Topic: What did you do to your non-motorcycle vehicle today?

[Terry in Australia]

Terry,there's enough width for two of your custom sleds up there,if desired?  that's an option that could be considered at some point at a later time 

Yes Bill, the plan is to make one that will be less than half the width of the tray, that way I can make another one if I need to sit another bike beside it.

Terry,what is max load capacity for your truck ?

Around 1000kg (1tonne) or 2200 pounds Bill.

[grcamna2]

Terry,there's enough width for two of your custom sleds up there,if desired?  that's an option that could be considered at some point at a later time 

Yes Bill, the plan is to make one that will be less than half the width of the tray, that way I can make another one if I need to sit another bike beside it.

Terry,what is max load capacity for your truck ?

Around 1000kg (1tonne) or 2200 pounds Bill.

That's just right to do your intended work plus you get good fuel mileage. 

[Bankerdanny]

I stopped on the way home to buy some steel and some wheels for the motorcycle loading system that I'm currently building in my head.

There's a bunch of homemade m/c loaders on YT, as I am sure you've already seen.  This one handles a big, fat Goldwing -

I'm not sure it is the greatest idea to load 800lbs of bike and ramp into the bed of your half ton and then hook up a camper to it too, at least not if your camper has any size. The camper I am working on has a tongue weight under 500lbs, but a fancier modern rig can easily be pushing 800lb tongue weight and the payload on an F150 can be as little as 2,000.

[dave500]

well i had a wonderfull morning doing my wifes over due by two years but still within the kilometers just! hyundai timing belt,this will be the third one ive put on it,she bought this car new in 1999,id never replaced the idler or tensioner pulleys in that time though(238,000 kays), so this time opted for the full kit with water pump(ill keep it for later this one is fine and the third pump ive put on it!) aswell for 115 bucks delivered,bloody great value when its a gates belt and also GMB same as OEM pulleys,she nags me the car is running fine why change it?i tell her if it snaps YOUR buying another car it wont be worth repairing!at first glance the teeth look ok,but a closer look and fibres are starting to emerge from one tooth with the next teeth back close behind,potential failure point?this was a dayco belt and did well,also not surprising when i popped a seal on one of the old idlers the grease is mumified puss.

[Terry in Australia]

Well done Dave, I've got to replace the timing belts on both our Hyundai's. I took the 2002 Accent to my dodgy mechanic as there was a bad vibration, which turned out to be a buggared tyre that had a big bulge in it. When it was up on the hoist I noticed that the rear muffler was rotted out so I got him to order a new one, and when he fitted it he rang to say the middle muffler was rusted out too, which pissed me off. I'll get him to replace the belt on the accent, but I'll leave the belt on the 1996 Excel that we've had for 20 years in the hope that it eventually snaps causing a catastrophic engine failure and she'll let me have it towed away........  

[Terry in Australia]

The seatbelt in my little truck is slow to retract, and a "Roadworthy Certificate" inspection fail. "No biggie, I'll buy a new one", I think to myself. I couldn't find one for an MK triton, but found a genuine Mitsubishi NOS one for the model after mine, assuming that they'd be the same? They weren't. Buggar, that was a waste of 85 beans. Out of desperation I ring my local none OEM parts supplier, and order a new aftermarket one, for $245. Fcuk.

I picked it up after work, and immediately noticed that it was different. I hoped that it'd still work, but it didn't. Fcuk again. While I had the original crusty one out (for the second time) I noticed that a piece of the plastic trim was rubbing against the seat belt, so I trimmed it back with a stanley knife, and now it retracts much more quickly. D-oh!.......

Terry's Triton 25 May 2022 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

[ofreen]

The seatbelt in my little truck is slow to retract, and a "Roadworthy Certificate" inspection fail. ...and now it retracts much more quickly. D-oh!.......

I've had this happen a few times since I mainly run old cars.  In every case it was correctable with a good cleaning.  Every time the belt retracts, it carries some junk with it.

[RAFster122s]

Problem with old cars is the UV and heat make the seat belt material degrade… often insurance does not have the occupied seat belt replaced after a crash if it retracts and looks ok, so you might end up having a belt that isn’t going to perform properly in a wreck. After 10 years I would say your seat belts likely need replaced even if the car has never been in a wreck…

[dave500]

wrecks are for ships,in Australia we have a "prang" or a smash or a "bingle"

[Terry in Australia]

I don't think that the UV is gonna affect mine considering that most of the time they're hiding behind a trim panel out of the sunlight anyway. What was interesting was when I took the incorrect seatbelt back to Burson's to get a refund ($240 bucks...) Andy, one of the parts counter jockeys, told me that they can get old seat belts re-webbed. Coincidentally I asked if it was for a roadworthy reason, but he said that he thought it was more for guys doing showroom restorations and not wanting crusty old seatbelts draped over their freshly upholstered seats.

[spotty]

I don't think that the UV is gonna affect mine considering that most of the time they're hiding behind a trim panel out of the sunlight anyway. What was interesting was when I took the incorrect seatbelt back to Burson's to get a refund ($240 bucks...) Andy, one of the parts counter jockeys, told me that they can get old seat belts re-webbed. Coincidentally I asked if it was for a roadworthy reason, but he said that he thought it was more for guys doing showroom restorations and not wanting crusty old seatbelts draped over their freshly upholstered seats.

you can also get them done in a wide range of colours too, for the people who are doing full customs and want belts to match their newly upholstered seats, purple seat belts anyone ?

[Don R]

 I drove the 40 chevy home from storage, the 50/50 av gas, no alky premium didn't work well or maybe didn't get the av gas into the carbs. I drove it home flooding and barely running. Not easy to heel and toe the clutch gas and brake pedals. Holley 600 with center hung float bowls so it's easy to clean out.
  I'm putting an electronic ignition on it too, it's still on points and a Mallory coil.

[Terry in Australia]

I like that you can buy a Holley(?) EFI kit for old V8’s now Don, I’ve seen some installed on Chev and Ford V8’s and they start right up, and usually have a performance improvement over carbs. I still regret selling one of my Fords that had a magic 351 Cleveland in it, but barely got 11 MPG (imperial gallons, or maybe 8MPG US) and I’d love to have it now with one of those aftermarket EFI systems?

I installed an ignition amplifier on another V8 (302) it was like Hondaman’s ignition amplifier, I could switch it on or off and you could really notice the difference to the idle when you switched it on, it smoothed it right out. With it and a 2 barrel Holley that I installed it was good for around 18 MPG.

[Don R]

  True about the efi, I have a Holley super Sniper on the race car. Got sponsored for it from a VP of racing. He went to the track to see if his ideas on tuning the throttle stop worked and that was all. Later he got a full time sportsman racer hooked up too. He didn't need my info after that.

[Terry in Australia]

Well if it was a freebie I wouldn't be too miffed Don, those EFI systems are great, but not cheap, so you scored!

[Don R]

Well if it was a freebie I wouldn't be too miffed Don, those EFI systems are great, but not cheap, so you scored!

 Wierd co-incidence, the Holley EFI guy called right after I posted this, he has a chassis dyno near here and wants to sponsor our car show tomorrow and in August. In exchange for some advertising of course.

[grcamna2]

Well if it was a freebie I wouldn't be too miffed Don, those EFI systems are great, but not cheap, so you scored!

 Wierd co-incidence, the Holley EFI guy called right after I posted this, he has a chassis dyno near here and wants to sponsor our car show tomorrow and in August. In exchange for some advertising of course.

Don,you get some free dyno run time for fine tuning 

[Terry in Australia]

I did a compression test on my little truck a few weeks ago and #4 was around 25 psi lower than the other 3. I did the "tip some oil down the spark plug hole and try again" and it made no difference, so I deduced that the valves weren't seating, and combines with a bit of smoke when I first fired it up each day, I decided that the valve guides/and/or valve stem seals are buggared. I could see by the grey sealant around the cam cover that someone else had been in there before me, so rather than try to recondition my head, I bought a shiny new cylinder head, complete with new valves, guides, seals, springs, cam, rockers, etc etc.

Today, being a cold miserable winter day, I thought I'd spend my day turning wrenches, rather than riding my comfy chair in my nice warm house. I did think about having my local mechanic install it, but considering the standard labour rate here is at least $100 ($70 USD) per hour, I decided that I'd do it myself and save around a grand, that I could put towards something more necessary, like booze, or bike parts. Looking at my little 2.4 litre engine, I felt a little guilty, knowing that it looked so neat, and soon, I would turn it into a dirty mess.

Triton head job 5 Jun 2022 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

Anyhoo, you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette, so I got stuck in. I haven't done any major work on a car in years, but I remember that the last time I took a head off a car (an old Ford with some bent pushrods after #1 son revved the crap out of it) I broke at least one exhaust stud and I had a #$%* of a time drilling/tapping the stud hole, so I was very happy that every nut, bolt and stud came out clean on the little engine, gotta love Japanese stuff. I wasn't using a workshop manual so I bumbled along at my own pace guessing what needed to be removed so I could get to the head, but eventually I stripped it down to the bare block.

Triton head job 5 Jun 2022 2 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I compared the old to the new, but by this time the rain was coming in sideways, and I was reminded of the classic song from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "Raindrops keep falling on my head"..........

Triton head job 5 Jun 2022 3 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

That's right baby, it's a performance engine, with 4 valves per cylinder!

Triton head job 5 Jun 2022 6 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

I had to use the big torque wrench I "borrowed" from work 30 years ago (I'd take it back, but that unit doesn't exist any more...) as I had to torque the new head down in increments of 30/50/78 foot pounds (well, "pounds feet", but that always sounds weird to me?) so it was well above the usual 20-25 foot pounds for motorcycle heads. Once the head was torqued to 78 (no I don't know why it wasn't 80, go figure) I had to then back the head bolts back to loose, then torque it to 20 (so I had to use my motorcycle torque wrench) then I had to mark the heads of each bolt with my fluoro yellow marker, turn them all through 90 degrees, then turn them all through 90 degrees again. I'm guessing that the final torque rating was probably around 60 foot pounds.

I tipped around a litre of oil over everything to make sure I don't cook the new cam and lifters on the first startup, and decided that I'd done enough work for one day. I figured I'd better re-install the cam cover, and this presented the first problem for the day, the 25 year old cam cover rubber seal was rock hard and didn't want to come out, so I ended up chiseling it out with a narrow bladed flat tip screwdriver, which took ages. Obviously whoever was in there before me was doing an "Economy" repair, and just splooged some grey sealant on the old seal, rather than install a new seal. I pray that mine doesn't leak, that would really piss me off.

Triton head job 5 Jun 2022 8 by Terry Prendergast, on Flickr

And that was it. I didn't finish the job today, but it was getting dark, I was cold, tired and really sore, so I was happy that I'd gotten that far, and I packed away all of the tools and stuff as anyone can walk in off the street and steal my tools from the carport which is at the front of my house. I managed to get everything put away before I loaded up on painkillers and jumped in the old rainbox, to thaw my core.

Hopefully the rest of the job will go as smoothly as the strip did, and I'll replace the cam belt and tensioners with a new kit while I'm at it, because God only knows when/if they've ever been changed in the last 25 years. It would also piss me off royally if I broke the cam belt and bent some valves in my shiny new head, that would suck balls.....    

[dave500]

great job Terry and also very satisfying!you done well,its funny how these days you just buy a whole new head?several years ago a neighbour cooked an alloy head on a courier ute or similar, i got tasked with the repair and once the head was off gave it to my mate with a full on engine rebuild shop and he said just put a new head on it,so we did,i was suprised it wasnt that expensive,he has a hardeness tester,once an alloy head gets cooked its #$%*ed,i got a few beers out of it!

[Terry in Australia]

Thanks Dave, yep $1145 for the complete new head with everything including the cam, hardly worth stuffing around with the old head, I reckon? The pistons and cylinders looked ok, so hopefully this job will make the little truck come up like new. I don’t mind spending the money now as I intend to keep it for the next 20 years until someone rips up my license, so it’ll be pretty economical when stretched over that period. I must see if I can get the $70 annual club rego for it next, as it’s old enough to qualify.

[tourmax]

Wife was complaining about a rattling noise from her 05 mini cooper clubman.

Was looking it over for obvious things and when I checked the oil level, it wasn’t even showing.

Little sucker took 3 liters to half point in the dipstick. It only holds 4 liters total!

It had an oil change approx 3 weeks ago too. I’ve told the missus before to check the oil level at least every second fill up, but it seems she “forgot” that point. :p

But that little Peugot N12 engine is one heck of an oil burner! They have a neg rep for being very oil level sensitive as well as consuming more oil than normal. It doesn’t smoke anywhere, but it sure likes to drink it somehow.

I’ll never understand why BMW put its rep on the line using Peugot engines. When I was younger, I worked at a dealership that sold Peugots (among other brands -chrysler/dodge/peugot and jag’s). When a Peugot came in for work, all the boys in the garage would run for the hills….no one wanted to touch the damned things. Jags weren’t much better back then. They actually brought a guy in from the UK so someone would be experinced on those buggers. I remeber the sync rig they had on the wall for the 12 cyl carbs. What a nightmare of octopus lines that thing was. All the boys ran from thise as well. Pretty much only the brit guy worked on those….

[Terry in Australia]

That’s terrible TM, and there must be something seriously wrong with that engine to burn 3 litres of oil in 3 weeks? I’d be wondering if whoever did the oil change actually forgot to tip the new oil in? Up until 2002 I worked part time in gas stations to pay for my motorcycle and tool addiction. One Sunday morning a lady drove a Mitsubishi Magna (V6 front wheel drive car) in and told me that the engine was making a rattling noise?

It was pretty quiet so I wandered out to take a look at it. She popped the bonnet and the first thing that struck me was the heat haze wafting off the engine, and that “hot metal” smell, and that ticking sound metal makes as it cools down. I pulled the dipstick out, it was one of those that only showed the last litre of oil, and it was dry.

I poured a litre in, pulled the dipstick, no difference. Hmmnn, ok, another litre went in, still nothing on the dipstick. Litre #3 goes in, still no fcuking oil on the dipstick! After looking underneath the car to make sure it wasn’t running out the bottom of the engine I tipped in litre #4 and yep, finally there was oil on the dipstick!

She told me that she’d just had the car serviced at the local Mitsubishi dealer that week, so I told her that some moron had drained the oil from her engine and not replaced it, and as she’d been driving it, her engine was probably cooked, but surprisingly it started right up and the rattling noise abruptly stopped as the oil pump got some oil up to the heads, and it seemed to run fine.

I told her to take it back to the dealership and complain, and gave her my details so they could verify her story, but I didn’t see her again and no-one contacted me, so I guess not. I did give me pause to ponder the merits of dealer servicing vs me crawling under the car and doing it myself (all I could afford back then) and why buying used cars is fraught with danger. I guess I’m lucky that I actually prefer sh1tboxes to new car ownership, (I’ve done both) and I don’t mind turning wrenches occasionally.

[tourmax]

That’s terrible TM, and there must be something seriously wrong with that engine to burn 3 litres of oil in 3 weeks? I’d be wondering if whoever did the oil change actually forgot to tip the new oil in? Up until 2002 I worked part time in gas stations to pay for my motorcycle and tool addiction. One Sunday morning a lady drove a Mitsubishi Magna (V6 front wheel drive car) in and told me that the engine was making a rattling noise?

It was pretty quiet so I wandered out to take a look at it. She popped the bonnet and the first thing that struck me was the heat haze wafting off the engine, and that “hot metal” smell, and that ticking sound metal makes as it cools down. I pulled the dipstick out, it was one of those that only showed the last litre of oil, and it was dry.

I poured a litre in, pulled the dipstick, no difference. Hmmnn, ok, another litre went in, still nothing on the dipstick. Litre #3 goes in, still no fcuking oil on the dipstick! After looking underneath the car to make sure it wasn’t running out the bottom of the engine I tipped in litre #4 and yep, finally there was oil on the dipstick!

She told me that she’d just had the car serviced at the local Mitsubishi dealer that week, so I told her that some moron had drained the oil from her engine and not replaced it, and as she’d been driving it, her engine was probably cooked, but surprisingly it started right up and the rattling noise abruptly stopped as the oil pump got some oil up to the heads, and it seemed to run fine.

I told her to take it back to the dealership and complain, and gave her my details so they could verify her story, but I didn’t see her again and no-one contacted me, so I guess not. I did give me pause to ponder the merits of dealer servicing vs me crawling under the car and doing it myself (all I could afford back then) and why buying used cars is fraught with danger. I guess I’m lucky that I actually prefer sh1tboxes to new car ownership, (I’ve done both) and I don’t mind turning wrenches occasionally.

Its possible the shop didn’t top it up properly, but I know the guys there and would be very surprised if they made such a rookie mistake.

The N12 has a rep as an oil burner and I’ve seen it drop low fast before. Doesn’t help that the dipstick has some weird plastic piece on the end of it and its nearly impossible to see oil on it. Its actually a brown/beige color, close enough to the straw/brown oil goes shortly after running a while that its nearly impossible to see the level without rolling it around in the sun at different angles to see where the level is.

Most often, when the little inline 4’s go low on oil, the tensioner for the timing chain is the first to show signs of distress from the fluctuating oil pressure. They’re almost all spring over hydraulic, using the oil as the hydraulic medium. When the oil goes low, the tensioner tends to go a bit slack and the rattling is usually the chain flopping around in the guides. Refill oil and the rattling goes away because the tensioner works properly again.

Of course, thats for engines with long timing chains and not timing belt engine.

One of the other things the BMW Mini/Peugot engine (NA or Turbo) are known for is snapping off the timing chain sprocket on the exhaust camshaft. Its a pretty crap design. What happens is the vaccum pump runs off the opposite end of the exh cam and its lubricated through a tiny passage from the oil gallery. Neglect the oil change interval for very long and the passage can “coke” up, which seizes the pump. Because the pump is hard splined to the cam, it locks the cam up, which causes the torque to yeild bolt on the other end holding the timing chain sprocket to snap off. Then the sprocket and chain drops down into the timing chain cavity and locks up the engine, but not before the pistons smack all the intake and exhaust valves. They’ve even been known to snap the crankshaft because the cam chain piles up against the crank sproket and locks up the crank. The crank then snaps as it comes to an immediate stop while still carrying all that inertia.

Basically, it turns the engine into scrap as it’s usually so internally buggered its not even rebuildable.

The bizarre thing is vw/audi uses the same vac pump on the cam end design on lots of its engines yet doesn’t have the failure rate (and coinciding massive engine death) the Peugot engines do. Peugot could have mitigated the whole vaccum pump/catastrophic engine death problem by either making the drive spoine a shearsbke quill shaft or just using an electric vac pump.

Like I said, I have no idea what possesed BMW to put a Pugeot engine in thier cars. They’re just poorly engineered junk. They just don’t tolerate anything but meticulous maintenance and even then, it still might not matter. When they run, they run great. But when they break, they do it “big time”…

[grcamna2]

great job Terry and also very satisfying!you done well,its funny how these days you just buy a whole new head?several years ago a neighbour cooked an alloy head on a courier ute or similar, i got tasked with the repair and once the head was off gave it to my mate with a full on engine rebuild shop and he said just put a new head on it,so we did,i was suprised it wasnt that expensive,he has a hardeness tester,once an alloy head gets cooked its #$%*ed,i got a few beers out of it!

Good work Terry;you should be set-up now for the long haul with that engine.
I know it feels good to trust your own skills rather than relying on high-priced labor.
I feel some of those shops hire people to just 'have at it' w/o assuring quality repair work.

Dave,I appreciate knowing a bit more what happens when some of these automobile engines over-heat.
That kind of heat does damage.

[ekpent]

That oil story reminds me of a past girlfriend and the mother of my son. Her dad Bob took an older motorhome into a local dealership to have the oil changed and a general look over before they were going to go on a trip. Well Bob gets the call and goes to pick it up. He gets down the road a little and you guessed it, the dealership forgot to put in the new oil and it killed the Mopar 440 that was in it. Needless to say it took way longer to get it all fixed then it should, the vacation was ruined and much unhappiness was created for something so simple.   
  A friend of mined changed the oil on his Kaw 4 stroke 750 once and forgot to re-fill but that's another whole story there. The shameful part of that one was he was a professional mechanic at a diesel truck dealership.