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Flash's 1965 Ford Thames


Flash

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The oil in the dashpot doesn't come in contact with any seals or run through the carb. The dashpot piston is brass and seals by fit in the carb body.

 

It won't really effect you tuning it anyway it's mainly there to help smooth out changes in throttle position while driving (stops the needle slamming open or shut, like suspension in a car)

 

 

Plenty of Barry yarns about fine tuning the perfect carb oil. Sewing machine oil is a bit too thin, I have some genuine SU oil here but have used pretty much what ever was around at the time before

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Selecting the correct needle and spring probably has less to do with engine capacity, and more to do with the expected power output, cam timing, etc.

Do you know the cam timing and power curves for the Toyota engine?  If it's running ok when warm, is the choke working when it's cold?

This is worth a read https://tecb.eu/onewebmedia/Tuning_SU_Carbs.pdf

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Thanks Bryan, you've confirmed what I was thinking about it being more than just a question of engine displacement. I'll do some homework on cam timing etc.

Yes, choke is definitely working.

I've just pulled the plug from cylinder 2 to see how it looks. The plugs are old, but were looking pretty black when I was running the original Aisan twin throat carb. The colour is definitely looking better with the SU despite my gunson telling me a different story.

Thanks for the link, I'll give it a read. 

20200511_125703.jpg

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Would highly recommend stripping the carb down and scrubbing everything with soapy water and a dish scouring pad inside (the green type you would use on non stick pans)

Everything will be full of soot and grit the float chamber will probably have hard lumps of lead and varnish in it. 

I do mine in a bucket while watching tv.... rinse with meths and leave to dry for a bit. Just did one today.

IMG_11052020_140150_(1080_x_1080_pixel).jpg

IMG_11052020_140230_(1080_x_1080_pixel).jpg

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Thanks for the advice Muncie. Must admit that I haven't given the carb any love yet. Just blew the shelf dust off the outside and chucked it on to see what would happen, so I reckon it would be worthwhile exercise.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Try install the needle a hair higher up in the piston. This will effectively richen it up at idle, and give you some more range with your idle screw (and richen it up through the whole range obviously)

 

In my SU book it looks.like the 2.2L applications have BBD, BBN, BBX, BBW needles

So the hif44  BB* equivalent needle is probably in the range

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Just a tip before you weld on the brackets for that front end- make sure the caster is in the ballpark  of where it needs to be. 

A lot of people get caught out by welding the beam in flat, or where it fits best, but then when they go for an alignment it needs a horrendous amount of shims, or doesnt have enough caster adjustment,  or it ends up adjusted so much it cocks up the steering geometry and have bump steer issues  

 

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You could do something like this, the main thing is you are trying to get it close enough rather than maximum precision.

Another way is you could roughly figure it out if you can see where the pivot points of the upper and lower ball joints are. 

 

The thing you are trying to avoid is welding it in with, for example, 3 degrees of negative caster , when it should be aligned at 3degrees positive...which would mean you would need 6 degrees of correction to get it right= problems I mentioned earlier 

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Hey Clint, thanks for the link to the Youtube clip. I checked it out and then nosed around the net a bit more and came across another clip which provides a really good way of checking the caster at home with just a simple angle finder. Makes it look like a pretty straight forward exercise, so thought I'd include a link to this clip below to guide anyone else who needs to check their caster and camber.

I did check my camber yesterday, but have now realised that I checked it with the weight off the wheels which was really dumb. So today I'll drop the Thames onto its wheels and check both camber and caster. I've got the mockup Toyota engine and gearbox chained in place, so at least I'll have the correct weight on board when I do this.

I'll report back on how this exercise goes, but I'm really grateful to you for taking the time to give me the heads up on checking my caster. I'm a total noob at suspension swap outs so this is a massive learning experience for me.

 

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  • 3 months later...

Wow, that is an interesting setup. Thanks for taking a pic. I would need one with two multi Vs for my setup. I contacted a spares place today, but they couldn't find a listing in the Dayco parts book for a twin. He was looking under HiAce though.  Yours is from a Dyna isn't it ? Pity it's got the single v for the second belt.

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Hey Gord, just a thought, and I know you are heading towards a mechanical PS setup, but did you know that you can mount an electro hydraulic pump pretty much anywhere in the vehicle?

 

On a lot of race cars they mount  them  in the boot! Because hydraulic fluid does not compress (much!) the response is pretty much instant. Just thought I would throw that out in case you thought it had to be front mounted.  

 

Conrad

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Hiya Conrad. Thanks for sharing the additional info. Yes I had read that the electro hydraulic pumps can be mounted well away from the rack without any adverse effect on operation and I'm still a big fan of these pumps. There are a few other factors that have influenced my thinking. A bit of background (apologies in advance for the info overload):

Unlike the later Transits the Thames vans are fitted with sliding glass in the front doors similar to the original Land Rovers and early Minis. This effectively halves the volume of fresh air coming in the windows. The only other bit of ventilation is a small flap in the floor of the van that diverts fresh air coming through the front grill up into the cabin. There are no fans or any other modern bits and pieces. Not even a windscreen demister. Whilst this might have been sufficient in the UK it just doesn't cut the mustard here in Straya. On the few short drives that I took in the van before I stripped it down I was literally bathed in sweat. Converting the doors to wind  down windows would entail a great deal of fabrication, way beyond my capabilities. So early in the piece I realised that a/c is going to be required to provide a decent level of cabin comfort on summer days.

So with the knowledge that I need to run a/c I looked at available space to hook a mechanical a/c compressor to the Toyota engine, but there is absolutely no way. The main chassis legs just aren't far enough apart. Based on this I'm left having to run electro a/c. These systems have progressed in leaps and bounds now that electric cars are becoming main stream. Prices for 12v a/c systems are steadily coming down although still way higher than a mechanical system, but still worth investing in to improve comfort. So that's the way I'm going to go. 

With the a/c direction set I then threw the p/s into the mix. If I was to run the electro p/s pump as well as the 12v a/c I'm going to need to run a fairly meaty alternator. I've read that you need somewhere around 80 amps for the a/c and around 60 amps for the p/s before you factor anything else in. That is a sizable load and I'd have to find a high output alternator with the same physical size as the standard 50 amp unit. I've looked around on the net to see what there is, but couldn't find anything off the shelf. I read a bit about converting alternators from star to delta configurations (or is it the other way around) to double the output, but that would only get me 100 amps, way less than I need to run both electric systems. So I'm likely going to need to approach a specialist to source or modify an alternator to meet my needs. Could be done I hope but may be a costly exercise.

Current thoughts are that if I could run one of the systems mechanically, this would reduce my power requirements to a more acceptable level as well as reducing overall cost for both systems. 

Then whilst finalising the engine position late last week, I suddenly realised that I might just be able to squeeze in a small mechanical p/s pump and that's where I've kinda ended up now.

The L300 pump will fit using its factory bracket. Since I already have it it isn't costing anything extra (apart from the double pulley I'll need). The position mocked up on my 3Y is close to where the pump resides on the L300 so I should be able to get away with using the L300 pipework which would be another saving (I still recall the high cost of getting the Transit pipework modified for the Bedford when I did that p/s conversion).

Having said all of this I'm still game for any other alternatives so really appreciate your suggestions.

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Sounds like you have a plan there Gordon! FWIW, I measured the  current draw on the Merc PS pump, and it was 30 amps. This does not mean you need an additional 30 amps in your alternator output, as it is very intermittent use. As long as you aren't marginal, then whatever you have should be okay.

For high output alternators to run your A/C, search late-ish model cars, say post 2000, especially SUV's. Many have 150-200 amp alternators fitted as standard.  But they will be a bit larger than what you have fitted already.   

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