Pootle's Owner
Active Member
Hello all.
Well before we take Pootle on its first outing I decided I really needed to sort out the alternator which was sitting at a very odd angle, not parallel to engine and fan-belt flying round in a very poor path. Looking at it, I could see that the top bolt for the water pump and alternator bracket had sheared and someone had bolted a bit of angle iron to the head and top alternator lug so I took that off and the alternator dropped down into the void…. Oh bugger, all three alternator mounting bolts were sheared! Fortunately the bottom mounting bracket for the alternator unbolts easily from the block so I could drill/retap that but what to do about top mount – weld up a new ‘odd’ bracket or sort it properly by drilling out the bolt on the block?
After a cuppa to consider I decided to do a proper job so
Off win engine access covers and the front engine cowl to give fill access to engine (I do like that!).
Out with radiator – that’s a job registering an 8 on the swear-o-meter when getting to bottom mounting nuts.
With radiator and fans out of the way it’s drill the stud time – 2mm hole 25mm deep OK, Open out to 3mm OK, open out to 4mm and getting cocky now so of course I snapped the drill but happily could pull it out with pliers. Opened it up to 5mm and tapped it M6 for a stainless stud (didn’t want to go the whole way to 5/16UNF and stud is fine providing a gorilla doesn’t try to tension the alternator!) Apologies to purists here as I fitted metric stud but I have far more metric engineering bits and I have found other metric bits on the truck – someone has re-tapped the holes for mounting engine access panels to M6 and then used really long galvanised fencing bolts to fit it in place - Ught! Stainless button caps will be fitted to replace these abominations!
As ever, when doing a job like this on a ‘new’ vehicle, you do learn a lot and of course wonder why did they do that? What tosser did this? Why did I start this? Will I ever finish? On the other hand it does give the chance to sort problems before disaster strikes and fixing the alternator was essential – how it ever worked driving from Yorkshire to Surrey I’ll never know. Another problem sorted whilst on-the-job was shortening the throttle cable by an inch as it was sticking where it had started to fray and would have snapped in time. Very used to doing motorbike cables so turned up a new brass nipple and silver soldered it in place – yes twice as I of course forgot to refit one of the adjusters first time round! So, another job jobbed…
I now have a Sunbeam engine and gearbox awaiting return of number 1 son from university - he wants to have a go at rebuilding it with me.
Haven’t done anything with it yet but it does all look similar to existing engine though I’m not sure if the gearbox with overdrive might be longer?
Does anyone know if the existing prop-shaft will mate with the overdrive box?
Will existing Diff ratio be OK for new box?
I can imagine I might be able to swap gearboxes at home but is there any way of getting the engine out at home or does it come out from below so needs a car lift?
Looks like there are lots of ‘opportunities’ ahead.
Cheers
Tony
Well before we take Pootle on its first outing I decided I really needed to sort out the alternator which was sitting at a very odd angle, not parallel to engine and fan-belt flying round in a very poor path. Looking at it, I could see that the top bolt for the water pump and alternator bracket had sheared and someone had bolted a bit of angle iron to the head and top alternator lug so I took that off and the alternator dropped down into the void…. Oh bugger, all three alternator mounting bolts were sheared! Fortunately the bottom mounting bracket for the alternator unbolts easily from the block so I could drill/retap that but what to do about top mount – weld up a new ‘odd’ bracket or sort it properly by drilling out the bolt on the block?
After a cuppa to consider I decided to do a proper job so
Off win engine access covers and the front engine cowl to give fill access to engine (I do like that!).
Out with radiator – that’s a job registering an 8 on the swear-o-meter when getting to bottom mounting nuts.
With radiator and fans out of the way it’s drill the stud time – 2mm hole 25mm deep OK, Open out to 3mm OK, open out to 4mm and getting cocky now so of course I snapped the drill but happily could pull it out with pliers. Opened it up to 5mm and tapped it M6 for a stainless stud (didn’t want to go the whole way to 5/16UNF and stud is fine providing a gorilla doesn’t try to tension the alternator!) Apologies to purists here as I fitted metric stud but I have far more metric engineering bits and I have found other metric bits on the truck – someone has re-tapped the holes for mounting engine access panels to M6 and then used really long galvanised fencing bolts to fit it in place - Ught! Stainless button caps will be fitted to replace these abominations!
As ever, when doing a job like this on a ‘new’ vehicle, you do learn a lot and of course wonder why did they do that? What tosser did this? Why did I start this? Will I ever finish? On the other hand it does give the chance to sort problems before disaster strikes and fixing the alternator was essential – how it ever worked driving from Yorkshire to Surrey I’ll never know. Another problem sorted whilst on-the-job was shortening the throttle cable by an inch as it was sticking where it had started to fray and would have snapped in time. Very used to doing motorbike cables so turned up a new brass nipple and silver soldered it in place – yes twice as I of course forgot to refit one of the adjusters first time round! So, another job jobbed…
I now have a Sunbeam engine and gearbox awaiting return of number 1 son from university - he wants to have a go at rebuilding it with me.
Haven’t done anything with it yet but it does all look similar to existing engine though I’m not sure if the gearbox with overdrive might be longer?
Does anyone know if the existing prop-shaft will mate with the overdrive box?
Will existing Diff ratio be OK for new box?
I can imagine I might be able to swap gearboxes at home but is there any way of getting the engine out at home or does it come out from below so needs a car lift?
Looks like there are lots of ‘opportunities’ ahead.
Cheers
Tony
. But well done for getting stuck in and doing a proper job on the alternator. You will probably burn in hell for using metric bolts but we'll forgive you