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Idiot Buys 1968 Citroen h van, wants to convert drums to discs


PhilMcCrakin

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This thread is full of WIN.

If I recall correctly the gearbox on the H van was in front of the engine like the traction and the DS. Which way around are you putting the Rover lump?

Is the solution in the transaxle because I would hate for you to end up with a single forward gear and many in reverse!

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On 1/1/2020 at 9:42 PM, djoptix said:

Tarox can custom make brake discs and rotors in pairs to any size/pcd/presumably also offset you want. Not cheap but... 

That'll be a big no from Tarox, they do say that once I've worked it out to contact them.

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: TAROX Websales <websales@tarox.com>
Date: Fri, Jan 3, 2020 at 1:05 PM
Subject: RE: (UK) New Submission From Contact Form - Neil Forsyth
To: postproductionservicesltd@gmail.com <postproductionservicesltd@gmail.com>
 

Good afternoon Mr Forsyth,

 

Thank you for considering TAROX. Unfortunately we are unable to assist you with a drum to disc conversion.

Once you have the conversion built however we can certainly look at suppling TAROX versions of the discs and pads used.

 

Kind regards,

 

 

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On 1/3/2020 at 1:17 PM, DSdriver said:

This thread is full of WIN.

If I recall correctly the gearbox on the H van was in front of the engine like the traction and the DS. Which way around are you putting the Rover lump?

Is the solution in the transaxle because I would hate for you to end up with a single forward gear and many in reverse!

Mwahhhaaaaaaaa he said accelerating backwards off the line... no this is a UN1 renault 21 turbo gearbox all forward gears take you forwards.....attached to a billet aluminium adaptor plate with an extended input shaft. The unit I have was removed from a Lamborghini Countach kit car that had been half built and sat in a garage for 14 years. In this configuration it was a mid engined rear wheel drive kit car (see the red one).

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On 1/3/2020 at 1:06 PM, Jikovron said:

This is the worst restrictor I've found in these so far, 5 8mm holes through an inch thick bung

That's crazy I've never seen that before. But that is more to do with me always buying engines and fitting the 4 barrel holly kits on them.

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2 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

Personally I would check, as that seems quite a tall ratio for a van.  

It is UN1-13 from Renault 21 Turbo and you are correct as standard final drive is 3.44:1. When you say tall ratio what do you mean (I know less than FA about gearboxes and ratios).

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2 hours ago, PhilMcCrakin said:

It is UN1-13 from Renault 21 Turbo and you are correct as standard final drive is 3.44:1. When you say tall ratio what do you mean (I know less than FA about gearboxes and ratios).

I'm not trying to pick holes in your project, so please don't take this the wrong way.  The overall gearing is important to make the best use of the power, and to make it as nice as possible to drive.  It is also expensive and boring getting it right, but engine swaps with the wrong gearing can be disappointing.   Having seen the fantastic work you are doing on the body, it deserves to perform well.  

Look at it this way - a R21 turbo is geared for a top speed of 130 - 135 and it is a nice slippery shape with 15 inch low profile tyres.  Rover engine and R21 turbo are similar in power and torque, so put the Rover engine in the Renault and you would not notice much difference in performance.   Now put the same engine and gearbox into an H van, which is a big square box with poor aerodynamics and 16 or 17 inch high-profile tyres, and the engine will have to work a lot harder to shift it - it may not be able to get into top gear.  So you need to arrange for maximum power/more revs at a lower road speed.

So you have to lower the overall gearing by changing the final drive ratio (to a numerically higher figure) and/or using smaller wheels and tyres.  In this case you are stuck with the large wheels and tyres, and that is a minor factor anyway.  I think there was a 3.8 and a 4.1 ratio for the Renault gearbox.  With the lower gearing it would be more flexible and tractable at low speeds, with better acceleration when loaded, which is clearly important.   Top speed will still be OK, and probably quite exciting enough.

Of course theory and practice are not always the same, and it is all about finding the right compromise, so it would be useful to know what other people have done.    It's worth some research.  Oh, and there are probably lots of experts on the blue forum?

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

I'm not trying to pick holes in your project, so please don't take this the wrong way

I don't take it that way at all, I joined this forum to have open frank discussions with all. And to learn new things I insist that if someone sees me doing something daft or dangerous they tell me so I can rectify and improve.

Okay I understand now I've also just been off reading about renault 21 gearboxes so get what you mean about final drive and ratio's now (thank you). This comes back to the disc swap idea which would have meant I could ditch the 17" the pram wheels and have wider and smaller 15 or 16's. If I swapped drums to discs I would have to get the pram wheels banded to give me the dish depth I need again more cost.

I've also messaged GTO racing regarding this, I got the extended input shaft from them. They laughed when I told them what I was doing, normally they upgrade and up rate the performance on the UN1's not the other way.

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29 minutes ago, Mr Pastry said:

Of course theory and practice are not always the same, and it is all about finding the right compromise, so it would be useful to know what other people have done.

I'll google the hell out of the internet as I am at work today.

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I think you need to have a design fix to work from, as otherwise all the goalposts are moving all the time.

My feeling is to stick with standard wheels if possible -  special wheels are another can of worms - and if that restricts you to drum brakes the word is that they work OK, so that's one less problem.  Then you need the rolling radius, or revs per mile, of whatever tyres you choose and you can start looking at the gearing - plenty of online calculators - and aim for a top speed of around 80.

I would guess the 4.1 was used in van of some kind - a Master or a Trafic?    Driveshafts also want thinking about.

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1 hour ago, Mr Pastry said:

I think you need to have a design fix to work from, as otherwise all the goalposts are moving all the time.

Agreed, I'm just drawing up an actual plan rather than a list of things to do on the wall of the workshop. I've reached that crucial stage in the build where structural works are done and the frame and chassis are solid again.  Now I need to focus on the mechanical side and all options have to be considered before moving forward again. You are right, reconditioning the drums is the way to go (if it aint broke), I'll get that done first. I still need to finish the engine and get it test fired too but that should be straight forward. It's my short week at work next week so I'll crack on with the drums. Thanks for all your assistance so far MrPastry

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On 1/5/2020 at 11:02 PM, Noel Tidybeard said:

just put a turbot on the indenor

I couldn't bare the noise of the indenor without a turbo I can only imagine it with one. clatter clatter clatter, grind grind whine grind whooosh clatter clatter clatter. (remembering there is no syncro in first)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello all, It's been a while since my last post on the van but work is progressing nicely. I still haven't done anything with the brakes as yet. Well I tried however as the front clip/chassis has no weight in it I was unable to undo the 38mm hub nuts. Tried impact gun no joy so tried a huge lever bar but all that did was flip the chassis over and led to a lump on my head and grazed knuckles. So I've moved on to other jobs. Engine assembled now I'm going to stick with the solex175 carbs for now, will fit the efi head and lpg system later on. I found what looked like a silk nest inside the carbs, cleaned and scrubbed all perishables replaced. Still missing a few bits but will source these later.

 

 

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Once done I moved onto the gearbox, I cleaned and scrubbed and brass brushed the outer casing. When I open it up I found that the last person to abuse it had used bathroom silicon to seal the two halves together so further internal cleaning was needed. I have mostly put it back together and torq'd all the bolts but I am struggling to get the selector box back on the rear. I can't work out which gears are which or how to get it to align back on. I found a UN1 Lotus esprit rebuild manual but this is for the un1 025/026. See pics below 4th, 5th, 6th and seventh images are of the forks and the selector.

I'm loath to take it to a gearbox place (ridiculous I know) more because it is so rare and parts are a B***h to get hold of.  I looked up renault 21 turbo on how many left .com and out of all the cars sold in the uk only 23 are still on the road with 121 sorn at the moment.

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