New owners of "Thomas"

S

steve30300

0
Hi all

We bought thomas of ebay the diesel converted commer and finally picked him up this weekend after a six hour drive he is finally resting at home in kent awiting his restoration.
For me it brought back fond memories of travelling around europe every summer 30 years ago with my parents and we hope to do the same.
The drive was ok despite losing battery power with 60 miles to go so having to drive around the M25 in the dark !!
A few years ago he was fitted with 2.3 ford sierra diesel engine and gearbox which i think will be my first point of call having struggled to reach 50 mph and losing power/speed at any sign of an incline,also the ths noise it is gonna need some dynamat as it is pretty loud!

great to aboard will be posting pics soon.
 
Good to here from you and great to hear of another conversion, I would have thought you would have done better than 50 with a 2.3 diesel lump. Oh well the MPG must be good, welcome indeed you may well become as mad as the rest (well some) of us :D
 
me to i thought i would get better than 50 especially using the five speed box,I'm thinking either timing or there does not seem to be a lot of travel on the throttle pedal.
 
The exhaust seems to be new, and I am assuming it has the standard diff but why would it reduce speed if the gearbox is matched to the engine would it be down geared?
 
steve, you have a diff for a petrol engine which revs higher than your diesel, even though your 5 speed you will be no better off overall :(

"you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"
 
thanks that my explain why with flat to the floor I am lucky to get 50mph
ok to resolve the problem and as it has sierra mounts in place what if I replaced the diesel engine and box for a 1.8 or 2.0 petrol would that help ????????????
 
certainly give it a bit more uumph with a 2.0l petrol :),as far as i know they both take the same (type 9)gearbox.
as there is not much choice of diff available,and even if there was the 2.3 probably would not pull it, you don,t have much choice really [xx(]

"you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"
 
Steve fit a rover p5 back axle and that will solve your problem this is what will runs in his 2litre vauxhall commer and its whats goin in mine.Have you done a compression test on your diesel lump might need new rings and a re bore most them sierra disels have stacked a few miles up!! The commer back axle is one of the main reason why a commer sits at so higher revs when flat out and you dont go no where!!![V] ;)
 
If you have a diesel engine with sufficient torque, then you could possibly get an interesting compromise with one of the Humber Hawk/Super Snipe axle ratios, plus a bit of juggling with wheel size and/or tyre rolling radius. I would need to check this a bit more carefully to be sure but I suspect that the differential assemblies might be a straight exchange, even though the axle casings are not quite the same. That would assume that the halfshaft splines can sometimes be the same, even if they may have changed during the lifetime of either of these vehicle types. If not, then the cwp would have to be built in to a hybrid differential with the appropriate Commer van axle parts substituted for the Humber ones. The halfshafts I'm not sure about, but the general axle designs are very similar, wheel stud PCD the same and the same overhaul procedures involved. I have one or two Humber axles that might be spare, or could negotiate for the acquisition of others, but can't say what ratio they may be without checking the tpm or counting the teeth!

Hugh

PS. Incidentally, the Commer/Humber PCD (at five inches) is quite a popular one and matches that of many bigger Austins (including 'Big Healey'), Rover P5/P6, Thames '400E', Vauxhall Cresta and many 'Yanks' so interesting steel (or maybe alloy) wheel possibilities may be out there if you fancy something different. However, beware the stud size itself. Some are smaller than the Rootes ones, certainly Rover P6 stud holes are too small for Humber/Commer hubs. You could even use Sunbeam Talbot 16 inch wheels for that 'up in the air' feel but they might be a bit too skinny to be truly roadworthy.
 
just to add some help people all the rover p4 and p5 models share the same pcd as the commer so wheels go straight on and give you i think a max of 185 width tyre, i know this for definate as my rover p4 cyclops is currently sitting on spare commer rims found in charlie when collected as the cyclops had destroyed his boots way before i bought him.
 
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