Project Cobbler's's Talbot Express - Time to move it on?

[Zelandeth]

That's an obscure one... definitely "forgotten Fiat" category... I'm thinking Strada - though also tripping myself up somewhat by thinking they might have round warning lights...so definitely not certain.

[cobblers]

Got it in one!

[Zelandeth]

That's a bit of a surprise to be honest - even having been a bit of an nerd regarding instrument panel design as a kid.  Where the heck did you manage to find one... don't imagine Strada bits are exactly plentiful these days!

[cobblers]

I've been flat out with work, I sold my other van and drove the Talbot daily for a few months so couldn't really do anything proper to it. I bought one of those chinesium heaters that I was gonna fit today, but it was piss pouring with rain so I made one of the exhaust boxes instead.

 

I had a length of 150mm dia stainless tube, I got it out of a bin, I think it was originally an umbrella stand.

I'd cut the end plates to fit, but needed to drill some holes in them for the pipes. I needed these both offset to help tuck the box under the chassis - not that I'm short on ground clearance, but it stops them hanging down and looking out of place.

 

This might be the only box in the system, so I want to make it a bit quieter if possible, and I don't want it to drone so instead of leaving the perforated pipe straight, I added a kink to move it away from the walls and slightly impede the gas flow. It's a 60mm bore so way more than I need to fart 68bhp out!

First time ever welding stainless with stainless wire, it's alright. Wrapped the tube in wadding (which will apparently expand when heated) 

Then welded the ends on

 

I would do the usual and say that I forgot to take pictures before I ground all the welds back, but they looked a bit shit. I had the 160A welder on 5/6ths so it was chucking some right current in, but I found welding on an outside corner really awkward and they were wandering all over.

 

Anyway, that cost me £50 in bits and three hours to make something I could have bought for £65, hey ho. I am going to make every part of this exhaust system from bits now, just to be stubborn. I'm in two minds whether to build the whole thing with this as a single silencer and then add one in if it's too loud, or to just bite the bullet and put two in. 

[spartacus]

Props to you mate for tackling that. Not a bad place to practice your stainless welding though.

[Zelandeth]

Nice...cost aside, there's a huge satisfaction to be had from making something from scratch.

At least you've got baffles in there... I've a box that size on my van which does nothing!

I'd say pipe it up enough to connect that up then just run the engine, you should be pretty quickly able to gauge what sort of noise levels you're working with.

Had a chance to get the new instrument cluster in yet?  Be nice if that does just plug and play...

[spartacus]

It must be quieter already with the manifold gasket fixed, it farted from there when I had it!

[cobblers]

I've been mega busy with work so just pinched an hour here and there on this exhaust. The old one was getting worse and worse.

I basically copied the old one on the bench, tacked the new one together and it pretty much fitted:

 

I then proceeded to make a complete fuckup of all the welding, so much that I ground it all off and redid it, it was still shit so I painted the whole lot with black VHT paint to hide it further.

 

I was going to put two boxes in, but I tried it on when it was half made (just the first box with nothing after it)  when parked up and given a few revs it sounded OK with just one box - I reckoned the extra 2m of pipe would quieten it down further.

I was very very wrong. On idle it sounds OK, but when driven it really is horrendous - Do you remember the fart that used to come from royal mail sherpas? Imagine that but 5 times as bad. Horrible. It's on there for now and I'll put up with it for a bit, but it definitely needs another box in it - All the extra pipe seems to set up a resonance at a certain RPM (30mph in 2nd) and it's like a trombone!

 

Other than that went camping a few weeks ago and it was very cold, here's a cold tree I saw so you can tell I'm not lying:

 

For the first time ever, I ran out of battery power - I had a small inverter on charging the laptop but even so, the batteries used to last nearly a week of camping. The cold won't have helped, but it was the kick in the arse I needed to do an upgrade.

I had a pair of PC1100 AGM batteries I saved from scrap 3 years ago wedged onto the autosleeper battery tray, but they were held down with a bit of wood and well past their best. When I fitted them I was worried about how rotten the tray was, but I got away with it for a while. 

It really was shit, full of holes and floppy and the batteries clonked about over bumps

So I made a new tray from 30mm angle, to properly fit the batteries I was going to use.

That's not the real upgrade, it just allows me to fit two new batteries properly so they don't rattle about. I was hoping to squeeze three in there, but the gearbox and radiator fan are in the way.

In the back of the van under a seat is a cupboard that I never really use - it's a pain to get at, you have to lift all the seat cushions up etc. I measured it and with some tweaking it's perfect for a load more batteries - Four of them

In total I'll have 6x 46AH batteries, with a usable  200AH. Above those batteries is just enough space to fit a 1200w inverter and a 50A battery charger. With so much battery capacity, it means I can practically run the fridge and water heater off the batteries - I've come back from a really long walk in the freezing cold desperate for a hot shower and been really upset because I'm out of gas or the gas side of the water heater is playing up.  The water heater is a 700w 240V element and takes about 45 minutes to warm the tank, so  I can run it while I'm driving to get it warmed up, then have a couple or three showers off battery power if needs be.

 

 

[Noel Tidybeard]

we are going to make correct and proper ventilation for the "power wall" aren't we?

[ruffgeezer]

I've nothing to add except to say this has been a great read for it's blacksmithery. Reminds me of a DaveNumbers' thread.

 

Keep it up!

[Mally]

I have seen said exhaust, It was a masterpiece in all it's shiny glory.

You have spoilt it now.

Never mind, high temp paint won't last long under there.

[brownnova]

I now feel like such a wimp that I bought my Express exhaust from coastal Motorhomes and got a garage to fit it!!

 My leisure battery doesn’t  hold it’s  charge for long especially if it’s chilly. Coupled to the fact that it now seems to have ceased charging whilst driving it’s a pain in the arse for any form of wild camping. 

[cobblers]

21 hours ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

we are going to make correct and proper ventilation for the "power wall" aren't we?

Not intentionally, but there'll be a draught through the floor around the cables etc. They're sealed batteries that'll only gas off if something has gone very wrong. Loads of production vehicles have normal lead acid batteries in the passenger compartment so I'm happy with them as they are.

11 hours ago, Mally said:

Never mind, high temp paint won't last long under there.

Yeah, it's all flaked off the downpipe already, I've driven about half a mile.

 

9 hours ago, brownnova said:

I now feel like such a wimp that I bought my Express exhaust from coastal Motorhomes and got a garage to fit it!!

 My leisure battery doesn’t  hold it’s  charge for long especially if it’s chilly. Coupled to the fact that it now seems to have ceased charging whilst driving it’s a pain in the arse for any form of wild camping. 

The stock split charge setup on these vans is really shite, even when working properly, mine was barely charging at all when I got it, maybe 4A tops.

A proper auto sense split charge relay and 4 foot of decent cable wired directly off the alternator will charge the battery as quick as the alternator can.

[Jim Bell]

Dear santa, can we please have a video of the trombone exhaust to laugh at. We have been good all year. 

Kind regards,

Autoshite. 

[cobblers]

I was going to do a video earlier today actually but as soon as I balanced my phone on a pallet to do the video, someone rang me and it vibrated off into the gravel.

 I'll try and get some REAL DRIVE TIME video with my knockoff gopro, I think I've even got one of them suction mounts.

 

 

[rusty_vw_man]

Love this thread - a great blend of old VW bothering that runs seamlessly into quality camper action, with casual comments like I just made an exhaust out of an old umbrella stand. I struggle to make a functioning exhaust out of bits of ready made exhaust, so hats off to you! 

[Zelandeth]

I should really get a video of mine... it's rather ridiculous.  Though isn't too obtrusive once at cruising speed.  It does howl quite impressively on the way there though.  I really need to get someone else to drive the thing so I can hear it for myself.

Speaking of cruising... that's one department where mine is a little different.

Most of the run back down from Scotland was spent at an indicated 75-80.  You'd not think that was possible with such a leisurely spec...and can also vouch for the fact that it really confused people when something like this goes steaming past in the outside lane of the motorway!

 

[LightBulbFun]

27 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

I really need to get someone else to drive the thing so I can hear it for myself.

more than happy to help with that!

(can you tell im quite eager to get behind the wheel of something old! really quite curious how it all compares the modern 308s/208 iv been pootling around in for the lessons)

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, LightBulbFun said:

more than happy to help with that!

(can you tell im quite eager to get behind the wheel of something old! really quite curious how it all compares the modern 308s/208 iv been pootling around in for the lessons)

Heavy and busy in two words!

[Jenson Velcro]

19 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

I should really get a video of mine... it's rather ridiculous.  Though isn't too obtrusive once at cruising speed.  It does howl quite impressively on the way there though.  I really need to get someone else to drive the thing so I can hear it for myself.

Speaking of cruising... that's one department where mine is a little different.

Most of the run back down from Scotland was spent at an indicated 75-80.  You'd not think that was possible with such a leisurely spec...and can also vouch for the fact that it really confused people when something like this goes steaming past in the outside lane of the motorway!

 

Does it really run that cold?

[Zelandeth]

2 minutes ago, Jenson Velcro said:

Does it really run that cold?

Yes.  It will get to about a needle's width above the cold mark on a really long gradient flat out.  The heater is furnace hot though, so she's not too cold.  A couple of people have told me that these just do run like this and that "top of cold" is actually perfectly fine.

[cobblers]

On 12/16/2019 at 9:43 PM, Jim Bell said:

Dear santa, can we please have a video of the trombone exhaust to laugh at. We have been good all year. 

Kind regards,

Autoshite. 

 

I tried to get a video from outside, but even with the camera 20ft away the sheer sound of it swamped the microphone:

 

So here's an onboard driving shot. The maximum speed I was going in this video is about 35mph.

 

 

[spartacus]

It has a WW2 fighter sort of rasp to it, not ideal for a relaxing weekend away though!

[bangernomics]

Right so, gearchanges have been getting a bit more cumbersome on this as of late. These vans were designed to be LHD column change, so when they converted them to RHD with a floor shifter, they made some ridiculous setup to turn the gearchange through eleventy degrees,

It's all very compromised and it all wears at each pivot, and the angle at which it directs force onto the selector rod that pokes out of the gearbox is wrong so it wears that bush out too.
I've not got a lot of money to spend at the moment on account of not earning any money at the moment, so I thought I'd see what I could do for free or cheap to tide me over.
I noticed the selector rod that comes out of the box was wobbly and loose and stiff. I can get JKtowers man to rebush this collar for £50, but I figured it wears oval, so all I really need to do is turn it 90 degrees and I've got another "fresh" wear face, plus put a new O ring in it.

It all came out easy enough - the thread pitch is 1.5mm, so I need something a quarter of this (0.375mm) to use as a shim.

This airfilter box will do:


So some vernier action and scissors later I had a shim:

 
 a new slightly thicker O ring and some fresh grease, I refitted the lot. My calculations were correct, and it's rotated the bush more or less exactly 90 degrees:

Gearchange is improved, but still not brilliant, so I took a video of all the mechanisms while I went in the cab and waggled the stick;
 
No fucking wonder I can't get gears, the whole bastard engine is moving half an inch side to side! That explains why 2nd gear is a right nightmare to get when turning left sharp too.
Unfortunately, this means spending £70 on some engine mounts so it'll have to wait while I sell my other van. 
In the mean time I'm going to DIY rebush the idler relay too. Again JKtowers man will do this for me for £60, but I just need a long bolt, some bushes and a cheap chinese adjustable reamer so I should be able to do it for about a tenner.
 

Pop on the classic hymers FB page, guys just done a 2.8 conversation and is selling all of the old bits. He’s a full on engineering type and did bushes etc on his a short while back. May save a few quid as a bundle for the linkage and mounts would definitely be in a pile now.

I’d say check the rear mount first as that went on mine and made gears fun*

[scdan4]

That sounds epic.

dont you dare add more quiet.

That overrun ?

[cobblers]

It'd be bearable if it was a powerful engine in a little car, so that full throttle was an occasional treat, but with 70bhp pulling 2300kg along means that I'm at full throttle about 85% of the time.

[Jim Bell]

You just need a motorbike that sounds like a trumpet and you could start a Ska band. 

[Zelandeth]

Guessing from the sound of that the box you've got in there is an expansion box rather than strictly a muffler (meaning it's got a perforated tube in one end and out the other - nothing to force the gases out into the box and back into the tube).  I reckon mine should have a metal disc blocking the path straight through but I think that failed during shipping...so my silencer doesn't really silence much at all like yours.

[320touring]

This is epic!

 

Racevan:)

[cobblers]

Yeah, it's just a straight through perf tube wrapped in silencer wadding, the next box I planned to fit was to have chambers and a bit of a labyrinth path inside - I figured I'd be better having the pressure restriction after the first box, that way it'd force the noise into the wadding a bit more.

I had just a "token" box in mind, maybe 12" long, but after hearing this I'm going to build something substantially bigger. There's plenty of room for it.