:D  Joy

Boxing day,  weather broke up here and I managed about 4 hours outside,  finally decided that it was about time tiny was taken for a test drive with new engine,   so tidied out the load bay and gingerly fired up the engine  check the clutch for the nth time and selected first LOW,   and she pullup up out of the drive and into the tuning space,  managed a 3 point turn but, reverse was difficult.

3 ( well 10) point turn done it was off down the drive,  in HIGH,  1st 2nd 3rd  but no fourth, just no space....   back up  the drive and park,  again struggling to get reverse.

Looking at the selector on the gear box there is a small assembly on the right of the leaver this is the detent pin for reverse,   by cleaning this up and shortening the spring I managed to get the reverse to be selectable "easily" well easier....



Today,
     Started modifying the rear floor to allow it to fit as the gear box fouls at the selector and on the remote.

Also need to start taking photo;s again...

Progress continues

Well progress continues,  over the last month I have mamneged to order and fit the oil cooler pipes and finish of the water pipes to the radiator, block, heater etc.   Using as much of the 101 as possible, and lengths of new hose when required.

Had orginally made a a braket to hold the geat leaver but when testing I foun that this flex'd so much that I couldn;t select gears.  so back to the drawing baord.

Tonight out of 10mm plate  I made up a complete bracket to hold the 101 Orignal braket in approximately the right position to ( with a test fit) fit the engine cover.

Spent a couple more hours welding and "beefing" up the new bracket ...

Photo to follow.

Last Month of Work..

Work on 101 has been slow at times but looking back I seem to have made a fair bit of progress:

Exhaust system Complete
handbrake Linkage
Hi / Low Linkage
4x4 Linkage (version1)
Intercooler mounting
Intercooler piping started.

Handbrake 

Man this took ages to do and the solution is simple...... ahhhh. eventually worked out that the defender cable would fit off of a bracket at the back of the gear box and pull straight onto the 101 linkage, no levers or pivots required.   Just cut down the pull rod and re-thread (M6).

Hi Low

Making a bracket that mount on top transfer box and bending the lever I was able to make up a fixing for the bowlen cable that goes to the cab,

Difflock

Now this hurt my head the motion on the box is a rod that is turned from a poor lever which is pushed or pulled sideways, well I eventually came up with the idea of a Air Cylinder to push pull the lever similar to the lever in a defender, but moving the lever point pas the fulcrum 

This then took a bit of design to get the cylinder mounted in the space allowed 

Intercooler

Mounting of the "oversized" intercooler will be done in the tunnel :

This isn't squint it just the photo.... 

and the  piping  from below

More to follow 

Project Exhaust

Well the stainless system for the 8v will just not cut it, and the mickeymouse welding on the manifold is 10 times worse.

Best idea I could come up with is to cut this manifold at the crap weld and then make up a new pipe as well down pipe, space being limited I decide that instead of turning tightly down at 90 degrees I would instead come straight out over the clutch and then dip down before the gearbox mount.

Then from here into a new silencer and straight back ( over axle) and out off set to the left on NATO hitch.

cost... priced up mandrel bends and straight tube and was well over £100... not viable.

Second thought while trailing the net was to look at paddocks and try and pick a straight is exhaust system for a 300 tdi .. price £36.   This would give me bends 2 x silencers and a "nice looking" end. A length of 2" tube plus a bit I had lying about I would have just about enough.

So with the grinder and the welder I set about cutting and being the tube by either making multiple slices and welding or by compounding 2-3 20 to 30 degree angle cuts together,  as well using the bends that came in the exhaust system I had bought.

So after quite a few hours of head scratching and grinding and welding ,  exhaust is nearly complete. Can't get it full finished till I find proper bolts to hole the manifold to the turn as the bolts the previous owner has used were to long, wrong thread or plainly just shite he had had lying about in his garage, looking at the rest of the quality of his work I'm not surprised!

Again photo to follow

No pictures this weekend :(   Had a productive weekend,  got the final engine mount made, this took a good bit of time as space was really limited and several prototype need to be tacked before find suitable. Biggest problem was getting he mount in once the mount was bolted to the engine.

Move the lifiting gear out of the way and had a quick tidy up.

Moved on today to trying to sort out cables and etc, to the block, spent time re-routing all the wiring that came with the engine and trying to ascertain what wiring did what on the 101.    The wires that went to the 101 starter are all cracked so I will need to cut them back and re terminate.

Found that the 101 top has will fit straight to the 300 tdi with a little trimming

Made up a bracket for holding the throttle cable so that it fit onto the 300tdi engine mounts.

Back to the Plan

Ok had a small bit of trouble over the last day or two, converted my MIG welder to run off of Fire Extinguisher (CO2) gas but, the other night the regulator froze up and the relief valve popped.  

When I tried on Monday night to weld again I found that the relief valve hadn't reset and I was loosing gas.  So gave up.

Looking further on the net I found that the CO2 extinguishers have a tube to the bottom so they eject liquid instead of gas. So because I want gas I need to invert the extinguisher. :D

Last night - Disassembled the relief valve and cleaned and re-set it, now working again so I could start welding.

Just a quick note:   Grinding discs  - are you all aware that these have a shelf life and the Best before date is printed or stamped on the disc :

Best Before Date of a Cutting Disc

Started welding up the Drivers side engine mount for "Tiny" first of all it was tacked into position and checked to make sure that it had not moved.

As you can see from the photo above this mount is the old tdi 300 mount with out lugs for the void bush removed and a 45 Deg angle made of 10mm steel mounted so that it lines up with the 101 chassis mounts.

Once checked if was fully welded up and braced in several places.

 From the photos to the left you can seen the mount being welded up. The welding is not pretty but it has full penetration and is 100 x better than the original conversion mounts that came with the engine

Finally the mount is painted and left to dry, fitting tomorrow and then start on the next and final engine mount.

Paint Right hand engine

Making mounts

Getting the engine into place has taken quite a bit of jiggling eventually working out where to position it in relation to the propshafts..

Getting it right means that the original propshafts can be used without modifications., and this means height and position of gearbox is really critical. From experience the sweet spot seems to be that the 101 that the gearbox month on the box are about 2" forward of that on the 101 chassis.
Once engine was hanging in position the first of the gearbox month was made up this was the passenger side one.. To do this the square pattern that mount to the gar box was welded to a length of 10mm bar and drilled to fit the block mounts of the 101 gearbox.

The drivers side was similar a plate was made to fit the gearbox and then bar was used to lineup to the chassis mount.
Tomorrow I will hopefully tackle then engine mounts from what I am seeing I think I can make mounts from the old tdi engine mounts.. We'll see how we get on

(Posted from my HTC)