Finally got round to moving those blocks on Thursday. A pal incautiously offered to help so 35 blocks went in the Rangie and the other 15 in his BMW something or other SUV. Single layer in 3 x 10 pattern on the floor with the 5 extra on top over where the passenger seat goes. So 665 kg / 1463 lb in the load area which was almost up to maximum permitted.
The beast didn't want to come up to normal ride height initially but by 20 yards down the lane over a few umps'n ollows it had lifted up OK. At no more than 25 mph, usually less, all the way I was very aware of all that mass behind and its effects on handling.
I shan't be doing that again. Very much pushing the envelope methinks.
Clive
The cheapy UV torch I got with a water leak detection kit works fine in dark or subdued lighting. Insufficient contrast out in the daylight.
Draping a blanket over the open bonnet to form a makeshift dark tent works OK (ish) daytimes.
The UV filter goggles made to enhance contrast by, mostly, only passing the fluorescence wavelengths may help but I'd always understood that they were primarily made to allow the safe use of higher power UV sources. The ones I had at RARDE were dark enough to make midday twilight. But the UV source I was using was dangerously powerful. I suspect the cheapy UV torch I have now simply wouldn't generate enough fluorescence to be usefully clearer.
The fluorescent stuff hangs around for a fair while so if someone else has used it before things can get confusing.
Clive
Back on topic.
If you went to KwikFit for a re-gas its quite likely that it hasn't been properly filled. The P38 system takes a lot of refrigerant and, as with Halfords, the standard price refill may well only buy you just enough gas to get the system working not a full fill.
Best to go to proper specialist.
Way back in my beginner P38 days I had a couple of Halfords re-fills that only lasted 6 months or so. Pimple faced Halfords youth said no faults on the car "they re all like that and need to be done every few months". Third time I collared a very knowledgable young lady from National AirCon who was doing my neighbours car on his drive. Hardly managed to get past Halfords before she said it had only been about half filled. Which proved to be the case.
She reckoned KwikFit and the other chains that do air conditioning as a side business were about as bad.
Mind you all that gas is expensive, my bill was about twice next doors! Must be 5 or 6 years since its last fill and it was plenty cold enough over the last couple of weeks.
Clive
Yep the whole weight thing is a bit puzzling which is why I asked. Must admit that I didn't check the difference between gross vehicle weight and EEC kerb weight, just assumed that the maximum rear axle weight would be available when driven solo.
When pushing towards the maximum I think the key comment, in my handbook at least (year 2000 4.0l petrol) is below the data tables:-
Note :- Axle weights are non-additive. The individual maximum axle weights and gross vehicle weights must not be exceeded.
So my book says the same as yours:-
Maximum front axle weight 1320 kg / 2910 lb, maximum rear axle weight 1840 kg / 4056 lb, gross vehicle weight 2780 kg / 6129 lb.
Loading both axles to maximum gives 3160 kg / 6966 lb which exceeds the given maximum gross vehicle weight by 380 kg / 837 lb so obviously some sensible balance is needed.
The EEC kerb weight gives 1100 kg / 2425 lb on the front axle and 1000 kg / 2204 lb on the rear axle for 2100 kg / 4629 lb gross.
Subtracting the EEC kerb weight from the gross vehicle weight gives 680 kg / 1500 lb for payload for my 4.0.
So the 840 kg / 1852 lb loadspace capacity implied by the difference between EEC kerb weight and maximum rear axle weight is purely theoretical. No way to get near it without exceeding gross vehicle weight, even when driven solo.
Bottom line I'm on two trips with 25 blocks each run at 475 kg load. Which, frankly, sounds a lot more like a sensible loading for the car.
The 120 kg difference in EEC kerb weights between the 4.0 and 4.6 petrol its very odd and inexplicable. It does make you wonder about the accuracy of other figures.
I'm glad I asked and thanks for everyones help and patience. I'm now a bit clearer on what you can and can't do with vehicle loading in practice.
Clive
No trailer so Plan A was two trips. Tyres are about 1,000 miles old and bags good, albeit a few years old, so no great worries there.
Heavy loads being very much not my thing I thought "better check the weight limits to make sure thats OK". Running the numbers it looked like doing it in one was possible, making life much easier at the builders merchants.
Seemed a heck of a lot to me so it was clearly time to ask folk who understand the practical side of such things.
Daves reference to 450 bottles of plonk reminds me of seeing a couple of guys loading up a Montego estate at a Dunkirk hypermarket back when I was doing the lifting and shifting for one of her ladyships cigarette runs. I swear they flattened the back springs. The thing was totally full. Following it up the long hill towards Lewes on the A27 the headlamps were clearly a major hazard to aircraft navigation! I can only imagine the driver knew the road.
Clive
Thanks for the re-assurance. Weather seems to have turned so I guess I'll give it a go later this week or early next.
Nice thing with blocks on a flat surface is that they will spread the load cleanly so the boot floor should be fine. Probably use a modded pallet or two tho'.
Clive
Brian
Only two deep and will be packed most carefully so they don't slide. With plenty of padding on the doors and loadspace sides. The windows should be safe.
All downhill and drive time will be carefully timed for a nice clear slow run to minimise any chance of shifting. No way would I contemplate this over any sort of distance or well used road.
Clive
So I have 50 high density concrete blocks left over from raising my garage floor so it is flush with the car and bike lift platforms which the local builders merchant will refund the cost of if I take them back. 50 at 19 kg each is 950 kg / 2094 lb, just shy of a ton.
Handbook says max rear axle weight is 1840 kg / 4056 lb. The EEC defined kerb weight with full fuel tank and 75 kg / 12 stone (near enough) driver is 2100 kg / 4629 lb gross with 1000 kg / 2204 lb on the rear axle.
By my maths that implies I can load 840 kg / 1852 lb in the back. Probably a bit more as the tank is down to 1/4 full and I'm 10 stone dripping wet at most.
Looks like 46 in the back and 4 in the passenger footwell will do it.
Only 2 miles down a twisty hill but its still seems a scary load for a passenger car. The £75 refund on my flexible friend will be nice but I'm not inclined to risk popping the airbags. Cleaning out all the dust afterwards is quite bad enough a prospect thank you (quietly ignoring the slog of manually loading and unloading).
Clive
Best to use a high tensile bolt. Especially if using the proper riv-nuts as they are stronger than the commonly available consumer types needing more heft to compress properly. Made to be fitted with a hydraulic or hydro-pnuematic gun but good luck fitting one of those in unless you have the uber expensive extension thingy for dealing with confined spaces.
Two rigid washers with a decent film of grease between them will make the job go easier.
If I ever get round to fitting my sidesteps I shall use a ball thrust race to make life even easier. Gotta find a use for a least one of the four I saved out of the brake mechanism of the Lancia Beta HPE I had to break about 40 years ago. Too obviously useful to bin. Er. Ahem.
My steps need welding and I've not figured how to either safely get the rubber treads off or source suitable replacements.
Clive
Have a chat with V8 Developments before you do anything. They have probably seen everything that can go wrong many times and will know what works and what doesn't.
Helicoils are widely considered to be better than native tapped threads in light alloy. Especially for things subject to serious temperature changes. It is said that the spring like nature lets them follow thermal expansion and contraction without loosening or needing high torques on the fastener. Naturally you have to choose the right breed for the job as there are a number of different designs. I prefer Timeserts, basically a bush with threads inside and out expanded into the re-tapped holes, for most jobs despite significantly higher costs. But heads get helicoils.
Clive
Given the grief factor if a head gasket fails to seal properly its extremely risky to re-use one that has already been fitted. Even if the engine hasn't been run.
There is a school of thought that claims a properly fitted and carefully removed gasket retains sufficient elasticity to re-seal properly if its never been hot. I know of it being done successfully, albeit on an engine far less sensitive to gasket issues, but how much of that success was due to blind luck, stars in correct alignment and an engine design that let you get away with it I know not. At best an "11.15 pm on Sunday night when I have to be at work at 6.30 am Monday" expedient.
Sounds like your exhaust bolt threads have either been partially stretched so there is a pitch error half way down or the lower part is full of crap.
Did you have your heads reconditioned or are they exchange?
If exchange and of unknown history such stretch can be cause by overtightening a too short bolt leaving a pitch error at the end of the bolt. Normal cutting taps aren't really the right thing for fixing that problem. Snap on et al sell thread reforming "taps" at vast expense that mostly massage the thread back into shape rather than cutting away the errant material. Which makes for a stronger job.
Poor boys workshop expedient is to cut a couple of slots into the thread of a nice accurate bolt, carefully clean up the threads where they meet the slot to produce a smooth edge and screw it in and out a few times. Don't force it, go as far was it wants to then back up clean anything out of the slots and go back down a bit further.
I'd be reaching for the helicoil kit and be doing them all whilst I was at it. But I'm in a position to quickly set-up to do that sort of job fast. Which most folk aren't.
Clive
Have fitted standard (allegedly) Boge and Bilstien with no issues. Just follow Rave and make sure you have enough space for the axles to drop a bit to give wiggle room. Not forgetting the jack underneath to ease the axle back up to fit the second end of the shock. Simultaneously detaching both shocks on an axle is probably not a good idea.
Anoint the threads with your favourite release agent a couple of times during the week before you do the job. I just put the air suspension on high for a bit more wiggle room underneath. Makes squirting release stuff up the tapped hole for the top rear bolt much easier.
Best to get new bolts.
Rear shock top bolts come in both Torx and hex heads. Hard to see in there but its important to know what you have because if the socket slips off its likely to crunch down on the air line.
Much easier with a rattle gun. My 18V Makita just gave half a rattle and spun the back ones out. So quick and easy that I thought the socket had bounced off.
Unless you fancy taking tiny bites between axle and body, its a long way through for a breaker bar and extensions so its easy to get off line when heaving. This is the sort of place where my short 3/4 extension with a scaffold pole welded to the middle making big T shaped super breaker scores as it can be supported with a jack on the end opposite the square drive. So you can heave and be reasonably sure all will stay in line. Top bolts aren't that tight so a spotter to make sure you don't get off line should be good enough. Naturally 99.99 % of the time just diving in and doing it will be just fine. But I've never like being the 0.01% man.
First time through I pulled the wheel off and took the wheel arch liner out for best visibility. Left all in place at the rear second time round. Folk say the front can be done with the liner and wheel in place. Tried that second time round. After doing the nearside with all in situ I reckoned pulling the wheel and arch liner was easier and no slower.
I imagine that its all easier with a lift rather than working on the floor with jacks.
Clive
You may need the pulley holding tool when re-assembling to keep things stable whilst you tighten the bolt up to the specified torque.
Clive
Ah!
Thanks for changing things so the picture showed up.
Penny finally dropped as to what I'd done wrong just before lunch.
Clive
Well that was easy. Turns out VectorWorks can export jpeg and other image files.
Basic drawing for my hub. Two M8 through bolts hold it to the pulley, tapped holes for M8 bolts holding it to the handle. Official handle is "a foot and a bit" (ish) long if you want to do a one piece tool. Long handle is (almost certainly) impossible to thread through if made in one.
Pox. Why isn't it showing up in the post.
Clive
My tool is a bit different to Brians. Bolt on head is easier to handlle when affixing to the pulley but the long handle needs a bit of care to threadle through. Its not obvious but that handle has three hollow through stud holes at the bottom so it can carry other heads. 1" square by 1/8" wall steel tube.
Full tool kit, including scaffold pole super-breaker bar just in case. Not needed, there is an 8 ft extension bar that slides on for really serious cases.
Handle connector details. The alloy hub adapter is underneath
I'll put up the dimensioned drawing for the bit that goes on the pulley if I can bully my CAD program into doing a jpg that the system will accept.
I'd be unsurprised to discover that my 18V Makita rattle gun could shift the bolt "just like that" without a pulley holder. If it could be gotten on with the radiator out. Brutal thing.
Clive
LRT-12-080 is the tool to stop the engine turning whilst leaning on the crankshaft pulley bolt.
Basically a hub that bolts to the pulley with a lever to wedge against something solid to stop things turning. Easily made if you have access to a guy with a lathe et al.
Once you find the dimensions. I have drawings for the one I made which is a bit different from the usual run because the hub and lever are separate pieces.
Much easier to fit. My lever is far longer than the usual versions so it sticks up past the right hand side of the engine. My crank bolt came undone easily with a long impact type socket on the nut turned by a big Britool 3/4 drive torque wrench sitting straight(ish) up past the front of the engine so I could opeate the torque wrench and holder handle together. Plenty of feel that way and all done standing comfortably in front of the car. Two 3 ft (ish) handles used together are effectively a 6 ft breaker bar so I was unsurprised that it came out fairly easily. Plan B was to wedge the tool handle on the ground with both hands on the bar.
You need a long socket to pass through the tool. Impact types are hex form and, if an OK breed, slightly modified to spread the load off the corners. I bought a Nielson / US Pro branded one as being good enough for this one job I needed it for and not professional expensive.
PM me if you'd like the drawings.
Various shade tree options of wedging the pulley or flywheel. Some involving shocking the bolt loose with the starter motor. Not a fan of such options as the consequences of failure can stretch from naughty words and waiting for the bruises to heal right up to major engine damage. The last being somewhat conta-indicated when engaged in repairing the beast.
Clive
Thinking about this I do wonder how hard it is to get at the actual MAF output without introducing errors so you directly know what the ECU is seeing.
If that can be done with the resources you have then I'd look into putting the two MAF sensors in series as close together as possible and log the outputs simultaneously. Switch them round and repeat to verify that there is no systematic error due to position. Shouldn't be as both sensors will read the same airflow. Divide one output by the other and, in theory, you have your conversion factor directly.
Of course its never that easy but if you can simultaneously measure the outputs from both sensors under the same conditions a heck of a lot of potential errors go away.
With this sort of thing you have to pay very careful attention to the result you want rather than trying to characterise things and sorting it out later once you have, hopefully, accurately calibrated measurements on both.
I'd expect the tuning fraternity to have add ons to their flow benches for testing and verifying actual MAF outputs on a modified engine. They aren't particularly accurate devices in instrumentation terms. Repeatable if well made but production variations are wider than I'd like.
Clive
Serpentine auxiliary drive belt is the first place to look when you have a squeak. Unlike old style Vee belts serpentine, multi Vee, types don't wedge deeper into the pulley under load for more grip so it takes very little contamination to make them slip prone.
A teeny front oil seal leak put mine into mouse mode. The leak was no worry but the squeaking on cold start was a pain.
Clive
Richards oil pipes are much more confidence inspiring.
If its good oil its amazing what you can get away with.
Official unofficial kid sister lost the sump drain plug on her diesel Disco when pulling into a motorway service station. Oil slick ended just before she parked. Found the drain plug, had it recovered refilled and all seemed well. According to Almer Motor Works at Hatfield that is who were the shower who forgot to tighten the drain plug. Not their first codge up either.
So she found another 4x4 specialist, Romanian guys, (even worse) and swopped the Disco for an L322 'cos she'd lost confidence in it! Disco was still running just fine and made at least another 10,000 miles before we lost track of it.
Clive