marked out the upper (top of pot) and lower (bottom of integrated fuel bowl) and added an extra 40 mm either side for extra clearance. 

With the carbie mocked up size wise I then cobbled together a mock up of the inlet adapter using a 40mm 90 degree PVC bend.

The whole thing is rough as guts, but at least it gives me something to work with.

I positioned the mock up under the engine cover and the good news is that the lid closes perfectly with about another 30mm of headroom so I should have more than enough space.

Pictures of my rather agricultural effort in position below:

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So despite it looking like a dog's breakfast, I'll take the win for now.

Looking at the picture of the mock up below - apart from the fact that it looks like it needs a dose of Viagra - the only other thing worrying me for now is the length of the adapter pipe. Unfortunately this can't be helped and I'm just going to have to live with any performance degradation that the length may cause.

To be fair I have over estimated the size of the carbie, so I'm hoping that once I have the actual carb in my grubby mitts, I'll be able to reduce the overall length by a bit.

I also figure that the old VW Beetles ran a very long inlet manifold in standard format, so if it worked for VW surely it's going to work for my dodgy 4Y. Time will tell I guess.

Next step is to start fabricating the lower plate that will bolt on to the standard 4Y inlet manifold.

Valiant has suggested that I make up the adapter using steel rather than aluminium which suits me as my skill set is low and I'd need to farm out the welding if I went ali.

I'm thinking to use a pipe somewhere around 45 mm ID based on the fact that the SU has a 44 mm diameter butterfly. Does this sound right ?

I'm guessing that I should retain the plastic isolation spacer that currently sits on the 4Y manifold, but am open to suggestions from those more knowledgeable so feel free to point out the error of my ways. Similarly should I be putting an isolation spacer between the carb mounting plate and the carb ? 

Thanks for reading.

[Flash]

Late last week the courier arrived with the SU carbie that I scored for a decent price off a guy in New South Wales. It's a HIF 44 so should do the trick. 

So thanks to everyone who nudged me in this direction.

 

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I was originally planning to make the SU adapter out of steel, but I have a mate who is able to do aluminium welding and due to the limited tools that I have available I figured it would be much easier to fabricate the plates that I need out of the softer material.

Following my philosophy of re purposing as much as possible from my donor vans I set my sights on making something out of what is left of the dodgy looking aluminium bull bar off the Starwagon.

I started off by pulling it off to reveal its true glory.

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Sadly the diameter of the bull bar tube is on the small side and will choke the poor SU, so I'll need to find a 2 inch bend somewhere else, but the plate was just about wide enough to make the biggest flange.

Started off by making a few mock ups out of an old bit of plywood and then armed with only a drill, a small angle grinder and a few files I set to work.

First step was to grind off the existing welds until I was back to a flat plate.

Next I drilled what felt like a million and one holes which I then enlarged until I was able to break out a bit of plate to reveal a very rough set of centre holes.

I'm too embarrassed to show you what the interim steps looked like, but a bit of work with my files and some sand paper and I called them done.

A bit rough and ready, but they will do.

Now to rustle up a 2 inch bend.  

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I ended up ordering a 2inch aluminium 90 degree bend which arrived earlier this week.

Spent a bit of time fine tuning my drain pipe and plywood mock up and then test mounted the SU carb to check clearances.

Crappy pics, but you get the idea.

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Then slapped together a "rough and ready" wooden jig that will hopefully hold everything in position while a mate of mine glues it together for me.

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Monday was a public holiday here in Aus, but yesterday my good mate Cameron took my manifold adapter in to work and glued it together for me. Dropped this off at my place last night.

I owe him big time.

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So the plan for today is to test fit this on the mock up 4Y sitting in the Thames at the moment to double check clearances.

If all is good I'll then fit this to the running 4Y in my donor HiAce together with the SU carb. With a bit of luck I hope to get the HiAce running with the SU.

Stay tuned.

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Quickly fitted the adapter and HIF 44 to the 4Y mock up in the Thames before morning smoko and the good news is that everything clears. Some may be wondering why I made the adapter so long, but I needed to ensure that both the accelerator and choke mechanisms cleared the rocker cover on the one side and that the fuel and vacuum inlets cleared the engine box lip on the other side. It's likely that this length will compromise performance, but it's a dirty old 4Y anyway, so how much worse can it get.

Anyway, pics showing the win including a shot from underneath with the engine cover closed. 

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So after morning smoko I headed over to the donor HiAce and pulled off the standard carb to fit the SU.

But, ...... Houston, we have a problem .....

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There's a piece of engine cover bulkhead in the way.

Luckily not a problem for us here in the "Rough as Guts Garage" and a quick spin of the trusty old angle grinder and we were back in business.

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Luckily the old HiAce ain't going on the road again so no real harm done.

With the SU carb and adapter bolted up it was just a case of fitting a longer fuel hose and temporarily extending the vacuum advance pipe until I can buy a longer piece.

Took a bit of cranking to get some fuel into the SU and then she fired up. She's coughing and spluttering a bit, but not bad for something I just chucked straight on. The poor SU has been sitting on a dusty shelf in someones shed for a good few years, so could do with a birthday. 

I'll order an overhaul kit and the appropriate needle for a 2.2 litre which is a BGB according to the experts and hopefully I can get her running a bit smoother.

Thanks for reading.

[Flash]

Picture less update today I'm afraid as I've been spending a bit of time fiddling about with the SU carb so no real visible progress.

After following a tip from @CUL8R I chucked a bit of ATF into the bone dry dash pot and noticed a small improvement. Even with the choke engaged she is rough as hell when cold with both hesitation and some backfiring through the carb under acceleration as well as completed cut outs unless you constantly feather the accelerator. The cut out includes an audible clatter from the dash pot piston just before she dies. To get her to run when cold you have to keep blipping the accelerator and she doesn't rev clean at all.

Once warm she settles down to an even idle and accelerates really cleanly with no backfiring through the carb and no cut outs.

Sounds like positive progress, but I'm getting some really interesting results when I check the mixture using my Gunson colour tuner.

What I'm experiencing seems to be the opposite of what I should be experiencing. Let me explain:

So with the mixture screw set about half way I'm getting a bright yellow flame, so way too rich.  Turning the screw anti clockwise (which is supposed to reduce fuel) she gets yellower and then cuts out. Turning the screw clockwise (which is supposed to increase fuel) she gets smoother but still with a yellow flame. If I continue to turn the mixture screw clockwise the best result being almost full blue flame at idle is achieved at full lock of the mixture screw. At full lock she does occasionally change to a yellow flame but its only for a brief instant and then she goes blue again. So it's almost as if I am on the cusp of getting the idle mixture spot on if I had a little bit of adjustment left. But as mentioned this is achieved by setting the mixture screw the wrong way. Really bizarre !

I pulled the main metering needle out to see what it is and it's a BBX. The piston spring isn't colour coded so I can't tell what it is.

I've done a bit of checking on the net and I can't find any info on anyone who has fitted a HIF44 to a 2.2 litre 4Y. I did find a crowd in the UK who provide a kit to fit a HIF44 to a Land Rover 2.25 litre engine using a manifold adapter which is similar in design to mine - just shorter. They recommend using either a BDM or BDL needle with a red piston spring. However, I can't imagine it's purely a case of working off the engine displacement - or is it really that simple ?

 

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With the HiAce based SU equipped donor 4Y running "okayish" for now, I've turned my attention back onto the Thames and have kicked off the next phase of the project which is the proper fitting of the various donor parts that to date have only been mocked up. Thought I'd start off by getting the L300 front suspension fitted as everything else will flow on from this.  First order of business was to give the suspension a damn good clean as there is nothing worse than working with dirty parts.

Proceeded to scrape off 30 years of accumulated grease and dirt before giving the whole setup a liberal dose of degreaser and then a good water blast. I do plan to strip it all down for painting and refurbishing before final fitting, but for now I'm happy with the interim result.

A few dirty pictures to get everyone in the mood.

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I picked up some 4 mm steel plate from my friendly re-cycler when we were in town last week and proceeded to cut the mounting plates for the front end. The photo below shows the left hand side mounting plates, but I made up a set for the right hand side too. You would have thought that the holes would line up on either side but their are slight differences betwen the spacing. Not much, probably in the region of about one to two mills out. I guess they weren't that accurate back in the day.

You will also notice that I made both plates longer than my original templates as shown in the picture below. Reason being that I realised I was going to lose one or two of the bottom fixings that are likely to be sitting directly under the L300 front beam. By lengthening the bottom plates I managed to pick up two extra fixings towards the front and one extra fixing towards the back. Each of the vertical plates got lengthened towards the front to pick up an additional fixing. Probably a bit over engineered but I'm happy with the result. All of the extra holes were already threaded so makes mounting pretty easy. I just needed to clean up the threads with a 5/16 UNF tap as they were pretty crusty.

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The new plates are now bolted to the chassis and ready for the front beam.

Next step was to cut the existing L300 mounting lugs off the front beam which I tackled this morning.

And that brings everything up to date.

Thanks for reading.

[Flash]

Another fruitful few days here at "Rough and Ready Restorations" in sunny Queensland.

Never having tackled anything like this before I'll give you a quick run through of the rather rustic method that I used to determine the final position for the new L300 front beam.

Kids, please don't try this at home.

With the front up on axle stands the Thames was sitting on the piss, so I figured a decent first step would be to level the van up by lifting the rear onto jack stands. It took a bit of fine tuning but I was finally able to confirm that the old Thames is now sitting perfectly level from front to back on both sides as well as from side to side at both the front and the rear. With the van all squared up I then lifted the L300 front beam until it was a couple of millimetres shy of the chassis legs and then braced it in place resting across two short length, equal thickness hardwood planks that are running from front to back, each plank  supported by an axle stand at each end (luckily I have a good few axle stands in my collection). Again I leveled this all up and called it good.

With the front beam now "hovering" a few mills shy of the chassis legs I inched the beam along the planks until I had it roughly where I wanted it. At this point I was able to confirm that the L300 beam does cover one of the mounting holes for the new chassis plates, so it was a good thing that I thought of this earlier and lengthened each plate to pick up additional mounting points. 

Next step was to figure a way to keep the beam correctly centered as well as correctly aligned front to back.

Following my usual "rough and ready" approach I proceeded as follows:

For the front to back aspect I figured I could use the plate bolt ahead of the beam on each chassis leg as a good anchor point for some kind of spacer that I could replicate for both sides.  Searched through my collection of hole saws and found one that had a radius measurement that was exactly what I needed. so proceeded to cut two wooden discs that look like so:

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Grabbed some longer bolts and bolted the wooden discs to the new chassis plates already fixed to the chassis legs by the other fixings.

I then turned my attention to centering the suspension beam. I followed a similar methodology by digging through my off-cuts of timber until I found two matching pieces that fitted snuggly between each L300 suspension tower and the outside of each plated chassis leg. Tapped the timber spacers into place and then lifted the L300 beam the last few millimetres until it was sitting snuggly against the chassis plates. Fitted a tie down strap to the front of each chassis leg and took up the tension to make sure the beam was firmly fixed in place.

Sorry for the poor pics, but the light in my shed plays havoc with my cheap and cheerful camera.

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So with the beam now temporarily fixed in place I stepped back to check how things were looking. Chucked my Dragways on with some new metric nuts that I picked up from supercrap during our last town run (I only bought one set as I wasn't 100% sure of the sizes so have only got two nuts on each wheel. I'll get some more when we are next in town).

With the L300 beam being wider than the original Thames unit the 6J Dragways fill the front arched really nicely. I did a quick alignment test using the old string and axle stands method and she is sweet as. I've also managed to improve the position of the front wheels within the arches and they are now centred compared to the original Thames setup.

I'm relatively happy with the result. Again apologies for the quality of the pics.