P6B S Project Car

I think I have found one for sale. In the UK. Rare you say, your not wrong!

I'll keep you posted. I should really update my thread on this....
 
More progress. Did all the interior work - tunnel finisher, lever etc. removed the prop shaft, disconnected the first exhuast joint. The handbrake boot is relatively new, and was a real PITA to get over the end of the lever. Much to my surprise all the manifold bolts/nuts came off intact - one needed some extra penetrating stuff and some working back and forth, but came out in the end. Curious stuff -2 of the 3 threads for the lever holding bolts into the remote casting have been helicoiled. hard to understand how somebody could have damaged them...? The rear gearbox mount is pretty new & low miles so the line up should be close to spec. Measuring as best I can the centre of the output shaft to the tunnel top I got 140-145mm.
 
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More progress. The interior has been redone at some stage...one might say overdone. The tunnel covering runs down under the seat rails, so to lift enough of the carpet to get to the speedo cable access i had to remove the nearside seat, and the inner seat rail. Then I found under the carpet there was foam underfelt glued to the tunnel. PITA! cable disonnected, but could have been easier. Top 3 bellhousing bolt removed....
 
Old box is out. wasnt fun - it never is single handed. I disconnected the lower bellhousing shield from the block, but not the bellhousing, and the block side ears dragged enough to make life hard. jack under the sump finally had no load on it, and I didnt work out until just now that the off side exhaust manifold was resting on the bulkhead...?? This caused a lot of wriggling until finally the box's weight was on a stand under the centre, and being on my own all I could do was lift the rear with one hand and manoeuvre the stand away with the other and BANG! it fell down.
Thats enough for today, damnit.
 
Put a jack (up near its highest reach) with some wood blocks under the sump. Took up some load so the rear gearbox mount was almost unloaded. Undid and removed rear mount (tricky to reach bolt heads - crowfoot spanners ), then started lowering engine jack. Checked fan (disconnected from pump viscous) several times. Car is on Quickjacks, so its high enough for me (chubby) to get under on a creeper, so an ordinary jack wont lift the box or the engine. I had a jack stand under the gearbox to ensure it couldnt fall on me, and in the end that was all that supported the box when it cleared the clutch. Dont know why exhaust resting on bulkhead hasnt been mentioned before? Last time I did this some 30 years ago was on a gravel driveway , with only the front on stands, also by myself.

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You can see the bits of wood on the jack infront of the old box. Thebody of the clutch cover looks deeperthan the replacement SD1 unit Ihave. will check.
Update -engine may be resting on the outer rear edge of offside rocker cover ,on the bulkhead. Very solid, cant rock it at all by hand.....
 
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On checking more carefully the offside head(part thereof) was JUST in contact with the reserve tap outlet hose - not loading it, I could still move it easily, so I lifted the engine a tad to remove the contact. I guess that as low as she should go?
 
More sweat,no tears yet. Scraped off all the oil soaked coating on the tunnel walls -one side at a time so I didnt get it all over myself. Swept each load out -not easy sweeping under a car -and dumped it. On to the spigot bush. tried a well fitting socket, but the grease just oozed out past the bar end. Pulling out with a bolt head had no chance. Found a piece of alloy I could chuck up in the lathe, turned the end down to be a tight fit in a 5/8 open spanner. Refilled the crank hole with grease, and it finally came out - with a rush that made me think I had driven it back in, but it was on the drift. Tried a spanner on the flywheel bolts, but couldnt counter hold. Applied the air driven rattle gun - easy peasy. Cleaned oil off the back of it , took down to local brake/clutch shop -yeah, we can do that, want to wait? In the end I left them struggling to get the dowel pins out - rusted into blind holes after 48 years. not in a hurry, lots to do yet. Can dowel pins be had ? Dont get a mention in the book.
 
Dowel pins come in standard sizes, like spark plugs. Most clutch places have them.

Not sure but do youhave the P6 fan or the SD1 fan? the pump ends are very similar tough the latter has a better impellor design. The fans however are different with the clutch unit (also different to match) on the opposite side of the fan. That might be the cause of your fitting problem.
M
 
Have std export P6B fan and viscous - it matches the one in the parts book. fan is on front of the viscous, where SD1 and Discovery its on the back. Clutch place was talking of drilling from the back so they could drive the pins out....?
 
Re sloppygear selection- below is my selector rod, with a white nylon(?) bush protruding - doesnt look factory to me. The white plastic tube on the lever end is part of a silicon sealer dispenser nozzle, and it worked quite well, better than without it. The lever end was meant to have a plastic acorn on it - I fitted one, but no way it would fit into the selector shaft opening, hence the bodged piece of tube.

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Now for some ugly. When I got the car there was a persistent petrol smell up the front. The pump had been replaced sometime in the past with one that didnt match the input pipe, so they cut the pipe short and connected it with some hose. Problem was this allowed the supply pipe to sag and it eventually suffered an abrasion pin hole from rubbing on the engine mount (I think?). I cut the pipe even shorter to remove the leaking section, joined it to the pump with more hose, tying the pipe up to prevent any more abrasion, and sleeving the part along the block to reduce its heat exposure. Later on the mechanical pump died , so its now fitted with a Huco sucker type.
Anyway, back to now. On closer inspection of the reserve tap outlet pipe connection the plastic tubing was damaged, so that needed attention while it was accessible. Undid the clips to the pump inlet hose, unscrewed the nut at the reserve tap, removed the whole thing - much easier to fix off the car. Carefully cut the plastic hose off the fittings, and replaced it with 5/16" fuel hose and clips. Refitted the heat resistant sleeving, back onto the car, and Bob's nearly your uncle.
I now have access to the rear main seal, which is weeping, but I really dont want to drop the sump and slacken the rear main just now. the 3.9 block will get rebuilt sometime soon....and the weep is not really an issue. in fact the most persistent leak is a weep past the sump plug washer. As soon as the LT77 is in and sorted I will put the sd1 sump on and that should be the end of that leak. on checking the rear seal on the 3.9, I found the rear flange of the crank has a chamfer, possibly to make seal fitting more reliable. Going to remove the seal from the 3.9 and see if I can install a new one without difficulty, with the main cap in place and tight.
 
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Well, the rear seal test looks good. I tried the screw and pull, but the screw just pulled out . Engaged the proper tool and it came out, a bit out of shape. Cleaned out the cavity. I cut down a soft drink bottle - one with narrow sections - until one end would just go over the flange, and I could start the seal on the other end. Oiled the flange and the seal lip and she slipped onto the flange easily. Took some blows with a soft faced hammer, using the old seal as a guide, to get it flush. Going to try it on the car next - have a spare seal handy.
 
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Clutch people busted 2 dowels off, mangled the other hole getting dowel out. Surface is cleaned up. Getting them to put a stub in the mangled hole so its flush, and balance should be ok.They remarked on how hard the flywheel was - I assume its steel?
was a bit worried about jack leaking down yesterday,so I jacked engine up, dropped a big bolt under the #8 exhaust outlet just in case .while it rested on the bolt I changed jacks - even worse, jack completely bottomed. Looks like I need a new trolley jack - these 2 are pretty old now. might look for one that has a transmission attachment, might help getting the lt up into place.
 
Rear main seal done! The car one came out easily using the self tapper and pulling/levering, better than the 3.9. Poor access made getting new seal in harder, especially with oil everywhere. I had to refine the guide piece (soft drink bottle section) so that the wide section JUST fitted over the flange, and the seal was good fit on the narrower side. In the end it was only ~1" long, so just carrying it around with seal on took some care. With the old seal reversed (ie flat face to flat face) behind the new seal I offered it up to the flange, and with one push it was started into the cavity. A bit of wriggling and the guide came out, and then it was just judicious tapping round and round until it was flush. There is a chamfer on this flange, but its a LOT smaller than that on the 3.9.
 
Next. Got the Orings for the reserve tap. Undo the screw retaining the barrel. Go to loosen the hex head holding the wir into the arm - breaks right off! Oh well, press on. Get the new Oring on with some difficulty, and get the barrel back in the body. Start the retaining screw...with washer on it. As soon as I get it near tight the barrel locks of, wont move. Am I doing something wrong here? Barrel in the wrong depth? There is a couple of mm visible between the arm and the body of the unit - sound right?
Had also planned to change the clutch master while access is good. While the book shows a clevis pin connecting the pushrod to the operating arm, I have a bolt head on the nearside of the yoke of the pushrod, and its very tight to turn. Doesnt sound right. Hard to tell whats on the other side of the yoke. Do I have to disconnect the short lever from the pedal shaft, and then the whole cylinder support assembly? If I do, will that all go back together readily? Am I right in thinking the bottom bolt (horizontal) on the master cyl support is the mount for the reserve tap ?
 
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Documented elsewhere the clutchmaster change issues. Now done, just the clevis/bolt to replace now. Also lubricated the boot lid torsion bar where it was rusty - not so much dropping on my head now.
 
Here is a ramble on measuring the original gearbox mounts, based on measuring the cast iron mount from the bellhousing face.
The tunnel is quite asymmetric here, wider on RHS (car's). From tunnel side wall to edge of slot RHS 1.25"; LHS 3/4". The rear bolt slots are 1" long, the fronts 1.5"; from front of rear slot to rear of front slot RHS 1.75'; LHS 2". The rear slots are 6.9" apart, the fronts 7.2" .
On my car the rear bolts of the cast iron lump were at the extreme rear of the rear slots -23.25" from the bellhousing . Looking into the cast iron its obvious that the mount slots for the angled rubbers are offset to left ~3/8" - not sure what to make of this - should I consider it in making a rear box mount or not? Measuring the old box and its bracket where the exhaust pipe is supported from the bellhousing face I got 18.5" -some 2.25" ahead of the vertical tapped holes in the SD1 rear casing. This doesnt square with another poster who did an LT77, who showed fitting the exhaust cross bar to those tapped holes....???
 
Thanks Ron. Waiting on some bits to fix the reserve tap, new clevis bolt for the clutch master, so I am occupying myself with stuff like the above, and trying to plan a rear mount that will involve minimal damage to the original bodywork. So, no, dont have a date in mind, just trying to do something constructive every day, minimize the stress. TBH, i get attacks of 'Have I bitten off more than I can chew?' now and again.....
 
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