Some fittings

The pile of bits for the waste oil conversion is growing...

This little lot, plus a large quantity of fuel grade rubber pipe should form the basis of the changover and purge systems. In an ideal world, I would have had two way valves, but two single valves seems cheeper... Turning them all off would probably be a pretty good anti theft device.

The current intention is to have a electric fuel pump for the waste oil tank, feeding a heat exchanger connected to the coolant, probably mounted on the passenger footwell. This will then feed into the main filter.
Startup will be on normal diesel, switch to waste fuel once the engine has warmed up a little. Shortly before shutdown, the return from the injector pump will be switched to return to the waste oil tank, rather than the filter, and after a few minutes, the filter should only contain diesel again.

I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to make the heat exchanger - I've decided a way of making pretty much everything else. In the short term, I may leave it out, and see how things go - I suspect it will run fine in summer, but I will need it as the winter draws in.
A possible plan for the heat exchanger is a Series 3 heater matrix, sealed in a box full of oil, with an entry port at one end, and an exit port at the other... heat exchanger are avalable commercially for people running veg oil, but that would mean spending money. Its cost me over £50 for various fittings so far, so I don't want to spend a lot more until I know it all works fine.

Waste oil - nearly there.

I've finally actually got as far as makeing payment for a batch oil oil to HMRC... the cheque went in the post tonight for an inital 100L (£54.19 worth) of oil. That would cost me about £105 at the pumps right now, so a pretty decent saving.

If I get the brakes sorted on Saturday, I'll possibly spend bank holiday monday setting up a basic system for running on the stuff.
I'm currently thinking I won't fit propper twin tanks for the moment - Instead I'm contemplating modifying a jerry can or similar.

The only bit of the system I'm not yet sure about is the changeover valves - I may be seen looking at plumbing bits in wickes later this evening.

Reports of a Landrover clouded in blue smoke may be forthcomming shortly... but at that price who cares.

If everything works out OK, once things have "stablised" I'll post up a propper "how to..." sort of post.

This weekend

I'm planning a focus on brakes.

Bitsa's brakes are starting to feel rather worn out.

I had a rear drum off the other day, and there were pretty small amounts of meat left on the shoes, while the fronts have weeping wheel cylinders which have wrecked the shoes.

The front cylinder behing genuine lucas/cav, and not very old, I'll try seal kits, and if that doesn't work, I'll replace with Lookheed/Delphi - they are the probably the best avalable at the moment, if not the cheepest.

Hopefully then, the rears won't lock first, which has made wet junctions interesting of late.

Sorted.

One transfer box.

I spent most of saturday changing the transfer box for one that wasn't quite so knackered.

From the 1/4" of swarf like silt that was on the bottom of the cover plate, I'd say it wasn't before time either. The wear on the intermeadiate shaft teeth was pretty impressive, as was the amount of free play in the output shaft bearings.

It was really a fairly painless job - I didn't even need to pull the seatbox, as I split the box in situ, and then droped the transfer box/front output shafts out underneath. (Disclaimer if anyone else trys this - I don't know if there is enough room or not on an 88")

Its quite nice being able to hear the engine again for a change.

I've collected an overdrive that looks to have nothing much wrong with it apart from missing some selector pads, but it didn't have an imput clutch assembly(the bit that is bolted to the mainshaft). Murphy's Law states that this means the bearing on my old imput clutch had gone, so I'll have to get a new one from Craddocks. The good news is that they are avalable, for a mere £23 + vat + post...

Still, I miss having the overdrive - when I went to collect the spare one yesterday, I found I kept looking for the overdrive lever to change up, particularly on the motorway. Having to keep down to about 65mph is painful once you know what motorways are like with an overdrive and a 200...

Overdrive woes...

I think I know why I was having drive issues.

I'm not quite sure yet exactly why its mangled itself like this, but to say I'm rather annoyed is an understatement. Craddocks have the bits, but want over £200, so I'm trying several lines of enquirey to try and find another broken one to do a "mix and match" fix...

In other overdrive news, I seem to have done a deal on one for NOG, which should make her a lot more usable next time I have her on the road. (MOT is out now, so I'm not expecting to have her back running till Easter next year now)

Holidays

Bitsa doesn't like going on holiday to Aberystwyth. This is a fact.

Two years ago, the injector pump on her old 2.25D totaled itself and the camshaft, a couple of miles out of town, in protest at being run on 100% veg oil for weeks. That resulted in her being parked up off the road awaiting rebuild, as the MOT was almost out, and I couldn't be bothered to keep messing with the engine.

This time, nothing so dramatic happened. However, the clutch is now dragging badly, the bearings in the transfer box have gone, and the overdrive selector seems to be giveing me only the options of "out" and neutral... The exahust also snapped off, and had to be repaired ASAP as it was almost undrivably noisy without...

The trip down was fun, fast lane of the M56 with the screen folded down on the bonnet... just a little blowy.

I also did a spot of laning - the video is here (I would try and embed it, but to say Blogger is hard to make work is an understatement)

This weekends mission looks like it will be swaping the transfer box for one from a different gearbox, as the bearings have gone to the point that I'm supprised it still moves about under its own power...

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud...

I spent a good deal of yesterday ragging Bitsa round a sea of mud.

That is all I could discribe the EOD offroad course as by the time I started attempting it. As seems to be typical, it has been raining lots recently (nothing like the UK's summertime), and the result was a challenging morras of greasy mud.

Given I was on rather road basied tyres, I was nothing if not amazed by how far she got. She is now plastered in mud all over, even the dash is covered in it. It must be said, the 200di seems very at home offroad, even under water... I've yet to see any photos of me driving repeatedly through the large late of wheel height+ water, but every time I expected her to cut out, and each time she just plodded through and out the other side. Even when I attempted a climb out of it, failed, and ended up sat stationary in there trying to get reverse...

EOD in general was pretty great - I went laning with Mark.Yellow.Series3 in his (nato green) 109" as I couldn't really afford the fuel to take Bitsa laning (I used a good £10 worth on the offroad course as it was). We did some very nice lanes in the dales, before heading back to the camp site.

Rather to my supprise, I don't seem to have broken anything significant on Bitsa, so the jobs list is more or less the same as before I went - the only thing that needs redoing is the swivel preloads, as after the saga of the non-broken front axle (I ripped the front axle to bits thinking I'd done a halfshaft, only to find that it was a problem FWB coupled with someone not watching when I was turning stuff to find out why I didn't have 4wd...). It is drivable at the moment, but seems to have nasty steering shimmy at if you hit a bump at low speeds.