If your one of my regular readers, you'll have had a boring 1 and a half month wait since the last entry, basically up until 2 weeks ago I had absolutely nothing to report, the van went back to the engineers with a list of faults to be fixed, and it took them a month to fix them, one of the main faults apart from the big oil leaks, was that the turbo didn't spool up at the right speed, so I'd pull out from a junction and the van would be dead, this was caused by the wrong turbo being fitted! you may remember me saying when the engine blew that there was a possibility of having a brand new engine fitted, well that engine wasn't the right one for my van, so they re-conditioned my original engine, but used certain parts from the other engine, one of them was the turbo, when I saw the engine I immediately noticed the turbo was a lot bigger than the one I originally had on it, this turned out to be true, and the result was a lot of turbo lag while the larger turbine spooled up.

The engineering firm got my original turbo re-conditioned, something I thought they were going to have done anyway, I was calling in at the shop every week to see how it was progressing, it took them a week to decide to re-condition my old turbo, and the bloke on the counter got my old one just to confirm that it was mine, when it was on the engine it was locked solid, now it was free but turning very rough, I could hear something rattling inside it, and upon shaking it a bit, a inch long portion of exhaust valve stem fell out, that's what was locking it up, it had obviously taken all the vanes off the turbine when it tried to get out the exhaust pipe.

A week later I called in to check on progress, they had the turbo back, when I was there before it went to be re-conditioned I told them the turbo would need it's compressor housing turning for when I fitted the intercooler, and also 2 holes drilled in a different place for the waste gate actuating diaphragm, (there are blanks there for the holes, you just drill and tap them in the correct position depending on the position of the exit pipe from the compressor), but the bloke at the front desk warned me that if I did that I'd invalidate the whole engine warranty! so I now have to wait a year before I can fit an intercooler, (they were more than happy for me to fit one originally, as it stresses the engine a lot less, but not if it meant drilling into the turbo)
Anyway, when I was checking up, I found out the turbo had just arrived back from the re-conditioners, and was being delayed fitment as the boss wanted to do the work on my engine, and he was on holiday, nice.

A week later the turbo was fitted, I was told it now cut in when I said it should (on these iveco daily vans it should begin to boost at around 1900 rpm, fully boosting at 2500.. that's where you get the kick from behind) it was doing that now, they had fixed the thread they had stripped on the BPE housing they said (this is the pipe that tells the pump to let more diesel in when the turbo is working, with out it the engine doesn't make anymore power) the oil leaks were about to be fixed, and they were investigating the vibrations.

Another week later and the oil leaks were fixed, the cause... when 2 of the main oil seals were fitted, they had got caught slightly, so the spring that holds the lip of the seal in place had slipped over the shaft, allowing oil to pee out of the resulting weak spot in the seal, that really installed confidence in the rest of the engine work, that plus they admitted trying just slipping the springs back over at first, then starting the engine up oil peed out again due to a nick in the seal lip caused by the spring, only then did I get new seals.

I had a look at the engine, and they had 'fixed' the sticking accelerator by gluing the cable outer back in the holder.. which was fine, but they also added a spring from one of the injector pipes to the throttle lever on the pump, they used tie wraps to prevent the spring cutting the injector pipe in half, but it still looked crap, I must be the only one who wants my van to look decent, little things like incorrect coolant system bleed bolts, and things bodged instead of fixed annoy me, it's not a white van that's used to make money, so looks don't matter as long as it works, it's going to be a motorhome, and they have a fair bit of money tied up in them so I want it to look the business, not a shabby old ex delivery van.

The bonnet stay was fixed, (they had lost the end clip, that I had just bought) the coolant bleed screw wasn't, they lost the plastic thumb screw, and put a bolt in there instead, the plastic screw is about 1/2 an inch long, they used a 2 inch long bolt, so half the reason the heater never worked was because the bolt was blocking the flow.

The vibrations were not fixed, they kept the van for another week trying to sort that out, or so they said, strange that when I took the van to them  3 weeks ago, I had 90 miles on the trip meter, when I finally got the van back it had 96 miles on it, they had done 6 miles testing the engine held it's oil the turbo worked properly, and that the vibrations were cured.. which they weren't.

Well I finally got the van back, they'd had it over a month, I just called in to check on it's progress, and was handed the keys, a kind of 'please take it away' thing, so I had to take her home and take mum back to fetch her car I left there, the van did drive much better, more power, and pulling away from junctions was possible again, the vibrations were not that bad now, and I guessed they were mainly caused by the engine running too lean, i.e. they get real bad when the BPE pipe fell off, and when the turbo wasn't boosting when it should, but I was just glad to have her back again.

I used the van for a few days, taking rubbish to the tip, then checked her over, I didn't like the throttle spring they had added, so took it off, the throttle returned properly most of the time, I'd adjust the tension of the spring under the accelerator pedal to sort it out hopefully soon anyway, they never did replace the heater bleed screw, and when I had picked the van up the engine belly pan was missing, I asked for it and they couldn't find it, so they said 'come back in a week and we'll fit it, oh and check for oil leaks too' I took that to mean we can't find it, like the rest of the little parts we've lost off your van, give us a week to dig it out, as I wasn't told to come back in a week before I asked for the pan back.

I went under the van to check things out, I spotted the gearbox belly pan had been broken, one of the holes for the screws that hold it on was broke off (a 3 inch chunk was ripped out of the corner) so the belly pan flapped about, yet another thing I'll have to replace myself it seems,
I took the gearbox belly pan off to check things under there, and found the rear gearbox mountings were loose! I tightened them up and practically all the bad vibrations I had left went away, they swore they had spend hours under the van with pry bars trying to locate the vibrations, they should have used their eyes and spotted the bolts hanging out and tightened them.

I still had the clutch jangle I had complained of, I sourced that to the release bearing, it's actually a collar bearing on the iveco, the clutch is a pull type, makes for a lighter clutch pedal and smoother release apparently, the clutch pedal is certainly light, the lightest of all the vehicles we have in this family, and that's 4 more cars, and the big van has a pedal you can push down with your finger,
Anyway this bearing is jangling, so prolly on it's way out, I told them if the clutch was at all suspect, they were to replace it, and they didn't, I basically gave them permission to add another hundred quid or so to the bill.

The gear box is very noisy I've found out too, I went under the van with the engine running and couldn't believe the grumbling noises coming from the box, I know the syncro is bad in 1st, 2nd and 4th, but half the weird noised I hear are from the box, I'll get it re-conditioned one day, by who I don't know yet, I know one firm I wont be using.

The whole underside of the van is coated in a thick film of oil, they had steam cleaned around the engine part, but never bothered with the rest, which is where the oil is the thickest due to it being sucked along as we drove, after I had the van back 5 days I was getting the bad vibrations back again, also a slight decrease in power, I checked the BPE banjo bolt, and it was loose again, argghhh.

But when I went to tighten it up, I found the bolt was stuck to the banjo, strange, that meant as I tightened the bolt the banjo spun with it and pulled on the pipe, so I tried to take the bolt out, I eventually broke the seal between the banjo and the bolt, to find that there was a form of glue holding it together, pulling the bolt out and there was what I thought to be araldite glue all over the threads, they hadn't fitted a helicoil like they said they would, they'd used glue to hold the bolt in place! nice bit of bodging guys, shame the part gets hot and melts the glue, causing the fake threads to release their grip.

I took the van straight back to the garage, calling round at the diesel specialist who had re-calibrated my pump, to pick up a new top housing for the BPE valve.. with a perfect thread.. it's only 4 bolts to change it, but there is a diaphragm in side that if moved a millimetre will bugger the fuelling up when on boost, anyway I went to the garage and asked to see the person who had bodged my van, the boss came out and wasn't happy, I explained that I was not happy either, and told him what I had found, he started shouting at me, saying they never use any type of glue in their workshops, so can't have used it to hold the bolt in place, my mum was with me, and just said 'so was it us that put the glue there then?' at that point she was quite mad, and said this is not the kind of work she expected for £4,800, the boss bit back saying that we had a lot more than the engine done for that money (£800 of it was for the diff replacement, the rest was engine work)

A mechanic came out and looked, the boss refused to have a look for some reason, I just wanted him to see what I had found so he'd stop saying no one would do that, the mechanic said it was thread lock, but lots of it, and the threads hadn't been repaired by the looks of things, the boss had been mad with me for getting another BPE housing top, saying they had 20 of them in their stores, my mum asked why he hadn't used one then instead of bodging the job, he never replied.

While I was with the mechanic mum was telling the boss about the vibrations he hadn't cured, the boss said 'it is your prop shaft out of balance' so mum asked why they didn't balance it then, he said 'because it's too long for their machine', then mum told him how I had cured the vibrations.. by tightening some bolts up on the gearbox (the prop shaft theory is crap by the way, I could get the vibrations just by revving the engine in neutral, while parked, and dipping the clutch when driving with the vibrations stopped them the second the engines revs dropped)
At that point the boss picked something up, threw it in the back of a van and drove off, the mechanic said they'd get a new top fitted to the pump by the next day, so I left it with them again.

Next day it was fixed, a new top (well a second hand one) had been fitted that had good threads, they said the throttle was sticking again, but hadn't had time to fix that, I said don't , as I know what's up with it, and I drove the van home, she seemed flat is the only way to describe the power output now, I'm sure they've knocked the diaphragm while the top was off, thus adjusting the fuelling when on boost, they've put red paint on all the screws so I cant take the top off to check my self, I may end up taking the pump off and getting it checked out by the bloke who re-calibrated it the first time.

But apart from that the van is driving lovely, she just takes ages to get to 70 mph, but once there drives nice and smooth, she really is a nice van to drive, one I could drive all day long.. good job really as that's the intended use.

One day I decided to take the wheels off and check the brakes out, something I hadn't done yet, hardly my fault, I've owned the van 3 months, and had her for 3 weeks up till then :) but I took the wheels off one day, the brakes are in pretty good condition, I'll change the discs one day, they have a bit of a wear lip around the edges, the callipers seem to be fine, one of them needs a new grease seal around the sliding pin, I'll bet iveco only sell them with the rest of the calliper :)

The rear brakes are fine, pads are worn slightly more than the fronts, but the rears have the wear indicators hooked up (fronts have them bypassed) this is the first van I've ever had with discs all round, but they really are good brakes, nice and powerful, they really show me how crap the LT's brakes were, the handbrake is operated by a small drum inside the rear hub, so I adjusted that up while I had the wheels off, bit of a bugger to do, I have the genuine iveco workshop manual (cost me £130 that did) and it shows you how to adjust the handbrake shoes when the discs are off the van only, farting about measuring the distance they protrude, no mention of the slots in the back plates where you can access the star adjusters like I did.

The handbrake came on at only 2 clicks, the manual says it should be between 6 and 7 clicks of the lever, so I adjusted the cables for 6 clicks and the handbrake seems to pull on easier now, must be because of the greater leverage when the lever is pulled higher, while I was at it I changed the brake fluid, it was a yucky brown colour, should be changed every 2 years, it probably has, but it's at the end of a 2 year period, so I bought a gallon of brake fluid and hooked up my gunsons ezee bleed to the master cylinder,,,

Luckily I tried it out dry to make sure the cap held, connected it to the vans tyre, and 3 seconds later BANG, the cap flew off, I was so used to using the system with the beach buggy, that had 14 psi in the tyres, the iveco has nearer 50 psi in her tyres, oops, so I cleaned off the brake fluid that had been sprayed everywhere, lowered the tyre to 20 psi, and tried again, it worked this time so I proceeded to bleed the brakes, took ages and half a gallon of fluid to get it all out of the rear circuit, then I read the workshop manual and found out I should have disconnected the load sensing valve rod and held the rod all the way upwards, as if the van was fully laden, I tried that next time and got all the old fluid out, and a bit of air out, the brakes are even better than before now, which was good to start with.

I fixed the throttle return problems, I just needed to wind the return spring around one notch on the fuel pump, then last weekend I went to Vic Barlow's Iveco scrap yard I went mainly to get a centre console out of an iveco bus, I wanted to put extra engine gauges in my van, and there is no where to put them in the standard van, but I had seen the iveco buses have another dashboard console where the document holder glove box is (in the middle of the dash) there was one good one in one of the buses, it's front was all cut about, but that was no problem as I planned on making my own front panel to hold the gauges and tft screen for the reverting monitor one day, getting it out was another matter, it's held in by 4 long screws, from under the dash, and getting to them means taking the dash out, I managed to get it out eventually, but not after breaking a corner off, luckily I saved the corner and will glue it back on, I also got another heater bleed screw, a gearbox belly pan and other little bits, also arranged to get a couple of good doors from him in September, (my front doors are rusty at the bottoms, rather than fight the rust all the life of the van, I'm going to get a couple of better condition doors before the van goes for it's new body)

When I replaced the gearbox belly pan, taking the broken one off, I found a gearbox bell housing bolt laying in the bottom!! it had come out from near the top of the engine, luckily there are a few more bolts to hold the gearbox to the engine, but I was not pleased to find such a large bolt had fallen out, all the other bolts were looser than they should have been, and if the belly pan wasn't there, I probably wouldn't have spotted the missing bolt, (not to mention the damage it would have done to anyone's car following me if it bounced off the road)

I've started doing some work on the van for the conversion now, to save this page getting even longer I'll put that stuff on a new page, which will be in the Kamper tech pages, there will be photo's to accompany the words and all that, at the moment it's the cutting the bulkhead out and fitting a sliding door in it's place, a little bit on fitting the extra engine gauges I've fitted and the console I've used to house them in, and I'll add more things as I write the pages.

Finally some good news in all this doom and gloom, 2 months ago we sent off a 500 quid cheque to Nu-Venture, as a deposit to book the next available slot for the body to be built, I was told over the phone it would be around the end of December, beginning of January time, nothing I can do but wait it seemed, I didn't want to use anyone else, as I've seen Nu-ventures work, and it's very good, (I've also seen another coachbuilt converters work, and it's very crap in comparison) Anyway I never got a receipt for the cheque so after waiting 2 months I wrote them a letter asking for a receipt and a confirmed date for the conversion, got the receipt yesterday, with a note on it.. 'p.s. can you bring the van in on the 21st of November?' Too right I can, money's gonna be tight due to the engine problems, but I'll now have me body built this year, woohoo, perfect for Xmas.