Well, in the last entry i finished by saying that at least the re-conditioned engine will be perfect, wrong again,

The new engine wasn't the correct one for my van, the bottom end was totally different, so my old engine was re-conditioned, when they had it all stripped down i took the fuel pump across the road and had it re-calibrated, the throttle shaft's are a weak point on these pumps apparently, so i had the shaft and bush replaced, and they replaced all the seals at the same time and then re-calibrated the pump back the it's original specs, while the engine was being re-built i had been enquiring about the possibility of fitting an intercooler to the engine, i want as much fuel economy as i can get out of this van, and an intercooler helps a fair bit in that department, it also boosts the engine power, by 20 bhp on this engine, so i phoned the insurance company up and enquired about this modification, to get the extra power i need to have the fuel pump altered and the turbo boost altered, i wont be doing this so i wont be getting the extra power the intercooler can deliver, just better fuel consumption figures, they were fine about this, and added the modification with no extra charge.

So i went to buy the intercooler set up from the bloke who had one when i enquired, to find he had sold it, and didn't have anymore in, typical, there is a lot of stuff needed but it is essentially a bolt on item, i got confirmation from iveco that the differences between the -10 and -12 engines fitted to the daily's are just the intercooler, there are fuelling and boost differences, but no internal modifications, so i just need all the pipework, the intercooler and fan shroud as the cooler is bolted infront of the radiator,  I'll have to fit that at a later date it seems now.

Things were progressing slowly with the engine re-build, during the first week it was in the workshop i went over each day to do other work on the van, while the front end was apart i replaced a rusty bumper outrigger, and replaced the front main bumper irons, easier to replace than to de-rust and paint, i went over to Vic Barlow iveco scrap yard and bought them, (my van has lived in blackpool all it's life, and the salty air hasn't done the powder coated chassis any favours)
He also had a pretty good drivers seat, i had e-mailed him asking for a perfect one as i wanted to fit it in place of the double passengers seat, this one was filthy but fine, so i got it as well as a few other little bits i always want, things like the heater bleed thumb screw, i had to drain the coolant system down a while ago to get to the cold start injector (the union was undone because the threads were damaged, and to take it out i had to undo 2 water pipes) the iveco engine is a pig to get all the air out of the cooling system, the highest place is the heater so it handily has a plastic thumb screw so you can bleed air out quickly,

Well i went on a run, pulled over and opened the screw, air and water came out, and when the air stopped coming out i went to put the screw back in the hole, well the water was hot, and i dropped the plastic screw, never found it, to get home i used a bolt from the windscreen wiper motor, perfect fit but needs a spanner to undo it, so i got a new proper screw just so i have the proper parts on the engine, when i got the van i also had the plastic end off the bonnet stay missing, no big deal as it's just there to hold the bonnet in position and prevent it from being blown open and off the stay in the wind, i asked iveco for a new plastic end, and all they sold was the whole bonnet stay!! only cost 6 quid tho so i got it.

I also bought some sound insulation for the van, in the short time i had been driving the van it was apparent that the engine noise really ruined the drive, making my ears ring afterwards, and conversations hard in the cab, the whining back axle didn't help either, so i bought some very expensive foil covered 1/2 inch thick sound absorbing sheet from woollies trim, for once this was from a shop just down the road from me, the sheet was over £40, but it was enough to do the engine bulge (the bit inside the cab where most of the noise comes from) and under the floor above the gearbox, another noise spot according to fellow iveco owners, the insulation could only be fitted to the engine bulge while the engine was out, so now was the perfect time to do it, it took me a while, making a paper template first, then cutting the insulation which is self adhesive.. but means a thick tar like membrane to cut through too, didn't help that i cut the insulation out back to front, but luckily there was hardly any difference between the sides so it worked the right way round.

I stuck that in position, and doubly secured it using self tapping screws and wide washers, in places it would be only a few inches from the exhaust manifold, and i didn't want it to fall down and rest on the red hot manifold, the insulation is self extinguishing, nothing is fireproof.. just fire resistant, but this stuff is designed to be placed next to hot engine parts, hence the reflective foil lining.

I also replaced the front shock absorbers while i was at it, these were not cheap, they are big and very very stiff units, nothing like the puny car sized shockers i had on the LT, with new shockers you have to pump them 3 times to get any air out of the oil from them being transported on their sides, i had to place a bar through the bottom bush, another one through the top bush, and it took 2 people to pull the shocker upwards!! they are strong units,
I was replacing them because going over speed bumps the van bounced 3 or 4 times after the bump, a sign of worn shockers, when i was buying the van the bloke said 'it's always been a bouncy van' it's turning out he didn't replace things when they were needed, one front shocker was visibly leaking, that one was actually still strong, the other side one that was dry had hardly any damping action left, so the new shockers on the front had better be worth it, they cost me £54 each, i got hit with a £10 delivery charge when i ordered them, but i bought some wheel bearings from the same shop, and they discounted them even more to make up for the delivery charge on the shockers that they never knew about until they arrived.

I'd decided I'd rather have 4 new injectors rather than just one and the others re-worked, so asked for them and the bloke at the engineers had no problems with that, we had also decided that while the van was in the workshop we may as well get the diff changed at the same time, that was another expensive job but the engineering firm said they might be able to knock a few quid off the final bill due to us having both jobs done at once.

One last thing i did was to add a battery master switch, having heard about and seen a few burnt out iveco's that had suffered electrical fires, i wanted to be able to disconnect the battery easily if i ever needed to, i had already installed a fire extinguisher in the cab, but that would be useless if a wire shorted out and was keeping things red hot, i had to get the biggest master switch i could to handle the current of starting the engine, i managed to get it for £28, usual price is £39, and then i had to get the main power lead cut and 2 large ring terminals put on the ends so i could connect the switch up, the iveco buses have battery kill switches fitted as standard by law, so while i was up at the iveco scrap yard i got the mounting bracket for the kill switch, handy iveco providing the brackets for me to just bolt the switch into.

I had done all i could on the van while it was not in use, i just had to wait for the engine to be put back in, and the diff changed, they would also fit the wheel bearings for me that i supplied, as they had half the back end apart anyway doing the diff change.

Then i waited.. and waited.. and waited some more, a week went by and i had no news, i called in and found out the engine was half in, but an engine mount had been broken so they were waiting for Sherwood (the local iveco dealers) to deliver them a new rubber mounting, they are big buggers so wont be cheap i thought, by the weekend the engine was in, but not plumbed in yet, things were getting desperate as we needed to use the van for the last weekend in June to collect my brothers stuff from uni, after the weekend the engine was finally plumbed in, but they then discovered they had lost one of the clips that fits on the bonnet release cable, (the iveco has 2 bonnet catches as it's such a wide one), with out that they can't shut the bonnet, and so cant road test the van.

2 days later they finally had the bonnet release clip, and had road tested the van, they said all was well, and i went to collect it, total bill... £4800!!!!! £800 of that was for the diff work, to change the wheel bearings they had to buy a 65mm socket, that cost them £98 alone, so they had to recover some of that cost.. i wouldn't have minded if i got to keep the socket afterwards :)
There were also extra charges for the engine mount.. that was £45 alone, and almost 3 weeks they had been working on it, everything was plus vat of course, £1800 for the re-conditioning job, £650 for removing and fitting of the engine, £250 head surcharge, £310 turbo, it all adds up.

I went out to the van and started her up, first thing i noticed what the accelerator pedal was sticking, holding the engines revs at about 900 rpm.. they should be at about 600, i popped the bonnet and saw the accelerator cable had been broken at the end, and bodged with electrical tape! not a good start, i also immediately noticed the end off the bonnet stay was missing, that plastic end that i had to buy the whole stay for.. i bought it 3 weeks ago and they lost the bugger, also i noticed there was an oil jug in the engine bay! it had been used to fill the power steering reservoir up.. which had been overflowed and power steering oil was everywhere, but they then dropped the jug and just left it.

I went and got the bloke out of the office and showed him the accelerator cable, bonnet stay and the jug, he went and got the mechanic who had been working on the engine.. he looked about 12, he had no explanation for the oil jug, said the bonnet stay would have flipped off and got lost, they agreed to get me a new one as i had just bought that, the accelerator cable they cant do owt about tho, just said 'it's one of those things.. it happens' they put a tie wrap around the cable to hold it in place, what had happened was the outer cable had been pulled out from the end, so the cable was drooping and pulling on the throttle shaft, the tie wrap held the cable in position, and i was left to sort it out my self.

As usual an accelerator cable for this van is an iveco only part, i half expected that, what i didn't expect was the price, £63.. plus vat!!! sod that, I'll fix it somehow, i had also noticed that the turbo was larger than the original, this was immediately apparent, so it wasn't just a millimetre difference, it's a good inch bigger, just the compressor housing is bigger tho' the turbine housing looks the same size as the old turbo, but the old turbo definitely had the same size compressor and turbine housings, i expected some turbo lag....

I didn't expect so much turbo lag tho' the engine was just dead below 2300 rpm, the turbo doesn't really start helping the engine along until about 2500 rpm, before it was on boost from below 2000 rpm, now just changing up a gear drops the engine speed to below the turbo boost range, so the van dies until the revs climb enough to get the turbo working again.

Each time i had started the van i had noticed the starter was a bit sluggish, i had figured this was due to the tightness of the engine, i was proven wrong when we came out of Safeway's after stocking up on cans of coke, and the battery was flat, luckily we managed to bump start the van, not an easy task in a crowded car park, especially with a van that takes up 1 and a half car sized parking spaces, luckily the engine is direct injection, so will start the second any cylinder goes over a compression stroke, i go the van home ,and every time i indicated or braked the central locking went mad, a sign the battery was dying fast, luckily being a diesel it only needs a few volts to keep the fuel shut off solenoid open, and the engine will run until it runs out of fuel, i measured the battery terminal voltage.. 11.5 volts, totally dead, and no alternator output, i hadn't noticed there wasn't a no-charge warning light on the dash each of the 3 times i had started the van so far.

Investigating the cause of the non working alternator, i found out they had wired it up wrong, i had given them the alternator from my old van, a VW LT, this was a 90 amp alternator, the iveco's alternator is only a 45 amp model, and i wanted the LT's alternator to be put on the engine as well as the iveco's alt. so I'd have 2 charging systems, and one would run the leisure batteries, save me messing about with split charge relays and all that, especially as i will have 220 amp hours of leisure battery, and just 88 amp hours of starter battery, so not a matched battery bank by any means.

However they couldn't find room to mount the second alternator on the engine, so they fitted the 90 amp alternator in place of the 45 amp one, however the 90 amp alternator had 2 stud terminals, one for the main charge lead, the other for the no-charge light, the iveco alternator had 1 stud terminal.. for the main lead, and a push on terminal for the no charge light, the 90 amp alternator also had a couple of push on terminals, but they are both W terminals.. for running a rev counter or similar, they went and connected the no charge wire to one of the W terminals!! hence the alternator never started charging, 5 minutes later i had changed the terminal on the engine wire over, and had the alternator working, an overnight charge on the battery charger i had recently bought to charge the leisure batteries revived the starter  battery.

To get at the alternator i had to get at it from underneath the van, while under there i noticed there was oil everywhere, most of it seemed to be power steering oil, but i could see fresh engine oil coming from the oil pump area, and what looks like a broken bolt on the bottom of the pump housing, this pissed me off as the engine never leaked any oil before, it was the first dry engined vehicle i had ever owned, and now it had just received almost 5 grand's worth of work on it, and it leaked.

I spent the next day working on the van, first thing i did was replace the double passengers seat with the single drivers seat i had got, i was doing this for 2 reasons, one the double seat has a fixed back, and is pretty uncomfortable, i never noticed this as i never sit in it, but the day the engine went i sat in it for a few minutes, and it's uncomfortable, also i want a walk through cab, so the middle seat gets in the way, the seat i fitted is a standard iveco drivers seat, so has adjustable back rest rake, height adjustment including being able to lower or raise the front or back of the seat base, as well as being able to slide the seat forwards, enabling stuff to be slid behind the seat base now.

I then tested the engine out more, and found out that when the engines speed is over about 2400 rpm, i get a pretty bad vibration, it causes a really annoying rattle to emanate from the gear stick area of the gearbox, and nothing i can do stops it.. except holding onto the stick, it's something that was never present before, i have an idea the flywheel is out of balance, it has been skimmed while the engine was being re-conditioned, so i can only imagine it was taken out of balance during that process, or something else in the engine is out of balance.

I was over in Nottingham, and stopped at maplins to get the cable to wire up the reversing camera, when i came back to the van it unlocked from the remote fine, but i had no electrical power when i went to start it, i found that by pulling on the main earth lead restored power, strange, when i got home i went under and checked the connection out, it was tight but the earth lead was resting on the exhaust down pipe!, so i undid the bolt and held it off the exhaust while i tightened it up this time,

So far i had a few problems that need sorting out, the oil leak I'll have to keep under control by making sure the oil level is topped up all the time, the vibrations i can do nothing about, on Friday we set off to Southampton to collect my brothers stuff from uni, we started with a full tank of fuel and this would be the first time i could check the fuel consumption, i had only had the van 2 weeks before the engine went, and had only filled up twice.. first time in blackpool when i bought the van, then a week later in Grantham, i used the automated pump at asda, and they have a bloody stupid £40 limit, the tank needed over 40 quids worth of fuel, so i had no idea how much fuel i had used,  (all other automated petrol pumps have a £50 or £60 limit, only asda still have the £40 limit, kinda useless with today's prices)

At about Cambridge on the A1 i became increasingly worried about the speed at which the fuel gauge was dropping, it had gone from over 3/4 of a tank to half over about 5 miles, i pulled into a petrol station to investigate, and saw a river of diesel pissing out from under the engine, so i shut it off and looked in the bonnet, diesel was all over the back of the pump, at first i thought the injection pump had sprung a leak, but when i re-started the engine i saw the diesel was coming out of the drain holes in the side of the head, where the injectors are housed, 10 minutes of getting the head cover off later (it's a bugger to do on a hot engine, one bolt is hidden under the heater making it even worse), i could see i had a split leak off pipe (a diesel engine pumps fuel from the tank to the injection pump, which over fills the pump and the excess is returned to the tank, the injectors get sent fuel in pulses, and pressure opens the nozzles to inject the fuel into the combustion chamber at the right time, then the pressure falls off, the nozzles shut quickly, and the excess fuel is sent via little pipes to the fuel return on the pump)

When one of these little leak off pipes splits, the return from the pump gets diverted out of the split pipe, and it's a hell of a lot of diesel in the return pipework, and it all gets pumped out instead of back to the tank, so your pumping the tank dry.. very fast, the pipe that had split was an odd pipe, the pipes between the other injectors are iveco originals, heated on tubes, the pipe between number 1 and 2 injector was a piece of standard leak off pipe, which was so old that it had split at the ends, i had asked the engine re-builders to replace any pipes that looked even slightly dodgy while they were at it, so why they left a piece of old leak off pipe on i don't know, it took me bloody ages to get some new pipe on there, luckily i carry some around with me as i had a pipe go one me once in the LT, however i had to use pliers to get the pipe on the nipples, it really is tight in the injector chest on an iveco engine.

About 20 miles up the road the fuel gauge was again dropping fast, i pulled into a supermarket and again the pipe was ruptured, this time it was my fault as i had nipped the pipe with the pliers, and that was where it went, took me another hour to replace the pipe with the last of my leak off pipe, i couldn't get a parking space in the supermarket so parked on the end of the bays, a traffic warden was coming round giving out tickets to all the other people parked like i was, and let me off as i was visibly leaking fuel.

I re-fuelled the van, it took 46 quids worth of diesel, and i had covered about 90 miles, about 5 to the gallon then :)

Now the van was covered in diesel, all up the back, over the hole the reversing camera pokes out of which is right up the top of the roof, the whole underside was covered in diesel and engine oil, i was not pleased, the van was really low on power, the turbo lag seemed to be getting worse, eventually i pulled over for food and popped the bonnet to top up with oil, and saw the pipe to the boost pressure enrichment devise on the fuel pump was off.. (the BPE devise is on the top of a turbo diesels injection pump, it has a diaphragm in it that when air pressure from the turbo is pushed against the diaphragm, a cone shaped plunger is pressed into the pump, that works a needle valve to allow more diesel to be injected, allowing the engine to run properly as more air is pushed into the engine)

The bolt that holds the banjo on had come out of the threaded hole in the BPE housing, the bolt was still attached to the banjo which i thought was very lucky.. however as usual lady luck was in bed with someone else, the reason the bolt was still on the banjo was because the threads from the housing were on the bolt!! the bloody things had been cross threaded and had ripped the threads out, it finally let go probably due to the vibrations of the engine, i managed to get it to stay in the hole by removing both the copper sealing washers and catching the final thread in the hole, now i was getting extremely pissed off.

Re-attaching the BPE devise air pipe reduced the turbo lag tho' it still wasn't back to how it was before i had the wrong turbo fitted, but the van was slightly more driveable again now, i had phoned the engineers up when the leak off pipe had split to vent my anger, i mentioned the turbo looked to be the wrong one, and he said the turbo was the new one off the engine i was going to have originally.. until they found out it was the wrong engine for my van that is, i also have those injectors, so they could be wrong also, i've found out the part number of the proper turbo for my van from iveco, and i shall have to wait and see what the engineers are going to do about the situation.

We finally got to Borden 3 hours after i said i would be there, i was taking the LT's back axle, spring assistors and gas bottled down to a bloke who had paid for them 2 months ago, we got the parts transferred into his car, and i nipped across the to the other half of the camp to see where i used to live, my dad was in the RAF, and i lived on Borden camp for a year when i was 9, the house was still there (they were sliding down the hill, so were due to be pulled down when we left, but 17 years later they are still there, the play park out the front of the house is gone tho :(

We got to Southampton eventually, the hotel was solidly booked up, we had got the last available room, and the hotel was packed with kids from schools doing activities all weekend, we watched as one of the minibus drivers tried to reverse under the canopy by the entrance, ripping a roof vent off in the process, my van left it's mark all over the car park, 6.5 meter long oil drips due to the chassis being soaked in oil and diesel, but we had a pretty decent time driving around the new forest in the van, i went down roads i shouldn't have.. as usual, ones with width restrictions on and all that, but it was nice just tooteling about on quiet roads, better than the journey down there on gridlocked motorways.

Spent Saturday in the new forest too, i filled up with diesel after about 300 miles, got 24 miles to the gallon, not brilliant but not bad, we did another 150 miles on Saturday just driving around the forest, stopping for lunch near some of the wild horses, i threw out some bread and one of the horses came over and ate it, then i threw out a salt and vinegar crisp, the horse ate it too, i never knew a horse could grimace tho :)
She then decided to come over and say hello, practically sticking her head in the vans window, ad one point i thought she was going to eat my wing mirror, but she got bored and went back to her sleeping baby and eating grass and buttercups.

I filled the tank up again just to check the fuel consumption, took 20 quid to replace 150 miles of driving, working out at almost 26 to the gallon, better than the last van already, even with the turbo lag meaning i have to keep the revs up higher in each gear to enable me to get anywhere when i change up, then i found yet another fault with the van, no heater, i checked the valve was working, it seemed to be working, i could feel heat at the valve and past it, but nothing at the outlet for the heater, air lock i thought, so reached in to undo the bleed screw.. remember that one i had got a new one to replace the one i had lost.. there was a bloody bolt in there, how can someone loose so many parts from a van, bad enough them loosing these parts, but when i have just bought new ones recently ands they loose them.

On Sunday we went and got my brothers stuff, we had just finished loading when a woman in a blue clapped out sierra tried to park behind the van.. there was room for another van my length behind me.. almost 25 feet, and this woman drove into the space, got real close to the parked car but was still at an angle, she had L plates on the car but no one else in the car with her, the then put it in reverse, revved the hell out of the engine, let the handbrake off and rolled into the parked car, me and Vix got in the van quick and i drove off fast before she could try reverse parking, i went round the block which took me 5 minutes due to traffic and cars blocking the road, and looked up the street as we went past, she was still trying to park.. i think, the car was now diagonal across the whole street!

We set off home on what felt like the hottest day so far, the van was roasting, i really need a couple of dash fans to help cool us down, opening the windows full just doesn't help much when we are doing 70 mph on the motorway as the air seems to go past the opening rather than in it, the air coming from the ventilation system, is warm due to the air inlet being directly over the turbo, I'll put heat reflective foil over it at a later date, maybe when i remove the bulkhead behind the cab, and put the door in there we'll get some through draught like we did in the last camper.

I just needed to keep topping the oil up on the journey home, it was a uneventful but tiring journey home, the engine vibrations, having to keep the revs up more than i am used to, having to plan overtaking due to the turbo lag all took the fun out of driving the van, when i first got the van it was a pleasure to drive, when i wanted to overtake i just did, it had bags of power, now the slightest hill and she's out of the turbo boost range and dead, the new shock absorbers i fitted have really worked tho, took a lot of the bounciness out of the ride, it has shown up the wheels need balancing better tho.

We got back home, covered 186 miles on the journey home, used half a tank of diesel doing 70 mph most of the way, Vicky was happy with the new seat, when i got it from the scrap yard it was filthy, but it cleaned up a treat, it wasn't as filthy as my drivers seat, but it really shows up how bad my seat is now, i don't think I'll be able to get it as clean as the other one, but i have the chance to swap a good clean drivers seat for a tyre at a later date, that'll be the best thing to do i think, i then wrote out a list of the things what i had found wrong with the van and want fixing, that took up 2 A4 sheets of paper, and another one listing the faults i had found and fixed.

I dropped the van back off at the engineers today, and they are going to investigate and fix all the problems, the oil leak could be an engine out job if it's a broken bolt, depends on what the vibrations are caused by to whether the flywheel needs to come off, or it's something else, the turbo is an easy fix if they get the correct one, i've supplied them the proper iveco part number for the turbo that was on the engine from the factory so it's upto them what they do about that, and I'll just have to wait yet again, it'll take them a while to sort it all out, so i'm van less yet again.