Timing Tweak

I've always been slightly concerned Bitsa's rebuilt 200 wasn't quite timed spot on, mostly because it always took a bit of cranking before she woke up at a cold start, and this was inevitably followed by some really rough running and white smoke till she was several hundred yards down the road.

I finally had enough this evening, and whipped the cover off the timing case, locked the pump off, slacked the adjuster bolts off, moved the crank backwards about 3deg, and re-tightened the adjuster. Startup is now within 2 turns or so from cold, rather than 10, with no smoke or rough running, and there seems to be fractionally more power on tap. I await the next lot of MPG figures with interest, as I suspect it may have improved matters. (Mind you, I keep tweaking things, and saying that, and so far the figures stay stubbornly at about 25mpg...).

500 miles away....

Bitsa racked up just over 500 miles this weekend, thanks to a quick jaunt round Wales.

Not a hitch, apart from some mild panic about fuel levels on the way back late at night. I really need to get the rear tank fitted, the range on the front tank is minimal.

Managed Swansea - Macclesfield in 3 hours, 30 min, which I reckon is pretty good going - google maps said 4 hours 33min for the (direct) route I used, or 3 hours 50min via the M4/M50/M5/M6, which would have added a lot more miles.

Blogging with remain very light, as I've a million things to do...

Conveyor belt is the future

Totally knackered now, after spending best part of 4 hours, and 3 stanley knife blades fighting with some thick conveyor belting, in a mission to reduce the row in the cab at speed. I had a good size lump of brand new belt thanks to a mate in the quarries, it seems A1 stuff, but was very hard work to cut, taking several passes, even with a brand new knife blade.

Its hard to be certain, but it seems to have made quite a bit of difference - the general row as the world goes past has diminished. Most of the improvement seems to be when idling (a lot less panel rattle), and when travelling at high speeds (>50mph), when the row from the gearbox seems much reduced.

Cab also looks tider inside, less bits of a different colour visible. I've also dusted over about half the seatbox with matt black spray paint, after I found a can with a little paint in the bottom left in one of the footwells. At some point during one repaint, I really should do the inside of the cab in blue, to match the rest of the truck.