180-971 F1 Crane Truck

[Ravvin]

Yes, I'd definitely recommend an ultrasonic cleaner for carbs. Especially if they have ever had any fuel with ethanol through them.
You really have to play around with what you use in the cleaners, too. Some chemicals change the colour of the aluminium parts, but its surface colour only. If you were going to paint the outside, I'd probable give it a good wash with turps or thinners before the primer went on. Any steel parts need to be dried off as they come out of the cleaner and sprayed or dunked in something to stop them flash-rusting.
Just remember to work out what size ultrasonic cleaner you need, then get one size bigger. You can still do smaller items in a bigger cleaner. Just put them in a good strong zip-lock bag with your cleaning liquid and put them in the machine with enough water to support the bag. The water will heat and support the bag and transfer the vibrations. No need to use a full bath of cleaner.

The shelter tunnel is going really well. We have had many gales come through since I put it up, with winds over 80km/h and a few times over 100km/h. I've had to replace the rope lashing that holds the northern end in place as the stuff they supplied rubbed through. I used really big cable-ties as a temporary fix until I had weather calm enough to get the big ladder up to replace the rope. This worked, but only for a few months. (It seemed to be working, so why change it? ) Problem with cable-ties is that they are great if everything is tight. Friction works for them. When you get constant changing tensions pulling them in different directions, they tend to stretch a bit then all snap at once. It was never just a single tie that broke.

I think the main thing you need to watch out for is that over the first few years you need to watch all lashings and other tensioning systems for slackness and tighten them up as the cover stretches with heat and wind. I think mine has finished stretching now. One thing I did that I think helped is I ran some cheap ratchet straps across the ends from side to side. Not super tight so that it would bow the uprights in. I ran one from side to side in the middle and then one from the top where the curved pole joins, down to the far foot-plate. Same on the other side, so it looks like the 3 stripes of the Union Jack. I did this because I get most of the gale-force winds from the South to South-West. I saw the way the end panel was bowing in, sometimes enough to touch the radiator guard on the truck. The straps stop it going so far back, hopefully preventing it from stretching. Ideally, I should have made up a pole that crossed the middle. This would stop the side poles bowing in when the wind hit the end panel. Or maybe 2 poles, crossing diagonally. This would also help when it got hit with strong westerlies, which hit flat onto the long side of the tunnel. It really creaks and squeaks when the wind is howling. They also really need a stronger pole that runs across the ends at ground level, to hold the end panels from lifting up. Mine have both bowed alarmingly. On one end, I put a board from outside to the inside, over the pole, and sat the massive steel towbar that was on the truck on it, to hold it down. The towbar is made of 100x100 steel box, really heavy walled. I can't lift it, but I can just flip it over if I get the right angle. The other end I did the same but stacked a heap of old truck batteries on it. It really needs another concrete pier poured with some threaded rods poking up so I could drop a plate over them and bolt down.
I was a bit worried when I first put it up and saw the way the concrete footings were moving in the first big blow it went through. The ground out there is a layer of old sand blown in from the beach, over a nasty slimy yellow clay pan. The footings are 300x300x300 but they were moving around, creating a socket. I mixed up a thin slurry of water and cement powder and poured over each footing, then poked around the sides with a thin reinforcing rod to get the slurry down into the surrounding sand. So far, it has worked really well. No movement at all now. Going to be fun for whoever eventually has to pull them out.

Greg.

[Ravvin]

Hi all. Just a small update.
I've been playing with the lathe, trying to remember stuff from back in high school. And we didn't have carbide insert tools then.
Luckily, there are some really good Youtube channels that are really good and run through enough of the basics that I've been able to work most of it out.
If anyone is interested, Blondihacks is a Canadian lady that is into building small stationary steam engines, model steam trains and a lot of her own tools and lathe/mill upgrades. She has a whole playlist for beginners that takes you from setting up and levelling your lathe, through to turning, boring and thread cutting.
Two Australian channels I like are Matty's Workshop and Max Grant, The Swan Valley Machine Shop.

I've been working on making new metal cups for the rubber bushings that support the transfer case. I need 16 in total; 6 for each side of the cross-member that the transfer case bolts to and another 4 for the bracing struts that connect from the bottom of the transfer case to the chassis. The old ones had the metal lip worn away and the rubbers were rock hard and starting to crumble away.



This is a pic of the only 2 shells that still had most of the lip. They look just like the bearing races that used to be on the top and bottom of the push-bike head stem. The shells and rubber bushing are listed in the RPS books as being made by Dept of Defence (Vic), so no chance of getting new ones there. I chased around online and got nowhere. Finally, I found a mob in Queensland called Superpro made a set of bushings for a Nissan of some sort that had 2 SPF0082 types in it that would work for me. I contacted them and explained what I was doing and the guy I spoke to was more than happy to do a special order for me and the next time they did a run of that bushing type, they shipped me 16 of them.
The original shells were thin pressed metal and the bushings had round edges. The new ones I have are all straight sides and 90? angles, so turning new cups is turning out easier than I thought it would be.
The mystery steel bar I found at the scrappy is 45mm. It has a really hard surface, either from the rusting effect or maybe its been treated. I found that if I took a 1mm deep cut, it removed the rust and hard layer. Then I could do a light 0.5mm cut and take it down to 42mm and a fairly nice finish. I then run a few drills up the centre and that leaves me with a centre bore of 14mm. I bought a set of drill bits that go from 15mm up to 20mm in 0.5mm steps. Unfortunately, they are totally bloody useless.



You wouldn't believe how many tries it took to get this pic, poor as it is. Can you see the issue?
Every single drill bit in the set has been sharpened like this. Those shiny spots on the back of he flutes is the only part that touches when you try to enlarge the hole.
Looks like I am going to have to learn how to sharpen drill bits.
Anyway, after swearing at the drill bits for a while, I used a boring bar and opened the hole up to 24mm. I then opened the first 12mm of it up to 38mm.
Next, I measure along the outside 14mm and mark it. I switch to the parting tool and run it in 14mm. This leaves it with a wall thickness of 2mm. I then move the parting tool across a bit and run it in, cutting the cup off the main steel rod and its done. Just needs a bit of deburring. If you want a real fright, look up the cost of a set of Noga deburring tools.



Just have 13 to go. One of the shells in the pic above is undersize, so I won't use it. My bushings and shells are 12mm higher than the originals, but that shouldn't matter. I'll just use longer bolts.

That will do for now. I'll post again when I get a bit more done.

Greg.

[Lionelgee]

Hello Greg,

It is great to see you posting again. Thank you for keeping us in the loop while you settle into using your new lathe. Yes, the time since high school is more easier to count in decades for me. Then I decide not to calculate the time since I attended high school.

Keep us posted please Greg.

Kind regards
Lionel

[Chazza]

Good work Greg.

I agree, Blondihacks rocks! Every time i watch an episode I learn a new technique,

Cheers Charlie

[Ravvin]

Well, after many attempts, I got them done.



I spent last Sunday turning bolts into twisted bits of metal. These bolts were used to hold the lathe to the heavy plywood skid when it was shipped from overseas. Unfortunately, the metal was so soft that, even with tailstock support, it would flex away from the lathe tool and then flick up over the top and bend.
During the week I was able to get a metre of 6mm bright steel rod. This stuff was so much better. I turned the whole shaft down to 5.5mm in one pass, then turned the thread section down to 3.1mm with several light passes. I just used a hacksaw to take the little section off the end where the tailstock was supporting the shaft, then used a 3mm die to cut the thread on the end.
I was trying to work out how to turn the circlip groove on the far end, then remembered my dremel has a heap of really thin cut-off wheels. My dremel has a long flexible shaft and I was able to clamp it in one of my spare tool holders and set it up on the lathe. From there, it was a simple matter to run the lathe in reverse, fire up the dremel, move it in until it touches then gradually move it in until it has cut a 0.75mm deep groove.
Finally, spin the shaft around in the lathe and part off the excess.
The next step will be turning up a couple of small plugs to go on the bottom, below the pump plunger. The original ones were aluminium. I don't have any, so I'll see if I can get a bit locally, otherwise I'll just use mild steel.

As usual, more updates when I get something done.

Greg.

[Chazza]

Well done! You will never regret buying a lathe.

[Ravvin]

Hi all. I?m still alive. 
It looks like I am finally getting some enthusiasm back for restoring my truck.
So, a quick recap and then I?ll give you the updates.
The big hold-up came when I wanted to use the Abbey crane to pick up the cleaned, re-sealed and painted transfer case which is sitting on the chassis rails, right over the rear axle sets. First, one of the hydraulic hoses was leaking, so I had all new ones made. I replaced all of them except the one that operates the second jib, as it connects to the hydraulic cylinder inside the frame of the jib. To get to it, I had to drive the rear pin out then operate the cylinder to push the body of it out far enough to get to the connection. When I tried to run the truck to power the crane, it wouldn?t idle. It was chugging and coughing and finally stopped and wouldn?t restart.
After a lot of diagnosing, I found it all led back to the plastic boat tank that I was running it off. The tank itself was fine and about half full. The problem was the metal wire that attached the float to the gauge in the lid. It had almost tripled its size with rust, with a load of it in the bottom of the tank. This boat tank just has an open hose for the pick-up and had sucked a load of small rust flakes up.
I pulled the mechanical fuel pump off and disassembled it. I found that valves had hardened and were allowing fuel to drain back and the screen was clogged with rust and sludge. I got a kit locally and cleaned it up and rebuilt it and then went on to the carbs.
The F1 has duel Stromberg BXUV-3 carburettors, linked together with a solid rod. I pulled the top off one and found the inside had what appeared to be a layer of fine rust particles that had built up in the bottom of the float chamber and must have been restricting the passages. I pulled the carbs out and realised they had been leaking for years and were coated in a layer of what looked like varnish.



I picked up a cheap Chinese-made ultrasonic cleaner and messed around with different cleaning products before finding that a basic water-based degreaser seemed to work really well on the varnish.



It did a pretty good job on the alloy parts, but hardly touched the tarnish on the steel sections.
I managed to find a rebuild kit, but the accelerator pump plunger was different. Then I found that I couldn?t get the jets out. The slotted heads were chewed out where someone had been at them with a poorly fitting screwdriver. If I couldn?t get them out, it was pointless continuing.
Now for the update.
I did a few online searches and found a company in Victoria that specialise in rebuilding and repairing classic carbs. The company is called Allcarb Carburetors and the owner is Jeff Vanprooyen. The website is carbparts.com.au, but it is still under construction. I gave him a call and told him I was restoring an Inter F1 and needed some parts. It turns out he actually makes the rebuild kits sold in most parts stores in Australia. That?s when he told me he rebuilds and repairs all types of carbs. After chatting a bit, I got his mailing address and boxed them up and shipped them off.
A couple of weeks later I got a call to say they were all done and that he was surprised that they cleaned up so well, as they were in pretty rough condition and were missing a few screws and had badly worn throttle shafts. He shipped them back and I got them in 3 days.



Except for the light pitting on the top cover of the one on the right, you would think they were new. They have been totally stripped, cleaned, anodised and rebuilt with new screws, jets and gaskets. He also replaced the worn shafts and flow tested them. The only thing he couldn?t do was set the float height, as I couldn?t send him the banjo fittings that house the seat for the needles, as they are soldered to a rigid pipe that runs from the fuel pump on the other side of the engine. He had mentioned this on the phone and told me how to set the levels, so it wasn?t a big deal.
The overall price, including shipping them back to me, was $460incGST.
If you are chasing parts or a full rebuild for your carbs, I definitely recommend giving Jeff a call.
Jeff Vanprooyen - Allcarb Carburetors ? 0487 149 046.
The next step is to clean up the inlet manifold, refit the carbs and set the float levels. Then I can run it long enough to push the cylinder out on the crane, change the last hose, and finally move the transfer case so I can clean and paint the rear diffs.

[Chazza]

Top post cobber!

I shall bookmark Allcarb Carburettors immediately.

[Lionelgee]

Hello Ravvin,

Great to see that you are still alive and posting back on the REMLR again. Also good to see that you have returned to working on the F1 crane truck. Have you had a chance to reposition the carburettors yet? Keep up the great work. Plus, of course - keep us posted. 

Kind regards
Lionel

[STDDIVER]

Great to see your continued passion Greg, well done!  I really enjoy your posts!      STDDIVER

[Ravvin]

Hi all.
Just a minor update, probably.
I have some time off from work, so have been slowly catching up on things at home. I started with etch-priming and painting the rebuilt fuel pump.



It looked good, right up until I started refitting it. I put Permatex non-hardening gasket goop on both sides of the paper gasket, as there used to be a lot of oil leaking from here before. The cam lobe that operates the fuel pump must have been at its high point, as I had to use a lot of pressure to hold the pump against the block to get the bolts started. Of course, that meant I got gasket goop all over my hands and the pump. Not so pretty now.
What halfwit designed the layout of these engines? You can't get a socket or ring spanner on the bolt heads. You can just get an open-ended spanner on them, but you can only turn it one flat before having to flip the spanner and turning it another flat. While doing this, you have to use the muscles in your back and neck to hold yourself at an odd semi-reclined angle as the pump is a fair way up the engine block. You can't reach it if you ate laying flat, and there's not enough room to sit upright. You can reach it from up in the cab, but you can only get to the bolts from below. It took me just under an hour to get those 2 bolts done up.
Another odd thing I noticed is that the fuel pump seems to be mounted upside down, with the glass bowl at the top. I would think this would be more likely to leak than if it was up the other way and it would allow any sediment or water to sit in the bottom of the bowl.
I blew the hard fuel line out, but it was clean. I had taped up the ends when I removed the pump and carbs, back in January 2021. Almost 5 years ago. So much wasted time.
Today I put the carbs back on and got them all hooked up. I noticed something odd down in the inlet manifold when I unplugged them.



It looks like a fault in the casting, or like the wall is broken, but it feels solid when I poked at it. I thought maybe there was a water jacket there and it had frozen and cracked the inner wall but there's no sign of any coolant in the inlet manifold and the radiator is full and has antifreeze/corrosion inhibitor in it. I'll just have to remember it's there and see if anything changes.
I ran new flexible 5/16" fuel line from the pump, through the cab and down to where I have a boat tank on the original fuel tank mounts. There was a small amount of fuel in the bottom of the tank, but all the rust from the fuel level float system had been cleaned out earlier. What I did find was a line of black sticky stuff like molasses, running down the fuel pick-up tube. I pulled it apart and cleaned it out and found it was an O'ring from inside the quick-connect fitting. It had totally dissolved. I'm pretty sure petrol won't do that, but fuel with ethanol will. I'm thinking that some of the fuel that gummed up the carb on my mower and motorbike one winter may have also been tipped into the truck tank. I NEVER buy fuel with ethanol in it, but I know exactly where it has come from both of the times I have had this issue in the past, and it's why I will never buy any fuel from what is now called United down here. Been caught twice, won't risk it again.
With that all cleaned out, I filled it with fresh fuel and added Flashlube. I put a new primer bulb in the line as the old one was so hard I couldn't squeeze it. I took the tops off both carb and slowly pumped up the fuel unlit they started to fill. I had to bend both tabs down to get the fuel level right. I think the new needles are a bit shorter than the originals. While I was hooking up the throttle linkages, I noticed that the holes for the connecting link rods was very worn and sloppy. So much that when the rear carb is fully open, the front carb is only about 2/3 open. I think I might drill the holes out to make them round and then turn up a few little brass bushes. That will take a lot of play out of the dual carb linkage system and make them operate a bit more evenly.
Nobody local stocks brass round or hex bar, so I'll order it in. Everything takes 2 weeks to get down here, if it comes from NSW or Victoria. If it comes from QLD, I usually get it in a week, as it bypasses that huge mail congestion/sorting centre in Victoria. I have to get a length of 9/16" brass hex bar to make some manifold nuts, so a section of round bar will get added to the order.
With that all done, I closed up the carbs and cleared away any loose junk that could get in the way. Oil and water were checked and I dragged out a spare battery that I'd had on maintenance charge and hooked it up.
Climbed into the truck and decided to try something new.

<iframe src="https://1drv.ms/u/c/d48dd4163ca01885/IQSbBptg6e6vQq_ZCDFPSbH2AamB2D5OzB711lVHBLt2n5I" width="98" height="120" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>

Ok, don't really know what I'm doing here. I can't get it to make a nice link with a description, but if you click the thing above, it will open and you can hear what happened. I was pretty surprised.
Next step is to switch the exhaust headers with the ones off the MK3 so the muffler sits at the right angle and then I can hook up the section of metal flexi pipe and run the exhaust outside so I can run the engine without gassing myself. Again.

[STDDIVER]

Good on you Greg - Great to see another installment!  They are meant to test us - but not to this level - I tell my F1 - "Resistance is futile" and I usually win, lose some skin, bleed a bit but in the end you get there!  I might have some parts, Please let me know what you might need?   Happy new Year  STDDIVER

[Chazza]

Nice to hear from you Greg.

When you have made and installed the throttle bushes, you will need to ream them so that the bores are inline. Make the internal diameter a few 1/100mm smaller than the shaft and then ream to size.

The link didn't work for me,

Cheers Charlie

[Ravvin]

The link didn't work for me,

Cheers Charlie

Oh, that's odd. I tried it on Chrome and it opened up the file straight away. Maybe it only works in some browsers.
It was only an audio recording of it spinning over a couple of turns and firing right up, no hesitation or stumble. That's after sitting 4 years.

The bushes I need to make aren't for the actual carbs. The guys that rebuilt them took care of them. The design the Army came up to sync the 2 carbs was to use a system of steel rods that hook into metal plates and flat bars to transfer the pedal movement to the accelerator linkages. It's all just mild steel, so over time the holes turned oval and the metal rods wore down. Now there's a lot of slop in the system, preventing the front carb from opening at the same rate as the rear one.
The brass hex bar I need to make new exhaust manifold nuts arrived on Friday. Ordered and dispatched on 5th of January, arrived on the 16th. $14 freight and 11 days to get from NSW to Tassie. Aus Post is really getting bad. Hopefully, I will get them turned up this weekend and get the down-pipes and muffler on. Then just need to see what I need to extend it a bit to get the fumes outside.

Greg.