Coachmen Leprechaun

Yes I am. To try to avoid any shear stress issues.

I'm also in two minds about using the Stainless bolts for the manifolds.

The more I read up on the subject, the more I learn about the downsides of using stainless in hi-temp applications. S/S bolts can stretch at high tempeatures which could result in leaks after a period of time. I must dig out my old college books and read up on metallurgy!

I might just swop out the stainless bolts and use standard grade 8 bolts and not think about it anymore...

All of my small parts were in boxes and buckets. Not ideal when it comes to finding stuff.

So I reorganised my shelves, fitted some lights over each shelf (benefits of working for an LED lighting company), and laid out all of the parts, making it easier to see whats what. Most of these parts need to be cleaned up and fitted to the camper...

Yep, milled with the stretchers in place.

The twist was there with and without the stretchers in place.

It wasn't out by much, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to give it a quick pass.

I might be going too deep with this update, but sher, here goes anyway. (Some of you petrolheads might be interested in what makes the Chevy V8 tick.)

I replaced quite a few top end parts when rebuilding the engine. Heads, gaskets, valves, camshaft, Cam bearings, hydraulic lifters, push rods, rockers, pivot balls etc. :shock:
Before I closed up the top of the engine, I wanted to check the rocker arm geometry to make sure all of the new components were correct. There's lots of ways to do it. Some complicated, some not. I chose the non-complicated route to suit my non-complicated brain.

A method demonstrated nicely by the Summit racing team on youtube - Rocker geometry (push rod) check:



Checking the geometry is done by marking all 16 valve tips with a marker before assembling the rockers and setting valve lash. Then, crank the engine over a few times by hand before taking the rockers off again and inspect where the marker has been rubbed away. If the marker is worn away centrally across the valve tip, then valve train geomerty is correct. If the wear mark is too high or too low on the tip then I'd have to get different length push rods to correct the geometry.
I'm glad to report all were good. Phew.

Setting valve lash (or pre-load) is pretty straight forward too. Summit racing have it covered on youtube also.



In short - you set TDC on the exhaust stroke of cylinder #1 and then set valve lash in the sequence detailed below. Then once that's done, set TDC on #6 and set the remaining valves. Easy peasy (now that I've learned up on it!)


Using a dial-gauge to indicate when the exhaust lifters on #1 and #6 start to rise (part of the setting process).
#1

#6


Now that that's all done, I'll be fitting the old original rocker covers temporarily. I won't put on the new chrome covers until later on when the engine is in place. I don't want to damage the new ones.

I planned to start on the transmission today, but when I opened up the rebuild kit, I noticed that the new parts looked wrong. Even though the kit is labelled as a "full rebuild kit for TH400", the parts didn't match the description. Moterfu*ker...

I then started thinking maybe I should just run the transmission as it is and see what happens...

I decided to crack it open to have a look, but as expected there's all kinds of nasty going on inside... sludge, gel, and rust on the clutch packs & rotating assemblies.

I suppose I could flush it out, polish the steels and give it a punt, but I think i'll just wait for the correct rebuild kit to show up.

I was hoping to have the engine & trans fitted to the camper next weekend, but that aint gonna happen now. Ah well...

Output shaft housing:


Accumulator gunge:


Rust inside:



Any of that crap has the potential to clog the flters or block the narrow passageways in the valve body, so it needs to be stripped and cleaned 100%. I've been in touch with the parts supplier who were very apologetic. I should have the replacement kit in a couple of weeks hopefully.

Small'ish job this eve.

Cleaning up this heating control panel. No fancy climate controls to be found here. Just two levers and a fan control switch... .

I painted the backing plate (behind the acrylic) with some matt black spray, and polished up the acrylic face. Silvo polish did a good job revamping the scratched and faded surface. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was.


I also had to make a new lower mounting bracket. The one circled in red is new. The original had broken off and was MIA. I scratch made the new one from the leftover pieces of 3mm flat plastic sheet that I got to make the radio facia. A bit of a pain, but it turned out OK. I hope it holds!

This is going to take a while...

I wish he would!!

I spent most of the day at the fuse board. Taking everything apart and cleaning all the contacts and testing everything. Slow progress but getting there.

I priced new looms but at $750 plus delivery, I ain’t going that route!!

The fuse block was in surprisingly good shape considering it was very grimey and had been exposed to rain water. But I pulled all the connectors and cleaned them up just to avoid problems later. There was only one melted contact which served the tail lights (photo below). It appears that the spring clip that the spade fuse slots into, was slightly loose, which caused the contact to heat up. It melted the surrounding plastic a little, but not enough to destroy the fuse block. With a bit of careful surgery (to remove the old spring contact), and then transplanting another contact taken from a redundant location, we were back in business. I made sure every other contact was tight to avoid this happening again...

Because our van is the base model with no additional accessories like A/C and central locking, the number of fuses you see below are all that are required to operate the vehicle. I will be adding 2 seperate fuse panels later to serve modern additions like 12v sockets, USB sockets etc, 12v fuel pump, etc. One fused panel will be constantly 'hot' and the other which is 'hot' only when the ignition is switched on. I dont want to go cutting into the original wiring too much if I can help it.

I removed the loom bindings and inspected each wire one by one, checking for cracks in the insulation or breaks in the wire. All were in good shape and still flexible. Before I re-wrapped the loom with fabric loom tape, I checked continuity on each wire with a multimeter. All good...

Melted:


Everything comes apart and is servicable:


All cleaned up and ready to go:


A jar on hand just in case...

Both are good points. Not only are the two 5w tail lights on that fuse, but I also think the front and rear overhead clearance lights are connected to this fuse. Thats ten more 5W bulbs on the same line. I could seperate them out onto their own fuse also...

I'll have to look at that, thanks for the suggestions lads!

K

When I cleaned up the holder, the melted plastic was only on the outer visible face. The connector was melted and stuck to it. But when I removed the old connector, and cleaned up the plastic surround, I noticed the shoulder that holds the connector in place was fine. So I removed a spare connector from elsewhere and it locked right into place when I pushed it into the hole. Everything lines up nice.

But I think ye're right, I'll split out the lines to reduce the loads just for safety.

The installation tool for the Harmonic balancer arrived on Friday.



It threads into the end of the crankshaft. Wrenching on the nut gently & evenly presses the balancer into place on the end of the crank without putting stress on the crankshaft thrust bearings. The balancer is a friction fit on the crank. Some guys just use a big hammer to thwack it into place, but I prefer to spent a few bob and do it carefully.


Done.



I also opened up the water pump for a look. It had a little surface rust inside but it was in good shape.


Back cover de-rusted, zinc plated and reinstalled. This plate was very rusty on the outside but it cleaned up OK with a wirebrush. Some minor pitting as you can see, but it's a thick plate so I'm not concerned about it.

A much anticipated package arrived today.

All in order this time.

Lesson learned this weekend?

Don't waste time on cheap eBay tools.

I spent half the day on Sunday trying to get this new brake pipe tool to make half decent double flares but it was a piece of crap. I thought it was me first, being a bit rusty not having made a brake flare in a couple of years... but I had to give up on it after a couple of frustrating hours.

It made OK(ish) 1/4" flares but the 3/16" flares were shite. I must've made 20 test pieces but I wouldn't put any of them on a vehicle.

The seller agreed to give me a refund this morning without hesitation so I guess they may already be aware of quality issues... Poorly made chinese POS, and not fitting together quite right, I should have known better.

I'll need to borrow my father-in-laws one.

Thanks John,

Hopefully My Father-in-law can spare his pro handheld set for a few days. (His ones are exactly like yours).

But if he can't, I'll give you a shout!

Cheers,

K

Now yer talkin’



First test piece of each sized tube... and bam... done. No f*cking around.



Time to start bending & fitting...

I made a start on the brake pipes this weekend..

#1 of many:


Wheel bearings cleaned & repacked with grease and the big oul' rotors and brake calipers now mounted. All beefy stuff.
New Raybestos brake lines and brake pads fitted also.



I've been in touch with a company down in Cork who can machine the brake discs for me. I'd like to get the discs skimmed back a couple of thou. The rear face of both discs are a bit pitted and I'd prefer to have them machined to make sure they're 100%. As soon as we're rolling, I'll bring the camper down and get this job done. They can do both sides of the disc at the same time (on the vehicle) which ensures the faces of the disc are parallel and are "true to the rotation of axis". Clever set up.

Example:


Pig tail pipes fitted between Master cylinder and brake balancing valve.


I also got cracking on the transmission. It's now stripped down completely. Next job is to degrease it and get ready for the rebuild.
That reminds me, I mustn't forget to soak the friction plates & bands in a dish of transmission fluid for a few days before I start reassembly, hopefully next weekend...
<No pics>

It's all go...

What a weekend!

I had Thursday and Friday off work due to the bad weather alert and I expected to get a ton of work done on the camper...

Wrong!

With the pending doom of 12" of snow and -10C temps, my Mrs asked me to make a "cat house" for the strays that live outside our back door, and a "bird feeder" for the wildlife... That was most of Thursday taken up. Quite enjoyable too. Pics to follow.

The heavy snow really messed us up on Friday! Between power cuts, frozen pipes and our oil fired Central heating packing up on Friday morning, it's wasn't a good one... It was Saturday am before I could get a relative with a 4x4 to drive to town to get parts for the boiler... Nightmare.

Saturday afternoon was spent playing in the snow with the kids.

I only did a few bits to the camper on Sunday. Following a big tidy-up in the workshop, I finished the calipers and the pipe runs on the front axle. I'll wait until the weather improves before I tackle the brakes on the back axle...

I didn't touch the transmission at all, it was so cold it was hard to get much done.

A couple of pics:

I re-made the brake line between the balancing valve and the kerb-side caliper as the first one I made was a bit long and it looked a bit goofy.
_{(The Yellow blobs you see on the nuts are Dykem tamper paint which shows me which nuts have been torqued down).}


Routing the off-side brake line across the front beam...


... and over to the off-side caliper:


I also took the upper grill header off, to get access to the engine bay and get ready to fit the engine & transmission...


Only two pipes fitted in 4 available days!! ... not what you'd call great progress... Ah well, hopefully next weekend will be more productive!!