Has anyone had a lorry transported? Is it hi - NOW BODGE 50 HORSEBO11OX THREAD (Now with added turtles)

[mk2_craig]

Hey does anyone have a hot tip for where I could buy a new pair of ‘old font’ pressed aluminium plates for this thing?

If you've got a few mins, look up GB Signs and give them a bell. They're mainly concerned with stuff for local authorities and that, but they did me a great pair of early 70s style stamped tin plates, using what looked like the original machine to create them. I never used them in the end so I'll dig them out for a photo if by some minor miracle I remember to do so.

[500tops]

Tippers:

 

https://www.tippersvintageplates.co.uk/

[jumpingjehovahs]

It's sign if your age when you start watching Country File.

 

I’m hoping it’s more a reflection on my dad than me, I’m still south of 30!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Dodge 50 Xmas welding spesh

 

Hi gang, been doing a bit on the Horsebo11ox recently, mainly metalwork stuff. Heres where i'm up to:

 

 

So last time I'd chopped the cab mount off. It was seriously rotten. The drivers side is probably quite badly afflicted too but this was by far the worst.

 

 

Bought a new sheet of 1.2mm Zintec from the motor factor, plus a piece of 2mm plate off eBay. Heavy shiz!

 

 

Made a very basic TonyBMW-style 'metal folder' - Its just 2 bits of heavy angle iron with M8 bolts and weld nuts for nipping it up. Still you can hold it in the vice and it makes a neat 90deg angle.

 

 

Trimmed up a lot more grot and cleaned up what was left;

 

 

Started fabricating some new parts in the evenings over the last wek or two of work. Again, welding time is seriously limited by making too much noise on my street!! But working inside the garage with the door shut is OK hence making various bits 'off line' ready for a weekend weldfest.

 

 

Bit of CAD "Cardboard Aided Design'

 

 

After a fashion I had this lot. All made out of 2mm plate so quite a war bashing it into shape!!! Bought a few decent drill bits off eBay for drilling the plug weld holes.

 

 

Heres the rotten remains of the old one. Will need to salvage that big nut for the bumper mount!!!

 

 

Getting the top plate into position

 

 

 

Got 'on it' a bit too much for taking loads of pics so in these shots all 3 new bits are on, plus a new flange on the lowr edge. Top tips from the pros: Always keep a big bucket of rainwater right in the way where you're working. After you have dropped your welding clamps and bits of panels in it 5 or 6 times, you can move it elsewhere.

 

 

Slapping on the red shiz (like always)

 

 

Starting to box it off, all in 2mm stuff

 

 

Using the bumper to mark up where I need drill the mounting hole:

 

 

Making the last bit - I used 2 layers of 2mm plate and welded the nut on the back:

 

 

Yes that seems to be OK

 

 

BOOM!!!!! All done!!!! Actually not really - I do need to do one more plate but its inside the wheelarch, I'll do that later wjhen I can pull the truck away from the fence. Good job though eH?! I am well please with how its turned out. And, welding new pieces of thick plate is a revelation after years of trying to join countless piece rusty bacofoil back together.

 

Next I decided to have a look at the exhaust manifold gaskets. For that you have to take the engine cover off:

 

 

The studs holding them onto the head were MEGA tight, I had to use my 3ft breaker bar to shift them.

 

 

Got it off eventually though

 

 

OH Bollocks!!!! I think whoever fited this last just went too far with the scaffolding pole or whatever when nipping up the studs, and bust it!!!! Now i need to find a replacement manifold. I dont think these are still available from Perkins, but I will do some detective work to find out for sure that theres not one sat on a shelf somewhere. Also put the feelers out on the facebook site.

 

My Super chinesium rad is up at the fab shop having some brackets and pipe stubs added over christmas - I was looking forward to fitting it but thats not happening till the manifold is sorted, as access to the front of the engine is pretty poor. Anyway next jobs are refit the LH Al Bundy Bumper Box, paint the LH front panel and cab mount, seal and refit the headlight and maybe fettle the wiring so all the lights are working properly. Then I'm a bit stuck till I can sort the manifold and get it runnning again. Yo!

[Cavcraft]

I don't know if my old Perkins contact dealt with small stuff like this (HGV lorries were his thing) but if you get stuck message me and I'll try and findhis number.

[beko1987]

You could cast one!

[DeeJay]

Lovely welding. Manifold's a bugger. The gaskets were probably fine.

[spartacus]

Props for those fab. skills Bo11, that front end is looking great.

Bad luck on the exhaust manifold. If you can't get a new one or a good used one, what's the chances of fabbing something up, it doesn't look too complicated.

[LightBulbFun]

my brother got me a Box of "maltesers teasers" which iv been getting "wasted on" while reading your latest post

 

Living the dream

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Not sure about casting a new manifold! Maybe in plaster of paris or something.

 

I think my options are:

 

1) Facebook group miraculously comes up with something

2) I believe you can get a parts list for each engine serial number from Perkins (my current employer as it happens), which should give me a part number for the manifold. With that I think they can do a scan of Perkins distributors and see if there are any new manifolds out there on a shelf somewhere. Bet its a £120+ touch though

3) There is also a dude at work who is a mega metal magician with welding and fabbing. He's got a forge in his back garden apparently!!! Might ask him if he has any ideas about gluing it back together.

[cobblers]

I'm sure a man with a greasy enough rollup could weld that up for you.

 

There's a few blokes on youtube I always see welding up cracked cast iron stuff - they preheat the part then use a certain (high/low? carbon) rod and stick weld them back together.

[dollywobbler]

Nice work Mr Boll. Well, aside from the manifail. What a sod.

[Angrydicky]

That is repairable, we occasionally get broken cast iron welded back together by a local engineering firm. They're in West Suffolk - can give you the details if you can't find anyone local. They'd probably charge £100 or so to do that but it would be much easier to get it welded than to find a replacement.

[Dave_Q]

I'm sure a man with a greasy enough rollup could weld that up for you.

 

There's a few blokes on youtube I always see welding up cracked cast iron stuff - they preheat the part then use a certain (high/low? carbon) rod and stick weld them back together.

It will be high carbon, cast iron is something like 2-4% carbon whereas most steel is <0.3%.

[MorrisItalSLX]

So when are you painting the whole thing in red oxide?

 

You could get a new manifold made up out of stainless tube for extra OMGBHP.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I am told that the quickest way to a OMGBHP BOOST (at the wheels) is to sack off the viscous fan and replace it with an electric one. 'SRSLY YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THE DIFFERENCE, YOU'LL NOTICE IT THE FIRST TIME YOU HAVE TO GO UP A HILL' is the verdict from the dude up the road who is into his old trucks and bikes. It makes sense, I can well believe the fan is a 7-8bhp hit and when you only have 90 to shift like 3000kg thats a lot.

[DodgeRover]

Yep I took the fan off my 6247 and you could notice the difference, the stock rad is so huge I never needed it anyway.

[cobblers]

Maybe just take the fan off completely and see if you feel the difference before buying an electric fan, I reckon most of the perceived difference is that people don't hear the big fan revving up so it seems like they're labouring the engine less.

 

8 bhp is 6000w,  that's a lot of energy! Stand infront of a 500w industrial fan and tell me that the viscous fan on an engine is 12 times as powerful. Maybe the industrial fan is a bit more efficient, but the blades are still just three paddles so it's hardly dyson airblade technology. I bought a 400w fan off amazon and it's enough to knock a small sighthound off balance.

[Zelandeth]

I do wonder about that for the Merc too...you never hear the fan save for the first sixty seconds or so - but having been for a test run (after I sorted the cam cover gasket) with the engine cover off it doesn't half shift a lot of air...that energy has to come from somewhere...and you don't want to be wasting it when every bhp counts...

 

There's a fan that appears periodically at one of the conventions I attend which was originally part of a stinking great industrial inverter setup I believe.  Not sure what the motor is rated, but it's big enough to require 3ph power and is a heavy two man lift.

 

Apparently if placed face down it will hover roughly an inch off the deck...

 

Edit: just found the original note.  They came from £14M worth of 21MW power converter that was refitted after it reached the end of its rated service life.  Fan is rated 5.7kW/7.5hp...

 

I have walked past it when being used to circulate air through the building, and decieved by the lack of noise, damned near fell over as I found myself suddenly travelling at roughly 90 degrees to the course I was expecting.

[mat_the_cat]

It will be high carbon, cast iron is something like 2-4% carbon whereas most steel is <0.3%.

Indeed - one of the dangers with welding cast iron with mild steel wire/rods is that the carbon from the CI mixes into the weld, effectively creating a local area of fast cooled very hard and therefore brittle high carbon steel, like a wood chisel or similar.

I've heard of stainless wire being used, which avoids this effect - certainly the metallurgy seems based on sound principles.

 

On a related note, I uses to work in a heat treatment factory and one of the furnaces quenched the steel not by immersing it in oil or water, but by filling the furnace with high pressure nitrogen, and circulating it via a massive fan, driven by a 170kw motor. This had ro be rewound while I was working there, and for some reason was briefly tested with the furnace door open. This thing sounded like a jet engine at take-off, and e everything which wasn't fastened down (and several things which were!) went flying around the factory. Even had people running from neighbouring units to see what the noise was!

[Guest Hooli]

So the bucket of rainwater to drop stuff in is why I can't weld? I wondered where I'd been going wrong.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I know the mechanically driven fans on the huge Perkins gensets are sapping something like 5% of the peak power of the engine, and they are rigidly mounted so get an efficiency boost compared to the open fan cos they can have a reasonably close-fitting shroud. I will do some digging to see roughly what sort of hp I think the Dodge 50's fan is using.

[Guest Hooli]

I'd see if you can find if the engine suffers from hot spots too. I know every car I've converted to leccy fan I've swapped back as they've run better with the constant air movement within the engine bay.

[Matty]

You can weld cast with a disimilar rod (stainless rod will do) but you need to clean it up nicely before welding and it will help to get a bit of heat into the job before you start

[Noel Tidybeard]

would this work with an elbow?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JCB-EXHAUST-MANIFOLD-02-200074-GASKETS-3CX-PERKINS/153201520467?hash=item23ab85af53:g:qdYAAOSwt5hYboSI:rk:31:pf:0

[Scruffy Bodger]

As others have said there'll be a man about somewhere who can weld that. The bloke with the forge sounds like a good start. I was going to suggest finding an old skool Blacksmith if you can. As Matty says you can use disimilar rods or you can buy rods specifically for cast iron. As said, heating first is a good idea and so is cooling slowly. A metal box full of vermiculite is something I've used in the past and isn't expensive.

[sierraman]

I used a place in Chesterfield to weld a manifold for me. I was warned it might crack again though.

[cort16]

I was going to say could you make one out of some pre mandrel bent parts and some flanges off eBay until I saw there's zero access. I suppose you could bring the exhaust into the cab and fit a little plate on top so you can use it to cook bacon or boil a tinny kettle on the move.

[spartacus]

Looking at the shape of it you could probably fab one up out of plate. I'm going to go with welding it though, I'm sure I weldeda crack in a manifold with a mig once and it worked, so I'm sure if it was attacked in the correct manor it could be fixed.

[PhilA]

I bought fluxed 99.9% nickel rods to do the electroplating on my car- apparently they are for welding cast iron. From what I read, heating the part up cherry red then welding it and allowing it to cool very gradually is key.

 

A big old chunk like that may present problems with oil ingress if it's been cracked and run for a while but you should be able to get it repaired for cheaper than sourcing another, I'd have thought.

 

Phil