Glad you said that Dave, I had forgotten and not made a note of which cam you recommended! Thankfully the penta does have a V cam and to my untrained eye appears to have the head distributor drive.
Also Dave, IIRC you mentioned that with LH2.4 I would have to use the head mounted distributor. If you don't mind explaining, what is the reasoning for that? I got 3 nuts off in total and broke a ratchet and my 3/8" drive 12" breaker bar trying to undo the other lug nuts on Saturday - so I threw in the towell!
As per Griston's link, that's the one I went for Loki @ £27.99 - in hindsight a 1/2" drive set would have been better in this circumstance. My excuse is that I didn't have very long to order it for guaranteed next day delivery! They'll be valuable tools I think.
So yesterday Luke, aka 360 beast, came over for Stage 1 of the turbo LH2.4 project, the aim was to remove the engine and gearbox and swap the axles for one with a better ratio (Dave - this one was from a 1997 car IIRC). Some things were easy and some were unnecessarily difficult. One of the 3 screws that holds the plastic slam panel part together wouldn't budge, the rear shock bolts were excessively tight, as were all the propshaft bolts and of course the adaptor plate lug nuts - Luke managed to get all but one of the lug nuts off using a twist socket and 1/2" breaker bar, but one really stuck in and needed cutting off with an angle grinder, probably took him 30mins of bashing, cutting and disbelief
to get the offending nut properly off.
You can see the remains fo the nut that was hanging on for dear life at the top here, such a tiny thing creating such issues!
I had removed most things connecting the egine/box to the car, but there were still the engine coolant hoses, autobox coolant lines and the mounts. We got all this off and started the removal - oddly the engine and box kep tilting backwards, the rotor arm catching on the bulkhead - the exhaust downpipes studs were hanging on to the manifold for dear life and the auto coolant lines were giving us grief too. The driveway was also unhelful, lumpy concrete with a couple of patches meant we couldn't just roll the crane, we had to raise and lower the engine to shuffle it along. We got there though!
Ta da! One large engine-shaped hole (excuse the blurry photo's, I probably smeared oil/grunge on my phone camera).
It was a bit of a struggle getting the autobox and engine seperated, there was a bit of corrosion on the locating dowels but they were cracked off and the box put out of the way so we could get started on the axle! First though, we had a lunch break, pizza!
I completely forgot to take any photo's during the axle swap, but it was relatively straightforward. Luke and I took a side each and got on with the dismantling, it was made easier by the suspension all being replaced a year or two ago but on the flipside, the garage I have been using seems to do everything up so damn tight it makes it a real issue when doing any spannering. I took some photo's of the installed axle this morning for your viewing pleasure
Although the axle is securely bolted in, it isn't torqued up properly yet and I need some replacement prop bolts, when the garage did the prop bearings, they used cheap bolts which suffered when they were installed - never mind when we came to remove them! In summary, although we got a lot done and had a fun covid-safe time doing it, there is a lot to think through and plan going forward - including some stuff I thought was sorted. There is an ever-increasing shopping list too!
1. Wheels - the elephant in the room. Luke advised that it really isn't a good idea to have spacers and cut axle bolts to make the wheels fit, both for safety reasons and maintenance. If I have to go through all this again just to access the brakes or anything else it'd be a nightmare! Shame they look so good, and the front tyres are pretty much brand new too. This is bothering me, so i'll get on and research this, I'm thinking 17" looks good with the larger body of the Hearse, so if we can stay 17" but find something with the correct offset and a width that fits without spacers - that'd be ideal. There are the fronts to consider too, are the front wheel bolts as easy to remove and replace as the rear?
2. Rear brake flexi's need doing as well as the rear pads, the handbrake stuff all looks OK as long as I don’t break the springs putting it back together!
3. Rear disc back plates are solid so could do with cleaning up, de-rusting and painting to preserve them. Luke has suggested a regime for this
4. The engine bay is remarkably decent, so I’ll give this a good clean, de-rust and paint where it's necessary - not many places tbh! The airbox needs to come out, and the loom too. I'll also replace the hydraulic mounts as one has a split.
5. Luke brought a pair of thicker ARB's for it, interestingly what the hearse already had installed was thicker than what Luke brought for me - so that's good news. Not sure on the front ARB, but again Luke has supplied a thick one.
6. Instead of moving the battery to where the N/A airbox currently is to allow room for the turbo air box, we decided to leave it alone and fit a cone filter to the intake. Part of this is logistical considerations but also I have in mind a plan for the A/C. I want to put an A/C evaporator in the back of the hearse (living area of the motorhome-to-be) for cooling, with ducting that can be switched to cool the driver/passenger in the cabin or various parts of the back/living area. To allow this when parked, it'd be great to run the compressor without the engine running - so having the compressor powered by an electric motor would be great, situating this where the N/A airbox currently is may work, depending on space etc (I haven't measured or designed anything yet). Let me know your thoughts on this, if you have any!
All in all it was a really enjoyable day! I think Luke and I got on really well, we did a lot of joking and laughing, I learnt a lot in helping out and made a new buddy! If anyone needs any jobs done on their Volvo's or cars in general, I couldn't recommend him highly enough.
Today I have some garden/other jobs to do, the OH was awesome yesterday looking after the dogs and supplying tea/coffee etc so it is only fair I get on with some non-car jobs. Although I do want to do some more dismantling of the Penta engine so I can plan what happens next. There is also the B200E to strip, the AW70 to move on, the AW71L to service and :shudder: the dashboard to remove!
Boy do I ache today! I used muscles I didn't even know I had
Cheers,
Tom