Who would have thought, that it's August? Great British summer, my arse. I've got wet more times this week than I'm sure I deserve, including the entire duration of my Saturday morning run. The rain started just as I left the house and continued until about 10 minutes after I got back. It could have carried on raining all morning, but Oh no, it had to stop for a while just to annoy me! Typical. Anyhow, what have I been up to this week. Well, for the first time in a while, I'd not actually got anything lined up, which, as it turned out, was quite handy. If you cast your minds back to the middle of June I'd taken the engine out of the van for rebuilding and despite being promised a 2 week turnaround time, 6 weeks later it finally came back, arriving on a pallet with a friendly courier towards the end of last week. Having initially been working to the mystical 2 week deadline, I'd already spent quite a considerable amount of time, cleaning and inspecting the plethora of removed parts, sourcing spares and replacements (more of which later) and fixing all the chaffed wires and dodgy looking bits, in preparation for refitting, so we should be good to go. However, having had 6 weeks worth of sleep since I'd taken it out, now it had eventually come back, I'd pretty much forgotten how it all went back together. Even looking at some of the hundreds of photos I'd taken while stripping it didn't seem to help much, with no frame of reference, they were just a plug or pipe attached to something else. Oh well, I could look in the manual, but as I haven't got one, I guess that I'll just have to figure it out as I go then! Probably not the best approach, but not a lot of choice in this case. 1 pallet of fun, and the fun starts with trying to get it back off the pallet. In the spirit of transparency this is actually a photo from when I sent it off, but I don't seem to have taken many of the rebuild and you get the general idea. It looked pretty much the same when it came back, except the rocker cover/inlet manifold wasn't fitted, it was a lot cleaner and it wasn't as well strapped down. After working out how to get it safely back off the pallet and up the right way, it was just a case of fitting the bits back onto the engine whilst it was still on the floor (or more accurately hanging from the crane), before bolting the whole thing back in. It seemed sensible to fit a new clutch, slave cylinder and pipes while it was out, and there had been a minor oil seep from the gearbox input shaft seal for a while so it made sense to replace that and the driveshaft seals too, while I was at it. Stick the Exhaust manifold and turbo assembly back on as one lump, add the Starter motor, Power steering pump, Alternator and Throttle body assembly. Figure out how the dozens of seals that seal the combined inlet manifold and rocker cover fit (who thought that was a good idea) and bang that on, and were nearly ready to hang the engine back in. Just add the fuel injectors and fuel rail and were good to go. Except, where are the studs and mounting hardware, for the injectors and where is the clamp for the new injector supplied by the engine builders? Oh, that's right, they've not sent the clamp back and instead of telling me that the old hardware is scrap and they're not supplying new ones 6 weeks ago, they've left it until I get the engine back and ask! Fair play, they sent the clamp and old injector down for next day delivery, but the only mounting set I could find, was in, wait for it. Germany! Luckily it wasn't a total show stopper as I could carry on and fit the injectors later but still pretty annoying when I've been sat Twiddling my thumbs for 6 weeks! Much jiggling, fiddling, wiggling and tiggling later and I had the engine sat securely in it's resting place. And that's the easy bit done. Now all I've got to do is work out how all these wires and pipes go back on. Much head scratching, fitting, removing, wiggling and fiddling later and I'm finally getting somewhere. One more quick job then, before I knock it on the head for the day. I'll just stick some coolant in, now everything's connected up. H'mmm it appears to be coming back out the other end as fast as I'm pouring it in. I'm sure that's not supposed to happen! A quick bit of investigation later and where's it leaking from. Yep, you guessed it, the only pipe fitted by the engine builders and the one that the entire engine seems to have been built around. I could honestly have cried! So, in order to even get to the leaky pipe, I have to; pull the newly fitted R/H drive shaft and attaching bits back out. Pull the thermostat and pretty much every hose connection back off, as that holds the pipe in from the other end. Endure much swearing as I try to undo the bolt holding the pipe in, as that's clearly been put on by a gorilla, when they had loads of access and nothing else in the way. And when I do finally get the pipe loose, the reason it's leaking? Well, not only does it look like the wrong size O ring seal, but it appears to have been put in while the paint on the pipe was still wet too! What now? I clearly haven't got a seal and it looks like they didn't have the right one either! No problem, I'll use my engineering initiative, measure it up and order one from E Bay and just to be sure, source one from Renault, who made the engine and stuck their name all over it, in the week. Helpfully, Renault initially said "We can't help you as it's not fitted to a Renault vehicle". No, but it's your engine and every part's got Renault written on it! Then when I found them the actual part number of the seal in question. Said, "That's a discontinued part". Ok said I "Where am I supposed to get one from then"? Que much French style shoulder shrugging and an "I don't know, you could try the internet" response. Thanks for that Renault main dealer, you've been a lot of help, as usual! Either way, fast forward to this weekend and my e bay seal and bits from Germany have arrived. So a bit of fiddling around to get my carefully measured seal back in and with baited breath, chuck some more coolant back in. leak free, yippee! Right lets get those Injectors and fuel pipes in and give it a whirl. Again seen during disassembly, but the pipe in question is now buried under the turbo assembly, in fact you cant even see it now. That's also the back side of the engine, so goes up against the bulkhead and the drive shafts stop you getting to it from underneath. Imagine my frustration then, what that started leaking from the off! I don't think that I've ever been as nervous as I was the first time I flicked the key to spin it over. Oil pressure lights gone out, that's a good sign. Stop, have a good look around and do the same thing a couple more times to start pulling some fuel through and get the oil moving, then stick the glow plugs in and give it a go for real. Cranking fine, but no start, try again, still no start. H'mmmm, not so good. What's this though? A bit of fuel leaking from one of the injector pipes, that will stop it, as there wont be any fuel pressure. Tighten that up and try again and away she goes. The feeling of relief when it started was almost indescribable. Not only is it running but it sounds good too. Another couple of hours, spent dodging the showers, to get the front end rebuilt and fit all the little bits that you never think about and we're good to go. Just a few meters up the road to start with, then stop, check for leaks and loose bits. Looking good. Round the block then and do the same again, then round the ring road and finally the sky's the limit! I've racked up just over 50 miles this weekend running around, testing things, while looking for leaks. And fingers crossed, apart from plenty of smoke as all the sealant, oily finger marks and excess grease etc burned off, it looks like we could be back in the game. It's leak free, appears to be running Ok and sounds alright, so that looks promising. It will get a longer run next weekend as I've got a long run in the pipeline, so I'll use it to get there and back, but fingers crossed its all systems go! It's been a real tester this one, when it first broke and the garage said they couldn't (or wouldn't) fix it, I really thought I was screwed. I was left with 2 choices, either come up with a way to fix it myself, or source a new van and swap all the bits over. If I sourced a new van, it wasn't going to be cheap, I'd be left with an unknown starting point and I'd still have a massive job of swapping everything over.
The other option, pull the engine out myself and get it rebuilt. There's nothing wrong with the rest of the van, in fact it's immaculate. But who in their right minds going to try and remove and refit, a complex modern engine, on their driveway (actually, in a parking space by my garage, as I haven't even got a driveway), having never even taken a car engine out, let alone a tight fitting, heavy van engine. This idiot, that's who. And you know what, it might have been a stressful time, full of unknowns and self doubts, but now it's done and fingers crossed running, the feeling of satisfaction is immense and to say that I've learned a lot about how a modern(ish) diesel engine works is a massive understatement. I'll see how it goes over the next few weeks, before I count my chickens, but things are definitely looking more positive than they did a few weeks ago and if it all goes wrong again. Well, at least I know how to get the engine out and back in again, so it's not been a total waste of time. And the seal? Well fingers crossed it's still holding up, although the one I've measured up for and fitted measures 4 or 5mm in diameter and 0.5mm in thickness smaller than the leaking one I removed. Which, assuming that as it's currently leak free, is right, probably accounts for why it was leaking. Is it the right one though? Well, I guess that we will never know, unless Renault suddenly decide to be a lot more helpful than they've ever been before!
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Paul PerrattOld enough to know better, young enough to still feel invincible, stupid enough to keep on trying the same thing again and again. Cyclist, Gardener, Runner, Hiker, Cook, Woodworker, Engineer, Jack of all trades and master of none, Anti social old git and all round miserable bugger. Archives
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