Mick's 70 Lowlight

Been meaning to update the build thread for a while. Been making some steady progress on the bus, it's just a case of grabbing half an hour here and there when I can and trying to knock off some of those small jobs. The fuel system is now installed and basically ready for the engine to be hooked up. I've reinstalled the gearbox along with a new shift coupling as well as the driveshaft that I previously rebuilt with new CVs. I've reinstalled the starter motor and removed the old fuel pump and wiring.

The engine is now assembled with a plethora of small jobs finally sorted out. I've ported the blower, whittled the throttle butterfly shaft, machined the throttle body to accept the air filter, made up some injector adaptors, fabricated some injector hold down clamps, finished off the fuel rails, fitted one of my new crank trigger sensor brackets, made up a new wider blower and crank pulley as well as properly installed the headers and tin-wear. There's a bunch of other stuff that I've probably forgotten too (ahh yeah - like reinstalling the clutch) well, you get the idea.

So the engine is basically ready to go in, the only thing that is really stopping me is that I want to finish the loom before I install it. Well, I think I do. I'm a bit unsure. I'll decide that when I get to it.

This weekend I finished off a couple of other small jobs that have been hanging around - Installation of the overriders and the LED headlamps. I still need to tack the headlights in place, but it got a bit too dark to do that this evening, plus I need to hook up the battery to double check the headlamp aim before I finalise their position.

Conversion of the bus to H4 style headlights meant changing from the early bay all-in-one style of headlight assembly where the headlamp mounting is fixed to the read of the trim ring to a seperate headlight mount and trim ring. The only issue with this approach is that there are no brackets to fit the new headlight mount to. I solved this by making up some small tabs which I bent 90 degrees and held to the mount by the use of some small self tapping screws. With the brackets fixed to the headlight mount it was fairly easy to push it into the headlight bowl, where it held itself in position. Once I have fitted the battery back in the bus I will confirm the aim of the lights and then weld them in position.

Having already converted the rear lights to LED I now have to change my flasher relay. The standard flasher relay works on a thermal strip and so needs a relatively high load to work. As the LEDs draw practically no power the flasher relay will not work and so needs to be changed for a solid-state (electronic) style of relay. Whilst I'm doing this I can also install the new fuse box mounting bracket as mine is missing.

Still heaps to do but I feel like its getting closer to actually getting the engine back in the bus. Some of the other jobs can wait until afterwards.