Series 3 Landie FFR

[JPB]

....misread 90 degrees as 90lb/ft. guess how many seconds that head gasket lasted.

90?

[RangerNeil]

And the fun continues.... Took 4 hours to get the manifolds back on - the last bolt - nearest the bulkhead would not go fully home when pushed through the manifold so I wound up cutting about 5mm off the end of it. It is now in and locked. Then there was the fun trying to get the two bolts in with the spreader plates either side of the carb but under the manifold.. But in the end it went on so I started to put the thermostat housing back on - two bolts were OK, was just tightening the last one when there was a click and the spanner slipped - damned thing had sheared off. That was the last straw for that day- I just packed all the tools away in disgust and had a coffee.
Took the housing off today and found that the damned thing has borken off more or less flush with the head so now I need to try and get it out. New bolts, gasket and thermostat on the way so I have two or three days to sort this in. Right now it is soaking in penetrating oil so tomorrow I will first try to drift it out. If that fails I have some EZ-Outs on order - also 2 or 3 days wait so I likely will end up trying to remove the starter from the UAZ and swapping the UAZ fuel senders over to get the gauges working.

Question - is the thermostat supposed to jam itself into the top of the thermostat housing such that it has to be bashed out??

[RangerNeil]

Question is answered by looking at the exploded view in the ISPL - seems there is meant to be an "O" ring in the top housing which has been missing an the three I've looked at. New one now on order with new body gaskets and tomorrow its a case of trying to extract the remnant of bolt with a reverse spiral drill and, if that doesn't loosen it, an EZ- Out.

[RangerNeil]

Got the remnant of the bolt out today, It would not budge by tapping with a centre pucnh nor would the bite of a reverse epiral drill free it. So it was down to the Ez-Out - that finally got it to move. It had to the bolt in the worst possible position waht with the oil filler neck and rocker great limiting the turns of a tap wrench but it finally gave, Once it was out I ran a tap through the threads and - interestingly - about halfway down the hole the tap went tight. So I backed it off and then wound it in again and this time it went through easily.



I called it a day outside after that as the wind was too high - it kept blowing my glasses off the wing onto the path and there was a risk of getting the bonnet on my nut. So inside I got the dremel type tool out again and had a look at the thermostat housings. Seemed to me there was way too much corrosion in the areas the 'stat actually sits in so i spent a little time cleaning it out. Once done the 'stat now goes in and out withour jamming so when it gets reasembled I think a coat of grease should help matters.

[RangerNeil]

Managed to get a bit done today thanks to the good weather. New bolts arrived for the thermostat housing so that is now fitted. Rocker cover is on and the vacuum line for the servo. Heater matrix is back on pending getting hold of a fan and the feed line from the heater tap. Had a hiatus there as the moulded hose that goes between the tap and the feeder line has gone missing. I'm a bit peeved by that as it was new last June. but I found the old one and it was in good condition so I refitted that. No idea what's happened as I put - or thought I put - all the parts that came off into the front of the vehicle. Ignition coil is hooked back up, the low voltage feed to the black box is not so there is no risk of a spark when the compression tests are run. Oil is in to the high mark on the dipstick and 2.5 litres of antifreeze plus water to top up are in the cooling system - obviously that will need to be topped up once the pump starts to run. One other bug was I had to swap the breather caps over as the original one had the connector point in a different angle to the other one and it was a smaller dia too so ignore the blue breather in the photos - the one one there now needs to be painted..
Replacement cable is fitted between the heater tap and the hot/cold lever on the dash
Next job is to refit the carb - and I think I will go with the new OE Zenith so I can hook the choke cable up then I can run the compression tests before reconnecting the ignition system.

[RangerNeil]

I took advantage of the nice sunshine today to do a bit more on the old bus and I now have the new Zenith carb on the vehicle and the air cleaner is all connected with breather pipes etc. Once this was done I broke out the compression tester and tested every cylinder - these are the results of the test taken with the throttle left closed and not wide open:

Cylinder #1: 155 psi

Cylinder #2: 155 psi

Cylinder #3: 155 psi

Cylinder #4: 155 psi

A hell of a lot better than the last time this test was carried out!! Sun and rain permitting tomorrow I will pop the distributor cap off, line up the timing marks and set the static ignition timing with a meter. I am in two minds whether to remove the #1 shielded HT lead and fit an ordinary one so that a timing strobe can be used, I think if it is set OK on static timing it should be OK. So- once that is done the ignition system will be re-connected and we are good to go for sparks.
I am taking it on trust the carb will be roughly set-up from the box and will only need tweaking to be efficient??

[RangerNeil]

Went to check the static timing today as timing issues had been identified as a possible cause of the problems last October. First things first - I found the groove in the crank pulley and daubed some white paint on it then used the starting handle to align it with approx. 3 deg BTDC on the crank case pointers.



Then I popped off the distributor cap - and was rather surprised to find the rotor arm pointing at #2 cylinder instead of #1!



Could well be the source of the problem that gave me the head gasket failure on page 1 has been found.

[TerryG]

I have seen these with the timing mark in a completely random place on several occasions so it is definitely worth while putting a plastic rod through the plug hole on no1 and checking that TDC on the crank pulley is actually TDC.

[RangerNeil]

In between downpours today i took advantage of the sunny spells to check the timing. Hooked up a volt meter with croc clips to the points, turned ignition on and cranked her over on the starting handle to dee when the meeter registered. As best I can tell it was at about 5 deg BTDC so I slackened the pinch bolt and rotated the dzzy until it registered at TDC as per the book. Repeated the process of cranking over by hand just to confirm that it triggered at TCD - then legged it indoors to avoid getting soaked. Next sunny spell I re-tightened the clamp bolt and re-ran the hand cranking to verify it had not moved. I just got the plugs screwed in and tightened when it was time to run indoors again.
Third time out I refitted the plug leads and was just tightening the last on when a gust of wind came from nowhere and slammed the bonnet down on my head. The one damned time I did not lash it back - because there was no wind - a strong gust of wind came from nowhere and slammed it down on the top of my head. Cue a few minutes of spinning head and nose bleeds followed by a thumping headache and a foul mood. Oh - and LOTS of swearing and cursing!!
Once the spinning sensations went away I checked over the rest of the ignition system connections and then spun her on the key. - stopping very quickly when a fountain of petrol was observed from where the flexi-pipe of the fuel line goes onto the carb. Subsequent investigations showed the Zenith has approx a 6 mm diameter input whereas the Weber was approx. an 8mm diameter. the old flexi-pipe was cracking anyway so I had a hunt on eBay for a length of 6mm inner dai flexi hose - should be here day after tomorrow.

[RangerNeil]

We have life again!!

New flexi fuel line arrived today so I replaced the link between the rigid line and the carb then tested for leaks with the hand prime lever. No leaks were visible so I tried to start on the key... And tried,... And tried..... No sign of starting, not even a cough so i thought perhaps there was no spark. Removed #1 plug and earthed it onto a head bolt and spun it over. Damned thing burst into life so hastily switched off and refitted the plug. Started again and this time it was racing. Switched off, looked at the linkages and realised I'd left the hand throttle wide open. Closed that and it fired but would not run so I reasoned that ,as it ran on the hand throttle OK it had to be the idle control. Screwed that in 2.5 turns and tried again. This time it started but was running fast so I backed it off about half a turn and I now have the engine idling at roughly what it should be by ear - maybe still a little fast, but I still need to set the mixture up.

Still - all in I am pleased with the days work