As I type

A quality bodge is going off. NOG's heater valve is now covered in chemical metal. In about another ten minutes, I'll going to see if it has gone off, and if it has, I'll try filling in with water, and see what happens.

I may slack the rad cap a bit, it gives it more of a chance to work... see how good it seems.

Heater valves

I ran out of coolant on my way home from church tonight.
I had some spare in a can (I always carry some water, it comes in handy), and so I was soon on my way again.

However, not before discovering the cause. NOG doesn't have a heater, and as far as I know, has never had one. However, the engine, not being the original, has a SIII heater valve, and this had started leaking. I suspect it had been weeping for a bit, and I'd not noticed, because of course, being rather warm, anything that leaked would evaporate away straight away - certainly I've known water was going somewhere for a bit.

Anyway, no question it was leaking now - it was gushing water like a geyser. I'll smother it in chemical metal tomorrow, drive to a plumbers merchants, if I can find an open one, and buy a pair of blanking plugs. Problem solved then.

Still the irony of a breakdown caused by a totally un-neccesary fitment is a little annoying.

I've been promised

Both a 109" and a 110" Salisbury rear axle.

Total cost, nothing. Next mission then is to get them here (both are in different bits of Cumbria), and make one good axle from two... with a 3.5 ratio.
Then find a 2.6 to Salisbury rear prop, and I'm in business in that department.

I've also come to the conculusion that I should up NOG's idle speed a bit.
I counted the exahust beats today, while sat at the lights on my way home(yes, it is that slow), for a timed minuite, and came to the concusion that she was probably doing about 200-250rpm. Not quite as good as my P4 car, which would idle at under 100 rpm, but then she needs a tune up worse than bad. That and the P4 car had twin little carbs. On NOG's big 1.75, I suspect that it is struggling at that sort of speed to make enough vaccum to get the pots fed anything like evenly. Particularly when one is coasting slowly forward in a queue on the brakes, which means the servo is working a lot.

Another day, another halfshaft

Yours truely is getting very tired of removing and refitting NOG's rear diff.
This is because in the last 5000 miles, he has broken 2 halfshafts, and 3 diffs.
Latest effort was a halfshaft, which went while moving forward in a queue in stockport, on my way to Landranger Services to buy a halfshaft, as I was on a borrowed one as it was...
All credit to the lads at Landranger, they brought me down a pair of halfshafts and all the gaskets with a cheery "call in tomorrow with the bits you don't need and pay up then." Talk about A1 service.

NOG is really starting to feel tired now, she has been racking up miles recently with very little by way of TLC apart from regualarly putting more water/brake fluid/engine oil/halfshafts/diffs into the relivent holes. Oh and the old condensor back on, as the "new"(year old) one fried itself while headed up the A6 towards Buxton a couple of weeks ago, and fried the points.

Now Bitsa is almost on the road, I'm starting to think about the next minor project.
Probably it will be sorting out NOG ready for the next MOT (I can put her in any time from mid July to keep my renewal in August). So far I know I need to 1) rebuild the front brakes (and while I'm at it, I'll probably strip the front axle and fit a 3.54 diff), and 2)stop the exhaust blowing - which probably means get a new manifold made.
However, I think while I'm at it, I may try and find a dead 110, and a 109" salisbury axle, and mate the two. If I do that, then at least the jolly thing might not need any more halfshafts for a bit.

Before I do that however, I'm going to sort the shed out - not a vehicle, but the old barn which I repair stuff in. Its falling down, leaks, and the floor needs concreteing worse than bad. I might even did a pit while I'm at it.

New gearbox in, and it even works...

Its been a week or so since I posted an update here. NOG continues to run about with her 'new' gearbox performing very sweetly. No grinding, no nasty whine, not even any bad vibration at high speed.
Cause of death of the old box appears to be the big nut at the back of the mainshaft having not been done up properly - hence the mainshaft had been slapping backwards and forwards with nasty results everywhere.

The mission for next saturday has been determined - when I'm not struggling with Bitsa I'll be tightening NOG's steering box up along with the associated bracketry, as it all gradually works lose, and gets more and more wobbly when left to its own devices.

We have the technology...

... and even the time off to attack the gearbox.
I've booked two days off, tomorrow and Wednesday, on the highly realistic grounds that I've swapped gearboxes in a day before, and so I now have a spare day for acidents. Famous last words or what.

I've also got the Bob Dylan on standby, for the moment when I have to swap the 6 cyl bellhousing for that on the "new" (Ex Bitsa) box... (regular readers of my blog may be aware that I once endured Dylan's greatest hits Vol 2 a silly number of times in the middle of the night, while trying to reasemble a box - actually, come to think of it, the very same box as I am now fitting - as I was too covered in Ep90 to turn it off)

Stay tuned for the sounds of the struggle this time...

The fun never stops...

Shortly after my last post, Glen and the spare diff arrived - I shoved it in the hole, and low and behold all worked and I had drive again. The interesting news is that the spare diff turned out to be 3.54 ratio... which means that top gear is now really high. Really really high. She still goes like stink on the flat, (I had to throttle back several times on the motorway for the Tdi 90 Glen was driving to catch me up again, and I could pull away from him with no problems at the traffic lights ) however hills now require use of gears that once were merely rumoured to exist - 2nd in particular. This would be Ok if 2nd hadn't developed a nasty whine that apparently fortells its demise shortly if I carry on driving it. Not good.

As a result, I have hatched a plan of cunning, courage and audacity - namely to take a couple of days off, yank the box out, stick the bellhousing on Bitsa's old box, and bung that in instead... wish me luck - assuming I get the time off.