My 3500s project - future daily drive

Thanks guys, just back from a 2 week holiday so can get stuck into some jobs now- thanks for the link to your pump thread testrider, looks great!
 
At the start of this week I was away doing my Euro Basic 1 Offshore Survival up in Aberdeen - good fun! However this weekend my wife was away on a Spa break with friends so I decided to crack on with the car!

Here's one of me in my most fetching outfit of the course:


Anyway, back to the car...

I had wanted to fit my new alternator (a 45A Landrover one that I have clocked round to suit the V8 mounting arrangement) but the fan and pulley on the P6 use a smaller diameter shaft with a keyway- something I didnt realise until I had removed the old unit from the vehicle. Oh well, I put it back on and at least it should be easier to get off next time. :roll:

I then set about moving the fuel pump to the rear of the car as per Mr Testriders post. This went well, apart from removing the reserve tap which was a total ballache! The bottom pipe would not budge, and with my cut down spanner I didnt have much leverage, I was on the verge of giving up... I had just doused it in Plusgas when a neighbour came along and we started chatting- some 45mins later I tried again and voila! It flew off :D Magic.

Pics!

Old bodgy setup with pump slung in the front:


Reserve tap- Grrrr....


Pump in its new home:


Plumbed in (Don't worry about proximity to the spring etc, there is plenty of room the angle makes it look bad :oops: ):


And that is a water droplet on the pipe from the main feed. For some reason I had water dripping out around the hole where the tank pipework and sender poke through the base unit, I put it down to the rear being up on ramps and the amount of rain we have had? I also realised too late that I had 3 jubilee clips on the pipe feeding the pump, so one end got two of them :D

I ran a lead to the battery and ran the pump for a bit and sorted any leaks at both ends of the car. Satisfied that the wet side of things was ok I set about running a switched live to the boot from the coil. This follows the loom, goes through the dash and then follows the battery cable to the boot. I never realised how easy it was to remove the entire rear seat! The switched live is connected to a period Lucas 6RA relay, which then switches a fused live to the pump itself.

Switchover tap wise I have left it so that I am running on reserve at the moment, will look into what I can do with longer cables etc shortly.

Pic on the test drive:
 
Hello Quagmire,
I have put my petrol pump in the same spot as you. I have a long wire for the petrol reserve, and that seem to be working OK. I have not hooked up the electrisity yet. However, with safety in mind should you not have an inertia switch in the electric circuit, to ensure the pump cut out if the car crashed or rolled over? I think you can probably find an inertia switch at a breakers yard. I have bought one from Webcon, and plan to put that somewhere close to the fusebox. Are you otherwise happy with the installation? Is the pump noisy? Have you made a return line like the original petrol set-up have got? Very nice car you have by the way. Very similar to my own project car down to the same colour and wheels!
regards, Barten
 
Quagmire said:
Here's one of me in my most fetching outfit of the course:
Very fetching indeed. Was the hood/mask for the wet drills or were you headed to the smoker behind you for some fire drills?
 
Hi Barten - the inertia switch is a great idea and they seem cheap and plentiful on ebay so will get hold of one and fit it. Having only driven the car around 70 miles so far it seems fine, you can only hear the pump running if you switch on the ignition without starting the car, with the engine running you wouldn't know it was there :D The return line is untouched, and works as it would have done before the installation.

Unstable Load - yep that was the smoke hood just before we had to go and fumble our way around those smoke filled containers. As the trainer said "these hoods will withstand 900 deg C for 5 seconds, however do you think your head can withstand that?"
 
Nice one, glad it worked for you. I still haven't got round to fitting a longer cable to the reserve tap yet - I must do it this winter!
 
So all in all today has been a bit of a nightmare, only partially down to the car! :shock:

Journey to work took 3 hours, due to an overturned lorry on the Northbound M3:



And apart from getting a tired left leg the car behaved well, temp was good, no vaporisation with the pump at the back, oil pressure was a bit low but that doesnt concern me as I'd like to rebuild another rv8 :D



Got to work at 10am, did my work stuff and left at 17:30, got to the car and started it up. She started running rough after about 10 seconds and I thought I had too much choke as its quite fussy and grumbles with too much or too little for the first 30-60 seconds. Twiddle, twiddle, still rough. Odd.

Popped the bonnet and got out the car to see the carb overflow dumping all over the floor! :shock: :shock: :shock: I shut it down straight away.

Spanners out (Chino's and shirt are not the best work gear!) and carb off.





I expected to find a holed/sunk float, but found nothing. Cleaned the valve and reassembled, chucked it back on the car and voila! No overflowing.



Connected all the linkages etc and set off home. Made a quick stop once out of Kingston to check for fuel leaks and found none, carried on back to Hook.
 
Each time my Rover has had an overflow it has been down to one of the floats, so there is always a first time for everything.

Good result Quagmire :wink:

Ron.
 
Wow . You stayed positive , and took pictures ! well done , One thing , is your tickover a little high ? And do you know what temp sender you have fitted ? ( O.k so two things ) :D
 
Thanks guys!

Stina - Yep tickover is a little high, it was around 900 when I Initially set the carbs up, and about three weeks ago I adjusted the stops down to ~750rpm. Much more P6 like! However I can't have locked the stops off tight enough as it has gradually creeped up again... Either that or the idle mixture has somehow changed, stops will be my first port of call to see if they are loose.

No idea on what temp sender I have fitted, I can have a look over the weekend and see if there are any distinguishing marks on it though. :)
 
Quagmire said:
Thanks guys!

Stina - Yep tickover is a little high, it was around 900 when I Initially set the carbs up, and about three weeks ago I adjusted the stops down to ~750rpm. Much more P6 like! However I can't have locked the stops off tight enough as it has gradually creeped up again... Either that or the idle mixture has somehow changed, stops will be my first port of call to see if they are loose.

No idea on what temp sender I have fitted, I can have a look over the weekend and see if there are any distinguishing marks on it though. :)

In all likely hood there wont be any marks , i just wondered if you had recently fitted it and knew where it had come from .Your reading is what i'm getting now with the wrong sender fitted , where as before it was spot on the 85 . :?
 
Don't forget that the pics above show the temp gauge after I had been sitting in traffic for about 2 hours, hence the temp showing off to the right a little as the car was a little warm. Normally on the move the needle sits bang centre, right between the 8 and the 5 like you say yours was previously.

Does your gauge sit on the right like this all the time with the new sender then?
 
Quagmire said:
Don't forget that the pics above show the temp gauge after I had been sitting in traffic for about 2 hours, hence the temp showing off to the right a little as the car was a little warm. Normally on the move the needle sits bang centre, right between the 8 and the 5 like you say yours was previously.

Does your gauge sit on the right like this all the time with the new sender then?


without dressing it up , yes . With the original ( and looking at it i think it was THE original ) it always sat tween 8 and 5 . if ever it started to get warm then it would move up "a touch" even on the hottest days of the year . If it dared to move again the electric fan would cut in and put paid to any messing about ! That,s how i know it's lying now , as the fan hasn't even attempted to cut in ( yes it still works , override switch :wink: )
I had a couple of hours of tinker time this pm , and fitted the new air filters ( big ones ) then spent Too long trying to revive the original sender , Soldering the terminal , earthing it and dipping it in my tea , and watching the reading , finally heating it with the blow torch while earthed and watching the gauge ( think that finished it , although it did register for a bit :shock: :shock: ) So i can deduce that the senders ( as Harvey says ) are specific to the P6B V8 Gauge . And when your told that the seller has had no complaints , that's because other purchasers are happy to just see the gauge working and don't care about the correct reading .
I wonder if any one out there Knows where to find the correct one ? My original sender has some numbers on the flat of one of the nut sides , something like ,04oo dd but very faded and nearly unreadable :?
I guess the sure way is one out of a breaker :D
 
Ian Wilson definitely had the correct ones, and he did tell me the correct lucas number but i cant for the life of me remember it. I'm going to have a search around.
 
Update time...

The car had been running well, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable day out for my birthday driving down from Hook to Lyndhurst along A and B-roads the whole way, much fun! It was quite wet and there was a fair bit of standing water about. Our Aussie and Kiwi friends should look away now!:





The car had been running well, but the alternator had been getting steadily worse. Also, fuel consumption had started to tail off a bit and the idle had got a little rough on occasion. I decided to take action today:

Take one alternator (45A for a 4 cylinder landrover) and split and rotate the body so that it fits the v8 bracktery, find the appropriate pulley and fan and fit (the shaft of the new alternator is 17mm diameter).



Disconnected battery, then unplugged and removed the old alternator.



The new alternator uses ring terminals, not spades in the plug. I removed the plug and soldered the appropriate size ring to the two brown and white wires. The alternator sense wire had a smaller ring terminal crimped on. Fat wires to the +B terminal, small wire to the +D terminal and reconnected the battery.



Fired it up, no more charge light at low revs:




Next up I checked and regapped the points as they had closed down a little over the last 6000 miles or so. Lubed the felt pad, cleaned the rotor arm and dizzy cap, started it up again and it was probably just psychological but she sounded a little sweeter to me.

The anti finger shredding shield for the alternator has been cleaned up and sprayed silver and is hanging up drying in the dining room. Will go back on after a couple more coats.

Next up is the buzzer I am putting together to remind me to turn off the sidelights. Needed a jump start from a colleague the other week after leaving them on all day :oops:
 
Drove to work this morning and indicators now flash at full speed whatever the revs are, headlights are brighter too and the ammeter spends most of its time in the middle or to the right even when stopped at traffic lights with heater, headlights etc on.

Previously on tickover it would have be showing an overall discharge with everything switched on - result :D
 
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