Charlie's Echo (5)

Filed under: truck by tamber
22 Gorffennaf 2019 @ 23:00

November 2016

Okay, fine, I'll go deal with the fuel-toilet...

Close-up Photograph of the carburettor, with the cast in
manufacturer's marks polished up. They read: British made. Zenith.

An exploded diagram of the carburettor, supplied by Zenith. The
diagram is for a 48 VIR for a Bedford Truck of model years between
1958 and 1970. Item number 42 is a small screw, one of four that hold
a metering plate on.

(Item No. 42 fucks me over later. Spoilers!)

The carburettor, looking much cleaner, sat on a wooden
workbench.

Assembly is the reverse of disassembly, but you swear in different places.

The carburettor refitted to the engine. The throttle linkage is
not connected, and under spring tension has gone to
wide-open-throttle.

Refit. Forget to connect the throttle linkage, which means the throttle goes to full-governed open. Shit pants when the engine goes straight to 3000 rpm upon starting. Stop engine. Shake gravel from pants. Connect throttle linkage.

A few days later

New master cylinder comes in, and looks snazzy! A grey-painted Clayton-Dewandre master cylinder sitting on a
wooden table. The ports are taped off.

I've read, and re-read, the section of the WSM regarding the brake drums a good few times; and I'm still 50/50 on whether or not I can actually take the drum off without pulling the bearings.

The diagram makes it look like the drum is bolted on the back; but the text of the manual reads like the drum is pushed on over the wheel-studs, and retained by the three screws. (And the conical washers for the wheels.)

I've got some material to make a socket to remove the bearing retaining nut, if I have to; but I'm going to try removing all the cone washers and seeing if I can just slip the drum off. The bearings may well have to come out later on, but right now, I'm hoping to get away with not removing the hub.

We shall see...

The next day

Well, you may resume laughing at me. The hub does have to come off to sort the brakes out... :-D

The drum came off nice and easily with a little careful persuasion, after removing the cone washers. So, without further ado, here's today's progress, along with the thoughts I was experiencing at the time.

Just after pulling the cone washers. "Oh, this looks promising."

A close-up of a wheel-stud passing through a brake drum. The
tight fitting hole in the drum is somewhat rusty.

The drum retaining screws came out as if they were still brand new; which was a little strange... Cue the tap tap tapping; and "This is going well!"

Another close-up of a wheel-stud passing through a brake
drum. The drum has been inched off a little bit!

"Oh, wow, I might just about be able to do this!"

A photograph showing the brake drum having come partially off its
mountings, leaving a 20mm gap visible between the edge of the drum and
the backplate

"Ahaha, this is going great!"

A photograph showing the back axle of the truck, with the brake
drum slid almost completely off

"...Oh. That's why the manual says... right. Hm. In hindsight, this is blindingly obvious."

A photograph showing the back axle of the truck, with the brake
drum removed, and it is shown that the flange of the hub prevents easy
access to the springs and retaining clips of the brake shoes.

Brakes are looking delicious!

A close-up photograph of the brake mechanism, showing a large
buildup of grease, dirt, brake-dust, and cobwebs.

Okay, hub's gotta come off. (At the time of originally posting this, back in 2016, I'd never done it before!) And that means half-shaft out...

Half-shaft halfway removed from the back axle, with a bucket
under the hub to catch the oil that inevitably pours out.

Admire the chunkiness of the shaft. 1/2" ratchet for scale! Photograph of the end of the half-shaft, next to a half-inch
drive ratchet. The end of the shaft is apparently nearly two inches in
diameter!

Remove those retaining nuts, and schlide the whole thing free, promptly dropping it on my foot and covering myself with the ensuing drool of gear oil.

Close-up photograph of the axle's bearing surface, where the hub
has been freshly removed from, permitting acess to the brake
mechanism

December 2016

Little things!

A photograph of the front of the truck, showing one small marker
light lit up.

Some more connecting later!

A photograph of the front of the truck, now with one marker light
and both headlights lit up.

The offside sidelight wire was still curled up waiting to be pulled through and connected at that point. It got connected up later, and more recently I disconnected it to route it with all the others, because fox only knows what I was thinking when I ran it the first time.

January 2017

At this point, I was beginning to have problems. Remember what I said about part number 24 during that carb rebuild?

Very very minor update; since the carb rebuild, I've been fighting a few vacuum leaks, which I think I've mostly nailed down now. Though, with typical good timing, I appear to have run out of fuel; thankfully whilst parked up, but it's annoying when it happens part-way through trying to make sure you've strangled all the vacuum leaks, check timing, etc. :D

The suspicious part of me suspects someone's siphoning fuel out of the tank. This remains to be seen, however. Probably going to bump a better filler-cap further up the priority list, just to make myself feel better. :/

(And then it'll turn out that nobody's siphoning it, I'm just burning through it that quickly... :D I don't think I am, though; at the rate it seems to be 'evaporating', I'd have to be pumping liquid fuel out of the tailpipe...)

Anyway! Onto the current minor headache, timing. Following a bit of advice that "most carburettor problems are actually ignition problems", I thought I'd check where the timing actually was.

I located the markers on the flywheel, cleaned them up and added a few dabs' worth of white paint marker just to make them even more visible. (And I know the clutch is worn out! Something else that needs changing...)

The edge of the flywheel, with the manufacturer's timing marks --
an embedded steel ball, and a stamped 'UC' -- highlighted by white
paint-pen.

Cue some time going back and forth trying to figure out what the hell was going on, where the hell my timing was, why all the fuel was disappearing so fast, why are my points burning up, finding out what distributor I actually had (Delco D200) and so forth.

Late February 2017

Time for some cleaning

A close-up of an incredibly dirty rear wheel hub, soaked with
years of accumulated oil leakage and dirt that has built up to a heavy
slimy crust

The rear wheel hub, now shiny and without all the built-up
crust. It is shown to be several layers of army-standard Deep Bronze
Green paint underneath a thin and flaky layer of gloss black paint.

That's better! Time for the new hub sea... oh, fox.

Close up of my hand holding a new axle seal onto the axle. The
seal is very much too big. By a lot.

Cue some measuring, and a run out to a bearing shop nearby, at some point. In the meantime, more cleaning! This time with the needle-gun!

The cleaned and degreased rear wheel hub, sitting on a workbench,
now with all its paint blasted off and the surface a nice etched grey
of clean cast-iron.

And then for some un-cleaning, with the red-oxide. The hub now painted a reddish-brown.

I should probably paint them black as well. Maybe in the future. (Note from the future: I did, yup!) Now to look at the brake bisectors...