Ever since we took delivery of 32 it has had the unfortunate problem of it blowing exhaust gases out of the manifold, meaning that it's not running efficiently and also it's bloomin' noisy in the small cab as the manifold sits just under one side of the engine cover.
Many RLs 'blow' to a certain extent but this one was something else! When Tony removed the exhaust manifold during the rebuild, he found that it was a later three-piece version designed later in the RL's life to combat cracking of the cast metal on the one-piece version. Over time, the joints wear down so once back together, it just blew most of the gunk out of all the joints, leaving it as noisy as before.
But on rebuilding another RL for someone else, he came across a scrap engine from a 4x2 green goddess. The more reliable one-piece exhaust manifold was removed (the inlet was beyond saving sadly) and cleaned up, ready for fitting today. So far, so good...............
Once the manifolds were removed, the situation looked like this - you can see the remains of much of the exhaust putty....:
Great - here's the three-piece manifold off....:
Here's the one piece manifold ready to go on.....:
But - a problem....! Here are the inlet manifold studs on the old three-piece exhaust manifold. Note they're in a rectangle:
Here are the inlet studs for the one piece version. Note they're in a diamond shape.....:
Anyway, that's now a job to be completed on another day once we either have a new inlet manifold which fits or a new exhausat manifold which matches the current inlet....
Strange - why did Bedford change them when they moved to a three-piece unit?? Must have made sense to someone, somewhere!!
Whilst I removed the old manifold, Tony also rebuilt the carburettor with new gaskets etc.
