Hi,

the rusty water was partly from the overheating just before things went bang and some was from an earlier issue  I have green stuff in there but the water has been getting ugly the last 6 months or so and I don't think I had any green stuff to put in after fixing the water pump the night before. I will get the radiator checked out before I put the new engine in, might do it tomorrow when i go to pick up my gearbox casing.

The donuts were located correctly but I did notice pulling them out that the wear makes on the rubber weren't even all the way around, sort of egg shaped, so finding the bolts bent made sense. I have been airborne a few times and hit a couple of big holes in the previous subframe but with the same bolts so it could be from earlier. But it seems odd that they could bend given the direction of the force and the shortness, say compared to bending them in the back end. 

Engine is going to be ready to pick up for assembly late next week I have been told so I want to have at least the front end sorted out so I can concentrate on the engine for a few days when it gets here. 

Earlier in the week I was going to transplant a 1275 from the LPG Moke but changed my mind on that and will leave that as a Plan D if things are getting tight. The motor supposedly has a 3.4 diff so that would be a bit of work pulling it down to change and I not a fan of the 1275 for long days of driving, the 1100 is smoother I reckon.

Terry

Hi,
I like a Challenge, Smokey.

The headlight comes out so I when I lift the engine out the radiator doesn't foul on it. I lift from the front row of head studs so that the engine will tilt backwards to allow the diff housing to clear the sub frame and that brings the bottom of the radiator closer to the front panel and hence headlight bucket has to get dislodged.

Terry

Hi,

progress has been made but late last night the old Falcon ute decided it was being neglected and wanted some attention so Today and tomorrow I am distracted on getting a fuel pump working so I can drive to a servo and get some LPG.

On the Moke side of things the subframe, steering rack and all the rest of the front end bits are cleaned and painted black and just waiting on some machining on the new upper arm pins, hopefully tomorrow, and then I can start the reassemble. 

If you are wondering why the new arms need machining it is because they are just a bit too long in the body so when you put it together the grease washers stop on the ends of the pin and not the surface of the top arm, thus allowing the top are to travel laterally along the pin, 40 thou on one side. Some of this is because the ends of the arm wear and can get damaged and I think the pins are possibly just a bit longer than they should be. The fix is to machine a bit off each end off the body of the pin so it finishes just inside the bearing, but they are hardened steel so my Dads lathe couldn't do it and I had to ask someone else.

The steering rack needs at least one new end, so it will get two matching new ones, but while I had it on the bench I checked for wear around the left side bush which is brass rather than the felt or plastic ones. When some of us starting trying out the brass bush idea I was warned by a long time Mini racer that they had been tried before and they actually caused the steering rack to wear. I couldn't see any signs of that yesterday so I gave it a bit of new grease, yes I know it is supposed to take oil, and put it all back together again.

The engine bay got a degrease and wash down and just needs a bit more scrubbing with a toothbrush in the corners to make it look pretty good again. I have photos of some of this but too cold to go outside and get the camera I  took them on. 

Terry

Hi,
one of the orphans came back from some major surgery today and it will be a couple of months I think before I can get stuck into it so it just got parked on the back of one of Dads trucks but it did get a wash as it was raining as we unloaded it.



It is a strange colour to capture because it just looks so different at different angles. It is a 1982 Rover colour the owner wanted it re-done in but now it is two-pack metallic and it behaves like a flip colour.

 

The sideboxes are covered in stoneguard and then painted black and the battrey box pictured needed major surgery with the bottom left corner being replaced.

 

Hi,

I have been starting to get ready for the trip to the corner store a bit earlier than usual and spent a bit of time this week sorting out some wheels for the trip rather than leaving it to the last minute to grab whatever is to hand.

Started off by getting the 5 rims with the light truck tyres on them from last years trip and loaded them into the ute with about 15 or so other empty sunraysia rims and taking them to visit Peter to play with his wheel balancing machine. After a couple of early tests we got in to grading the rims based on how much they 'hopped', where the rim moves up and down on the vertical plane, and 'wobbled' with the edge moving in and out across the horizontal.

Some of the empty rims got A's A-' and maybe down to the C+ for a couple of edge wobbles while a couple with the tyres on them were C's and Dds so the tyres will be coming off and put on to some better rims over the next few weeks. One of the empty rims managed to score a F² which is the most buggered rim I have ever seen spinning that looks okay on the floor so it will become a garden hose reel.

Next day I took the wheels down to Eastern Wheel works, who used to make the Peco Star wheels for Mokes back in the 80's, and ran up a few to confirm what Peter and I found. I left them with 6 rims and a budget of $250  to see how many rims they could get to run true or tru'ish without cutting off the centre piece and putting it on a new 13" rim.

In the meantime I will get some of the other A rated rims into the sand blaster and give them a clean and get a new coat of paint on them and start moving the LT's across to better rims for the trip. The reason all this has come about is the last couple of trips I have had issues with vibrations and feedback in the steering wheel from the rims not running very true and I think it must cause a lot of unnecessary forces on others things like the steering tie rods and wheel bearings.

Also in our testing on Thursday, Peter and I noticed some tyres bouncing around a bit even though the rims were looking pretty good so I spoke with the tyre man and he confirmed that the LT's aren't necessarily the most consistently round tyres coming off the production line.

I have a slipping clutch in DS so it will be in on the hoist next week i think to fix that and I am going to put the adjustable lower arm and tie rod(castor bar) back on and see if I can get the handling back as I tend to have a lot of positive camber on the front and haven't liked how DS has handled on the last few big trips when the suspension is wound up.

Other than the above I don't think there is anything else to do but just check over things before this trip and maybe start packing a bit earlier than the night before.

Terry

No way 
I thought you only checked things on the run  .
But it is good to hear your giving DS a good look over, hopefully you will find something now, rather than on the track.
HP

Hi,

a few things have happened since my last post so luckily I did start preparation early for this trip.

One issue that sprung up a few weeks out was swapping engines out of the Beach Boys Moke and into Coxy's Moke before the Corner store trip which did show up some new problems with oil leaks that have a eerie similarity to the problems I had with the engine I borrowed for last years trip so when I have time I will have to have a closer look at things to learn what is going on. Coxy's engine has been chewing on 4th gear selector fork metal since 2016 due to various drivers using the extended gear lever as an armrest.

A couple of days before we were leaving a Mr Policeman overlooked all work I had already done making the Moke ready and decided I didn't have enough things to do before leaving so he gave me a list of other things to fix before I could leave. Mostly minor stuff like lights not working, indicators not cancelling, washer not working but in fairness there was no bottle or plumbing or little squirty thing fitted so I think he was being unreasonable to think it would function. On the plus side getting the defect notice removed did solve some outstanding paperwork issues at VicRoads with the Moke which still showed details of the original Moke I bought 29 years ago and I now have washers for the first time ever.

Yesterday I sold another Moke from the ex Darwin fleet, this one is going to a past Forum 'personality' in Chippy Dave.

Terry