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Droopy exhaust? not especially, or at least not by accident! the downpipe location is a tad low because there is very little space between the fat GM trans and the longitudinal chassis rail. This complicated by the joint between downpipe and centre box ending up directly below the trans crossmember. The final event in this causational cascade being the exceptionally high and steep sleeping policemen on the campsite! A re-engineered clamp, along with another 1/2" or so of ground clearance from the 185/60/15 tyres, when I get them, will fix this.
I have never embarked on any exotic engine transplants from one vehicle marque to another, although I have transplanted a modified, hybrid, 1911 cm³ displacement, VW 17/1800 Type 4 style air-cooled engine (based upon a 1972 VW 412LE Variant fuel-injected, 1679 cm³ displacement engine) & 1974 VW 1800 Type 2 transaxle, in the 1973 VW “1600” Type 2, in place of the original 1584 cm³ displacement, VW 1600 Type 1 Beetle style air-cooled engine & 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 transaxle.
The real challenge, will be to substitute a 1983~92 VW Transporter T3, five-speed transaxle (with side-mounted gear-selector rather than front-mounted); assuming it’s feasible and I can find an affordable specimen in good operating condition with all the necessary ancillary components.
Many people get caught out by sleeping policeman (aka speed humps)! My friend who towed a caravan using a Rover 800 and later a Rover 75, commonly grounded his towing bracket when negotiating campsite speed humps.
The speed humps in Canvey Island town centre often catch people unawares and I commonly hear the front spoilers on low-slung modern cars scraping over them, including the 21st Century “Minis” built by BMW in Oxforshire, even when negotiated at a snail’s pace. One of Canvey Island’s industrial estates also has speed humps, which painfully jarred my spine even when negotiated at a slow walking speed, whilst travelling in the back seat of my friend’s SEAT Arosa; a car which had ridiculously low-profile tyres in my opinion, for an urban runabout.
In contrast, whilst driving at circa 40~50 mph, in a Toyota Hiace Mk.1 based motor-caravan in 1979, along a country road somewhere in Norfolk or Suffolk, I entered a small village, whose 30 mph restriction sign was obscured by tree branches & foliage, where I encountered a speed hump at considerably more than 30 mph. Apart from the audible thump-thump sound, as the front & rear tyres passed over the speed hump, I barely noticed any effect, despite sitting over the front wheels of this forward-control vehicle. I envisage that the 1973 VW Type 2 based motor-caravan, would similarly have shrugged off the effect of this speed hump; even with 65-Series, 215/65 R16C tyres on 7 x 16 inch alloy wheels!
If you were to substitute a set of
185/65 R15 tyres in preference to
185/60 R15 tyres, in place of your current
185/55 R15 tyres, this would give you twice as much increase (18•5 mm instead of 9•25 mm) in ground clearance and probably increase ride comfort, which would reduce fatigue on long journeys. It might even give you further improved fuel economy!
185/55 R15 tyres – external radius = 292•25 mm
185/60 R15 tyres – external radius = 301•5 mm (
9•25 mm more than 185/55 R15)
185/65 R15 tyres – external radius = 310•75 mm (
18•5 mm more than 185/55 R15)
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If I place my 1000 mm long STANLEY aluminium builder's spirit-level across the sidewall of the tyres there is a large gap between the underside of the spirit-level and the closest part of the wheel centres as follows:
Dolomite Sprint wheel (no centre-cap) & 185/70 R13 tyre - 30 mm gap
MG 2000 Maestro wheel & 185/55 R15 tyre - 23 mm gap
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I'm surprised the gap twixt wheel centre and board is THAT big, but i'll take your word for it, i've not measured it.
I was a little surprised too, but I assure you it’s true!
Unless one placed a relatively incompressible pad between the wheel centre and the hardboard cover to provide additional support, the wheel centre would provide absolutely no support for heavy luggage above, and would potentially risk damage to the cover and wheel. This is why I intend to fabricate a self-supporting plywood lid, which will be supported by the spare-wheel rim and allow me to safely use the spare-wheel to provide storage for emergency equipment, spares and/or tools.
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And i'm aware of the VW's clever tyre pressure powered washers, having done 2 years on VW in the days when one simply couldn't buy a water cooled one! But I confess I hadn't considered using the bits as an extension to the tyre valve. Having said that, i've also seen valves designed for twin rear wheel trucks that double back through the wheel. However, one of those would be worse than useless once fitted to the car!
My father had a 1964 VW 1200 Type 1 Beetle from 1964 to 1968. Those air-pressurised windscreen washers were certainly a great deal more effective than the manually-pumped windscreen washer kit that he retro-fitted to his previous car; a late-1940s vintage Morris 8 Series E, in which we made the twice-yearly, circa 12 hour duration, circa 420 mile pilgrimage in one day, between London and Dundee, from 1956 to 1964. The same journey in the VW Beetle was quicker and more comfortable!
In the late-1970s, as part of one of my student vacation jobs, I was obliged to drive a Leyland 440FG 2½ tonner, with double rear wheels, so I am familiar with the tyre-inflation valve-stems for the inboard rear wheels, which would not have served my purpose for the Toledo’s spare wheel. In addition to the VWs’ flexible rubber hose connections with female, screw-on Schräder-valve fitting, there was also a long flexible nylon tube with female, screw-on Schräder-valve fitting, that I think was used on the VW Type 4 (i.e. VW 411 & 412) Fastback and/or Variant, but it wasn’t practical to shorten it. I still have it somewhere!?!
I have long been involved in adapting things for uses which differ from their original intended purposes, including some M10 x 1•0 mm electrical fittings, M10 x 1•0 mm hydraulic brake fittings and M10 x 1•0 mm valve-tappet adjustment screws, that I adapted and used in combination, for my 1973 VW Type 2’s oil-pressure gauge-sender installation!
Nigel A. Skeet, “How to: Fitting an Oil-Pressure Gauge-Sender, Installation Adapter, to the Type 4 Engine”, Volkswagen Camper & Commercial, Jazz Publishing, Issue 17, Winter 2004, Pages 44~45
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album ... id=1991575
https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/album ... id=1991576
I also modified and adapted the unusual cross-over-arm, double-linkage, pantograph rear window wiper from an early-1980s vintage, Vauxhall Astra Mk.1 estate car, for use on my 1973 VW Type 2’s rear-hatch window. Alternatively, I could have used the similar rear-window wiper from a Vauxhall Chevette estate car instead. With hindsight, I might have used slightly different components from both Vauxhall estate cars, to create an even better VW Type 2 rear-window wiper system.
Nigel Skeet, "A Clean Sweep", Workshop, VW Motoring, Warner's Publishing Group, December 1996, Pages 85~86
I’m on the lookout for a compatible spare GM-SWF rear-window wiper motor, so if you come across one I would be pleased to hear from you. Complete rear-window wiper systems from either a Vauxhall Astra Mk.1 estate car or Vauxhall Chevette estate car, would be of interest to some fellow 1968~79 VW Type 2 owners, including a few in North America.
Other Vauxhall related components of potential interest, are the small oval audio-speakers (Blaupunkt brand I think), of the size & shape that were used under the rear plastic mouldings in Vauxhall Astra Mk.1 hatchbacks, adjacent to the fold-down rear parcel shelf. I think these would fit neatly in the narrow strips of plywood headlining adjacent to the elevating-roof-access, roof-aperture of my 1973 VW Type 2 motor-caravan.
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I'm no stranger to serious long distance driving having more than once driven to Penzance and back in a day, plus of course clocking up around 800 of the 2200 miles we covered in the 48 hours of the 2018 RBRR. The 127 miles to the caravan, largely on the M5, is little more than a "Milk Run" for me and I would expect it to be the same situation for the Dolomega. The car certainly took the outbound trip in it's stride despite atrocious weather and delivered somewhere in the region of 40mpg in the process, considerably more than the Picasso's pretty awful 31mpg motorway average! But I take nothing for granted, the car had covered less than 1400 miles since built, at departure time, snagging is by no means over yet!
I don’t know what the 2018
RBRR is or was!?! I do so loathe undefined abbreviations & acronyms!
Apart from my family’s twice yearly, circa 420 mile pilgrimages between London and Dundee during 1956 to 1965, all of my long-distance driving has been in motor-caravans in the British Isles, Europe, southern Africa and the USA; including several hours of late-afternoon & evening in thick fog, driving home in the 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 motor-caravan from Switzerland through France, during our 1980 summer touring holiday. Visibility varied between 50 and 100 metres, in which I was driving on dipped, 60/55W quartz-halogen,
white-light headlamps (an upgrade I made in 1976), and was constantly being flashed by irritated French drivers using
yellow-light headlamps, which were obligatory in those days; but not for tourists driving non-French registered vehicles.
There was nowhere I could safely pull off the road and stop in the fog, so I just kept driving for hour after hour, until late in the evening, when I came upon a very large area of gravel, set back from a minor road junction, where I was able to pull off and stop for the night. Fortunately I didn’t run out of petrol, having seen no petrol filling stations en route! Recalling the reflected glare from dipped headlamps and the virtual invisibility of red tail lights in thick fog at any significant distance, I bemoaned my lack of proper front & rear fog lights, which I have since regarded as vital safety equipment for
ALL vehicles!
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I'm quite sure the arches WOULD have rubbed on the 185/55 shod MGF 15s if I hadn't already partially relieved them in an attempt to clear the JBW 14's. This seems to be a car-by-car thing, I know of some people who've had this particular combo clear without modification, others don't! The Carledo only barely failed to clear 205/50s. The subtle difference in design between the long and short tailed car's rear arches does favour (oddly) the Toledo here.
As affordable tyres, for 4 x 13 inch, 4½ x 13 inch & 5½ x 13 inch wheels, become even less readily available over the coming years, Triumph Dolomite & Toledo owners need to be fully aware that substituting 6 x 15 inch, 28 mm offset wheels, originating from MG-F, MG-TF or MG Montego cars, might not be the cheap and simple solution that one would hope, or indeed several other wheels of 3¾ inch (i.e. 95•25 mm) PCD that are available, as you have personally discovered.
Unless something better comes to light, I believe the sets of five 5½ x 15 inch, 31 mm offset wheels, originating from the MG Maestro, probably offer the most practical and cost-effective solution, with the fewest complications, although I acknowledge the desirability, if not necessity, for substitute wheel-fixing studs & associated wheel-nuts. These wheels come from a car which went out of production about 30 years ago, so they are likely to become rarer as the years go by, which is why I took steps to have more than one spare.
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The set of 4 good condition 6 spoke MGF rims with 4 usable tyres were £125 plus collection expenses (about £25 in fuel) so a single wheel with a good tyre at £40 is not too bad. By contrast, the first set of 4 MGF 5 spoke wheels I bought for the Carledo were only £65 with 3 usable tyres. These were also much more local, only 12 miles from home. But that was circa 2008. The presence or absence of good tyres, even if not the desired size, can affect the price by as much as 50%
My first pair of 5½ x 15 inch MG Maestro wheels with 185/55 R15 tyres (one virtually new!) cost just £10•50 on E-bay, plus under £15 UPS door-to-door courier fees from Surrey, which is less than it would have cost me in petrol, even at circa 40 mpg. On the grounds that most people probably prefer to buy just single sets of
one,
four (why!?!) or
five wheels, I hoped to find some further partial sets of
two or
three wheels at similarly low prices, but none were listed on E-bay or Gumtree over the following year, and no sets of
four or
five wheels were listed either, but there were several sets of
five 6 x 15 inch MG Montego wheels, or sets of
four 6 x 15 inch MG-F & MG-TF wheels.
My set of five 5½ x 15 inch MG Maestro wheels without tyres cost £90, plus under £30 UPS door-to-door courier fees from Yorkshire. A return trip from Essex to Yorkshire by car, would have cost considerably more than £30! Unless wheels come with part-worn tyres in reasonable condition, of a size that one wants [there are legal restrictions on the resale of part-worn tyres -
The Motor Vehicle Tyres (Safety) Regulations 1994 - which need to be checked and certified], there is potentially a financial penalty regarding courier fees, pertaining to package dimensions and/or weight.
https://www.partworn-tyres.co.uk/?qards_page=the-law
Unless one has personal access to tyre fitting / removal equipment, removing tyres from wheels prior to selling the wheels costs a significant sum of money and no one wants to give away tyres for nothing with the wheels, unless the tyres are in unserviceable unsalable condition. If one is unable to resell part-used tyres that have been removed, then there is a financial cost associated with disposing of them.
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On touring kit parts, I admit i'm remiss in not carrying rad hoses, though the car uses cut down standard Omega hoses, i've not got around to buying spare ones yet. most of the other hosework is done in 1/2" or 5/8" straight hose some of which I carry.
Most of the ignition parts on your list, the Omega motor doesn't have, no points, condenser, distributor cap, rotor arm, coil or HT leads. The plugs in the engine are new Platinum tipped ones and it has an all in one coil pack arrangement which I WILL get a spare for eventually, but they are relatively bullet proof (they are also over £100 each new!) I carry a spare crank sensor and fuel pump and relay. Along with bulbs and fuses that any sensible person carries anyway.
The Omega water pump is driven by the timing belt. The belt, pump, tensioner and 3 jockey pulleys were all replaced during the build (why wouldn't you?) with good quality Gates parts which should now be good for another 75k miles.
There would be no useful purpose in carrying spare parts that were not pertinent to the vehicle involved! You might be surprised at how few people carry spare light bulbs & fuses, whether normally sensible or otherwise; despite the fact that fuses are small & cheap, and light-bulbs are fundamentally a consumable item, which require periodic replacement! Based upon past experience, I would be inclined to first test the functionality of all spares, before incorporating them into the touring spares-kit!
I’m not enthusiastic about textile-reinforced rubber camshaft-timing belts; preferring direct gear-operated camshafts or chain-driven camshafts.
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How far could I get without the fanbelt? I reckon over 100 miles night and 150+ in daylight. This based on a failure I had years ago with my GT6 alternator overcharging and almost melting the battery near Oxford during a weekend trip from home in Shropshire to Maidenhead Berkshire. I had to get to Maidenhead about dusk and couldn't lose the fanbelt for the same reason it would stop you so had to unplug the alternator. I got a bump start and made it in to Maidenhead charged the battery at my friends place and made it 100+ miles home in the dark on the Sunday night (just!, The electric fuel pump was almost stopped and the lights were little better than glow worms, but I got home!)
I presume your Triumph GT6 alternator’s voltage-regulator had failed to limit the supply voltage to less than circa 14½~15 volts, for which the ignition warning-light would have given no warning, which is one reason why I regard having a voltmeter and/or ammeter as essential instrumentation; both of which are part of the instrumentation packages for both the 1974 Triumph Toledo 1300 “HL Special” and the 1973 VW “1600” Type 2 motor-caravan. The voltmeter would have immediately indicated that the voltage-regulator was faulty and the ammeter, if connected between the alternator and the battery, would have indicated that the battery was being overcharged.
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There must be something about Sweden and camper van charging systems! On a camping trip on the Baltic coast of Sweden in 1973, I had the alternator fail on our brand new (Rented) Bedford CF camper. To my eternal surprise there was a Lucas agent in the tiny coastal town of Vastervik where we camped after the failure, who managed to repair it for a very sensible cost. He spoke perfect English too!
I recall you mentioning several months ago, your experiences with the Bedford CF campervan’s Lucas alternator. At least Västervick has some interesting sightseeing on offer whilst awaiting repairs to be completed; including the church with three altars and the fishermen’s cottages museum. I briefly drove two Bedford CF vehicles (a pickup and a panel van) during the mid-1970s and mid-1980s, both of which had extremely heavy clutches which I didn’t like. I have also driven various other van, campervan & minibus types which I much preferred, including Ford, Leyland, Volkswagen, Toyota & Nissan.