Austin 7cwt van resurrection

[Mat.T]

Well the last thing I did today at work was to call the motorfactors and order a unipart  GWP134 equivalent! So I should have one tomorrow.

It is tempting to pull the engine appart but it does run pretty well. I did the Valve clearances today and they were spot on. So I treated the rocker cover to some land rover green paint.

I can't get to carried away with the engine because the vans getting shipped of to the body shop soon.

[puddlethumper]

I love a car derived van. Well done on the resurrection. Looking forward to seeing it after the body shop.

[trigger]

Love this!

[Mat.T]

The water pump bolts required the use of the hot spanner.

New pump, Optimal brand made in Europe. I've never heard of them but the pump looks decent.

More shiney new bits fitted. Inc replacement by pass hose using proper heater hose not on of those leaky bellows things. Although the motor factors did send one of those just incase

 

 

[Asimo]

A series.  An engine a man can understand.

[Noel Tidybeard]

20 hours ago, trigger said:

Love this!

well you might be considered to be slightly biased ?

[Spottedlaurel]

I missed this first time round Mat, it's great to see. And good to see you still posting here too.

[Mat.T]

Glad to see it's of interest, it's really nice for me to play with the van which is really nice and mechanically simple in-between working on over complex Bentley's.

Thanks Nigel I figured I should lurk less as I am often surrounded by old shite!

Today's installment, looks like an engine again. Topped up the landrover green too.

Next time to attack the leaky diff

Cleaned up new pinion seal fitted

No drain plug on these stanpart axles, exactly like my Toledo. So the old never gets changed. Pulling the front seal got rid of some of the oil the rest I had to suck out with a syringe.

And it looked like tar!

Now filled with some nice fresh Morris EP90, did the gearbox too.

[Mat.T]

new radiator hoses fitted, radiator Refitted and filled with some decent looking antifreeze drained out of someones Bentley..

And the rad has sprung a leak! So out with the rad again and a little bit of careful soldering and it's good to go again.

Next job, getting the electric things to work. 

Firstly lights, side lights sort of work as do indicators and brakes.

Indicator stalk seems to have disintegrated internally and is flopping about loose.

So off with the steering wheel and the stalk

I found some spare stalks in the back of the van, which must be from a later model and the stalk is on the left side (wrong side!) 

So I pulled both stalks appart and made one out of 2

Headlight switch also needed some attention now all fitted and back together and I have fully functional lights.

at least all the switchs can come appart to be repaired/serviced. I think I will add a couple of relays for the headlights and some of the switch gear doesn't really look like it's up to the job!

 

[Mat.T]

I attacked the wheels with wire brush on an angle grinder, gave them a couple of coats of some rust eater, then used the Trigger method of wheel painting.

Had the new tyres fitted and balanced, I still can't get over how cheap these Toyos were from Demon tweeks, £20.49!! (Plus vat).

Tyre fitter thought the wheels were for a trailer!

 

Polished the hub caps and the front wing.

This old thing is going to look pretty smart!

[trigger]

Demon Tweeks are excellent for tyres, I don't know how they do it for the price, they are even cheaper if you use a eBay discount code (like today where orders over £100 get £10 off).

[Mat.T]

Had to do some welding today, before the van goes to the body shop we thought we should attend to the NS spring hanger, before the spring made a bid for freedom.

Pretty crusty

Choppy choppy

Made some repair sections out of 3mm thick steel, the original spring hangers are made out of a sandwich of thin layers, I cant be bothered with that so went extra thick instead!. I had to repair the chassis leg first.

Looks about right, I welded one side on leaving the other as a datum point then cut that off and used the new bit as the datum.

The spring fits and the bolt goes through the hole.

Boxed the sides in and made an attempt to make it look factory!

[Mat.T]

Also the van has been getting rather slow to start. I made up a new battery earth lead as the old one looked a bit manky.

Next I was going to take the starter off and give it a bit of a service, but my boss came out of the stores with a new one!

Dated 1998, now fitted the van turns over very nicely.

[trigger]

This is the thread which keeps on giving! I think the owners club sell the spring hangers but your ones would be cheaper!

[Mat.T]

We haven't joined the club yet, but I think it will be good idea once the van gets to the body shop, the club seems to do a nice range of panels which we will probably need. Although it is remarkably solid.

The spring hanger job took most of this morning I don't think a brought panel would have made the job much quicker bit might have made a slightly prettier repair!

 

[Mat.T]

Got some poly bushes like a real race car.

To replace the front tie bar bushes which look like this:

I fitted the o/s no problems, but when it came to the n/s I realized the the cups in the chassis legs that hold the bushes had disintegrated.

I welded two RR Silver Shadow shock bush washers in place of the missing ones

Seems to work ok!

[trigger]

Those polybush tie bars make a big difference and are pretty much essential on them, apparently polybushing the rack to bulkhead helps too but I haven't done that. How is the steering rack as they are prone to breaking if they have been sitting for a long while, the nearside wheel will have lots of play in the rack.

[adw1977]

Using Rolls Royce parts to fix a British Leyland van, I doubt anybody has done that before!

[xtriple]

What he said, but you can bet the RR parts will both fail and infect the rest of the car with 'expensiveness' that will hurt your wallet!

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Hopefully that's just the first Crewe part to be fitted, there must be a manky  old Turbo R parked out the back that could give up its engine, purely to make it safer for towing duties, of course.

[Mat.T]

Steering rack feels ok, small amount of play In the steering column though which I think I should investigate.

Using RR parts on old British Leyland shite isn't so daft, especially nuts and bolts which are cadmium plated and very good quality so usually don't rust! I've replaced and fitted a few to my triumph over the years salvaged from a dead Shadow we have kicking around.

Also the silver Shadow is really a big over complicated BL car really!

A Turbo R donor is sitting in the front yard just waiting to transplant its heart to something! I'm not sure the marinas suspension set up would cope though

 

[Matty]

Do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rusty998]

Don't think it's not possible 

[Mat.T]

I think the Bentley V8 is a tad larger than the rover V8 in the rally car! Might require some sort of space frame .

My boss has this commer karier tucked away in a barn I've alway thought a 6.75 V8 would go well in it!....

 

[shedenvy]

16 hours ago, Mat.T said:

My boss has this commer karier tucked away in a barn

What the deuce is the contraption on the back?  Whatever it is OMG BRAN FIND DONUT PAINT!

[Mr Pastry]

Looks like a tower wagon for tram or trolleybus overhead line repairs.

[Mat.T]

Yes exactly that mobile tower thing, originally purchased to change the bulbs in the barn!!!

[Mat.T]

The van has escaped the work shop for now. I've driven it up the road a few times and it drives pretty well. After all the horror stories about the marinas handling I was pleasantly surprised. It does feel like a large Morris minor. Brakes are good and it pulls well up to 60. We certainly need to fit at least 1 wing mirror because reversing with a full load blocking the rear window involves lots of guess work!

[Matty]

British Leyland special tuning did build a V8 marina pickup. I believe they let the motoring journalists do laps of a track in it. Ended up being used as a factory hack

[busmansholiday]

That Karrier looks superb, who was it new to?