The old boat

[Jefftav]

Well done ignacatz - I have followed your ups and downs on here and in the other forum and really enjoyed wactching this progress. Hope you can enjoy your traveller for a while before you move it on

[jagnut66]

It does seem a bit silly to do all that work, get it just how you want it then sell it on after a few months.
After all that blood, sweat and effort I'd have thought you would have hung onto it for longer.
Minor's are not that bad!

[davidpidge]

[frame][/frame]

I love the way you've slightly re-routed the petrol filler pipe. Did you fabricate the pipe or use off the shelf pipe?

[ignatzcatz]

Hi David, sorry for this late reply but I havn't visited the web site for a couple of weeks. I re routed the filler pipe just to maximise the available space in the rear. If I get to visit a break in the remote wilds of Wales, Devon or Cornwall I might just have to kip in the back of the old boat so any extra space would be a bonus. Oops, I didn't explain; I'm a surf nut and the break referred to is a surf break. Actually I'm off up the East coast to Saltburn soon, I just hope the boat holds together, anyway I've got some good sounds and my manual cruise control (a push bike cable onto the carbs lever) so hopefully I'll be ok.
Now although the wee beastie managed to pass the Mot the brakes have been getting really bad with the pedal going to the floor. Plus the clutch has never been good at all, requiring a push to the boards just to get even partial disengagement. And this is wierd because I fitted a new MGB master cylinder and this pushes a re-kitted MGB slave with a new flexy hose too. I think the pedal ratio I devised was wrong. So I chopped the old master cylinder mount from the gearbox crossmember and fabricated and welded on a new mount for a new stand alone 3/4" master cylinder which is activated directly from the pedal arm. I am pleased to say this works very well so that was one problem out of the way.
Now the brakes were a right pain. I bled them and bled them with a pressure system but no joy. I replaced the servo with a new unit, no different. So a new master cylinder went in, bleed and bleed and bleed and still no pedal. I started to have nightmares about this but thinking things through I deduced that the original master cylinder was not designed to have a servo stuck up its chuff and therefore was unable to shove enough fluid through to clear all the air even with pressure to help. So I disconnected the pipes to the servo and sucked fluid through with a hand held vacuum pump (a very useful little tool, by the way). This was a bit messy but I managed to screw on the pipes as quickly as possible, one more bleed operation and joy of joys, a nice firm pedal.
This little unwanted episode took best part of two weeks to sort out and I thought I was good to go, but the little motoring devil still had it in for me. You see when I took the trav in for its Mot the tester was having a good look underneath and advised me that the fuel pipe from the tank was a little near to the exhaust pipe. This was only an advisory but he did recommend that the pipe be moved just to be on the safe side. So with the trav up on axle stands again for all the brake problems I gave this pipe a slight tweak away from the exhaust pipe. No problem - for a week or so, then I noticed a damp patch underneath the rear. A dab and a sniff confirmed my worse fears. The pipe was rusty and it took a week to start to leak. Here we go again, drain the tank, pull the pipe - not easy, cut the pipe, clean and re-drill the tank fitting but the end of the pipe was fairly corroded so I had to braze in a new foot or so of pipe. Now this pipe is a real pain to re-fit so I cut it by the gearbox crossmember and fitted in a fuel filter because I did see some crappy stuff come out of the tank when I drained it.
So that is it, it is deffo all done, I'm going to strap my board on the rack and I'm off to Wittering tomorrow. Pray for surf![frame][/frame]I had to join 1/4 to 3/16ths tube and the other pipe is a remote reservoir[frame][/frame]The cylinder is on the low side but no lower than the anti roll bar or sump.[frame][/frame]It's direct off the pedal and works great.