Pootles shakedown run & look what happens !!!!

[wibble]

Pootle has been off the road for the last 6 moths with repairs & mods.
Yesterday we took her for her shakedown run up to the Malverns. Wish I hadn't bothered.

Changing over to LPG and she starts to mis-fire followed by a loud backfire.

OH mentions that exhaust, which was quite noisy already, was sounding louder than usual. Seconds later it sounds like miniature explosions. Hmmm, this can't be good.

Once we get to picnic site, poke head under only to find that the whole nearside manifold pipe is missing !!! Bugger !

Got back home after deafening half of Malvern & Upton to start removal of remains of head side flange and box end one. Bugger, sheared off one bolt off box. I am now in a bit of a panic as we are booked to go away in Pootle in 2 weeks. Reading al the threads about exhaust removal I go weak at the knees with all the stories of woe with sheared bolts in the head. Its the time scale that is most disturbing. I can only work on her in fair weather in the evenings & week ends. What to do ??? Have ordered some rust. buster and nut splitters. I thought best bet would be to not muck about go for the kill and use the nut splitter on the 5 nuts. Is that a good game plan ?


Secondly, I have installed a late dash into my 83 model. The buzzer of doom has reared its ugly head. Its all fine & dandy when I was running the engine static over the 6 months she was out of action but as soon as sped onto the open road buzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Thing is you see I don't think my van has 2 oil pressure senders. I think its only got the one so the BOD must not be getting its signal to shut up. Gonna have go back and re wire dash to kill it.

Apart from that we had a lovely time swimming in gullet quarry & picnicing in the sun. Got a wave from a bay & 2 motor homes to boot.

[Ian Hulley]

You probably won't get a nut splitter over the manifold nuts, carefull cutting with a minisaw or dremel to remove most of the nut should loosen them ... It's the bolts you'll have most fun with ....feed them with Plus Gas or a graphite-based penetrant beforehand and be prepared for it to end in tears before bedtime.

When replacing the fasteners use coppaslip on the bolts and greased aerotyte nuts for the studs, you may choose to run an M8 tap carefully down the threads.

re the silencer/tailpipe flange I always drill the threaded holes out to 9mm and then use M8 stainless nuts and bolts ... they'll always come undone AND they're still 13mm spanner

DO NOT be tempted to hand your van over to the gibbons at $h!t Fit.

Good luck.

P.S. if there's no underlying issue with The Buzzer Of Doom then simply earth the brown wire out and the pod will think the switch is happy .... I'd check with Steve Mocki or similar auto-elec smarty-pants first though, just to be 100% sure.

Ian.

[wibble]

be prepared for it to end in tears before bedtime.

Suppose I'd better get man size box of tissues then !!!

Another weird thing was that when the BOD came on my speedo stopped working as did my handbrake light.

I checked speedo with a drill and it works so must some odd earth fault in BOD. Where's my hammer...........

[Ian Hulley]

It would seem almost ungrateful NOT to hit it with a F.B. hammer HAVE IT !!

Patience and care with the exhaust bolts though ... I used every socket from 12mm down to 9mm ... including tapping them on and heating them up ... still broke one off though.

Ian.

[billy739]

if your fitting NEW exhaust parts its worth thinking about grinding/cutting the old one off then you can get a grinder onto the nuts and split them that way.

may also be worth buying stainless nuts for the refit , they cost pence and last forever

[Ian Hulley]

may also be worth buying stainless nuts for the refit , they cost pence and last forever

Amen to that

[wibble]

well. I spent 3 hours outside yesterday and.......... got 1 nut of box & 1 of the bolts of the head end using penetrating oil & blow torch. I am sooooo happy ( sad isn't it !)..... but wait the head of the 2nd bolt on head end is slowly disintegrating.

Have left it to soak over night again & will look at it again with a fresh pair of eyes today. Noticed lots of hidden blown holes in box so now will have to replace that too. Might as well just shear the nuts off the box now. My success now rest squarely on this one remaining head bolt. Fingers crossed.

JK replacement parts arrived today. What is best to replace the bolts on head end. I looks like an M8 but the other is/was 10mm headed so not sure what it is. Heard that stainless is brittle compared to mild steel bolts.

[Ian Hulley]

All the fasteners on the exhast should be M8 (13mm spanner) Stainless is best ... honest ... it's screwing into aluminium remember there's not that much torque otherwise to would just tear out the threads.

If you're replacing the whole system ... and it does sounds like it ... drill through the threaded flanges on the silencer and put nuts on the back of bolts. Easier for next time ... OR buy a JP stainless exhaust and there won't be a next time

Ian.

[wibble]

well I'm thoroughly despondent now. 1 bolt left on head to go and will it budge....
Not bloody likely. Dunno who last put it on but it certainly wasn't am M8. The bolt was so brittle it crumbled apart the moment I got a spanner on it. Using rust buster and loadsa heat still make budge. All I ended up doing was slowly stripping metal off the shaft. I pulled off the remains of the manifold so now have a bolt shaft sticking out about inch from the head. Tried more heat hammering and pen oil with a pair of mole grips but blow me if it will not budge. Once again shaved some more metal off the shaft. I even broke a pair of those special spanners that tightens its grip the more pressure you apply !!!!!

Surely it can't be that tightly in, for god sakes its mild steel into Aluminum.
Well, I've given up for now. Rang a few local garages to see if they would like to have a go and all all them declined the challenge. Hummph, sissies !

So now what 1 week before our holiday & what to do, what - to - do.... ?

might try a leave shaft on, it still its full length so I might try bodging a fastening onto it with the new manifold and try again after me hols. Any ideas ?

[The_blue]

Can you weld a nut/bolt to the end?

Even might be worth welding a bit of thread to the end as a stop gap.

[mikey9]

Wibble - what was the outcome - I think there lots of us out here who are putting off this very job for the same reasons you have encountered.......hope the outcome was good

[toomanytoys]

Its an utter pain when that happens..

[1664]

Not much of a consolation but at least you have some nice headrests to look at while you're working

[wibble]

Not much of a consolation but at least you have some nice headrests to look at while you're working

Yeap, they do look cool.

As for the exhaust.... well, I tried everything in the book to shift the remnants
of the bolt, tried welding a nut on, it just broke off again, tried heat, rust buster etc, etc however, I didn't want to snap it off as I had a cunning plan. I ground a bit off it enough to slide the new manifold pipe over it and secure that using the one good bolt hole left. I then gumgunned the whole joint up. It sort of works. The gungum does crack but it only lets out a bit of exhaust but more crucially it still manges to sound so quiet. I know of a local garage who has a VW camper enthusiast in their ranks. He is going to drop engine out and drill out for me later in year. Course now my thermostat has packed up so might do both at once.