A Landy is reborn

[SirTainleyBarking]

Changeover from 200 to 300Tdi was on a L plate, hence my Disco has a 300Tdi engine, but a lot of 200Tdi / Rangie Classic features under the skin.
For a N reg, I think they started ECU'ing bits as well. The first 300Tdi's have a fully mechanical injection pump, the later ones are different

[tractorman]

Thanks for that GN - it has made me glad I passed the Disco over (especially as the Landy has cost far more than it should have done!). There's enough hassle with EGR stuff on the Prima engine without the hassle of more electronics!

I confess that I listened to Kev and didn't pay too much attention to the engine - though noticed the turbo on top of the engine (so to speak) and the big engine cover. I would prefer the 200 engine - if the Prima isn't up to the job - partly because it won't have the "black box" of the later 300 engines and partly because it will be a lot easier to fit!

As I need a new manifold gasket and some steel to make an alternator mounting bracket (and a RH-mounting alternator), there is little I can do at the moment. Today's job was to sand down one of the garage doors (there are two and a half), ready for something better than Wickes' exterior wood protection stuff (and three times the price!). I hope to get that sorted over the weekend - and finish the bath water collection (into a water butt instead of a drain - I'm on a meter!). That would mean that I have actually finished two of the several jobs I have started in the last couple of years!

[kstrutt1]

I have been using sadolin woodsheild on the wooden greenhouse I am building, it has a 8 year guarantee, covers well and seems to generally have a good write up, got a good deal from homebase on the bank holiday weekend, £25 for 2.5 litres ilo £36.

We used to collect bath water but be warned does smell prety bad after a few days!

kevin

[arceye]

What do you do with the bathwater?

I've never had a water meter are they that bad you have to recycle?, as someone who happily chucks away a couple of thousand gallon from his 5000 gallon fish pond then throws the hose in to top it back up I don't think I want one. (our tap waters nicer than that southern stuff and doesn't seem to hurt the fish)

[JPB]

Like it or lump it, England and Wales will have compulsory water meters for all of their victims residents within these next few years . I'll be quite a bit better off as a result since my place that side of the border is band C - so costs a silly £62 per month over the ten chargeable months - and I'm the only person who spends a significant amount of time there, hence uses water unless Heather drinks millions of gallons when she's using the house and doesn't tell me but that's unlikely because water wouldn't get her pished and I've found no evidence of her having found any other uses for the stuff during her visits.

[tractorman]

As a single occupant (the dog likes rainwater and hates mains water), I was politely asked to pay £500pa before I got a meter. That's the same as anyone else in the street. Doing the sums over the first six (winter) months with a meter, they reckoned it would be £250 or so a year. The second six months (last summer) I used the hose to water a small veg patch and some tubs for a week as the water butt soon ran out. I am now paying £350 a year! Bear in mind that the car is lucky to get washed once a month (and it gets done in a car wash more often than not) and I hardly use a hose (the windows are filthy!), it's a heck of an increase - more so as I use bowls in the sinks and the water flushes the loos!

So far I have watered the slightly larger veg patch twice with the hose this year - having done a trial run with some 40mm wase pipe connected straight to the bath (not a great idea - the length produces a large "slug" of water that sucks the u-bend almost dry!

I have a pipe connected to the water butts to which I can connect a hose and fill a tub for the pressure washer - this is used as and when (and if I actually have the pressure washer!). I'll be using it tomorrow - I got the garage doors sanded and want to spray some "mould remover" on them before I treat them with Sikkens stuff. I should have plenty of water then - not so many veg or tubs to water as the season is coming to a close - so I might have a go at the windows.

Yes Kevin, as you say, the bath water can pong a bit after a while - I got some stuff to put in the butts to help stop that and it seems to work - probably costs more than using mains water though!

I know it's off topic, but I did use Sandolin some time ago for most of our exterior wood. We have the problem of being near the sea - salt and sand in a strong wind is much the same as a sandblaster. The front of the house gets a hammering in the winter and the Everest "hardwood surrounds" need repainting every couple of years (the threshold on the porch door is rotten - but 30 years old)! The back window frames are still good (though only twelve years old) - three years after being done!

[tractorman]

The garage doors have had a first coat of "primer", which is supposed to be light oak, but looks like old pine! After two days of sanding with a random orbital sander and a day with the detail sander, my left hand is still tingling!

One stroke of luck though: the neighbour appeared with my cutting compound and saw the Landy's alternator. Disappeared for a few minutes and returned with the stuff to clean the mould from the doors (my stuff!) and a brand spanking new RH mounting Lucas 18ACR - the very one I was looking for! He won't (daren't) take any money for it - I didn't charge for the draining I did last year.

The manifold gasket came yesterday (as did a new engine fan switch), so I will be back to the Landy tomorrow or Tuesday, though I've still got the waste pipe to sort As I have plenty of the "primer" left, I will give the doors a second coat, though it is only supposed to have one and then two coats of "top coat" (a UV filter affair). It's a case of overdoing the paint in the hope it will last more than three or four years!

[JPB]

ACRs aren't strictly speaking handed though, all you had to do was take out the through bolts temporarily, rotate one end relative to the other and the rear lug aligned to the other front one, then put the bolts back in and it would then fit the other side of the block.
Or was the existing alternator in need of replacement in any case?

[tractorman]

The "original" alternator was/is of indeterminate origin - it is yellow under some green paint and has a double pulley that doesn't look like an original one. I think it's a Magneti-Marelli one, but there's no label and the paint hides the markings nicely and I'm well out of date with alternators (still in the ACR years!) - I don't even know what make the Golf's alternator is (come to think of it, I haven't even noticed it!!).

I confess that I have got locked into the "RH-LH" thing and hadn't even thought of trying to twist the mount round - possibly because the tractors have dynamos (both LH-mounted, but one is on the RH side) and I've never had problems with VW (Bosch?) ones!

[tractorman]

The garage doors are finished - though I need to fit the handles - and look better. The water butts are overflowing - I need to arrange a diversion for the bath water during winter and the Landy has an exhaust again.

I used a devious method to make a jig and drill the old manifold studs out: I used the gasket as a jig to drill three holes through a bit of old T&G floorboard. The pillar drill and decent bench vice made the job a lot easier. Once drilled, I cut the first stud flush with the manifold and bolted the jig in place (one stud came out when I took the old exhaust off). Once I'd drilled the first hole, I tapped it and bolted the jig on with two bolts so I could do the other stud in a similar manner, I decided to just fit two bolts, screwed in from "above", rather than make two more studs. The cheapo Halfords taps are slightly over 8mm (and the dies are slightly undersize!), so I wasn't sure the studs would stay where I put them!

I had a short break over the weekend: I only sorted the lathe (at last) so the toolpost doesn't move when under pressure. I ruined my 10mm drill doing that and guess what size the bolts are for the alternator mounting bracket...

Having measured three times, using loads of washers as spacers, I worked out that I needed 30mm spacers so the mounting plate would clear the cam belt cover and made three spacers out of 18mm round bar. I dug out some 100mmx12mm flat steel for the mounting plate - I'd bought it for mounting the digger and then realised that I should use 150mm stuff, so didn't use it (I got a parts list for the digger on eBay!). OK, it's a bit (lot) heavier than necessary, but I hadn't any suitable 5 or 6mm stuff. After making a template (the old cardboard trick), I used the old alternator mounting bracket as a jig (it wasn't a perfect fit as one of the holes was elongated) and managed to make my bracket a perfect fit in all three holes on the block. There is only one slight snag: the cover isn't parallel to the side of the block and the retaining clip sticks out more than I thought! My bracket went on, but was squeezing the cover a bit where the clip was! I will need to make some 35mm spacers this morning.

In Monty Python fashion, there are two slight snags - I thought I had three "long" 10mm bolts - about 60mm. However, I actually had 2 x 60mm bolts and a few 50mm bolts. Doing the maths: 12mm plate + 35mm bolts = not a heck of a lot of thread showing! And guess what it the only size of threaded rod I lack between 8mm and 16mm. After a measure up with a 75mm coach bolt, I ordered three M10 x 75mm bolts on eBay last night (probably cheaper than the fuel I would use to go and buy cheaper ones in town).

The third snag is that the Lucas alternator is longer than the other one (and, if memory serves, longer than a 15ACR). It would hit the exhaust manifold if it was close to the engine, so I'll have to make it so it is swung up a bit when it's fitted. That is a good thing in a way - the belt would have been much too long otherwise! I'll make a heat-shield for the back of the alternator (I have a lot of scrap aluminium sheet now!) and hope that will protect the "electronics" and end cover for a while! Hmm, that 12mm mounting plate will make a good heatsink if air can pass on both sides.