Manky's Pop.

[Manky Monkey]

As predicted by BBC weather, it was a glorious morning today -followed by torrential rain all afternoon.
Already getting dark by the time I'd dried off & headed to the workshop, but I had another go at the brakes. Both servo bleeds, then the rear drums, then the front discs.
With the front end jacked up & spinning one of the wheels, pushing the pedal will stop it, but the pedal still feels spongey. I ran 2 1/2 litres of fresh fluid through the system tonight, so if nothing else, we know it's clean all the way through.
The vacuum bleeder still doesn't produce the stream of fluid we expected, just vapour, but it slowly fills the container so must be working. All the bleed nipples are quite loose in their threads when open so I suspect they're drawing air back in. Pumping the pedal at the same time helps to push the fluid through but I've no idea if that's actually helping or not. A mate of Loony's has leant us a pump-up pressure bleeder, so we'll try that next.
In the meantime, the black chassis paint I applied in freezing temperatures last night has almost dried. It's still a little tacky & has "bloomed" in the cold to a satin finish rather than high gloss, but still looks suprisingly tidy considering I painted it by torchlight. So if it's dried by tomorrow afternoon/evening we'll see if we can hook the new engine up to the crane & have a go at fitting it!

Oh yeah -the perils of working alone in the dark- vacuum bleeder sat on the ground with the pipe attached to the servo bleed nipple on the passenger side while I topped up the fluid in the reservoir on the driver's side. I'm suddenly aware of a change in the sound of the vacuum. I walk around the front of the truck to find what looks like steam coming out of the vent on the front of the vacuum bleeder -? Bugger. The passenger door had swung shut & neatly sliced through the plastic pipe, instantly turning the vacuum bleeder into a spray gun, spraying a fine mist of brake fluid everywhere. I love working on cars. 

[scannerzer]

Andy i used 1 of those bleeders when i finished the trike and found that i never really went bubble free so ended up doing it the old pump up method just using the bleeder to catch the fluid

[Manky Monkey]

Yeah, I think we'll end up using a combination of methods -as I said, it's the complicated servo pipework that seems to be causing the problems.

Big news tonight -the motor's finally in! Loony & I have both been putting it off, & both very nearly suggested giving it a miss this evening. Fortunately, common sense prevailed though & within an hour we'd craned it into position & bolted it up to the gearbox. No problems.
Well, one potential problem, but I'm hoping that'll resolve itself tomorrow. On the old engine, (a 1970s SD1), the crankshaft pulley's located on the shaft by a woodroffe key. The new engine, (a 1990s Discovery), didn't come with a pulley. When I went to fit the old pulley on the new engine, there didn't appear to be a keyway. Bugger.
I've just been chatting to a Facebook Friend though who assures me all Rovers have keyways, including a 2000 model he used to own. So it's presumably hidden behind the oil seal on the front timing chain casing. I'll whip it off tomorrow & have a look.
The Dutch trip is next Thursday, so we've decided on Monday as our deadline for getting this up & running & MOT'd. If we don't make it by then I can contact the ferry company & change our booking to take my little Fiesta commuter car. It won't be the same, but the trip's all booked & paid for so we may as well go.
We've still got an awful lot of stuff to do, but this is the biggest hurdle safely out of the way -& not a single scratch in the new paint! Hardly any swearing either. 

[Manky Monkey]

The temperature's dropped below freezing here again tonight, (we had the first frost of the year yesterday morning), so we've laid some plastic sheet over the open valley of the engine & sat the carb manifold in place on top, before covering the truck up with a heavy plastic tarpaulin again. With our luck, we'll get it all done in time, then get snowed in at the workshop.

[Manky Monkey]

.

[poprodder]

well done guys, looking great.

[Olds]

So tidy, you should run without the bonnet.

[twisted]

great job well done 

[the coppersmith]

I love it when a plan comes together

[lunatic]

So tidy, you should run without the bonnet.

That's the plan for this year, going to leave it on for the journey to holland though, mainly to keep the dirt out!
I'm glad we bit the bullet last night and put the engine in, we almost left it when the front pulley wouldn't go on, plus I've got a bad neck and back, but it's a big step forward and it's just a case of bolting on all the ancillarys now. But I am a bit broken now!  

[Manky Monkey]

Boss Hogg? Colonel Hanibal Smith surely?
We may still have a problem - apparently the nose of the crankshaft is slightly longer on later models. May need spacers of some sort.

[lunatic]

I have a lathe, spacers are no problem!
How are you posting? Aren't you still at work?

[Olds]

I've got a bad neck and back,  But I am a bit broken now! 

You too! I've got some great morphine patches now
Think that all the 3.5 engines were the same and that the change came in with the 3.9/4.0 engines. Wouldn't swear to it though.

[kapri]

Fentanyl rules

[Manky Monkey]

Junkies!
The wonders of Android phones -I was replying while stood at the roadside, waiting for my "van buddy" to pick me up in our Post Office van.

O.K, the water pump/pulley problem seems to have sorted itself. We'd initially thought the new engine's crankshaft didn't have a woodroffe key to locate the pulley, as the old one did. We wondered if it was a tapered shaft instead. After taking advice from various FaceBook friends though it turned out it's further down the shaft than we realised & was just hidden inside the oil seal on the timing chain casing. Mr Loon had tried tapping the pulley onto the shaft last night but it wouldn't drive fully home. Inspection in the daylight today showed he'd been hammering it against the end of the woodroffe key. Line the slot in the pulley up with the keyway & hey presto, it fits.
Another long day at work for me today, pounding the mean streets of downtown Basingstoke in the rain, so it was gone 4.o.clock this afternoon before I got to the workshop & already getting dark. First job was to fit the 4 flex plate to flywheel bolts. Easy enough & meant I could remove the safety clamps I'd made that held the torque converter in place inside the bellhousing, (Mr Kapri had warned me in capital letters that if it moved before re-fitting *quote* all kinds of s--t will happen).
Then the last of the gearbox to engine bolts -easy? Nope -took me an hour to fit the last one, with my arm wedged down the side of the gearbox tunnel & using a stubby ratchet that could only move a fraction of a turn at a time. I love cars.
Flywheel cover fitted, crankshaft pulley bolted up tight, then timing chain cover & water pump housing bolted up. They've got a mixture of old & new bolts at the moment but hopefully I can swap them over one at a time later.
By this time it was pitch black & pouring with rain yet again, so I had to call it a night.
I'd been concerned the crank pulley wouldn't sit far enough back to line up with the water pump & alternator pulleys if the crankshaft proved to be longer than the old engine. Seems to be about right.
The black chassis paint has reacted badly with the cold & wet & turned itself into wrinkle finish paint. It looks bloomin' awful now & is still soft so has smeared & rubbed off wherever we've leant on it. Not pretty. I don't want to bodge things up just for the sake of one weekend trip & definitely don't want to risk buggering the new motor by rushing, (I really can't afford another). Not being defeatist, but if we can't get it all together in time, I'm quite happy to take my daily driver to Holland instead. It took weeks to get the carb set up properly last time, plus we need to set the timing, I've got to fit the new oil cooler, then there's no guarantee the electrics will still all work etc, etc, etc. Not even sure I can afford the engine oil, coolant, MOT & tax, plus petrol money & everything else anyway. I'll keep plugging away at it & see how we get on.