Genuines are alloy. Plenty thick enough in the wall not to crush. If bolt is not coated with copperslip or stubborn grease intermetallic corrosion between steel bolt and alloy centre tube will lock things solid. Modern bolt plating is inferior to what was used in the factory build. I'd have the grinder out and ready for anything thats been in there over 5 years! Might come out OK, might not.

Clive

Concerning the bush compressor insertion tool sizes mine goes from 69 mm Ø at the large end to 58.8 mm Ø at the small end. Taper section is about 16 mm long, angle approximately 6°. About 6 mm of parallel section at both ends. Whole thing is just under 30 mm long. I made it by boring through to small end diameter, adding a 6 mm deep recess at the large end size there cutting the taper until it ran out of the small end diameter. I didn't really bother control the depth of the parallel parts.

Its arguable that the plain big end diameter would be better made longer to give more support to the bush when first loaded. Might be easier to push bush through if the taper were made shallower and longer too. Made the length it was 'cos I couldn't be faffed to set up a longer boring tool. But it works well enough.

Clive

Hi Rob

PM me your E-Mail address and I'll send it all over along with the dimensions for the height sensor arm pivot pin. I make new stainless steel pivot pins as a matter of course. So far out of 3 sets of radius arm re-bushing jobs I've found two pins so badly corroded that the arm pivot wouldn't move any sense, two that were still free but well rust pitted and two that were, by garage standards OK to re-use. So looks to be a reasonable chance of finding unserviceable ones. By my standards all I found were useless but I'm an Inspector Meticulous type given half a chance.

My drawings cover more than you need if you do have access to a press. Although a force screw works its darn hard work. Press is far better.

Clive

Thanks for the help. Great link to the group test puts things into perspective.

Gotta admit that these high capacity small packs scare me. 20 year old Clive spent an "interesting" month doing load / power delivery tests on thermal batteries. Having both battery and load glowing red hot on the bench in front of you after a 5 minute full load discharge test rather makes the point about high current issues. 5 minutes being always long enough for an anti-tank missile.

Naturally having got it all together Her ladyship has changed her mind! She is going to take the battery off over winter and keep it in the flat hooked up to a maintaining charger.
Wimmin.
Still think I might get one for me tho'.

Clive

Thanks for that information. Pretty much what I expected so gonna be pot luck. Decisions, decisions!

£35 cheapy or £80 for one with a separate 12 volt power bank output off t'Bay. Or wait until next time round at LiDL as their Ultimate Speed branded one looks adequate VFM with a warranty. Certainly the little LiDL battery chargers are quite decent. Always bit of crap-shoot for boy-toy things out of LiDL. The good stuff is more than decent, especially given the price, but the not so good usually re-defines horrible.

On the bricks and mortar side EuroCar have an offering and Halfrauds list several, albeit the apparently decent ones seem expensive and not on shelf at the nearest branch.

Clive

Kev

I bought a spare set of radius arms for about £20 locally to rebush and exchange for mine so if you are doing your own the cost probably isn't a game changer.

I made my own tool-kit after the Laser Tools offering proved not to fit the P38! If you know someone with a lathe I can send you drawings. 8 pages worth! But thats for a comprehensive tool set using a threaded pull rod. If you have a press and one of the cheap chinee universal bush removal sets you probably only need to make the compression tube. Still need the drawings to verify that you have the right sizes of pressing tubes tho'. I used my set once with the threaded pull rod to prove the point then did the other bushes in the press. Much easier.

Clive

Has anyone got any experience with the baby "jump start" battery boxes?

Right now specifically interested in using one as a 12V power source for the alarms and anti theft devices on Her Ladyships BMW K1200LT which flatten the bike battery in about 6 weeks - 2 months. Garage in separate block so no power. I figure that she can easily pull something that small and, basically, portable off every week and take it back to her flat to recharge overnight. Presumably when it goes back on again it will top up the main battery whilst looking after the alarms et al. If I find one that works for her I plan to get one to do same job on my P38, which usually needs a top up charge a couple or four times a year if I'm not out and about much.

Problem is deciding on what is a good brand, which capacity specification to believe and whether a separate 12 DC output alongside the jump start one is useful. far as I can see most of the usual suspects quote the capacity for the USB 3.2 / 5V output in milli amp hours to get nice big numbers. Real 12 volt capacity seems to be around 1/3 of those numbers. Say 1 1/2 to 3 amp hours for the under £100 market.

Clive

Drawings and blurb in your E-Mail.

Holding straight is really only an issue when working solo. Those arms get heavy pdq! The bend really doesn't help.

Clive

RR

PM me with your E-Mail and I'll throw a pdf copy of my "complete" tool drawings across.
More than you need but its all there.
I think! Needs someone else to check them anyway.
My drawings are for one actually intended to be used with a pull screw as per the Laser tools "doesn't actually fit a P38" jobbie. Tried my set. It would work but nuts take a deal of turning to generate enough force to shove things in. Realistically a press is far better. Worst thing about press is holding things straight. Not quite got that bit sorted for doing on my own yet.

Or if you don't fancy making I guess I could box my bits up and send them by courier.

Clive

Rcutler wrote:

Yes I am hoping we can sort out another weekend, as again the radius arm and suspension work looks like a great plan. It might be worth trying to loosen some of the bolts before we head down next time. Obviously re tighten but an angle grinder was used on Gilbertd's car. Also the bushes do not come in a kit make sure you have exactly enough.

Best to get all new bolts and assume the old ones will need to be cut. Centre tube on my factory fitted bushes was alloy so corrosion lock against the steel bolt was inevitable given time. Sheradising, zinc plate et al will hold things for a while but anything much past ten years and you are on borrowed time. Cadmium plate is an effective protection but that's been verboten since about the mid 70's.

One of mine came out with (great) difficulty. The other three I eventually gave up upon and had to cut. No way I was re-using the old ones so wasting most of the afternoon trying to get them out was less than clever. Next time if two or three bashes on a bolt end don't drive it through far enough to hide the thread its getting cut. Or just cut and be done.

Clive

Its worrying how marketing buzz wins out over proper engineering.

It should be self evident that a polybush system can only work as advertised "provide improved control due to consistent steering geometry" when used as a cheap substitute for rose joints. With a bit more compliance for better NVH (Noise, Vibration, Harshness) levels. Rose joints are rough riding. Of course any significant compliance promptly interferes with the preciseness of the steering geometry. Somewhat contradictory. Time to quote Emerson.

Most road vehicle suspension systems aren't geometrically good enough to work freely over the full range of movement when rose jointed so the compliance of rubber bushes not only controls NVH but also gives that essential "give" to let things articulate properly. If you start seriously looking around car suspension systems its clear that there is some pretty serious engineering going on in the rubber bits. They don't do void bushes and the like for fun.

P38 suspension geometry is basically that of cantilevered leaf springs. Whatever your views on old fashioned, cantilever leaf springs with solid axles are a pretty good system so long as the tyres have reasonably deep sidewalls, especially when stabilised with a Panhard rod. So long as you ignore the inconsistent friction and self damping characteristics. Which is probably OK if you keep below 50 mph! P38 variant keeps the advantages and sorts the friction / damping issues but has to have controlled compliance. Rose joint it and it will pretty much lock solid in roll. Bump steer is going to be interesting too. Rigidly consistent steering and suspension geometry you don't have. What you do have is carefully balanced and compensating "compliance errors" that make the system work well. Appropriate sized tyres, deep sidewalls not boy racer rubber bands, being more than a little important too.

Given that Richards orange poly bushes worked pretty well for a decent mileage the the things clearly don't work the way the maker claims. Cheap Britpart et al blue version falling apart in pretty much nowt flat show what happens when they are sort of made to theory and hammered by 2 tons of P38 saying "I'm rolling so shut up and take it".

Not sure that I'd be happy spending money on something allegedly "better" that just doesn't work the way the makers say. Also deeply skeptical of the development abilities of "we make (aftermarket) bits for any car" firms against the real vehicle manufacturer who is going to put serious resources behind getting it right so they can make many thousands of cars and keep the customers somewhat happy. Whatever your views on Rover and BL in general the primary failings were production side, not engineering side. Bearing in mind that hitting the price point is hard and engineering compromises are inevitable. Which sometimes don't compromise as happily as was anticipated.

As the man says "sell the sizzle, not the steak". Most customers aren't equipped to analyse things properly. Especially as new "near enough to sort of work" will, initially at least, be an improvement on tired old soggy standard. Remember the instructions on all those snake oil economy devices "First give the car a full service and tune up so its running properly". Might as well have stopped there and saved on snake oil. Or the old motorcycle tuners trick. Put a decent step about halfway up the power curve to make them rev it out properly in second and third. Feels faster but why not just rev it out in the first place!

Clive

Never cared much for affordable laser pointers in alignment devices. Too much futzing around to get them closer than sort of right as body and beam are rarely well enough aligned.

If a two piece device, one part plugged in the axle case and one part plugged in the swivel hub is OK, easy way is to make the facing ends square so any mis-alignment shows up as a step. Visible if large, finger feel if small.

Way I'd tackle making a two part device would be to start with an over long chunk of metal in the lathe and centre drill the far end for tailstock support. Turn one end down to sliding, shake free fit in the axle case and the other down to a similar fit in the hub leaving a section of suitable length in the middle oversize. Over to the mill and cut the oversize middle part square. Slice into two parts apart around the middle of the square bit and face ends true.

Insert the two parts in axle case and hub respectively, turn so a flat side of each square is on top and slide together. Look and feel for mis-alignment. If you want to be really precise bore both sides to take a reasonable size rod. Sliding shake free fit again. But its got to be made dead nuts in line on both to be worth the effort. I probably wouldn't bother.

Centre bit doesn't have to be square. A simple flat will do. Carefully filed if thats all you have. If you are young enough and desperate enough ways could be found to do it on a Chinee Mini Lathe! I'd ask someone else.

Clive

Looks easy enough to make the alignment tool, or an effective substitute, if the dimensions were known.

If anyone has the sizes I'll make one that can be loaned out as a forum resource.

Allegedly the dimensions are out on t'net somewhere but darned if I can find them.
Picture of a home made one comes up fairly easily, usually with associated comments about sizes and promises to post them but ...

Given a complete axle it could probably be reverse engineered without major problems. Saving the usual "(expletive deleted) thing is (expletive deleted) heavy" issues. At first sight the official version seems rather over-engineered. But never having used one there may be reasons that are not obvious to a casual observer.

Clive

Gilbertd wrote:

Clive603 wrote:

Depends on whether it behaves like nylon or delrin.

Problem is it behaved more like marshmallow! Not like plastic at all, very soft and squidgy but also very tough to cut with anything.

Urg. Sharp Rotabroach will shift that sort of stuff but big issue is controlling the feed through rate. With the slow spiral on the flutes its going to want to pull straight through in about a turn or two. if it does that the big issue becomes whether or not you have the power to make a complete rotation at the end and snap the whole mess of swarf off. Alternative is a controlled low rate feed which will nibble it out in little balls. Which does work with rubber but you have to get the rate of feed right otherwise it squishes in under the cutter which takes occasional big bites. Not the sort of thing that's easily done in the ordinary garage workshop. With rubber best answer is to freeze it and hit it fast before it cottons on to whats going on. Even if freezing works for ploy bushes a complete radius arm will need an industrial freezer!

If its that soft a Forstener bit might work. Cut will have to be in thin slices so you still have the issue of controlling feed. The edge might hold it back enough so things can be controlled. Lubricant will help. Synthetic cutting oil would be best but normal folks don't have that sort of stuff about the place. WD40 spray should work adequately.

Clive

Rcutler wrote:

The problem with drilling it is as we tried with a hole saw. (Good ones I might add) is that the minute it got hot it started to melt and jamming the tool.

Getting hot and nowhere for the swarf to go is always the issue when using holesaws on anything other than sheet metal and similar thin stuff. Unsurprising I suppose as thin is what they are designed for. Which hasn't stopped me sacrificing a few in the interests of "getting 'er done wiv wot I've got" despite inherent unsuitability. Really doesn't help that, most of the time there is no recourse but to run them far too fast. Mr Starrett puts a nice speed chart in the box with his. Sometimes I think I'm the only guy who has actually read one. Reading and following being slightly different matters of course.

Nice thing about Rotabroach type cutters is that they have proper arrangements for swarf extraction. I imagine the usual rules for plastic would apply. Razor sharp, run slow (so it doesn't warm up) and heavy feed for a thick chip mechanically strong enough to spiral out. Maybe done in short bites and lubricate the centre stub or maybe just push on and let the centre burnish smooth. Depends on whether it behaves like nylon or delrin.

Experimentally heating plastics is something I tend to avoid. Frequently you end up with smoky, smelly or a mess. Often all three. Which offends angainst my conceit of knowing what I'm doing.

Clive

Imagine an annular cutter (Rotabroach) is the tool most likely to shift stuck in poly-bushes without excessive verbal encouragement. £60 + a pop in that sort of size tho' and really need a vertical mill to be confident of alignment. Right size pilot rod ought to work but how central the hole will be after many miles is open to question. Still have to cut undersize to be safe but scraping a couple of mm or so of left over polybush tube out isn't the end of the world. 2" twisted wire cup brush would be the tool of choice for that but I've not seen them that small for years, 2 3/4" seems to be the bottom size nowadays.

Clive

Gilbertd wrote:

I thought they only ever fitted SUs but someone may have swapped them for Strombergs which are the only other dashpot style carb I know of.

Just had a shufti at the James Taylor bible on the Rover V8 and was surprised to discover that Strombergs were a much more common fitment than SU from 1973 to 1989. I guess cheap'n nasty copy has its attractions!

Anyway that ambulance is something of an oddball. Quaife diff suggests it should be a Metropolitan Police Rapid Intervention Personnel carrier mini-bus. Apparently Met Police were the lead customer for the V8 version of the Sherpa aka Freight Rover V8. Ambulances were probably most common. A Quaife diff seems overkill there. Especially at Quaife prices!. Engine is basically the ordinary SDI one as used from 1977-1981 and in the TR8 in "Saudi-tune". 8 to1 compression ratio, 132 bp and 186 ft lb of torque, couple more ft lb and 3 bhp less than the Rover installation. OE carbs were Stromberg 175CD-(SET?). I imagine its now wearing SU HIF 44 to Land Rover One Ten and Ninety 1986-90 settings. Whether it also gets 134 bhp and 187 ft lb is anyones guess.

Allegedly these V8 Sherpa things can exceed 90 mph even when fully loaded. Yikes! Seems to be pushing the envelope a bit given the close relationship between Sherpa chassis design and that of the old J series Transit competitor. Short legs and narrower body of the J made a lot of sense for local tradesman guy. But they also somewhat channel the old Austin A30 tendencies to falling over in abject terror when confronted by a corner at anything approaching normal motorised vehicle velocities. Which doesn't seem a good basis for something that quick!

Plenty of varieties of CD carbs made over the years. Mostly licence made versions of the cheapy crappy Zenith Stromberg copy. OK (ish) when new but putting rubber diaphragm flexibility into the carburation characteristics mix is not a good idea when things get old. Especially so with the dashpot-less, air damped Bing version beloved of BMW Motorcyles. Which I shouldn't really grumble about having made a fair bit of beer money over the years from knowing how to set up the orrible things so they stayed set up.

Clive

Standard Rover so SU HIF, probably HIF 6 or HIF 44. Possibly the front drillings are different but the usual gaskets are universal with redundant holes.

Sorry can't be more help but the only SU's I've had serious dealings with over the last 20 odd years are the ones on my rotary engined Norton Commander and they are, ahem, weird.

Clive

+1 on the impact gun for shifting bumper bolts. I expected mine to shear but cheap LiDl special electric impact gun shifted them just like that. Looking at the bolts after removal the actual engaged thread and bolt shank was decently clean and rust free. Thick rust on the bit sticking up past the thread holding it in. Now on the tri-annual pull out and lubricate schedule.

Easiest bumper to remove & refit that I've ever met. Heavy but easy.

Hafta say I've been very impressed with how the various nuts and bolts have stood up to the environment. External corrosion yes. But quite light really given the age of the car. Business part, threads and where the bolts go through things have all come out very clean. With one exception. Those darn radius arm bush bolts. One out, three cut. Un-surprising as the inner sleeve of the bush is alloy, on mine at least. Asking for trouble.

Clive.

Was hoping to make it to lend a hand and generally meet folk but still waiting for FlatDog to deliver the stainless steel exhaust I ordered three weeks ago yesterday. "Yup, we have it in stock and it will be going out on Wednesday, should be with you Thursday.". Flexible friend took the strain. Three hours later phone call "Sorry it will be going out next Wednesday." OK can live with that. Check last Wednesday for an anticipated delivery time. Nope not going till next Wednesday (today). E-Mail this afternoon says it has shipped. We will see.

Meanwhile still running around with tails of wadding hanging out the back boxes. Not the sort of thing you want before embarking on a 250 odd mile round trip. Things probably won't break but...

I shall be well pleased (not) if it turns out to have been drop-shipped.

Clive.