Ticking Over...

Well, a chance today to give 32 a run out. The insurance company needed some pictures for the agreed value, so I though I might as well give it a run. All went very well!

Short Circuit...

After a long period with no visits, I finally had the time to get up to the barn to see 32 as well as my green goddess. It was back in August that Tony and I finally got it running properly although there was some cab painting as well as exhaust painting done after that.

The first job was to pop the new battery mat and battery back in as well as the drivers seat. After a few pumps of the accelerator and a lot of turning over, 32 sprang into life with no smoke, quickly settling to a rasp rather than the burble associated with a green goddess or RL with mid-emptying exhaust! The exhaust itself smoked a little as the new paint bedded in although after the run, there were very few black stains showing indicating links. At last, a leak-free exhaust!

Another problem reared its head though when I checked the lights. No side lights but the headlights worked. (Funnily enough, the side lights on 326 have also been the dodgiest!) I found the fuse - the cluster in the passenger footwell - and discovered the 'S&T' fuse had blown, some effort as its 35 amps. I swapped the headlamp fuse across and that blew straight away. So, an issue somewhere to be found.....


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Painting Clouds (reprise)...

A short stop by on the way past today but more progress.... The second coat of Hammerite rust beating undercoat is on and that will now dry properly whilst I'm on my hols in Germany before getting a coat or two of smooth dark green hammerite to cover the base layer.

I also swapped the remaining tail lights, front and back, for LED bulbs for better visibility and reliability:

The final job was to repaint the exhaust silver with some very high temperature paint from the USA - Eastwood Silver Exhaust Paint from Frosts in Oldham. Good for 800 degrees fahrenheit, it isn't the cheapest available but it has worn very well on the goddess so should be better, protecting the exhaust from rust as well as looking good. However, the can malfunctioned several times sending paint all over the place (and all over me....) and afterwards, I spent a good deal of time with a white sprit covered cloth hunting the fine overspray which had carried on the almost non-existant breeze! Hey ho, the finished result looks alright:

More news after the hols!!

Painting clouds...

Well, a short but decent few hours of painting. After getting thr drill and wire brushes out to get rid of all the rust, on with the Hammerite 'No 1 rust beater' as a base coat! Problem is now everywhere else is covered in rust dust!

Metal prepared:

Metal painted - at least with the beige colour, I can see where I've been!

A final minor job was to put on another pedal rubber on to cover the hole in the floor around the clutch pedal. The original was long gone and as you can see from the remaining old version on the brake (to the left), little wonder.....:

Prepare the way...

In preparation for tommorrow's paint-a-thon on the cab floor, I popped up today to take the paint and equipment up as well as to do some odd jobs.

First job was to wash the battery tray out with some water and washing up liquid (which is slightly alkaline) to ensure that any acid remnants are gone before being covered with paint! After a good slosh around with fresh water to rinse, I've left this over night to dry....

 

Then I straightened out the seat box fully to ensure the seat base sits properly when it goes back on. Tony had done most of this down in Suffolk (it was a bit knarled when we got it) but there were a few dings still to tease out:

That done, it was time to give the chrome at the front a polish and much better it looks too although a coat of Colinite when it's washed will improve it still further!

Hopefully some painting news tomorrow!

Unpretty...

A busy couple of days and all appears to be well at last. After the problems of matching the two manifolds, Tony dropped by yesterday and we fitted the new exhaust manifold that he had found at Chris Morter's place in East Anglia. It went back on quite well, although a stud which fastens the inlet manifold on did break necessitating a dash around Grantham to find a replacement bolt or stud bar. That replaced, on went the carburettor and the throttle linkage was reattached. After a few turns, it fired up and quickly settled to a decent tickover, which then demanded a test drive. I have to say, it's decent to drive and flies along, of course much more quietly with the manifold and exhaust not blowing! A good 25 miles round trip told us that everything was OK! One thing we did add this time was a gasket between the manifold and block, just in case. These were purchased on eBay and appear to be NOS although not made by Bedford; they were marked up as being for the S type, the RL's smaller brother. With the petrol carrier's penchent for rasping, we figured that it might be a good idea. Seems fine now, time will tell I guess....

The copper gasket in place with added gunk:

 The gaskets as they arrived:

All back together again!

With the 'can carrier' now running again, Operation TLC can begin! The old thing hasn't been loved for a while really, so I started today with a good clear out of the cab. There was a decent accumulation of dust and muck in most areas but especially the 'hard to get to' areas under the seats and behind them. The Dyson soon sorted that out although the clearance did reveal a good deal of surface corrosion under both seats but especially around the battery box under the passenger seat. This will need dealing with pretty soon before holes appear!

Under the driver's seat before:

...and after:

Behind the engine cover:

Corrosion around the battery box which will need painting:

I also carried out a few other tasks such as scraping the overspray from the chrome radiator grille surround at the front as well as rebuilding the driver's seat back - the random piece of metal rod that I almost threw away wasn't  quite as random as I'd thought.....

Exhausting foreplay...

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.