And about 50 years too modern! We're going with the pale, pastel green used on loads of old British cars & an original factory colour for Ford Pops. Early Landrovers used a very similar colour.
The sun finally shone today, although it was still chilly. So I spent a while this afternoon trundling up & down the lanes around Chez Loon. It was an ...interesting, drive!
Bad points:
The engine's definitely not right at the moment. Feels really gutless, (compression's a little below 120 but fairly even on all cyclinders), though it might well pick up on the open road rather than slow driving around country lanes. When you put your foot down there's a delay before it really does anything. It's chuffing like a steam train on the righthand rear cylinder. Can't decide if the exhaust is blowing at the head or if the noise is from inside the rocker cover. I'm not even sure it's running on all 8. It's a mass of flat spots & coughs & splutters at the moment.
It can all be fixed, but it's knowing how & where to start that's the trick. There's plenty of well behaved Rover V8s out there, so we know it can be done. I'm hoping Mr Kapri will be visiting us again next week, so I'll ask him to come out for a spin in it with me for his opinion.
The brakes are good, but I'm sure they're still pumping up, (the pedal seems lower on the first push, then comes up on subsequent ones). That may just be my imagination though. When I take my foot off the gas, it doesn't immediately shut down as my daily driver does, but seems to run on a little, meaning I end up stabbing the brake pedal harder than I otherwise would as I find myself almost over shooting junctions.
The steering's vague to say the least! I kept thinking the steering wheel was a couple of splines out of true on the steering column cos the spokes weren't level when I was driving in a straight line -then I found I could straighten the wheel up without affecting which way the car headed at all.
There's barely any steering lock. While driving around the lanes near the workshop there were several occasions when I pulled out of junctions & found I couldn't turn the wheel enough to turn out onto the road & ended up having to back up & take a second turn so I didn't end up on the verge on the other side of the road.
Good points:
It makes me grin & seems to scare other road users!
I had a late day at work today, so it was tea time before I got out in the Pop. People were coming home from their 9 to 5 jobs, racing round the lanes in their little hatchbacks -then suddenly coming across & dirty great Sherman tank of a truck weaving towards them. Lots of pannicky expressions as they stamped on the brakes & skirted round me!
I'm sure the engine's performance can be smoothed out. It seems to be working too hard for the speed we're doing but that may just be how they are, or it may be because we're sat in a rattly, bumpy tin box that exaggerates it all. If it really is, we can always change the diff gears in the back axle as Sherpa axles came in a variety of ratios.
Can't do a lot about the lack of steering lock as the front wheels only just clear the radius arms & exhaust headers on full lock as it is. We could angle the radius arms & rework the 2 front exhaust pipes to give more clearance if we really had to, but it's probably just a matter of getting used to it & allowing for it, swinging wide on corners etc like lorries do. It's just a fairly long vehicle with a very limited turning circle. Driving on main roads will be a lot less hassle than the narrow country lanes I've negotiated today.
Loony & I have both said we may end up swapping the original Ford Pop steering box for something a bit more positive at some point before final paint & powder coat. Maybe a brand new Landrover box for example, to take out some of the freeplay in the steering. The Pop box is also quite lightweight, made of cast aluminium & I worry about breaking it when I'm hauling on the steering wheel as we managed to break one casting while we were building it. Don't know what the tyre pressures should be, but I think they're a bit low, which would make the steering feel even heavier.
Nothing's properly set up & we've only done one proper road trip in it so far, so it's bound to be a bit rough at the moment, but we've got all Summer to fine tune it.
