Time for OBL432 to be serviced

OBL 432 has come home, covered up as rain storms expected, the front axle is having an overhaul.
OBL jacked up and a wheel removed.
Plenty of axle stands, there's a lot of weight above my head.
Undo eight nuts, remove two split pins, take off one drag link and undo two brake hoses and this lump falls off.
On the garage floor the off side stub axle.
The near side stub axle, the one the M.O.T. boy thought had too much "lift".

Since OBL's M.O.T. he has hardly been used. I have attended no rallies so far this year and have had very little time for much else except work and hospital visiting.

As I have had a bit of a tidy up and shunted a few vehicles around there was room in the drive for OBL, so this seemed like a good time for a bit of general maintenance and also do the couple of things mentioned by the M.O.T. man (or should I say boy) these 20/30 yearold don't have a clue about these vehicles, they have never seen a J type before and yet they are telling me what's wrong with it, they don't know what they were like new.

Anyway the two jobs to do are king pins, he thought they had too much "lift" and also out rigger on one side had a hole in it, I said it was a rusty old bolt hole and was under the step, the bolt had long since vanished, he wants me to weld it up.

So the plan last night (Monday 28/7/08) was to bring OBL home, jack up the front, remove both front wheels and drop the front axle down. I ran out of time and as thunder and lightning was forecast I felt I would cover him up and this stopped further work.

I will finish removing the axle Tuesday night and take it to the work shop. This will be about the fifth set of king pins I have fitted. They have always been for other peoples vehicles, I never did OBL when I first got him, he was o.k. Lucky I have my own reamer for the bushes and have done this before.

Rod gets a tune up.

Rod being connected up to the life support machine, for a full ignition system check up.
It might be old but this still works! (sounds like me)
Rod gets a tune up on a 1972 engine tester.

This is a wonderful bit of old kit, now it would all be on a lap top computer and not weigh half a house!

Still it was fun remembering how too read all those dials and even how to connect it up to the engine. The main thing it has made an improvement to ROD's running.

I have been asked what the engine tester was showing, well the r.p.m. was 900 a bit on the high side, the exhaust gas was shown as being 5%, slightly rich, the timing was spot on at T.D.C but the dwell angle (this is the time in degree's of rotation that the points dwell in contact with each other) was out of adjustment.

The only time you can set points accurately with feeler gauges is when they are new, once used the surfaces are pitted and uneven, feeler gauges are then no use. If you can measure with a meter the contact time you can adjust any set of points.

The dwell angle is very important, you need the points to remain in contact with each other as long as you can to "charge up " the coil, you also need them to open quickly and cleanly to provide one high intensity spark as the coil discharges. If the dwell angle is to high, the points are remaining closed too long and vise versa, as each degree that the points are out, affect the timing also by a degree. 

When using this engine tester you can see on the oscilloscope the the primary ignition line, and you can see if the timing on each cylinder is the same! It not on ROD, due to a worn distributor bush, the four lobed cam is NOT running central, so number one cylinder is set up and firing correctly but number 4 cylinder is in fact approx 2 degrees retarded! A new bush or a new distributor is required.

Checking the secondary firing line on the scope showed that the coil was round the wrong way. This was due to me changing the vehicle to negative earth. Why is this important?  Well its due to electron flow, we know electrons flow in an electrical circuit, well electrons flow easier from a hot surface to a cooler one, like steam coming off from boiling water, so the hottest part of a plug is the tip, so it helps if the electrons flow with the "heat radiating"  from the hottest tip to the very slightly cooler side electrode. 

The other thing the scope showed me was that one of the H.T. leads/ sparking plug cap was high resistance, this was giving a weaker spark on that plug.

You would be unable to see this with the naked eye, the engine tester gave early warning of the plug cap braking down.

Still plenty of things to do before the M.O.T. and plenty of painting to be done at a later stage maybe by me or the new owner, I need to sell ROD to pay off the credit card bills and give me some time to work on some of the other fleet, any offers?

Rods engine connect up, ready to be tuned up.A view of Rods engine, it does need a paint but getting it running correctly was the most important job, well  the engine colour is not part of the M.O.T . As you can see you have to connect a few wires here and there.

It is a total check up of the engines electrical health, covering primary (points/coil) and secondary High tension (coil/rotor/H.T. leads and spark plugs).

Also various vacuums and pressure tests can be done on the engine/ignition system as well as the exhaust gas/mixture can be checked and adjusted, anything to save a few drops of petrol in this day and age.

ROD, looking good.

The original tailgate and sign writing.Lots of type faces and styles, not how I would do it, but I have conserved it anyway.

Rod when found had angle metal brackets on his roof for a signboard. I had no idea what it said as it has not survived, so I had made up one using (old plastic sheeting found down the recycling centre) a sign, similar to the rear tailgate.

The total cost of the sign was £4.72 and the logo's are printed from the Internet on paper!, it would have been very expensive to have a sign writer make this, I have written a small piece for the Dulux and Crown in house newsletter (the head office is in Slough) so ROD might get into print.