Those shiny new tyres make your L200 look pretty pretty good..! Thanks for posting the pics...
Those shiny new tyres make your L200 look pretty pretty good..! Thanks for posting the pics...
Have burned through a few tanks of gas this month. Hauling some new workshop tools about (pillar drill, arc welder, my mig welder to the repair shop and back, and a horizontal band saw. Tortron's engineering opening soon) and I'm getting noticeably better fuel economy than I had. Possibly it's the summer fuel but it's also all changed after I moved the rad overflow. I feel it's running cooler than expected even in the summer heat, and I haven't lost/leaked any water from the usual spot. So I'm wondering if having the bottle lower than the rad and a more inline hose route has improved it (blocked overflow line situation maybe?)
New engine keeps getting in the way. So knocked up a sled to move it about.
With the rain this week I might do some more work in the tray
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You're getting the leftovers of cyclone Owen. The weather has been out of control the last few weeks. Right now in awesome Adelaide it is in the grip of the typical heat we are familiar with. Nice engine rig BTW - amazing what you can knock up with the right tools and some scraps
geezer -- Australian weather... Thanks to my duty in the US Navy; I was able to see a little bit of Australia & New Zealand... My brain remembers 3 types of weather: Sydney, Perfect, Hot & surprisingly Cold and Geraldton Horny Toad Hot... Overall, in many ways; the homes at the coast near Sydney, were much like the coastal homes in California, USA... The Sydney trains however, old, old, old, pretty neat; made me think of old English movies... But, our stops in Australia were a long, long time ago, 1970 to 1987... The Australian Navy guys treated us better than blood brothers, it was so cool to be loved like that... I thank God for the chance to have such fond memories... Merry Christmas to ya'll down under...
My front indicators are some sort of Hella led unit. Not really designed for indicators I think (the ones they used as park lamps are twice as bright).
My bumper is also not designed to take a lamp housing. If this is original I don't know. The brackets used are home made it appears.
Anyway.
I have felt they were not really good enough for a daily driver, and I would quite like to not get t boned. So I set about putting some behind the grill.
I settled on some basic slim led units. I'm going to slather them in silicon to keep any water out.
I drilled two small holes in the grill for mountings, which will be hidden with some black painted bolts.
My loom is a little hacked in this area, so some new plugs for both the new indicators and side flashers were needed.
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Current set up
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And in place
And all going ( oops, my hazard relay wasn't working either)
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Hmm, nice and discreet. Geezer approves That front bumper is weird. No cut outs for parking/indicator combo lights. I bought a big kit of replacement harness sockets cheap from the land o' ebay. Just going through all of the connections and fixing them up while doing mods to the harness. It doesn't cover all the plugs but will do the majority of them.
I'm going for deutsch connectors for water protection where possible. The factory Holden engine loom uses something very similar, so I also have a bunch left over from stuff I won't use. The bumper was factory, but maybe not for this truck
OH BOY
Ok i knew this was there and actually ment to fix it way back when i did the firewall, but ran out of time and forgot about it, until the suspicious blob of bog fell out of the sill last week. I can get a whole new sill made locally, which would save me some time. Am going to pop a usb endoscope inside and see how bad it is on each side. If i can just patch it then thats fine. If its too bad, i will replace the whole thing (and hopefully have enough of the old one to patch the otherside if im lucky).
This one is a little worse
right up behind the cab mount. The drain hole had been bogged closed............
Might have to get creative with some jacks and engine hoist to get in there.
At least once the sills are done i can fill all the cavities with waxoil or fish oil and not worry about it catching on fire because it needs further welding. Which i have been putting off for that very reason
you really put the hours into this project. A real soldier. Amazing job
what is that black car in the background of the engine photo, post #203 ? Looks Morris Minor-ish
Cool engine-tranny dolly. Do you still have it sittng like that ?
Is it possible to get a similar photo of the front, and the other side ?
I'm looking at the differences between your 3800 RWD version vs the usa market RWD 3800
Too many hours for an old Ute really. But I'm stuck in the trap of being able to fix pretty much anything so it always seems like a good idea.
Yup that's my 51 Morris minor, there's a small thread in the other projects thread.
About to strip the ecotec down. So I'll take a bunch of photos
Had a look at the ecotec last night.
Plugs out - a bit sooty but tan electrodes, probably from its last drive under the engine hoist. Some oil on the threads, but the rockers have been leaking.
Under the rockers
No sludge, it looks like it's always had regular oil changes. Good to see.
Inside the plenum
Some oil, I think it's a typical amount for an ecotec. I may run a catch can anyway.
Oil in sump
About due for a change but no sign of metal or coolant
Compression test
Engine is on the dolly, so I just did a cold test to get an idea if there's any major issues. About 160psi on all cylinders with my rubber bung type tester, it will be higher than that because it's quite hard to hold it in and touch a wire to the two terminals on the starter at the same time .....
Anyway. Very happy with that. I was going to pull the heads off and port them, but I might just leave that for now. IL change out the intake and rocker gaskets and the sump and crank gaskets while the engine is out, everything else looks good
Ecotec sounds viable. Nothing worse than getting all pumped up and then finding a couple of rude surprises.
And to go with the few extra hp
A few extra brake pistons
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For those playing at home
These are 2nd gen knuckles (same truck I got my diff from)
With front calipers for a 1997 Mitsubishi Montero sport 2.4L L4
I just bought some refurb units instead of pulling some at a junkyard yard (none around right now plus I'd rebuild them anyway. This saves me a few hours cleaning) so I'll take the hit on no core to return. Better option than the reproduction ones I see I think
I gave my original 14" rim away a few weeks ago so can't try it on for size. But this is how much clearance there is on my 15s
IMG_20190211_131247.jpg
https://youtu.be/9ht148sccec
Got some Deutsche connectors today so I wired up a proper sub loom for the bumper lights and the grill indicators.
DEEEE-MOOOONNEEETTISSEEEEEDDDD!!!?!?!? Youtube's algorithm is going to drill you for having the audio in the background dude. Delete it and re-upload without audio or they will ban your user account
Shh don't let them know
Heading out of summer now and I can't put up with water running down the loom into the fuse box any more. Running the loom through the fresh air vent and firewall is possibly the dumbest thing possible, it would have been less work to just cut the body loom hole bigger or even better run it under the guard. But I digress.
Removed pretty much all the useless wires a few weeks back. This left me with only 10 or so to depin and feed back into the cab. Pretty easy
Opted to cut and rejoin the main power feed as it split off into a lot of places.
That left me with a roughly circular hole
So I cut a roughly circular patch of 2mm sheet and welded it in
And then painted inside and out
Then fed the loom back into the bay with the rest of the wires. Taped most of it back up out of the way
Not going to put much effort into this loom as I'm going to pull the while lot out and do it properly. Just enough to keep my sanity and not burn the truck down
Wiring looks like what's going on with my truck atm. Like I've said before, not the nicest job to tackle but if it means rock solid electrics then it's worth the effort.
Hi tortron -- your post #202 mentions better gas mileage with cooler engine -- I experienced better gas mileage & more power last week going up over the Koolau Mountains (Westbound) on the H3 freeway here on Oahu... We been getting some 60F degree weather and my truck likes it once the engine is warmed up... In the 60F it was the first time the truck made it over the mountains in 4th gear; usually need 3rd gear... Not sure if it was my wife's 1st time ever using a gas pump or the cold weather but mileage went from 18 1/2MPG to 23MPG in the colder temps...
MightyRam50 members should have an annual meeting in Australia
edit: Do you have a link to your YouTube vids..?
Last edited by xboxrox; 03-02-2019 at 10:59 AM. Reason: YouTube Link
Been as hot as hell here in Adelaide lol. I think there has been maybe 2 members that have joined from South Aust but they haven't been active for a very long time so there isn't going to be much of a meeting (the added bonus of my truck still being a work in progress will go a long way on that endeavour too) The cool definitely impacts on performance both in economy and power.
100% on the cooler air.
After I plugged all the above wires back in I went on a parts run. Nothing like a deadline to get stuff out back together.
This is an early VN commodore Buick V6. They still have the thermostat on the back of the engine and bodged together steam pipe modified fwd to rwd exhaust manifolds.
This one was pulled to go in an ldv van. But having pulled the engine with a fork hoist the guy forgot about the bump going into the shed....
Yup it fell right off the forks. It was promptly dumped at the back of the shed, and a whole Vs commodore bought for $200.
Smashed a rocker cover, the belt tensioner and the tail housing on the trans. That could all be replaced fairly easily but I don't want any of that.
I'm just after the steel sump so I can put one back on my current engine when I swap the modified one onto the the ecotec.
This also has a steel flexplate cover which I may keep as the ecotec has a thin plastic one.
There's also the engine loom and body loom from a layer car and ECU which can go in my spares incase I need to extend some wires.
Should be able to pass on the engine and box to someone, or part it out
It's still summer for the Southern half of the globe, I guess (?) HOT HUH..? tortron's photos are blue sky & sunshine too... I'm a physical wuss, good thing I ended up in Hawaii or the cold/hot would have done me in already... I don't envy having bunches of work, even for a truck; I'm more lazy... Just driving the stick shift with a low powered vehicle is work enough for me... Hawaii has smaller n' congested streets with many 25MPH sections, so it's feasible driving the Ram50... More later "IF" I get something fun to say... Keep cool & don't work too hard guys...
Cool enough to stand to be in overalls today
This is rusty
It's got crappy weld new panels in over rust repairs
So I cut it out
Unstitched all the welds and cut out the spotwelds. Was just going to cut out the corner edge and replace that, but realised I didn't really want to spend the time to stitch a long strip into a big flat panel. Also the panel being a wheelwell in a wellside is full of small dings. Also it's pretty thin steel. Decided it would be best to make a new one out of 2mm sheet. Pretty quick, hardest part was getting enough leverage on my bender as I'm yet to make a proper handle.
Anyway
New one*
Sits in place without any help which is usually a good sign.
Now to do everything else.
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